Informational data is efficiently recorded on a recording medium in response to an input signal containing information and pauses of different intervals. Information following each pause is captured for recording and space occupied on the recording medium for recording of the pauses is minimized. A stream of input data corresponding to the input signal is supplied by operation of a controller selectively to a first buffer and a second buffer arrangement. The input signal is also coupled to a record signal generating circuit that produces a record signal in response to an input signal having information of a certain duration, and produces a no-record signal in response to a pause in the input signal of a determined interval. The controller operates to store the supplied data at selected addresses from an initial address to a last address of the first buffer before a record signal is produced, and to recirculate data storage from the initial address to the last address after data is stored at the last address and the record signal generating circuit continues to output a no-record signal. When a record signal is produced, data from the first buffer is read out for recording prior to reading out of data from the second buffer. The controller also deletes from the buffered data, before recording, data corresponding to a pause in the input signal for the determined interval needed for the record signal generating circuit to switch from a record to a no-record signal output.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to voice actuated recording devices, and more particularly to a voice operated (VOX) recording device in which speech data that might be lost from recording due to time delays in the VOX circuitry and other recording components of the device, is recovered and stored for recording in proper sequence with speech sounds which follow after the VOX circuitry signals the device to record.
2. Description of the Known Art
Recording devices are used to capture various data including speech in analog or digital form. The data is permanently recorded on media such as magnetic tape. Several different methods of recording are possible. First, the recording device can be left in an ON state over a relatively long time during which an event to be recorded may occur. Second, if the operator of the device knows that an event to be recorded is about to happen, for example, someone giving dictation knows that he or she is about to speak, the person can manually start the recording device before speaking by operating a record button and setting the device in an ON state early enough to capture all of the speech. Third, some kind of automatic start and stop feature responsive to the presence of speech, e.g., VOX control, can be embodied in the recording device.
The first mentioned recording method has the obvious disadvantage that the recording device might be set in an operating state over a time substantially longer than that during which any speech is present. Once incident on the device, however, the speech will be captured in its entirety on the recording medium. This method therefore gives rise to a great deal of wasted media if the speech events are only occasional, with less waste as the speech becomes more continuous.
In the second method--manual operation of the recording device--the operator must be sure to set the device in an ON state before commencing speech. If done properly, the recording media will be used much more efficiently in terms of blank or wasted space.
In the third method of recording mentioned above, a sensor arrangement known as voice operated switch or a VOX is used to detect the speech and, once detected, sets the recording device in an ON state by outputting a VOX speech detection signal. The media is used efficiently in that pauses greater than the cut-off time for the speech detection signal are not recorded. Upon playback, the listener need not wait through a number of long pause intervals.
Accordingly, the most efficient use of recording media for dictation and other speech applications entails automated ON-OFF control of the recording device, wherein the device records only upon the presence of speech. VOX circuitry can be used to accomplish such automation. There are, however, problems associated with the conventional VOX actuated recording devices. Specifically, in a typical speech recording device such as a tape recorder, a length of magnetic tape is driven by a mechanical motor. The motor drives the tape up to an operating speed so that proper recording can take place. Using the VOX speech detection signal as a means for starting the motor therefore has the disadvantage that speech present before the speech detection signal is produced will not be recorded at the beginning of the recorded data. Yet, this initial speech includes the beginning sounds of words and usually contains critical phonemes. If this speech is lost from recording, it may be impossible for the listener during playback to comprehend the initial part of the recording. In other words, VOX circuitry must respond to the presence of speech in order to actuate the drive motor, but since the VOX has an inherent finite time delay, and since the drive motor does not come up to speed instantaneously, a time lag between the beginning of speech and the recording of the speech is created. The portion of the speech omitted from recording corresponds to this time lag.
Further, when speech is completed or a relatively long pause is taken between words and sentences, the VOX ceases to produce an output signal and the drive motor is stopped. Again, there is a finite response time for the VOX to cut off its output signal once speech is no longer present. That portion of the record media which continues to be driven over this response time is wasted since no speech is being recorded. Finally, VOX circuitry may switch ON and OFF during a sentence or word, instead of between sentences and pauses. By causing the tape drive to be turned OFF and back ON quickly, some of the speech may be lost from recording.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,197 issued Jan. 9, 1990, discloses sound recording apparatus in which pauses during speech to be recorded are compressed into the form of pause length data bytes, so as to minimize waste of recording media. The patented apparatus does not use a VOX arrangement for controlling the speech recording process, but instead remains in an "on" state all the time. An input analog audio signal is converted to digital form and loaded at successive addresses in a temporary store. Pauses of more than a certain length are detected and their lengths are encoded. Data corresponding to the encoded pause length is then loaded in the temporary store at an appropriate address, and additional addresses of the temporary store are not written until an end of each pause is detected. The data structure of the recording apparatus of the '197 patent is therefore comprised of simple speech data bytes and specially encoded pause length data bytes. It will be appreciated that such a data structure requires substantial central processing unit (CPU) resources to create during record, and to decode, upon a playback operation.

