Novel optical fiber devices (amplifiers and lasers) are disclosed. The devices comprise one or more optical "cavities", depending on the type of device. The cavities typically are formed by means of in-line refractive index gratings in a length of silica-based optical fiber. The gratings typically have peak reflectivity of at least 98%. Use of such cavities enables CW pumping of the devices, making the devices suitable for use in optical fiber communication systems. In an exemplary embodiment the device is a Raman amplifier for 1.3 .mu.m signal radiation, and in another exemplary embodiment the device is a Raman laser having an output suitable for pumping an Er-doped fiber amplifier. An exemplary pump radiation source is a laser diode-pumped CW Nd:YAG laser.

It is well known that stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in optical fiber can, in principle, be utilized for amplification of signal radiation as well as for a laser. Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) and four-photon mixing in optical fibers are also known. See, for instance, "Optical Fiber Telecommunications", S. E. Miller et al., editors, Academic Press 1979; pages 127-133, 133-135, and 140-144, respectively, all incorporated herein by reference. See also "Tunable Lasers", L. F. Mollenauer et al., editors, Springer Verlag, pp. 279-301, also incorporated herein by reference. Optical fiber lasers and amplifiers based on SRS, SBS, or four-photon mixing will herein collectively be referred to as "non-linear interaction" (NLI) lasers or amplifiers, as the case may be.
To the best of my knowledge, NLI lasers or amplifiers have so far not been used in optical communication systems.
One of the reasons for the neglect of NLI lasers and amplifiers is the difficulty of achieving in the optical fiber the required high CW pump radiation intensities. For instance, with regard to SRS, much of the relevant prior art involves the use of pulsed pump radiation. The obtainable high peak power of the pump pulses results in substantial SRS despite the relatively low efficiency of SRS. Pulsed pump power is, of course, not useful for, e.g., signal amplification in an optical fiber communication system, or for a continuous wave (CW) laser. For example, use of a pulsed amplifier would require synchronization of the pump laser to the signal. This is not only impractical but also would negate one of the main advantages of optical amplification, namely, the possibility of changing the signal transmission rate without making any changes in the amplifiers.
In view of the many desirable characteristics potentially possessed by NLI amplifiers and lasers, it would be desirable to find a way to, inter alia, increase efficiency such that CW pumping becomes practical. For instance, it would be desirable to have available NLI devices that can efficiently utilize CW pump radiation from commercially available laser diodes or laser pumped solid state diodes to produce high intensity CW radiation of a wavelength that is of interest for optical communications (e.g., 1.55 .mu.m), or to amplify radiation of a wavelength (e.g., 1.3 .mu.m) for which other convenient optical amplifiers do not exist. This application discloses such devices.
High power laser sources of CW radiation of appropriate wavelength (e.g., 1.06 .mu.m) are known. Exemplarily, a Nd:YAG laser is pumped with the high power 0.8 .mu.m output of an array of AlGaAs laser diodes. Whereas the output of such a diode laser array cannot be efficiently coupled into a single mode optical fiber, the output of the Nd:YAG laser can readily be coupled into such fiber. See, for instance, S. Grubb et al., Electronics Letters, Vol. 28(13), p. 1275.
M. Nakazawa et al., Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 1(1), p. 80 discloses a Raman amplifier that uses a pulsed (1.06 .mu.m) YAG pump laser to amplify 1.3 .mu.m signal pulses and reports a gain coefficient of 2.0.times.10.sup.-12 cm/W. V. I. Belotitskii et al., Soviet Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 20(7), p. 753 report Raman amplification of 1.24-1.3 .mu.m radiation using a Q-switched YAG:Nd.sup.3+ laser (1.06 .mu.m). P. N. Kean et al., Journal of Modern Optics, Vol. 35(3), p. 397, disclose an optical fiber Raman oscillator that uses a pulsed (mode-locked) Nd:YAG laser (1.06 .mu.m). In one embodiment, the laser cavity is defined by two etched fiber gratings. The output radiation had a wavelength of about 1.09 .mu.m. C. Lin et al., Optics Letters, Vol. 1(3). p. 96 disclose a Raman oscillator that uses a CW (Nd:YAG; 1.06 .mu.m) pump laser. The Raman laser cavity is defined by means of mirrors. The output had wavelength in the range 1.08-1.17 .mu.m. F. Irrera et al., Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 63(8), p. 2882 observed SRS in silica-based optical fiber, using a CW Nd:YAG (1.06 .mu.m) pump laser. Only the first two Stokes lines (1.12 and 1.18 .mu.m) were observed, with the power in the second being only about 4% of the power in the first (for 5.7 W pump power). FIG. 7.8 of "Tunable Lasers" (op. cit.) shows the wideband continuum radiation generated in silica fiber pumped with a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser at 1.06 .mu.m. And C. Lin et al., Optics Letters, Vol. 6(10), p. 493 (incorporated herein by reference) report four-photon mixing in single mode optical fiber using a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser at 1.319 .mu.m.

Optical fiber laser or amplifier including high reflectivity gratings


A detector assembly is provided and includes a board, a temperature response element and a support coupled to the board to support the temperature response element, the support including an elongate member having first and second opposing ends and being coupled to the board at the first end, guides through which temperature response element leads are threadable, and a saddle disposed at the elongate member second end to inhibit displacement of the temperature response element.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a detector assembly and, more particularly, to a detector assembly having a thermistor support.
In general, most residential and commercial buildings are required by local, state and/or federal regulations to include some type of smoke, heat and/or carbon monoxide detector such that, in an event of a dangerous situation, such as a fire, the inhabitants of the building can be evacuated as quickly as possible. These detectors must be, therefore, relatively inexpensive and nearly failure proof.
Typical detectors include a base that is attached to a wall of a building, a cover plate that is removably attachable to the base and detector components that are provided either within a space defined between the base and the cover plate or partially protrude from the cover plate. Often, the detector components are also removable, replaceable and interchangeable.
Whether the detector components are encompassed by the cover plate or removable, replaceable and interchangeable, some of the detector components are relatively flimsy and can be damaged, deformed or bent during the lifecycle of the detectors. This is particularly true where cover plate removal and reattachment tends to impact the detector components that are flimsier than others and the potential for damage from these impacts can hinder the performance of the detectors and lead to dangerous results.


A piston casting mold for casting all pistons in a single series with little weight variation one from the next, includes spacers of fixed dimensions are employed to locate a dome-forming core of the mold a fixed distance from a stationary portion of the mold from one casting to the next. Increasing or decreasing the dimensions of the spacer permits increasing or decreasing the as-cast weight of the piston.

An internal combustion engine requires that all of its pistons have substantially the same weight. That is to say, that the variation in weight from one piston to the next is less than 0.8%. Hence, for example, engines having pistons weighing about 500 grams will typically require that there be no more than 4 grams weight difference from one piston to the next.
Owing in part to significant variations in the as-cast weight of pistons leaving conventional piston molds, it has heretofore been common practice in the industry to cast extra metal onto the piston in a region thereof known as a "balance pad". The balance pad often contains as much as 20-25 grams of extra metal much of which is subsequently machined away in a weight-control station located downstream of the casting operation where the weight of the piston is brought within acceptable limits. The weight-control operation involves weighing of the piston before removing metal from the balance pad, machining metal from the balance pad and then re-weighing the piston to check its final weight. This weight control procedure is time consuming and costly and, if eliminated, would improve the productivity of the piston manufacturing operation and reduce the cost of pistons produced thereby.
It would be desirable to eliminate the machining for weight control step and shift the weight control to the casting station if possible. Heretofore that has not been possible. One of the reasons for significant as-cast weight variations is the design of the mold used to shape the piston. Heretofore the mold design, the tolerances between the several movable mold components, and the stack up of those components has allowed for wide weight variations from one piston to the next all cast from the same mold. In this regard heretofore, the core forming the firing face of the piston (hereafter dome) typically located against a surface or surfaces on the mold segments which shape the sidewalls of the piston, which, in turn, is located against a stationary mold part. Since the several mold parts each has its own manufacturing tolerance and allowances for clearances within the mold, the stack up of the mold components from one casting to the next allowed for wide variations of spacing between the core used to shape the piston's firing face and the stationary base of the mold. This type of location system simply does not control the location of the dome-forming core accurately enough to control piston weight. Some clearances must be provided between the several components of the mold and these clearances reveal themselves as locational error of the dome core relative to the piston interior as the molds' sidewall segments randomly move up and down in this clearance. Hence, each time the several mold components came together to form the mold cavity, the components are positioned in a slightly different position from the previous casting. This particularly affects the location of the dome-forming core relative to the stationary base of the mold.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a permanent mold for the gravity casting of internal combustion engine pistons which mold (1) produces a series of cast pistons having little weight variation from one piston to the next, (2) can be readily converted to cast a different series of pistons having a different weight than the previous series of pistons, and (3) obviates the need for a downstream station for machining the piston to adjust its weight. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a permanent mold for the gravity casting of pistons wherein spacer means are provided between a dome-forming core and a stationary base component of the mold to establish a fixed distance therebetween from one casting to the next and thereby insure that all of the pistons cast from that mold using the spacer have substantially the same weight. This and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the detailed description thereof which follows.