Voice actuated recording device having recovery of initial speech data after pause intervals

Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.


An inflatable restraint apparatus provides deployment in a very short duration while at the same time controlling and decelerating the moving parts upon deployment. The apparatus includes an interior panel and an airbag deployment door formed in the interior panel and designed to break free from the panel upon deployment of the airbag. An airbag chute is suitably supported behind the employment door and directs deployment of the airbag outwardly towards the deployment door. A metal hinge connects the airbag chute and the deployment door, and is structured to control and decelerate the door during deployment.

Most modern vehicles include inflatable restraint apparatus having deployable airbags positioned in many locations throughout an automotive vehicle. Generally, an interior panel includes a deployment door formed into the panel which is designed to break free upon deployment of the airbag. A supporting structure behind the interior panel typically contain flexible tethers or metal hinges, which in combination with the deployment door are designed to let the airbag deploy in a very short duration.
Unfortunately, these inflatable restraint apparatus are subjected to often conflicting requirements. A primary aim of the apparatus is to deploy the airbag very quickly. At the same time, it is desirable to control the opening of the deployment door to avoid break explosion and the possibility of flying parts. Accordingly, there exists a need to provide an inflatable restraint apparatus which permits deployment of the airbag in a very short duration, while at the same time allowing for control and deceleration of the deployment door.

Hinge mechanism for inflatable restraint apparatus


Receivers are arranged to detect a corresponding observed phase shift, observed attenuation or other observed signal parameters for its respective microphone. An electronic data processor is adapted to estimate a distribution or quantity of material on the sieve based on the observed phase shift, the observed attenuation or the other observed signal parameters relative to a reference phase shift, a reference attenuation or other reference signal parameter. The operator can be alerted via a user interface if the material on the sieve is unevenly distributed or matches a preestablished distribution profile, or the sieve can be adjusted by an actuator to promote a generally uniform distribution.

In a combine or a harvester, a cleaning assembly facilitates separation of harvested material into grain and chaff or other crop residue. Improper clearance adjustment of the sieve may impact whether harvested material accumulates on the sieve of the cleaning assembly. For example, if the clearance is too small or operated in hilly terrain, harvested material may accumulate on the sieve without being readily recognized by an operator of the harvester or combine. In some prior art, the cleaning assembly is typically difficult to inspect during operation of harvester or combine and is concealed within the internal confines of the harvester or combine. Further, if harvested material is not uniformly or evenly distributed on the movable sieve of a cleaning assembly, at times the agitating or sliding movement of the sieve may not effectively separate the grain and chaff or other crop residue. The improperly adjusted clearance can result in excessive grain loss and uneven distribution of chaff and other crop residue in the field from the crop residue exit of the combine or harvester. Thus, there is need for a system for measurement of harvested material in a cleaning assembly to operate efficiently the combine or harvester to minimize any potential loss of crop yield and to uniformly distribute crop residue in the field.

System and method for measurement of harvested material in a cleaning assembly


The subject invention teaches the use of mechanical vibration to enhance the electrostatic dispersion of sample solutions into the small, highly charged droplets that can produce ions of solute species for mass spectrometric analysis. Such vibration turns out to be surprisingly effective at ultrasonic frequencies for solutions with flow rates, conductivities and surface tensions too high for stable dispersion by electrostatic forces alone as in conventional electrospray ionization. Several embodiments of the invention are described for purposes of illustration. Other possible embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art.