A variable reluctance resolver has a rotor with magnetic poles with 2× or greater axis combination angles, and is structured so that reliable and accurate zero point detection can be carried out. Concave and convex portions are provided on at least two, but fewer than all, of the magnetic poles of the rotor, and the zero point detection winding is provided on a plurality of electrical poles of the stator. Two or more zero point detection signals are generated simultaneously by a plurality of zero point detection windings. Therefore, even if a portion of the zero point detection signals is lost, the zero point can still be identified based on the correlation between the two or more zero point detection signals.

The present invention relates to a Variable Reluctance resolver (VR resolver) having a zero point detector, and in particular a VR resolver that is capable of accurately and reliably detecting a zero point of a resolver rotor by detecting multiple detection portions provided on the rotor.
A conventional VR resolver is effective as an incremental rotation sensor because a resolver output signal, which includes the sine signal and cosine signal output from a resolver output winding, is output n times per one revolution of the resolver rotor. FIG. 5 shows the correlation between an electrical zero point signal, the resolver output signal and the resolver angle with the axis combination angle nX, where nX=360°.
As graphically shown in FIG. 5, in a conventional resolver for which the axis combination angle nX is 2× or greater, detection of the absolute angle position cannot be executed because the same resolver output signals are repeatedly output n times per revolution of the resolver rotor. To solve this problem, an exemplary VR resolver having a zero point detector has been proposed.
FIGS. 6A–6B are explanatory drawings that show a conventional VR resolver having a zero point detector. In FIG. 6A, the zero point detector 101 of the conventional VR resolver has an excitation winding 103 and an n-phase output winding 104 on the ring-shaped stator 102. A rotor 105 is an iron-only core and is installed so that it can freely rotate relative to the stator 102. The gap permeance with the stator 102 is formed in a partial circle so that the shape of the sine wave portion of the resolver output signal varies relative to the rotation angle θ. A detection portion 107 formed in the rotor 105 is defined as a concave portion in the rotor 105, and a zero point detection winding 106 is located on the stator 102.
The zero point detector 101 detects the position of the detection portion 107 based on the output voltage, or zero point detection signal, Vx′ that is output from the zero point detection winding 106. The zero point detection signal Vx′ is, as shown in FIG. 6B, generated by and output from the zero point detection winding at the zero point of the rotation angle as the detection portion 107 rotates past the zero point detection winding 106. An example of such a conventional VR resolver is described in Japanese Patent Application 2000-258187.
Further regarding the above-described zero point detector 101, the zero point detection winding 106 is provided on a magnetic pole of the stator 102. As the rotor 105 includes only one detection portion 107, the zero point detection winding 106 only outputs the zero point detection signal Vx′ for the rotation angles 0° and 360°.
The above-discussed VR resolver has an associated axis combination angle of 1×. When the axis combination angle is 2× or greater, a counter can be used to measure the zero point detection signal Vx′. As shown in FIG. 5, electrical zero point signals are output one at a time from 1 to n for every section where the sine and cosine output voltage signals of the sine winding and cosine winding complete one cycle, for example, every section of 1×, 2× . . . nX. The "1" point of the electrical zero point signal with respect to a count value of the counter occurs at the absolute angles 0° and 360°. However, as the counter measures 1 to n of the electrical zero point signals and converts these signals to an absolute angle, the absolute angle cannot be detected when the count value of the counter is lost due to an error such as a detection error. This is because the counter measures only one electrical zero point signal.
To overcome the above design limitation, a resolver such as that disclosed in Japanese Patent Application 2001-197610 may be connected in a redundant manner so that it operates accurately even if a detection error occurs. However, such a resolver is impractical from an implementation standpoint because it requires approximately twice the number of parts and configuration space compared to a resolver that does not include such a redundant connection.
Therefore, what is needed is a VR resolver with a rotor that has magnetic poles with 2× or greater axis combination angles, and that is structured to carry out accurate and reliable detection of a zero point detection signal.

Variable reluctance resolver including rotor with multiple detection portions


A multi-port, bottom-filling injection device having a filling head that splits a flow of filling among two or more spouts or needles. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, an injection device comprises a filling head having several spouts attached to a spout cap, a platen for holding a chambered food item, and a holding apparatus for securing the food item during filling. The injection device can simultaneously provide a food filling to each chamber of a multi-chambered food item without leaving unsightly fill holes in the top or side surfaces.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a novel apparatus and a method for automatically injecting fillings through multiple ports into the bottom of baked or fried goods having one or more cavities.
2. Description of Related Art
For years, bakers and confectioners have added fillings into pastries and fried goods such as eclairs, cream puffs, and doughnuts. The fillings typically comprise a viscous fluid such as jam, peanut butter, cream, mousse, caramel, or pudding. Prior art apparatuses and methods for injecting fillings into hollow or chambered goods typically involve manually operated, single-port injection devices.
Some prior art devices are as simple as a handheld, flexible, non-porous bag (such as a pastry bag) that has a stiff cone or tip capable of insertion into the food to be filled. In such a device, filling is squeezed from the bag, through the cone or tip, and into the vacant chamber or chambers of the food to be filled. Other prior art devices are semi-automated but still require a human operator to manually introduce an injection needle or nozzle into the interior of the food to be filled. They also require the operator to decide when the food has been adequately filled. For example, some prior art semi-automatic filling machines require an operator to slide a hollow food product onto a filling nozzle/needle, push a filling button to initiate filling, withdraw the product from the injecting machine as the filling is injected, and stop the filling when the product appears to have adequate filling. Other semi-automatic machines can inject a predetermined amount of filling, but the operator still must manually determine when filling is complete and must manually remove the product from the machine. Removing product too soon from such devices will result in filling being placed on the exterior of the product. It is difficult to achieve consistent filling with such devices, as they depend on the judgment and skill of a human operator. The necessity of a human operator also increases operating costs, increases the opportunity for products to be damaged, and limits the maximum speed that would otherwise be available with an automated system. Furthermore, the injection nozzles/needles on such machines are limited to fairly blunt ends and large diameters in order to protect the safety of the operators. Blunt, large-diameter injection needles leave large and unsightly filling holes in the injected food items. These larger diameters also allow filling to undesirably leak out of the product.
While several prior art references disclose automated devices for filling food items, those devices are single-port injection only and cannot be efficiently used to fill food items having multiple filling sites. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,274 granted to Hornby (the "'274 patent") discloses a doughnut-filling device that uses a single needle to pierce the perimeters doughnuts and inject filling into their interiors. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,468,572 B2 granted to Nelson et al. (the "'572 patent") discloses a coring and filling device that uses a single-port injector to fill nuggets. Although the '572 patent also suggests that it may be possible to inject multiple fillings either by using one depositing device to insert a mixture of different fillings or by using a separate injection device to deposit each type of filling into a single-cavity nugget, it does not offer an efficient solution for filling multi-chambered food items with a common filling.
Prior art single-port injection devices are not efficient for filling food items having multiple cavities, complex cavities or large cavities. Filling multi-chambered items with such devices requires separate single-port injection devices for each chamber or alternatively requires that each chamber be filled one at a time. It is expensive to operate separate injection devices for each chamber, and it is unduly time-consuming to fill each chamber one at a time with a single injection device. Furthermore, it is difficult to fill large or complex cavities with viscous filling using a single-port injector because higher pumping pressure is needed to force the viscous filling throughout such cavities. The higher pressures needed to distribute filling throughout large or complex cavities can undesirably damage the texture of the filling. Higher pressures also undesirably increase the tendency for filling to seep out from the injection site. Moreover, the additional handling required by this method significantly increases the opportunity for product damage.
In addition, prior art filling devices that inject filling from above, such as a device in accordance with the '572 patent, or from the side (or perimeter), such as a device in accordance with the '274 patent, leave unsightly filling holes that remain visible when the product is viewed from above or from a side.
Consequently, a need exists for an automatic food-filling device having a multi-port filling head that is capable of filling single-chambered and multi-chambered food items from the bottom. Such a device should be able to inject a predetermined amount of filling into the chambered food item. Such a device should also be able to divide a flow of filling among multiple injection needles so that each chamber of a multi-chambered food item can be simultaneously filled with at least one needle per chamber. Alternatively, such a device should be able to quickly and efficiently fill a food item having a large or complex cavity by simultaneously injecting filling through two or more injection needles that are attached to the same filling head. Furthermore, by filling food items from the bottom, such a device should be able to fill food items without leaving unsightly injection holes that are visible from above or from the side. Automatic filling from the bottom will also reduce the occurrence of product damage due to operator handling.

Automatic bottom-filling injection system


A method of polygonizing an object calculates indicators that points within a set (Q) of points within three space representing the object likely lie near a surface discontinuity of the object. A global mesh is formed around a point that likely does not lie near a surface discontinuity (i.e. a reliable point). Local meshes are formed about reliable points on the frontier of this global mesh. Each local mesh is combined with the global mesh, thereby adding to the global mesh and advancing the frontier. Once a local mesh has been formed about each reliable point on the frontier and added to the global mesh, a local mesh may be formed about a point on the frontier that is more likely to lie near a surface discontinuity. The formation of local meshes can be repeated until no frontiers are left, or until all points have been added to the global mesh.