Mass spectrometers generally embody two primary components, an ion source that transforms species to be analyzed into ions in vacuum, and a mass analyzer that "weighs" these ions by measuring the response of their trajectories to some combination of electric and magnetic fields. For many years after their introduction, the use of such mass spectrometers was limited to species that were sufficiently volatile to be vaporized so that their dispersed molecules could be ionized by gas phase encounters with electrons, photons, other ions or electronically excited atoms. Non-volatile species could not be turned into ions by such gas phase encounters and therefore could not be individually weighed by ion mass analyzers. Thus, a long standing challenge in chemical analysis has been to extend the powers of mass spectrometric analysis to species that were so large and/or fragile that they could not be vaporized without substantial, even catastrophic, decomposition. In response to this need a number of methods have been developed in the past decade or two that are remarkably capable of transforming intact molecules of complex and fragile non-volatile species from a condensed phase into ions in vacuum ready for mass analysis. Among the most powerful and popular of these "soft" techniques is so called "Electrospray (ES) Ionization." It has been described at length in several U.S. Pat. Nos. (Labowsky et. al., 4,531,056; Yamashita et. al., 4,542,293; Henion et. al., 4,861,988, and Smith et. al., 4,842,701 and 4,885,706) and recent review articles [Fenn et. al., Science 246, 64 (1989); Fenn et. al., Mass spectrometry reviews 6, 37 (1990); Smith et. al., Analytical Chemistry 2, 882 (1990)]. To put the present invention in an perspective it will be appropriate to provide the following brief description of the method.
ES ionization as now practiced generally consists in flowing sample liquid comprising analytical species in a volatile solvent, at a rate typically between 1 and 20 microliters per minute, through a small metal capillary tube into a chamber containing bath gas at or near atmospheric pressure. An electrostatic potential difference of several kilovolts between the needle and the walls of the surrounding chamber produces an electric field at the needle tip that disperses the emerging liquid into a fine spray of charged droplets. Driven by the field toward the end wall of the chamber the droplets shrink by evaporation of solvent and, by a mechanism not yet clearly understood, produce free ions of the solute species in the ambient bath gas. Some of these ions become entrained in a small flow of bath gas through an aperture in the end wall leading into a vacuum system containing a mass analyzer. A most attractive feature of the ES technique is its "softness." Even the most fragile and complex species undergo little or no decomposition. Another attractive feature is that when the solute species comprise large polar molecules, for example biopolymers such as proteins, the ions produced by ES are multiply charged, roughly in proportion to their molecular weight. The result is that their mass/charge (m/z) values are usually less than 2500 or thereabouts so that they can be weighed by relatively inexpensive analyzers. Thus, ES ions of proteins with molecular weights of 130,000 have been accommodated by simple quadruple mass filters because they carry 100 or more charges. Indeed, from intact poly (ethylene oxide) oligomers with molecular weights up to 5,000,000 ES has produced ions with 4,000 or more charges!
In spite of these successes the ES technique is not without problems. Since the work of Vonnegut and Neubauer (Journal of Colloid Science 7, 616 (1952) it has been realized that stable sprays are difficult and sometimes impossible to obtain at atmospheric pressure with solutions having high electrical conductivities, especially when the solvent is mostly water. Moreover, the quality of the spray deteriorates when flow rates through a single needle exceed about 15 to 20 microliters/minute, depending upon the liquid properties. This loss of quality is reflected in poor spray stability and droplets that are too large and polydisperse in size. Another problem stems from the fact that with lower conductivity solutions the total spray current, i.e. flux of charge, is almost independent of the liquid flow rate. Consequently, increasing the flow rate decreases the charge/mass ratio in the droplets formed and, therefore, analytical sensitivity. These constraints complicate the use of ES sources with upstream sample processing such as liquid chromatography (LC) and capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). Such separation techniques, and other sample treatments that may be desirable, have their own requirements for liquid composition so that compatibility with ES ionization can become difficult to achieve unless the ES step can be made less restrictive in its requirements.
Methods have been developed and applied that can overcome some of these difficulties. The teachings of the Henion patent mentioned above resurrect a technique tried years ago by Malcolm Dole's group [L.L. Mach et. al., Journal of Chemical Physics, 52, 4977 (1970)] and a technique used by the Fenn group from Yale University as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,531,056 listed above. Dole's group passed an aspirating gas in an annular flow around the liquid emerging from the injection needle in the hope that ES performance might be improved. They found instead that ion currents decreased so they abandoned further use of the technique. The Fenn group passed an annular gas flow around the liquid emerging from the injection needle to help stabilize the Electrospray particularly in the negative ion producing mode. Nearly 20 years after Dole's work, Henion's group discovered that this "pneumatic assist" allowed them to obtain adequately stable sprays at liquid flow rates as high as 100 or so microliters/minute, higher than unassisted ES can be run with optimal performance. Although these high liquid flow rates exact a penalty in terms of decreased sensitivity, this cost is sometimes sufficiently offset by the convenience of being able to work with sample solutions at flow rates encountered in liquid chromatographic separations. It also turned out that this pneumatic assist could provide acceptable spray stability with liquids that present difficulties in unassisted ES because properties such as electrical conductivity or surface tension are outside the range of optimal performance.
Another strategy that can be used for overcoming composition problems in the liquid is the "sheath flow" technique for use with Capillary Zone Electrophoresis interfacing with Electrospray Ionization taught in the R. D. Smith patent mentioned above. It introduces a second liquid having appropriate properties in annular or sheath flow around a core flow comprising the sample liquid emerging from a dielectric tube. Rapid mixing of the sheath and core flows at the needle tip produces a liquid whose composition is such that it can give rise to a stable ES spray of acceptable quality without the need for any pneumatic assist. This sheath flow technique was extended to running higher conductivity solutions with high aqueous content used typically in liquid chromatography solutions by Whitehouse et. al. (J., proceedings of the 38th Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, P427, (1990)). However, the technique does not significantly extend the range of liquid flow rate.
Even though these approaches have substantially expanded the range of composition and flow rates in liquids, each has compromises in convenience or sensitivity or range of operation. The present invention provides another approach to the sprayability problem that seems to overcome many if not most of the difficulties encountered the techniques of the prior art. Our experimental studies of electrospray dispersion revealed that one of the possible reasons for the difficulties in spraying liquids with high conductivity was that such liquids show an enhanced stability against break up into droplets. Microscopic examination of the tip region of a small tube at a potential of several kilovolts relative to nearby surfaces shows that the meniscus of the emerging liquid assumes a shape approximately that predicted by G. I. Taylor (Proceedings of the Royal Society A313, 453 (1969)) and since known as a "Taylor Cone." Emerging from the tip of this cone is a small filament or jet of liquid that breaks up into tiny droplets within a few jet diameters when the liquid is well-behaved in the sense that it forms a stable spray. When the liquid is highly conductive it does not break up as rapidly. Indeed with the right combinations of voltage and flow rate we could make the jet persist for a distance of over ten centimeters. One possible explanation for this somewhat surprising behavior emerges from a consideration of what happens when the surface of a jet is perturbed by undulations. Rayleigh showed long ago (Proceedings of the Roy. Soc., 29, P.71, (1879)) that if the amplitude of such "varicose" waves exceeds a critical value determined by the properties of the liquid, the waves are amplified by surface tension forces until the jet breaks up into droplets. Indeed such surface wave growth is the generally accepted explanation for the widely practiced nebulization of liquids by ejecting them from an orifice or nozzle as a high velocity stream or jet. When the jet is formed from a highly conductive liquid whose surface is charged, it is to be expected that the effective mobility of surface charge will also be high so that the surface potential, due to the surface charge, should at all times have the same value everywhere on the surface. On the other hand, the local electric field associated with such surface potential increases wherever the radius of curvature of the jet surface may decrease. This local increase in electric field decreases the effective value of the local surface tension, thus, damping the growth of the surface waves and inhibiting the break up of the jet into droplets. This picture accounts for the difficulties encountered in the ES nebulization of highly conductive liquids by purely electrostatic forces. It also suggests that these difficulties might be overcome by somehow providing surface perturbations sufficiently strong to overcome the stabilizing effect of the surface tension. We believe that the role of the gas flow in pneumatically assisted ES is to provide just such perturbations. The present invention is based on our discovery that mechanical vibrations provide a particularly effective and convenient source of the needed perturbations. Aqueous solutions with high conductivity can easily be sprayed with this invention when used in conjunction with Electrospray ionization. Ion production performance and subsequent analysis using mass spectrometry is not compromised with solution liquid flow rates even over 400 ul/min.