Modern computer graphics often rely on the use of modeled objects. Such objects are often modeled using polygons. Conveniently, objects so modeled may easily be rotated, scaled, and otherwise manipulated.
As a consequence, the formation of a suitable polygons to represent an object, often referred to as polygonization, is becoming of great significance in the field of computer graphics. An object is typically polygonized by forming a mesh of interconnected polygons from a collection of points in three space recovered from one or more images depicting the object.
Example uses of polygonized objects, include three dimensional ("3D") games, virtual reality games, and multimedia applications. In such applications 3D objects and scenes are typically represented as meshes so that graphics acceleration hardware can be utilized to generate high quality images of the objects and scenes. Furthermore, most of conventional animation techniques, are best processed using polygonized representations of objects.
Similarly, in the manufacturing industry, almost all computer-aided design, engineering, and manufacturing (CAD/CAE/CAM) software use 3D meshes for finite element analysis, assembly planning, process automation, and manufacturing using numerical control.
Likewise, the inclusion of 3D objects using mark-up languages for presentation on Internet web pages is becoming a trend. In many Internet standards for presenting 3D content, e.g., VRML2, MPEG-4, and Java3D, polygonized objects are of increasing significance.
Even though polygonization has been actively studied for about ten years, many challenges still exist. For example, many known algorithms only work for objects that do not have holes, and cannot handle shapes such as torroids and the like, for example. Examples of these algorithms include approaches using deformable models. Similarly, many known algorithms cannot reliably locate shape boundaries—shape boundaries are usually smoothed out. Yet other known algorithms produce meshes with holes caused by the non-uniform sampling of 3D points. Moreover, the presence of noise can severely deteriorate the polygonization results.
Abstractly, polygonization methods seek to construct a polygon mesh, possibly with boundary, from sampled points in 3D space without any additional information about the structure or organization of points (see for example H. Hoppe, T. DeRose, T. Duchamp, J. McDonald, and W. Stuetzle. "Surface reconstruction from unorganized points." In Proc. SIGGRAPH '92, pages 71–78, 1992). A more complete approach further constrains the sampled 3D points by additional features present in the images from which the points are sampled. (see, for example N. Amenta, M. Bern, and M. Kamvysselis. "A new Voronoi-based surface reconstruction algorithm." In Proc. SIGGRAPH '98, pages 415–421, 1998 ).
Example known polygonization algorithms include the zero-set algorithm as detailed in B. Curless and M. Levoy. "A volumetric method for building complex models from range images." In Proc. SIGGRAPH '96, pages 303–312, 1996 and H. Hoppe, T. DeRose, T. Duchamp, J. McDonald, and W. Stuetzle. "Surface reconstruction from unorganized points." In Proc. SIGGRAPH '92, pages 71–78, 1992; "crust algorithms" and "alpha shape algorithms" detailed in H. Edelsbrunner, D. G. Kirkpatrick, and R. Seidel. "On the shape of a set of points in the plane." IEEE Trans. on Information Theory, 29:551–559, 1983, and H. Edelsbrunner and E. P. Mucke. "Three-dimensional alpha shapes." ACM TOG, 13:43–72, 1994;
The zero-set algorithms are based on a volumetric framework. A signed distance function in three space is defined from the input points and their zero-sets are computed as the output mesh. These algorithms, however, produce approximating meshes (i.e. ones that approximate sampled points) instead of interpolating meshes (i.e. ones that are formed from, and contain the sampled points).
The alpha-shape and crust algorithms make use of Voronoi diagrams and Delaunay triangulation to construct triangle mesh. A Voronoi diagram for an arbitrary set of points may be formed from convex polygons created from the perpendicular bisector of lines between nearest neighboring points. Delaunay triangulation forms a mesh using the Voronoi diagrams.
The alpha-shape algorithms use a simplex (edge, triangle, or tetrahedron) in an alpha-shape if it contains some circumspheres with no interior sample points. A 3D circumsphere is a sphere of radius alpha whose surface touches at least three sample points. The alpha-shapes for all possible values of alpha approximate the overall shape and natural dimensionality of a set of sampled points. Alpha-shape algorithms cannot readily be applied to non-uniformly distributed sets of 3D points. Similarly, non-uniformly distributed sets of 3D points cannot be easily clustered into clusters having a fixed sampling density for assigning a fixed alpha.
The crust algorithm uses three-dimensional Voronoi diagram with provable guarantees. Advantageously, the output is guaranteed to be topologically correct and convergent to the original surface as the sampling density increases for a "good sample" from a smooth surface. A "good sample" has a sampling density that varies locally so as to rigorously capture the intuitive notion that featureless areas can be reconstructed from fewer samples. Unfortunately, collecting such a "good sample" is difficult for 3D points recovered from arbitrary images. Moreover, the crust algorithm does not process surface discontinuities well.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods of polygonization, that may be used to polygonize arbitrary shapes including surface discontinuities.


Provided is a semiconductor package including a lower package, an interposer on the lower package, and an upper package on the interposer. The lower package may include a lower package substrate, a lower semiconductor chip on the lower package substrate, and a lower heat-transfer layer on the lower semiconductor chip. The interposer may include an interposer substrate, first and second heat-transfer openings defined by recessed bottom and top surfaces, respectively, of the interposer substrate, an upper interposer heat-transfer pad disposed in the second heat-transfer opening, and an upper heat-transfer layer disposed on the upper interposer heat-transfer pad. The upper package may include an upper package substrate, an upper package heat-transfer pad, which may be disposed in a third heat-transfer opening defined by a recessed bottom surface of the upper package substrate, and an upper semiconductor chip disposed on the upper package substrate.

This disclosure relates to semiconductor packages and methods of fabricating the same, and in particular, to semiconductor packages with improved heat-dissipation characteristics and methods of fabricating the same.
As performance of electronic products is improved, heat produced in electronic devices is increased. To overcome such a heat problem, a way of limiting performance of the electronic device is being used, when the electronic device reaches a predetermined temperature. However, this way makes it difficult to improve efficiency of the electronic device, because the more heat the electronic devices produce, the more often performance of the electronic devices is limited.

Semiconductor package and method of fabricating the same


An automatic performance apparatus for sequentially reading out performance data sequentially stored in a performance data memory to execute automatic performance, detects depression of a step forward key, and generates a tone for a predetermined time T.sub.3 on the basis of performance data in the performance data memory designated by an address pointer. When the step forward key is depressed again within the predetermined Time T.sub.3 from its first depression, the same performance data tone is continuously generated for the predetermined time T.sub.3 from the second depression timing of the step forward key. When the step forward key is continuously depressed for a predetermined time T.sub.2 or more from its first depression timing, the address pointer is stepped up upon each predetermined time T.sub.1 to generate a performance data tone sequentially designated by the address pointer. According to this automatic performance apparatus, automatic performance data can be rapidly edited by simple manipulation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic performance apparatus for sequentially reading out performance data sequentially stored in a performance data memory and executing an automatic performance.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Some conventional automatic performance apparatuses have a function of storing performance information input by a player in a memory unit and reproducing musical sounds from the performance information to execute an automatic performance.
An example of an automatic performance apparatus of this type is a so-called event recording/reproducing type automatic performance apparatus disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open (Kokai) No. Sho 58-211191 or Japanese Examined Patent Publication (Kokoku) No. Sho 60-12638. This apparatus stores performance data for an automatic performance as an "event" and reproduces musical sounds from the performance data upon automatic performance.
In such an automatic performance apparatus, a player sometimes desires to change a part of stored performance information. A conventional automatic performance apparatus, however, cannot edit performance information. That is, in the conventional automatic performance apparatus, stored performance information is read out simply at a key ON timing of a player, and a tone is generated in accordance with the readout performance information. An address pointer is then incremented (stepped up) to performance information for generating the next tone, and tones are generated in accordance with performance information sequentially designated by the address pointer. Therefore, it is difficult to set the address pointer at specific performance information to be edited in a plurality of pieces of performance information, i.e., it is difficult to edit performance information.
In addition, when automatic performance data is recorded by an event system, it is difficult to check a measure position in the performance data due to the event method. For example, in order to access data of an nth measure, data is sequentially read out from the first event data and a time is sequentially added assuming that a time period of one measure is T. When an addition time becomes T.times.n, the corresponding position is recognized as the nth measure. Therefore, although the event method has a high data compression effect, this method is not suitable for editing, i.e., a case in which a part of stored performance data is to be changed.
Furthermore, in order to edit performance information in the above conventional apparatus, the address pointer is set at a position to be edited by various methods, and then a recording mode is set to record performance data. If, however, editing is executed for a position sustaining a tone, the sustained tone is continuously generated. As a result, desired performance data is not obtained after editing.

Automatic performance apparatus for musical instrument with improved editing


A write element for perpendicular recording in a data storage system is fabricated to maintain the thickness of a side shield at both edges of a pole P3, and to form the pole P3 in a trapezoidal shape. Forming a side shield around the pole P3 removes stray fields, creating a quiet, noise-free write element and preventing side erasure. The fabrication method utilizes a magnetic buffer layer to protect a shield gap during trim of the pole P3, and thus to provide the shield gap with a uniform thickness. The magnetic buffer layer also protects the shield gap and pole P3 when the top hard mask is removed. Consequently, the write field is made uniform across the track width. The fabrication method uses a metal in the shield gap to improve the pole geometry after pole trim and to provide a uniform edge to the pole P3.