Method and apparatus for improving electrospray ionization of solute species


A tool for chip removing machining includes a drill and a countersink mounted to the drill. The drill includes a protruding land and at least one chip flute. The countersink includes a body, a plurality of inserts received in respective insert pockets formed in the body, and a plurality of clamps for fixing respective inserts in the pockets. In order to be able to adjust the location of the inserts, pins are arranged for displacement relative to the body. The pins are slidably disposed in holes formed in the body, and adjustment screws are mounted in the body and arranged to displace a respective pin and the associated clamp and cutting insert in response to movement of the adjustment screw.

The present invention relates to a tool and a countersink for chip removing machining.
Through U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,895 there is previously known a tool for drilling and chamfering, wherein the tool comprises a base body, in which a drill is received. At the end of the base body situated closest to the drill tip, means are provided in order to achieve chamfering. These means are made of specially designed cutting inserts that are fixed on the base body via a screw and clamp combination. The tool according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,895 does not have any arrangement for precisely adjusting the positions of the cutting inserts.
Through U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,988 there is previously known a tool for drilling and chamfering, wherein the tool comprises a tool holder having a chamfering head at its forward end, where two cutting blades are held, diagonally opposite to each other. A drill with a shank portion is received in the tool holder. The cutting blades are held by screw and clamp combination. The cutting blades are received in grooves that form a certain angle with the axis of rotation of the tool, wherein the cutting blades are adjustable in grooves in connection with that it is mounted on the chamfering head. The tool according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,988 does not have any arrangement for precisely adjusting the positions of the cutting blades.
WO 95/07787 shows a tool for chip removing machining. The known tool comprises cutting inserts that are intended to perform an additional machining operation, for example chamfering or countersinking. The tool has means for adjusting the positions of the cutting inserts. These means comprise a slide with a oblong hole, carrying a cutting insert. The slide can be displaced relative to a locking screw, which fixes the slide in position. The displacement of the slide occurs wholly manually.

Countersink for chip removing machining tool


A computer includes at least one processor and at least one computer readable storage medium accessible to the processor. The medium bears instructions executable by the processor to cause the processor to receive at least one image of at least one viewer of a display on which content is presented. The instructions also cause the processor to generate a signal representative of at least one expression of the viewer made at or around the time the content was presented based on the image of the viewer, and also to receive metadata identifying the content. The instructions then cause the processor to associate the metadata identifying the content with the at least one expression of the viewer.

Content providers such as television networks, advertisers, video websites (e.g., YouTube), etc., often wish to know how viewers react to and/or feel about the content they provide. For instance, Nielsen ratings and "ratings weeks" are used to provide a metric for network television stations to gauge the popularity of the programs they provide. Such metrics provide a way for content providers to improve their programming and make it more agreeable to viewers.

System and method for correlating audio and/or images presented to a user with facial characteristics and expressions of the user


A new cultivar of Hosta named ‘Rainbow's End’, a sport of Hosta ‘Obsession’, that is characterized by its unique variegated foliage with dark green margins comprising about one third of the leaf area and centers that emerge yellow green and turn creamy white. ‘Rainbow's End’ is a medium sized Hosta with a mounded plant habit and pale violet flowers held above the foliage in late summer.

The present invention, Hosta 'Rainbow's End', relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Hosta, botanically known as a Hosta hybrida, hereinafter referred to as 'Rainbow's End'.
The inventor discovered the new cultivar, 'Rainbow's End', in summer of 2000 in a tissue culture lab in Waseca, Minn. 'Rainbow's End' originated as a naturally occurring sport of Hosta 'Obsession' (unpatented). 'Rainbow's End' is unique in having variegated foliage with dark green margins and creamy white centers. The parent plant 'Obession' is variegated with dark green margins and medium green centers.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar was first accomplished by the inventor utilizing in vitro propagation in Waseca, Minn. in fall of 2002. Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by division and tissue culture has shown that the unique features of 'Rainbow's End' are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.


A unit dose fabric treatment system comprises a water soluble container in which a liquid fabric treatment composition is disposed, the composition comprising one or more fatty acid esters wherein, in at least one of the fatty acid esters, the average proportion of C18 chains is less than 60%, preferably less than 50%, more preferably less than 40%, e.g. less than 30% by weight of the total weight of fatty acid chains in the fatty acid ester.

Detergent compositions manufactured in the form of compacted detergent powder are known. U.S. Pat. No. 5,225,100, for example, describes a tablet of compacted powder comprising an anionic detergent compound, which will adequately disperse in the wash water.
Laundry detergent compositions which further include a fabric softener to provide softening or conditioning of fabrics in the wash cycle of the laundering operation are well-known and described in the patent literature. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,506 (Wixon); U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,421 (Boris) et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,773 (Ramachandran et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,138. U.S. Pat. No. 5,972,870 (Anderson) describes a multi-layered laundry tablet for washing which may include a detergent in the outer layer and a fabric softener, or water softener or fragrance in the inner layer.
These types of multi-benefit products suffer from a common drawback, namely, there is an inherent compromise which the user necessarily makes between the cleaning and softening benefits provided by such products as compared to using a separate detergent composition solely for cleaning in the wash cycle and a separate softening composition solely for softening in the rinse cycle. That is, the user of such detergent softener compositions does not have the ability to independently adjust the amount of detergent and softener added to the wash cycle of a machine in response to the cleaning and softening requirements of the particular wash load.
Some attempts have been made in the art to develop wash cycle active fabric softeners, typically in powder form. However, these type products are characterised by the same inconvenience inherent with the use of powered detergents, namely, problems of handling, caking in the container or wash cycle dispenser, and the need for a dosing device to deliver the desired amount of active softener material to the wash water.
WO04/011589 discloses a softening system which comprises:                (a) a water soluble container which is formed from a water soluble polymer which is selected from the group consisting of polyvinyl alcohols, polyvinyl alcohol copolymers, partially hydrolyzed polyvinyl acetate, polyvinyl pyrrolidone, alkyl celluloses, ethers and esters of alkyl cellulosics, hydroxy alkyl, carboxy methyl cellulose sodium, dextrin, maltodextrin, water soluble polyacrylates, water soluble polyacrylates, water soluble polyacrylamides and acrylic acid/maleic anhydride copolymers;        (b) a liquid fabric softener composition disposed in said water soluble container, wherein said fabric softener composition comprises approximately by weight 72% to 100% of at least one organic softening agent which is selected from the group consisting of fatty acid soaps, esters of glycerol, ethoxylated fatty esters of glycerol, ethoxylated fatty esters, fatty alcohols, polyol polymers, higher fatty acid esters of a pentaerythritol compound silicone oil compounds, olein esterquat compounds, olein amido-amine compounds, quaternized alkyl imidazoline compounds, synthetic esters and natural esters and mixtures thereof.
The use of a unit dose fabric softening composition contained in a water soluble container such as a sachet offers numerous advantages. To be effective, the unit dose fabric softening compositions, contained in a sachet, must be able to disperse in the wash liquor in a short period of time to avoid any residue at the end of the wash cycle.
Typically, the wash cycle time can be as short as 12 minutes and as long as 90 minutes (in typical European washers) depending on the type of washer and the wash conditions. Therefore, the water-soluble sachet must be soluble in the wash liquor before the end of the cycle.