Conventional magnetic storage systems comprise a thin film magnetic element with an inductive recording element mounted on a slider. The magnetic element is coupled to a rotary actuator magnet and a voice coil assembly by a suspension and an actuator arm positioned over a surface of a spinning magnetic disk. In operation, a lift force is generated by the aerodynamic interaction between the magnetic element and the spinning magnetic disk. The lift force is opposed by equal and opposite spring forces applied by the suspension such that a predetermined flying height is maintained over a full radial stroke of the rotary actuator assembly above the surface of the spinning magnetic disk.
An exemplary recording element comprises a thin film write element with a bottom pole P1 and a top pole P2. The pole P1 and pole P2 have a pole tip height dimension commonly referenced as "throat height". In a finished write element, the throat height is measured between an air bearing surface (ABS) and a zero throat level where the pole tip of the write element transitions to a back region. The air-bearing surface is formed by lapping and polishing the pole tip. A pole tip region is defined as the region between the ABS and the zero throat level. The pole P1 and pole P2 each have a pole tip located in the pole tip region. The tip regions of the pole P1 and pole P2 are separated by a magnetic recording gap, which is a thin layer of insulation material.
The current trend in data storage systems strives for higher storage densities. Recording densities are increasing to meet the requirements to store large amounts of information. At higher recording densities (i.e., above 100 Gb/in2), perpendicular recording elements are utilized. Perpendicular recording elements can support higher recording densities because of a smaller demagnetization field in the recorded bits.
One typical perpendicular recording element utilizes three poles, P1, P2, and P3. Magnetic flux emanates from the pole P3 into the recording media and returns to the poles. Writing occurs at the pole P3. The recording resolution depends on the size and shape of the pole P3 rather than the gap length. In the perpendicular recording element, the gap between pole P1 and pole P3 is larger than allowed by longitudinal recording element designs, eliminating the need for a pole P1 pedestal.
As recording density increases, track distance decreases. For small track distances, a pole P3 may introduce adjacent track erasing if the pole P3 tip is shaped as a square. What is needed is a single pole element formed in a trapezoidal shape to eliminate the adjacent track erasing. In addition, the linear recording density can be further improved when a shield is added adjacent to the pole P3. The shielded perpendicular writer also provides a higher write-field gradient and reduced transition region in the recorded bits, improving linear density and reducing media noise.
The shielded perpendicular recording element presents distinct advantages for high-density recording. However, the fabrication of the shield and shield gap required by pole P3 may damage pole P3, or may create a shield gap at that is thinner at both edges of pole P3. Field leakage occurs through the thin gap region, resulting in reduced recording element efficiency.
What is therefore needed is a method for fabricating a shield and shield gap for the perpendicular recording element that maintains a uniform thickness of the shield gap without damaging the pole P3 during fabrication. The need for such a fabrication method and resulting write element has heretofore remained unsatisfied.

Write element for perpendicular recording in a data storage system


A patient bathing system in the form of a sealed, flexible, hollow outer package having an inner insulating layer lining the package and forming an inner cavity. The layer is shaped by slits for forming the inner cavity. A series of impregnated washcloths are disposed within the cavity for dispensing through an elongated dispensing slit in the outer package. The package and the insulating layer are preferably microwave transparent while the impregnated washcloths absorb microwave energy so that the contents of the package can be warmed while heat is retained by the insulating layer.

This invention relates to personal care products, and in particular to a patient bathing system in the form of an insulated, resealable package containing a series of disposable washcloths.
Co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 08/684,127, filed Jul. 19, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,725,311, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a patient bathing system having a label seal for sealing an elongated opening into the interior of the package. A series of washcloths are disposed within the package for dispensing. The washcloths are impregnated with an appropriate cleansing solution.
A flexible package normally has no structural integrity, and the package shape is largely dictated by the contents. When the package contains a series of impregnated washcloths or the like, however, at times it is important to have only a certain amount of cleansing solution contained within each washcloth, with the solution being evenly disbursed within the cloths. However, in a package formed by a flexible film, the package tends to squeeze the edges of the cloths contained therewithin, leading to an uneven dispersion of the solution within the cloths, and causing some cloths to have more solution than others. This result is unacceptable when the cloths are used for patient cleansing, particularly in a hospital environment where cleanliness and personal hygiene are important to resist the spread of infectious disease.
Other packaging has been developed to avoid the problem of squeezing the washcloths and causing uneven dispersion of the absorbed cleaning solution. For example, containers of rigid plastic can safely contain washcloths and the like, but such containers need to be molded, and can be quite expensive. Rigid cardboard containers also can be used, but are also expensive to manufacture, and must be appropriately lined to prevent loss of fluid from the washcloths.
Insulated packages or wrapping materials are also well known. Examples are set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,942,917; 2,387,217; 3,428,103; 3,460,740; 3,583,459; 3,906,129; 4,521,910; 4,755,064; 4,881,646; 5,265,960 and 5,472,279. While all of these structures provide insulated structures, they are complex and therefore expensive to make. In addition, many of them have no structural integrity, therefore not protecting the contents from compression.


A synchronous circuit, such as an SRAM, a DRAM or a programmable logic device, has internal circuitry, a master input latch clocked by a master clock generator, and a slave output latch clocked by a slave clock generator. The master input latch is rendered transparent prior to the start of system setup time so that information input signals can pass through the master input latch and undergo processing in the circuitry prior to the start of a system cycle. After correct and stable information output signals are generated by the internal circuitry, these signals are latched into the slave output latch as correct and stable output information. The master latch may be clocked from the latched to the transparent state before the slave latch is clocked from the transparent to the latched state, provided that the time period between these two transitions is less than the minimum processing time of the internal circuitry. By advancing the start of the internal signal processing by a time period equal to the system setup time, the system clock to data output access time is substantially shortened.

This invention relates to synchronous circuits of the type found in many computer systems in general. More particularly, this invention relates to a synchronous circuit with improved clock to valid data output access time.
Synchronous circuits are widely used in computer systems due to the speed with which input information can be processed and made available as valid output information. Examples of such synchronous circuits are synchronous DRAMs, synchronous SRAMs and synchronous programmable logic devices. Such circuits are usually synchronized by a system clock provided by a separate system clock generator, which provides the system timing cycle for all synchronous circuits in a given system.
Current synchronous circuits typically employ one or more input registers to capture information on the input terminals, and zero or more output registers/latches in order to present the processed information emerging from the synchronous circuit to follow-on system circuitry. The registers are typically implemented as master and slave latches in which data presented to the input of the register is latched in on the rising edge of the system clock by sampling and storing input data to the master latch, and data latched in the master latch is transferred into the slave latch and latched therein on the falling edge of the system clock. When the master latch is unlatched by the system clock high to low transition, the master latch becomes transparent to any signals on the input lines thereto. Similarly, when the slave latch becomes unlatched due to a low to high transition of the system clock, the slave latch becomes transparent to any signals on the input lines thereto. The term "transparent" is understood to mean that signals appearing on the input lines pass through the latch and appear on the output lines (subject to the delay introduced by the response time of the individual circuit components making up a given latch). An example of a conventional synchronous SRAM circuit having a register consisting of a master-slave latch is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,530 issued Feb. 20, 1996, for "RAM with Pre-Input Register Logic", the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
In order to guarantee the reliability of information latched into a synchronous circuit, a system designer normally specifies a parameter termed "setup time", which is a minimum time period during which the input lines must be stable (i.e., in a ready state) prior to the occurrence of a latching edge of a system clock signal. This is due to the fact that the latching edge of the system clock signal causes the various registers to sample and store the values of the connected input lines. Similarly, the system designer also normally specifies another parameter termed the "hold time" which is a minimum time period during which the input lines need to be stable immediately after the occurrence of the latching edge of the system clock signal. The time periods prior to the beginning of setup time and following the hold time are typically designated as "don't care" periods in which the state of the input lines does not affect the synchronous circuitry processing.
In the operation of a typical synchronous circuit, once the input information has been latched into the register consisting of the master-slave latch, the information output from this register is then processed by the internal or core logic circuitry to perform a desired function. For example, in a synchronous SRAM circuit, the information on the output lines from the master-slave input register is typically decoded and used to access individual memory cells for the purpose of either a read or a write operation. Taking a read operation as an example, once the individual memory cells have been properly accessed, the data contents of the cells are presented to the input lines of the output latch, output register or output buffer. At the beginning of the next system cycle, this data is latched into the output latch, output register or the input register of the follow-on circuitry, while new information is presented and latched into the input register for next system cycle processing.
In any synchronous circuit, there is a finite processing time after the presentation of the input information to the internal circuitry before valid information can be available at the output of the circuit. This processing time is termed the "delay time", and must be observed when designing synchronous circuits in order to insure that valid information will always be available for the next stage circuits or be latched into the circuit output register for presentation to the follow-on circuitry. The delay time is a function of the response time of the individual logic circuit components, as well as a function of component temperature, operating voltages, and inherent device speed.
An important parameter for synchronous circuits is the system clock to data output access time, which is the minimum time period between the latching edge of the system clock and the guaranteed appearance of correct and stable output information. In general, the smaller the system clock to data output access time, the more useful the synchronous circuit, due primarily to the increasingly high processing speeds of current computer systems. However, the system clock to data output access time in known synchronous circuits has been limited to a minimum value equal to the delay time of the internal circuits. Efforts to date to provide synchronous circuits with system clock to data access output times less than the delay time have been very limited.