Unit dose laundry products containing fatty acid esters


In the case of a spinning machine having several spinning stations, which comprise drafting units, for the spinning of slivers fed in cans, false-twisting elements are connected in front of the drafting units which provide the slivers with a protective twist.

This invention relates to a spinning machine having several spinning stations for the spinning of slivers fed in cans into yarns, having guiding devices for the guiding of the slivers from the cans to drafting units pertaining to the spinning stations and having devices for protecting the slivers on their transport path.
It is known (British Patent Document GB 1 015 780) to feed slivers to a ring spinning machine in cans, withdraw them by way of rollers and then guide them to pairs of transport belts which receive the slivers between one another and transport them to the drafting units of the individual spinning stations. Transport belts of this type require high expenditures.
In the case of a ring spinning machine with package feeding, it is known (European Patent Document EP-0 041 484 B1) to guide the roving by way of a stationary spiral which is to provide a false twist to the roving and thus provide it with a higher strength.
Similar stationary false-twisting elements are also known in the case of roving frames (German Patent Document DE-OS 1 785 481) in which slivers are guided from cans to the drafting rollers.
In the older German Patent Application P 40 38 231.1, which is no prior publication, it was suggested to provide the slivers during the withdrawal from the cans with a true twist in that the cans are rotated about their axes.
It is an object of the invention to feed also finer slivers from cans, of a size range of from Nm 0.3 to 0.8, to a spinning machine, in which case these slivers are sufficiently protected on their transport path and, if possible, are no longer provided with a twist when entering into the drafting units, and the expenditures for protecting the slivers are as low as possible.
This object is achieved according to preferred embodiments of the invention in that false-twisting elements are provided as the devices for the protecting of the slivers which are connected directly in front of the drafting units.
During their transport path, the slivers are provided with a sufficient number of twists by means of the false-twisting elements so that they are strengthened to such an extent that they are protected against faulty drafts. Very long transport paths can be bridged in this manner. After leaving the false-twisting elements, thus when entering the drafting units pertaining to the spinning stations, the slivers will again be largely untwisted because, as is known, the false twist opens up again behind the false-twisting elements. However, the transport path between the false-twisting elements and the drafting units is only short and withstood by the slivers without suffering any damage. It is advantageous for the fibers of the slivers to again be directed in parallel when entering into the drafting units.
In a development of the invention, the guiding devices each have a deflecting guide which divides the transport path of the slivers into two essentially linear strands and to which a false-twisting element is also assigned. Such a deflecting guide makes it possible, for example, to deposit cans next to the spinning machine while leaving an operating aisle and to guide the slivers, in the manner of a roof, over the aisle to the spinning stations. The additional false-twisting element connected in front of the deflecting guide provides a sufficient protective twist also between the can and the deflecting guide because it cannot simply be assumed that the false twist running back from the false-twisting elements of the drafting units will propagate by way of the deflecting guides.
The false-twisting element assigned to the deflecting guide may be directly connected in front of the deflecting guide. However, as an alternative, it is also possible to design the false-twisting element itself as a deflecting guide. In this case, the false twisting element provides the sliver not only with the protective twist but is also used for the guiding of the sliver.
Expediently, the false-twisting elements are drivable. It is therefore possible to adapt the magnitude of the false twist to the respective fiber material.
Advantageously, feeding rollers situated in front of the pertaining false-twisting elements are connected in front of the drafting units, the delivery speed of the feeding rollers preferably being 5% lower than the feeding speed of the drafting unit. Thus, the circumstance is taken into account that the slivers are shortened as a result of the false twist and are lengthened again correspondingly behind the false twisting elements. When feeding rollers are present, it is therefore necessary to coordinate the speeds of the feeding rollers with the speeds of the feeding rollers of the drafting unit with respect to one another. Such a coordination does not present any problems technically but this aspect has to be taken into account.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Spinning machine with false-twisting devices


In feedback control of a discharge amount of a high pressure fuel pump in which an actual fuel pressure is caused to become a target fuel pressure, when a deviation between the target fuel pressure and the actual fuel pressure has transiently changed, updating of an integral term of the feedback control is stopped. As a result, needless updating of the integral term when the deviation of the target fuel pressure and the actual fuel pressure has transiently increased is inhibited, and fuel pressure overshoot is reliably suppressed.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a fuel injection control device for a direct injection internal combustion engine in which fuel is directly injected into a combustion chamber.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a direct in-cylinder injection internal combustion engine in which fuel is directly injected into a combustion chamber, generally, fuel is pressurized by a high pressure fuel pump and supplied to a fuel injection valve. Fuel pressure is increased to a value (a target fuel pressure) at which it is possible to perform fuel injection since the fuel pressure is higher than a pressure within the combustion chamber.
In this type of fuel pressure control, a controlled variable is calculated based on a deviation between an actual fuel pressure in a fuel pipe and a target fuel pressure. The fuel pressure control is then carried out by performing feedback control of a fuel discharge amount (pump duty) of a high pressure fuel pump in accordance with the controlled variable such that the actual fuel pressure converges on the target fuel pressure. The above mentioned controlled variable used in drive control of the high pressure fuel pump is calculated using (a) an integral term that is updated in accordance with the deviation between the target fuel pressure and the actual fuel pressure, (b) a proportional term that increases and decreases in order to make the deviation between the actual fuel pressure and the target fuel pressure zero, and the like.
In feedback control of the high pressure fuel pump of this kind, when the internal combustion engine is driven at high rotational speeds, fuel pressure overshoot occurs when a cycle of a discharge stroke is shorter than a calculation cycle of the discharge amount control of the high pressure fuel pump. In one suggested method for solving this problem (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2000-282927), overshoot of the actual fuel pressure is suppressed by setting feedback gain to be smaller at high rotational speeds when the cycle of the discharge stroke of the high pressure fuel pump is short.
In fuel injection control of the direct injection internal combustion engine, if the fuel pressure is low despite a required fuel injection amount being large when the internal combustion engine starts or the like, the fuel discharge amount of the high pressure fuel pump is set to a value near to a maximum value thereof, and the fuel pressure is rapidly increased toward the target fuel pressure. At this time, even if the integral term for increasing the fuel pressure is set larger, the fuel discharge amount does not increase. As a result, the fuel pressure does not increase rapidly and the integral term is mistakenly set to an excessively high value. After the actual fuel pressure has exceeded and increased beyond the target fuel pressure, the value of the integral term starts to decrease. However, since the reduction in the value of the integral term takes place slowly, the value of the integral term is mistakenly excessively large. Accordingly, after the actual fuel pressure has reached the target fuel pressure, the controlled variable for controlling the fuel discharge amount of the high pressure fuel pump causes the fuel discharge amount to deviate to an amount that is too large as compared to the required value. Thus, overshoot occurs in which the fuel pressure exceeds and increases beyond the target fuel pressure, which may lead to problems such as deterioration in a combustion condition of the internal combustion engine.
As one approach to solving this type of problem, a method has been proposed for inhibiting the occurrence of overshoot in which updating of an integral term is prohibited when a fluid discharge amount of a high pressure fuel pump is near to the maximum value thereof (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2001-263144). As a result, it is possible to avoid the fuel discharge amount being change excessively to too large an amount due to mistaken setting of the integral term.
Further, another method has been suggested in which, as a method for maintaining favorable fuel pressure control responsiveness in feedback control of a high pressure fuel pump, when an actual fuel pressure is higher than a target fuel pressure during a fuel cut, updating of an integral term of the feedback control is prohibited (refer to, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2000-205018).
However, in the fuel injection control of the internal combustion engine, if a change amount of the target fuel pressure is changed rapidly causing the deviation between the target fuel pressure and the actual fuel pressure to transiently become larger, the actual fuel pressure is caused to track the target fuel pressure due to addition of the proportional term and the integral term in the feedback control. Even if the pump duty is calculated using the target fuel pressure and the actual fuel pressure, there is a delay before when the high pressure fuel pump is actually driven and the fuel discharged. If the timing of the next pump duty calculation occurs during this delay, the integral term increases during the delay. As a result, overshoot occurs in which the actual fuel pressure exceeds and increases beyond the target fuel pressure, whereby the combustion condition of the internal combustion engine may deteriorate.
Moreover, in the direct injection internal combustion engine, a fuel injection cycle is set to be shorter than the discharge stroke cycle of the high pressure fuel pump. Accordingly, even if the target fuel pressure is constant, if the actual fuel pressure has reduced substantially due to load variation, the load variation (the reduction in the actual fuel pressure) cannot be included in the next pump duty calculation. In this case, the deviation between the actual fuel pressure and the target fuel pressure becomes larger, and overshoot occurs in which the integral term of the feedback control increases.
The above described patent publications do not take into consideration this type of overshoot that occurs when the target fuel pressure, the load, or the like, change transiently. Further, this problem cannot be solved by methods like those disclosed in these patent publication, namely, the method in which feedback gain is set smaller at high rotational speeds, or the methods in which updating of the integral term is prohibited when (a) the fuel discharge amount of the high pressure fuel pump is near to the maximum value thereof or (b) the actual fuel pressure is higher than the target fuel pressure during a fuel cut.
Note that, in order to inhibit the pump duty from becoming less than 0% or larger than 100% in the fuel injection control of the direct injection internal combustion engine, art has been disclosed that performs processing in which the pump duty is guarded using an upper-lower limit guard (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2001-263144). With this upper-lower limit guard processing, even when the pump duty is being guarded, the integral term of the feedback control is updated. Thus, when a pump duty DT satisfies, 0%<DT<100%, overshoot of the fuel pressure may occur.