Synchronous circuit with improved clock to data output access time


Attenuated recombinant viruses containing DNA encoding FIPV antigen(s) compositions thereof, as well as methods for making and using the compositions, expression products therefrom, and antibodies generated, are disclosed and claimed. The recombinant viruses can be NYVAC or ALVAC recombinant viruses. The compositions and products therefrom and antibodies generated have several preventive, therapeutic and diagnostic uses.

Vaccinia virus and more recently other poxviruses have been used for the insertion and expression of foreign genes. The basic technique of inserting foreign genes into live infectious poxvirus involves recombination between pox DNA sequences flanking a foreign genetic element in a donor plasmid and homologous sequences present in the rescuing poxvirus (Piccini et al., 1987).
Specifically, the recombinant poxviruses are constructed in two steps known in the art which are analogous to the methods for creating synthetic recombinants of poxviruses such as the vaccinia virus and avipox virus described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,769,330, 4,722,848, 4,603,112, 5,110,587, and 5,174,993, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
First, the DNA gene sequence to be inserted into the virus, particularly an open reading frame from a non-pox source, is placed into an E. coli plasmid construct into which DNA homologous to a section of DNA of the poxvirus has been inserted. Separately, the DNA gene sequence to be inserted is ligated to a promoter. The promoter-gene linkage is positioned in the plasmid construct so that the promoter-gene linkage is flanked on both ends by DNA homologous to a DNA sequence flanking a region of pox DNA containing a nonessential locus. The resulting plasmid construct is then amplified by growth within E. coli bacteria (Clewell, 1972) and isolated (Clewell et al., 1969; Maniatis et al., 1982).
Second, the isolated plasmid containing the DNA gene sequence to be inserted is transfected into a cell culture, e.g. chick embryo fibroblasts, along with the poxvirus. Recombination between homologous pox DNA in the plasmid and the viral genome respectively gives a poxvirus modified by the presence, in a nonessential region of its genome, of foreign DNA sequences. The term "foreign" DNA designates exogenous DNA, particularly DNA from a non-pox source, that codes for gene products not ordinarily produced by the genome into which the exogenous DNA is placed.
Genetic recombination is in general the exchange of homologous sections of DNA between two strands of DNA. In certain viruses RNA may replace DNA. Homologous sections of nucleic acid are sections of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) which have the same sequence of nucleotide bases.
Genetic recombination may take place naturally during the replication or manufacture of new viral genomes within the infected host cell. Thus, genetic recombination between viral genes may occur during the viral replication cycle that takes place in a host cell which is co-infected with two or more different viruses or other genetic constructs. A section of DNA from a first genome is used interchangeably in constructing the section of the genome of a second co-infecting virus in which the DNA is homologous with that of the first viral genome.
However, recombination can also take place between sections of DNA in different genomes that are not perfectly homologous. If one such section is from a first genome homologous with a section of another genome except for the presence within the first section of, for example, a genetic marker or a gene coding for an antigenic determinant inserted into a portion of the homologous DNA, recombination can still take place and the products of that recombination are then detectable by the presence of that genetic marker or gene in the recombinant viral genome. Additional strategies have recently been reported for generating recombinant vaccinia virus.
Successful expression of the inserted DNA genetic sequence by the modified infectious virus requires two conditions. First, the insertion must be into a nonessential region of the virus in order that the modified virus remain viable. The second condition for expression of inserted DNA is the presence of a promoter in the proper relationship to the inserted DNA. The promoter must be placed so that it is located upstream from the DNA sequence to be expressed.
Vaccinia virus has been used successfully to immunize against smallpox, culminating in the worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1980. In the course of its history, many strains of vaccinia have arisen. These different strains demonstrate varying immunogenicity and are implicated to varying degrees with potential complications, the most serious of which are post-vaccinial encephalitis and generalized vaccinia (Behbehani, 1983).
With the eradication of smallpox, a new role for vaccinia became important, that of a genetically engineered vector for the expression of foreign genes. Genes encoding a vast number of heterologous antigens have been expressed in vaccinia, often resulting in protective immunity against challenge by the corresponding pathogen (reviewed in Tartaglia et al., 1990a, 1990b).
The genetic background of the vaccinia vector has been shown to affect the protective efficacy of the expressed foreign immunogen. For example, expression of Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) gp340 in the Wyeth vaccine strain of vaccinia virus did not protect cottontop tamarins against EBV virus induced lymphoma, while expression of the same gene in the WR laboratory strain of vaccinia virus was protective (Morgan et al., 1988).
A fine balance between the efficacy and the safety of a vaccinia virus-based recombinant vaccine candidate is extremely important. The recombinant virus must present the immunogen(s) in a manner that elicits a protective immune response in the vaccinated animal but lacks any significant pathogenic properties. Therefore attenuation of the vector strain would be a highly desirable advance over the current state of technology.
A number of vaccinia genes have been identified which are non-essential for growth of the virus in tissue culture and whose deletion or inactivation reduces virulence in a variety of animal systems.
The gene encoding the vaccinia virus thymidine kinase (TK) has been mapped (Hruby et al., 1982) and sequenced (Hruby et al., 1983; Weir et al., 1983). Inactivation or complete deletion of the thymidine kinase gene does not prevent growth of vaccinia virus in a wide variety of cells in tissue culture. TK.sup.- vaccinia virus is also capable of replication in vivo at the site of inoculation in a variety of hosts and administered by a variety of routes.
It has been shown for herpes simplex virus type 2 that intravaginal inoculation of guinea pigs with TK.sup.- virus resulted in significantly lower virus titers in the spinal cord than did inoculation with TK.sup.+ virus (Stanberry et al., 1985). It has been demonstrated that herpesvirus encoded TK activity in vitro was not important for virus growth in actively metabolizing cells, but was required for virus growth in quiescent cells (Jamieson et al., 1974).
Attenuation of TK.sup.- vaccinia has been shown in mice inoculated by the intracerebral and intraperitoneal routes (Buller et al., 1985). Attenuation was observed both for the WR neurovirulent laboratory strain and for the Wyeth vaccine strain. In mice inoculated by the intradermal route, TK.sup.- recombinant vaccinia generated equivalent anti-vaccinia neutralizing antibodies as compared with the parental TK.sup.+ vaccinia virus, indicating that in this test system the loss of TK function does not significantly decrease immunogenicity of the vaccinia virus vector. Following intranasal inoculation of mice with TK.sup.- and TK.sup.+ recombinant vaccinia virus (WR strain), significantly less dissemination of virus to other locations, including the brain, has been found (Taylor et al., 1991a).
Another enzyme involved with nucleotide metabolism is ribonucleotide reductase. Loss of virally encoded ribonucleotide reductase activity in herpes simplex virus (HSV) by deletion of the gene encoding the large subunit was shown to have no effect on viral growth and DNA synthesis in dividing cells in vitro, but severely compromised the ability of the virus to grow on serum starved cells (Goldstein et al., 1988). Using a mouse model for acute HSV infection of the eye and reactivatable latent infection in the trigeminal ganglia, reduced virulence was demonstrated for HSV deleted of the large subunit of ribonucleotide reductase, compared to the virulence exhibited by wild type HSV (Jacobson et al., 1989).
Both the small (Slabaugh et al., 1988) and large (Schmidtt et al., 1988) subunits of ribonucleotide reductase have been identified in vaccinia virus. Insertional inactivation of the large subunit of ribonucleotide reductase in the WR strain of vaccinia virus leads to attenuation of the virus as measured by intracranial inoculation of mice (Child et al., 1990).
The vaccinia virus hemagglutinin gene (HA) has been mapped and sequenced (Shida, 1986). The HA gene of vaccinia virus is nonessential for growth in tissue culture (Ichihashi et al., 1971). Inactivation of the HA gene of vaccinia virus results in reduced neurovirulence in rabbits inoculated by the intracranial route and smaller lesions in rabbits at the site of intradermal inoculation (Shida et al., 1988). The HA locus was used for the insertion of foreign genes in the WR strain (Shida et al., 1987), derivatives of the Lister strain (Shida et al., 1988) and the Copenhagen strain (Guo et al., 1989) of vaccinia virus. Recombinant HA.sup.- vaccinia virus expressing foreign genes have been shown to be immunogenic (Guo et al., 1989; Itamura et al., 1990; Shida et al., 1988; Shida et al., 1987) and protective against challenge by the relevant pathogen (Guo et al., 1989; Shida et al., 1987).
Cowpox virus (Brighton red strain) produces red (hemorrhagic) pocks on the chorioallantoic membrane of chicken eggs. Spontaneous deletions within the cowpox genome generate mutants which produce white pocks (Pickup et al., 1984). The hemorrhagic function (u) maps to a 38 kDa protein encoded by an early gene (Pickup et al., 1986). This gene, which has homology to serine protease inhibitors, has been shown to inhibit the host inflammatory response to cowpox virus (Palumbo et al., 1989) and is an inhibitor of blood coagulation.
The u gene is present in WR strain of vaccinia virus (Kotwal et al., 1989b). Mice inoculated with a WR vaccinia virus recombinant in which the u region has been inactivated by insertion of a foreign gene produce higher antibody levels to the foreign gene product compared to mice inoculated with a similar recombinant vaccinia virus in which the u gene is intact (Zhou et al., 1990). The u region is present in a defective nonfunctional form in Copenhagen strain of vaccinia virus (open reading frames B13 and B14 by the terminology reported in Goebel et al., 1990a,b).
Cowpox virus is localized in infected cells in cytoplasmic A type inclusion bodies (ATI) (Kato et al., 1959). The function of ATI is thought to be the protection of cowpox virus virions during dissemination from animal to animal (Bergoin et al., 1971). The ATI region of the cowpox genome encodes a 160 kDa protein which forms the matrix of the ATI bodies (Funahashi et al., 1988; Patel et al., 1987). Vaccinia virus, though containing a homologous region in its genome, generally does not produce ATI. In WR strain of vaccinia, the ATI region of the genome is translated as a 94 kDa protein (Patel et al., 1988). In Copenhagen strain of vaccinia virus, most of the DNA sequences corresponding to the ATI region are deleted, with the remaining 3' end of the region fused with sequences upstream from the ATI region to form open reading frame (ORF) A26L (Goebel et al., 1990a,b).
A variety of spontaneous (Altenburger et al., 1989; Drillien et al., 1981; Lai et al., 1989; Moss et al., 1981; Paez et al., 1985; Panicali et al., 1981) and engineered (Perkus et al., 1991; Perkus et al., 1989; Perkus et al., 1986) deletions have been reported near the left end of the vaccinia virus genome. A WR strain of vaccinia virus with a 10 kb spontaneous deletion (Moss et al., 1981; Panicali et al., 1981) was shown to be attenuated by intracranial inoculation in mice (Buller et al., 1985). This deletion was later shown to include 17 potential ORFs (Kotwal et al., 1988b). Specific genes within the deleted region include the virokine N1L and a 35 kDa protein (C3L, by the terminology reported in Goebel et al., 1990a,b). Insertional inactivation of N1L reduces virulence by intracranial inoculation for both normal and nude mice (Kotwal et al., 1989a). The 35 kDa protein is secreted like N1L into the medium of vaccinia virus infected cells. The protein contains homology to the family of complement control proteins, particularly the complement 4B binding protein (C4bp) (Kotwal et al., 1988a). Like the cellular C4bp, the vaccinia 35 kDa protein binds the fourth component of complement and inhibits the classical complement cascade (Kotwal et al., 1990). Thus the vaccinia 35 kDa protein appears to be involved in aiding the virus in evading host defense mechanisms.
The left end of the vaccinia genome includes two genes which have been identified as host range genes, K1L (Gillard et al., 1986) and C7L (Perkus et al., 1990). Deletion of both of these genes reduces the ability of vaccinia virus to grow on a variety of human cell lines (Perkus et al., 1990).
Two additional vaccine vector systems involve the use of naturally host-restricted poxviruses, avipox viruses. Both fowlpoxvirus (FPV) and canarypoxvirus (CPV) have been engineered to express foreign gene products. Fowlpox virus (FPV) is the prototypic virus of the Avipox genus of the Poxvirus family. The virus causes an economically important disease of poultry which has been well controlled since the 1920's by the use of live attenuated vaccines. Replication of the avipox viruses is limited to avian species (Matthews, 1982) and there are no reports in the literature of avipoxvirus causing a productive infection in any non-avian species including man. This host restriction provides an inherent safety barrier to transmission of the virus to other species and makes use of avipoxvirus based vaccine vectors in veterinary and human applications an attractive proposition.
FPV has been used advantageously as a vector expressing antigens from poultry pathogens. The hemagglutinin protein of a virulent avian influenza virus was expressed in an FPV recombinant (Taylor et al., 1988a). After inoculation of the recombinant into chickens and turkeys, an immune response was induced which was protective against either a homologous or a heterologous virulent influenza virus challenge (Taylor et al., 1988a). FPV recombinants expressing the surface glycoproteins of Newcastle Disease Virus have also been developed (Taylor et al., 1990; Edbauer et al., 1990).
Despite the host-restriction for replication of FPV and CPV to avian systems, recombinants derived from these viruses were found to express extrinsic proteins in cells of nonavian origin. Further, such recombinant viruses were shown to elicit immunological responses directed towards the foreign gene product and where appropriate were shown to afford protection from challenge against the corresponding pathogen (Tartaglia et al., 1993a,b; Taylor et al., 1992; 1991b; 1988b).
Feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) produces a chronic, progressive, immunologically-mediated disease in felines such as domestic and exotic cats. The route of FIPV infection is thought to occur primarily through the oral cavity and pharynx. Clinically apparent FIP occurs after the virus crosses the mucosal barrier and a primary viremia takes FIPV to its many target organs (liver, spleen, intestine and lungs). Two forms of the disease have been described as effusive (wet) and non-effusive (dry). The effusive form results in the classic fluid accumulation seen in infected cats which is caused by an Arthus-type vasculitis in the target organs mediated by complement activation and an intense inflammatory response. The non-effusive form is characterized by little or no ascitic fluid accumulation but internal organs may be infiltrated with granular fibrinous deposits. Thus, antibodies formed in response to FIPV infection (primarily to the spike protein) tend to enhance the pathogenesis of the disease and are obviously unwanted in a vaccine or immunological composition (Olsen and Scott, 1991). (However, expression of such proteins by a recombinant and the recombinants themselves are useful if one desires antigens or antibodies therefrom for a kit, test or assay or the like).
FIPV is a member of the Coronaviridae family. Coronaviruses are large, positive stranded RNA viruses with genomic lengths of 27-30 kb. The virion is enveloped and is studded with peplomeric structures called spikes. The left half of the FIPV genome encodes a large polyprotein which is cleaved into smaller fragments, some of which are involved in RNA replication. The right half of the FIPV genome encodes 3 major structural proteins designated nucleocapsid (N), matrix (M) and spike (S). The FIPV S gene product mediates attachment of the virus to the cell receptor, triggers membrane fusion, and elicits virus-neutralizing antibodies. The N protein is necessary for encapsidating genomic RNA and directing its incorporation into the capsid, and is thought to be involved in RNA replication. The FIPV M glycoprotein appears to be important for FIP viral maturation and for the determination of the site at which virus particles are assembled (Spann et al., 1988).
Because of the antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of FIP in cats, attempts to produce a safe and efficacious vaccine or immunological composition against FIPV have been largely unsuccessful. Inactivated FIPV vaccines and heterologous live coronavirus vaccines did not afford any protection against FIPV infection and vaccination usually resulted in increased sensitization to the disease. A modified live virus vaccine, Primucell, is the first and only commercially marketed FIPV vaccine. Primucell is a temperature sensitive strain of FIPV that can replicate at the cooler temperatures of the nasal cavity, but not at systemic body temperatures (Gerber et al., 1990). Thus, intranasally administered Primucell is thought to produce a localized immunity to FIPV. However, serious questions remain concerning the efficacy and enhancement potential of this vaccine (Olsen and Scott, 1991).
Vaccinia virus has been used as a vector for generating recombinant viruses expressing FIPV structural genes. A recombinant expressing the FIP M gene was shown to increase the survival time of cats after challenge with FIPV (Vennema et al., 1990).
Vennema, et al. (1991) relates to primary structure of the membrane and nucleocapsid protein genes of feline infectious peritonitis virus and to certain recombinant vaccinia viruses thereof introduced into kittens. The Vennema et al. FIPV matrix gene was cloned from a pathogenic strain (79-1146) and its sequence appears identical to the matrix gene (discussed herein). The Vennema et al. recombinant, vFM, contains the coding region of matrix coupled to the vaccinia 7.5K early/late promoter inserted at the thymidine kinase (tk) locus. Note that the promotor was not linked precisely to the matrix ATG initiation codon, but rather to a position 48 bp upstream from the ATC. Also, a vaccinia T5NT early transcriptional termination signal (Yuen et al., 1987) located in the coding region of the matrix gene was not removed.
Moreover, the vaccinia strain in Vennema et al. is the WR strain (Vennema et al. at page 328, left column, first 2 lines; see also, the donor plasmids and control viruses as mentioned on the same page in the section "Construction of Recombinant Vaccinia Viruses expressing the FIPV M and N proteins" beginning at mid-left column clearly indicate via literature citations that the WR strain is used). The choice of strain is important because the WR strain is a laboratory virus--not a vaccine strain--and the virulence characteristics of the WR strain do not make it a presently acceptable vector for a recombinant that may contact humans, let alone a recombinant in a composition such as a vaccine or antigenic or immunological composition targeted to felines, such as kittens, or other animals in contact with humans, especially young children or immunosuppressed individuals, due to recent concerns of contact transmission (such "other animals" could be laboratory cell cultures or animals for antigen expression or for antibody production for making kits, tests or assays).
Thus, the Vennema, et al. articles fail to teach or suggest the recombinants, compositions and methods of the present invention.
More particularly, recombinants in the present invention preferably employ NYVAC or vectors (NYVAC and ALVAC are highly attenuated vectors having a BSL1 containment level).
Further, in constructs of the present invention, preferably the coding region is coupled to the promotor in a precise coupling to the ATG codon with no intervening sequence. (Any T5NT sequence can be inactivated by a base substitution which does not change the amino acid sequence but will prevent early transcriptional termination in a poxvirus vector). In addition, multiple, e.g., two, copies of the coding region directly coupled to the promotor can be present in each recombinant viral genome in the present invention.
The Vennema et al. efficacy study used SPF kittens (13-14 weeks old) which were vaccinated subcutaneously at day 0 and day 21 with 1.times.10.sup.8 and 5.times.10.sup.8 pfu respectively. On day 35 the cats were challenged orally with FIP strain 79-1146.
The herein protocol was similar, with the major difference being a lower vaccination dose (1.times.10.sup.7). The Vennema protection results were based on mortality with 3 of 8 cats vaccinated with vFM surviving (37.5%). Vennema et al. deemed their challenge sufficient in that 7 of 8 unvaccinated cats succumbed to the challenge exposure and died. Upon necropsy, all challenged cats, in Vennema et al. including the three surviving vFM vaccinated cats, had pathological signs of FIP infection including peritoneal effusions and granulomatous lesions on the viscera.
By contrast, the trials herein were more stringent. Herein applicants scored protection as surviving and being free from FIP pathology upon necropsy. Using this criteria, Applicants had 3 out of 5 cats vaccinated with vCP262 protected (60%) with 0% of the unvaccinated cats protected.
If the Vennema et al. results were scored using Applicants' criteria, Vennema would have had no protection; and ergo no recombinant suitable for vaccine use. In addition, the Vennema et al. observed fever and weight loss in all challenged cats. In Applicants' trials, (see trial 3 in particular) Applicants' observed even no weight loss and a lower febrile response after challenge.
Thus, the recombinants of the present invention employ an acceptable vector for all uses and a surprisingly higher protection level at a lower dose than the Vennema et al. vaccinia recombinant.
Recent studies using monoclonal antibodies directed against the S gene (Olsen et al., 1992) have shown also that mABs which neutralize the virus also cause ADE. No enhancement is observed with mABs against matix or nucleocapsid proteins.
Thus, prior to the present invention, there has been a need for poxvirus-FIPV recombinants, especially such recombinants using an acceptable vector and such recombinants having expression at low doses which indeed affords protection; and, there has been a need for compositions containing such recombinants, as well as a need for methods for making and using them. And, moreover, it would be especially surprising and unexpected if this poxvirus-FIPV recombinant was modified so as to be attenuated, e.g., an attenuated vaccinia virus-FIPV recombinant or an attenuated avipox-FIPV recombinant, such as a NYVAC-FIPV or ALVAC-FIPV recombinant; because, for instance, from attenuation and, diminished or lack of productive replication of the poxvirus in the host, one skilled in the art would have not expected and would be surprised by the usefulness of the attenuated recombinant, especially in a composition for felines and other hosts, and more especially in such a composition which provides a response including protection in felines.
Attenuated poxvirus vectors would also be especially advantageous for antigenic or vaccine compositions, particularly in view of attenuated vectors providing diminished or little or no pathogenic properties with regard to the intended host or, to unintended, possibly accidental hosts, such as those who work with the vector in formulating or administering the vector or antigen, or who may otherwise come into contact with it. That is, attenuated poxvirus vectors provide diminished or little or no pathogenic properties to intended hosts such as cats, kittens and the like and to unintended, possibly accidental hosts, such as humans engaged in formulating the vector into a composition for administration or in administering the composition (e.g., veterinarians, technicians, other workers) or, who may otherwise come into contact with the vector (e.g., pet owners).
It can thus be appreciated that provision of a FIPV recombinant poxvirus, and of compositions and products therefrom, particularly NYVAC or ALVAC based FIPV recombinants and compositions and products therefrom, would be a highly desirable advance over the current state of technology.

Recombinant poxvirus-feline infectious peritionitis virus, compositions thereof and methods for making and using them


A vehicle height control system and method of increasing a vehicle height of a vehicle having a vehicle body and at least one axle assembly. The vehicle height control system includes a pressurized fluid, and a plurality of air springs provided to support at least one section of the body of the vehicle above at least one axle of the vehicle and configured to adjust the height the vehicle relative to the ground in response to the supply and discharge of the fluid. A control assembly of the vehicle height control system configured to receive user input indicative of a vehicle height adjustment operation desired by a user has a piston unit fluidically interconnected with the pressurized fluid supply system via a first control valve and is operable to adjust the vehicle height by adjusting a second control valve interposed between the pressurized fluid supply system and the air springs.

Fluid suspension systems including air springs have been implemented on vehicles widely throughout the transportation industry to enhance vehicle stability and provide a more comfortable riding experience. Additionally, various devices have been integrated with such fluid suspension systems so as to provide a system for adjusting the height of the vehicle using the air springs. Many of such systems, however, include components that easily damage, such as mechanical linkages, or require the user of the vehicle to exit the operation area of the vehicle to use the system, potentially inconveniencing the user, impeding traffic, and exposing the user to the risk of being injured by other vehicles.
Furthermore, such systems are commonly configured to merely maintain the vehicle at a standard vehicle height suitable for normal transportation purposes. From time to time, however, increasing the vehicle height above the standard vehicle height is desirable to avoid damaging the undercarriage of the vehicle on obstacles encountered when traveling or transitions to inclined surfaces. Indeed, such instances are common in the commercial trucking industry, particularly when transporting heavy objects. Trailers used to facilitate the hauling of such objects are commonly configured to have load-carrying platforms positioned a short distance above the surface beneath the vehicle. While such a configuration facilitates the loading of heavy objects, the undercarriage of the load-carrying platform of the trailer is susceptible to damage as a result of striking the ground surface or obstacles thereon. Supplying pressurized fluid to the air springs of a pressurized fluid suspension system to cause them to overinflate may increase the height of the vehicle, but continuously supplying pressurized fluid to the air springs may result in excessive overinflation that can damage the air springs and compromise user safety. It is, thus, desirable to have a durable vehicle height control system that can increase the height of the vehicle above its standard vehicle height and limit the amount of pressurized fluid supplied to the air springs. It is also desirable that such a vehicle height control system can be controlled from an area in which the user operates the vehicle.


A tensioning device for a seatbelt system in motor vehicles with a driving arrangement that comprises a tube having at least one tube section bent with a radius of curvature, and a piston guided movably in said tube, whereby the piston is connected via a driving cable to the part of the seatbelt system which carries out the tensioning movement, and whereby the piston can be moved in a longitudinal movement through the tube by means of a pyrotechnic drive, and the driving cable is fixed to the piston by means of a holding part held by the piston. The piston (14) is configured in the form of an olive with a larger radius in the longitudinal direction of the tube (10) than the effective radius in the transverse direction of the tube (10) and is provided with a bore (15) for passing through the driving cable (20) that is held in a compression sleeve (16) fixed on the side of the piston (14) that points in the direction of movement of the piston (14).

A tensioning device with the above mentioned characteristics is described in EP 0 803 399 B1. In so far as the installation conditions of tensioning devices of this type also require bent tubes with relatively small radii of curvature, the piston running through the tube is configured in the known tensioning device such that the front end of the piston pointing in the direction of movement does not abut against the inner side of the tube, but is separated therefrom by a gap. The width of the gap is matched to the radius of curvature of the tube such that the piston cannot become jammed when moving through the tube. In the area facing the pyrotechnic drive, the body of the piston has countersunk gaskets that seal the piston against the tube.
With the known tensioning device there is the disadvantage that the required accuracy in machining the piston with respect to its radial clearance with the inside of the tube is maintained in order to prevent jamming of the piston inside the tube; at the same time, the tube with its radius of curvature also has to be formed with the corresponding accuracy so that piston and tube fit one another. Likewise, the required gasket has to ensure a good, uniform seal over the entire movement of the piston inside the tube because, as a result of the gap left at the front of the piston, the piston inside the tube would otherwise not be adequately sealed.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to simplify the design of the piston in a tensioning device of the above type, and at the same time to improve the sealing action of the piston inside the tube, and finally, to prevent jamming of the piston in a reliable manner.
The solution of this task, including advantageous embodiments and further developments of the present invention, will become apparent from the claims following this description.

Tensioning device for seatbelts with an olive-shaped piston


A solder joint determination method is disclosed that is able to inspect a joint portion between an electrode and a soldered portion and determine a soldering condition of the joint portion reliably with high precision. The method includes the steps of: scanning a surface of the electrode with the light beam; detecting a height of the electrode relative to the circuit board from data of the scanning of the electrode; scanning a surface of the solder near the electrode with the light beam; detecting a height of the solder relative to the circuit board from data of the scanning of the solder; and determining the solder joint condition between the electronic part and the solder based on the height of the electrode and the height of the solder relative to the circuit board.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solder joint determination method for inspecting and determining a solder joint condition of an electrode of an electronic part mounted on a circuit board by soldering, a solder inspection method, and a solder inspection device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, generally, an electrode of an electronic part, which is mounted on a circuit board, is attached to the circuit board by soldering, and in the inspecting step subsequent to the soldering step, it is determined whether the solder and the electrode are joined reliably. In this inspecting step, it is also determined whether there are defective soldering conditions, such as absence of the solder, and lack of wetting.
For example, a solder inspection device irradiates a light beam, such as a laser beam, onto an inspection site, performs optical scanning, measures optical changes of a reflected light beam from the inspection site, and then performs data analysis. From the results, the solder inspection device determines shapes of the inspection sites, locations of the inspection sites, and additionally, calculates lengths and heights of the solder at the soldering sites, and determines positions of parts and lack of wetting.
For example, Japanese Patent Gazette No. 3055161 (hereinafter referred to as "reference 1"), and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 5-332745 (hereinafter referred to as "reference 2") disclose such a technique.
In these years, as a response of manufacturers to the environmental problems, in the mounting technology, solder free from lead, which is known as "lead-free solder", is more and more used. However, the lead-free solder suffers from a problem in the wetting property compared to the common lead-included solder. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-101216 (hereinafter referred to as "reference 3") disclose related issues.
FIG. 11 is a schematic view of a solder inspecting device and an inspection site for illustrating a solder inspecting method in the related art.
In FIG. 11, there are a circuit board 1, an electronic part 2 mounted on the circuit board 1, soldered portions 3 which join electrodes 2a of the electronic part 2 with the circuit board 1, a laser 4 which emits a laser beam Lo used for soldering inspection, a deflecting mirror 5 which deflects the laser beam Lo to pass across the soldered portions 3 for scanning, and light receiving elements 6 which receive light beams Lr reflected from the electrodes 2a.
In FIG. 11, the deflecting mirror 5 is driven to deflect the laser beam Lo to pass across the soldered portions 3 in an X direction as shown in FIG. 11, and move the laser beam Lo in a Y direction as shown in FIG. 11, so that the light beams Lr reflected from the electrodes 2a are received by the light receiving elements 6. In the light receiving elements 6, electro-optical conversion is carried out, and the shape of the soldered portions 3 is detected and measured through data processing and image processing; then the measured results are compared with preset conditions to determine soldering conditions.
FIG. 12A through FIG. 12C are front views (upper portion) and plan views (lower portion) of soldered portions for illustrating determination results by the solder inspecting method as shown in FIG. 11.
In the solder inspecting method of the related art, the laser beam Lo is scanned to pass across two sites (indicated by circles) of the soldered portions 3. As shown in FIG. 12A, there is a portion (indicated by "A") having an inclined surface at the end of the soldered portion 3, and a flat portion (indicated by "B") near the center portion of the soldered portion 3. It is determined that the soldering condition is good if the soldered portion 3 has such a shape.
Therefore, if the soldering condition is like that in FIG. 12A, it can be determined that the soldering condition is good by visual inspection and by an inspection with a soldering inspection device of the related art.
If the soldering condition is like that in FIG. 12C, it can be determined that the soldering condition is not good by visual inspection and by the inspection with the soldering inspection device of the related art.
However, if the soldering condition is like that in FIG. 12B, since the soldered portion 3 is connected with the electrode 2a, it is determined that the soldering condition is good by visual inspection, but it is determined that the soldering condition is not good by the inspection with the soldering inspection device of the related art, since the soldering condition in FIG. 12B is not in agreement with the preset good soldering conditions.
That is, in the related art, the soldering inspection device suffers from problems in precision and accuracy compared to visual inspection.
Additionally, when the lead-free solder is used for soldering, as described above, the lead-free solder suffers from the problem in that the wetting property is degraded compared to the common lead-included solder. Due to this, it is desirable that inspection of the joint portion between the electrodes 2a and the soldered portions 3 by using an inspection device and determination of good soldering condition be made with high precision.

Solder joint determination method, solder inspection method, and solder inspection device


A vehicle includes a data communication network, a serial data bus, and a plurality of electronic nodes in signal communication with the serial data bus. The vehicle further includes a node identification system configured to store a several different diagnostic tests, along with expected operating data corresponding to a given diagnostic test. The node identification system sorts the plurality of nodes into individual node groups in response to performing one or more diagnostic tests among the different available diagnostic tests.

Various non-limiting embodiments relate generally to vehicle communication networks, and more particular, to aircrafts including a serial data bus.
Military vehicles typically employ a standardized serial data bus to facilitate communication between various on-board components and sub-systems typically referred to as remote terminals or nodes. The MIL-STD-1553 data bus is an example of a serial data bus implemented on military aircraft. The MIL-STD-1553 standard specifies all of the electrical characteristics of the receivers, transmitters, and cable used to implement the bus, as well as the complete message transmission protocol. The MIL-STD-1553 data bus aims to achieve hard real time communications, where a message is expected to be communicated over the bus in a deterministic way with known latency and very low probability that the message is not decoded successfully. For example, a MIL-STD-1553 data bus can be employed to exchange data messages associated with flight critical avionics, flight control, weapons, electrical power control, and propulsion control.
The MIL-STD-1553 data bus defines electrical and signaling characteristics for 1 Mbps communications between a bus controller and one or more nodes. Data messages are communicated over an asynchronous serial, command/response digital data bus. The data bus utilizes a twisted wire cable pair to construct a data transmission medium on which the data messages are time division multiplexed and delivered as data frames.

Serial data bus node identification system


A ultra wideband (UWB) wireless network may include a plurality of UWB wireless devices communicating over a plurality of UWB frequency bins extending over a UWB frequency range. At least one of the UWB wireless devices may be for determining a respective actual signal level associated with each UWB frequency bin, and generating a do-not-use UWB frequency bin list by comparing each actual signal level with at least one interference threshold. Thus, the UWB wireless devices can avoid using frequency bins experiencing excessive interference to thereby provide more reliable UWB communications.

Ultra wideband (UWB) is currently expected to become the preferred format for wireless communications in certain short range applications, such as personal area networks (PANs), for example. By way of example, a PAN may include a number of household electronic devices such as video recorders, personal computers, high-definition televisions (HDTVs), etc., which communicate video, audio, and other data therebetween. UWB technology is particularly attractive for PANs not only because it allows large amounts of digital data to be transmitted over a short distance at very low power, but it also has the ability to carry signals through obstacles (doors, etc.) that otherwise tend to reflect signals at narrower bandwidths and higher power.
As a result of the significant interest in UWB communications, an Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) working group has been tasked with developing standards for UWB communications in wireless PANs. In particular, the IEEE802.15.3a working group is developing a high-speed UWB physical layer (PHY) enhancement to the general 802.15.3 WPAN standard for applications which involve imaging and multimedia.
One of the leading UWB waveforms in the IEEE802.15.3a selection process is frequency hopping orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (FH-OFDM). While much progress has been made in developing the framework for FH-OFDM, many areas remain to be fully developed. One such area is interference mitigation. In one proposal submitted Nov. 10, 2003 by Batra et al. entitled "Multi-band OFDM Physical Layer Proposal for IEEE 802.15 Task Group 3a," which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety by reference, the use of a front-end pre-select filter in UWB receivers is proposed to reject out-of band noise and interference.
Other interference mitigation techniques have also been proposed for UWB communications. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,560,463 to Santhoff discloses a UWB communication system which includes a transceiver configured to receive a UWB communication signal, which has embedded power level data. A measurement circuit in the transceiver measures the strength of the received signal. An attenuation factor is computed that compares the measured signal strength to the data embedded in the signal. An adaptive circuit uses the attenuation factor to select a power level for a next transmission. The transceiver also has a positioning circuit that is used to accurately determine the distance from the transceiver to the source of the communication signal, and the adaptive circuit uses the distance to tune the power level for the next transmission. This patent states that the accurate selection of the lowest acceptable power level minimizes interference between communication cells, thereby increasing reliability and optimizing bandwidth utilization.
Despite the advancements in UWB communications, further improvements may be required, such as for implementing the IEEE 802.15 standards. This may be particularly true in the area of interference mitigation.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Wireless ultra wideband network having interference mitigation and related methods


A birefringent inspection polariscope for inspecting relatively transparent objects for defects is disclosed as having a source of white light to emit light along a path and, positioned in the path, a retarder to diffuse light from the source thereof, a fixed polarizer to circularly polarize the light and a fixed, circularly polarizing analyzer to convert circularly polarized light emanating from the polarizer to plane polarized light. An inspection area, in which to position an object to be inspected, is provided between the polarizer and the analyzer; and a lens is positioned to magnify light emanating from the analyzer. Also provided is a half-wave plate that can be positioned in the path of light to provide a dark background field to facilitate photographic recording.

Polariscopes for inspecting relatively transparent objects for defects are well known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,177,761 to Redner discloses a polariscope having simultaneously rotatable waveplates to permit measurement of the relative retardation and azimuth of a specimen without having to remove or replace any of the polarizing elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,687,555 to Yamamoto et al. discloses a photoelectric polarization analyzer that introduces a half-wave polarizer plate that is rotated in place of elements of the polarization system.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,434,786 to Flynn et al. discloses a dual-beam polariscope using condenser lenses, polarizers and mirrors to obtain two images of a specimen that are focused by a single lens adjustment.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,811,775 to Abu-Saud discloses a stress determining polariscope using plane polarized, polychromatic light that can be swept back and forth across a transparent object being inspected. The object can also be moved along an axis that is transverse to that along which the light is being swept.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,547,067 to Watanabe discloses a fault polariscope for detecting faults and foreign matter in transparent objects. Diffused light transmitted through an object is imaged through a lens system and converted into an electrical signal by a photoelectric detector and processed.
Other patents that are representative of polariscope systems include U.S. Pat. No's. 2,332,308; 3,031,919; 3,373,652; 3,466,129; 3,495,910; 3,549,259; 3,653,767; 3,873,207; 4,171,908; 4,297,032; 4,309,110; 4,400,062; 4,410,277; 4,684,256; and 4,786,802. Also representative is U.S. Statutory Invention Registration No. H76.
While each of these polariscopes functions with a certain degree of efficiency, none discloses the advantages of the improved polariscope of the present invention as is hereinafter more fully described.

GMI Engineering and Management Institute