Fuel injection control device for internal combustion engine


An aircraft with automated means to transport. Spherical or one of its segments, without airfoils for lift or guidance. Means for flight are housed within the aircraft. The outer-most sureface is configured to disrupt the air-flow, over its surfaces, in flight. This, to reduce skin-friction and drag coefficients, and mollify heat build-up on the skins outer surfaces as speeds increase to and beyond mach 1. The weight of gas per unit volume, with temperature variations, is the means to reduce the gross-weight and adjust for temperature and weight changes during flight. Propulsion, within the propulsion component, is provided by turbojet engines. They are secured within an inner compression pod and an outer combustion pod. The compression pod and the attached vertical-air-duct, rotate through three hundred sixty degrees, as the means for directional guidance and direct thrust. Augmented power-thrust-tubes extend outward from the combustion pod to the mid-horizontal circumference of the aircraft. Control baffles, on each thrust-tube, check, deflect and regulate the engines' thrust to control the motivity of the aircraft. Struts retract for flight and are extended for landing. These electro-hydraulic struts, level, raise and lower the aircraft for direct ground level support operations. The aircraft has the means to maintain a horizontal flight attitude. For flight aptness the aircraft has an internal, mechanical and scientific means, for vertical ascent and vertical descent without horizontal motivity, to hover and maintain a position and altitude. And during horizontal flight, climb and descend, and perform heading changes. These flight means are all performed in the aircrafts' horizontal attitude.

Description of the Prior Art
Human advances in the art of flight is the product of machines. Machines are devices for accomplishing a task. They usually involve some activity of motion that is performed by working parts.
In general, aircraft gain motivate and fly using articles of manufacture. Different kinds of aircraft have different capabilities, and different user purposes require different capabilities. Certain capabilities exclude others, so that every design is a collection of compromises.
By official designation there are four categories of aircraft; lighter-than-air, gliders, rotor-craft, and airplanes. Aerodynamics and structural considerations for all these categories of aircraft, with the exception of lighter-than-air machines depend upon airfoil's for lift.
Lift required to raise and fly an aircraft is the product of aerodynamics that mathematically resolve the effects of lift, drag, thrust, and weight. By definition, lift forces act perpendicular to the relative wind. Drag forces act in parallel to the relative wind. Thrust forces usually act in parallel to the line of flight. Weight always acts in the direction of gravity. To simplify, for this exercise, an airfoil is any surface that is designed to obtain lift from the air through which it moves.
Ranges of speeds that must be considered is divided into four speed categories. These are denoted successfully as; subsonic, transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic. Each denote a speed range, within which aerodynamic design problems differ and require different resolutions. Aerodynamic designed airfoils for each denoted speed range are ingredients of both engineering and compromises, when fabricating machines for flight.
The earliest desires of man to fly in machines were thwarted by the lack of sufficient means of propulsion. Engine thrust to weight ratios have been developed, and the art of engine propulsion has now exceeded the art of airfoil design and usefulness. And we can now ask; do we need airfoils to fly?. As these powerful engines are developed and become available, many aircraft fabricated parts have to be changed and additional fabricated parts added, to aircraft, to compensate and overcome unsafe flight characteristics. There is increased air-friction and air-pressure, vortex anomaly and sound wave encounters, as airspeeds increase to mach I and beyond. Some of the aircraft fabricated parts that are used for lift and guidance are; propellers, rotor-blades, ailerons, rudders, elevators, wing-flaps, spoilers, trim-tabs. All these are attached and coupled by mechanical and electronic means to control their functions from within a control center.
Aircraft flight control systems generally operate and control aircraft around two axes; the vertical axis for horizontal control, and the horizontal axis for vertical control. Coordinated movements of these control surfaces are required to effect smooth flight maneuvers, through the air. To guide an aircraft, in flight, they are maneuvered into unusual attitudes. An unusual attitude is a change from the horizontal plane perpendicular to the earth's gravitational pull. These unusual attitude changes, increase stress upon the aircraft's structure the flight crews, as well as the passengers and effect the safety of the aircraft.
The gross weight of an aircraft is a means to determine the engine propulsion that is require for its motivity. As the gross weights of aircraft's increase engine propulsion increases are required to lift and fly these machines. At some point, in aircraft development, weight limits and propulsion requirements go beyond the economic feasibility to lift and fly these machines. This invention addresses these disadvantages and compromises, by introducing an alternative means for machine flight.
This invention is a powered-heavier-than-air machine. That can ascend and descend vertically under precision control without the need for airfoil designs, for lift or guidance. After the successful use of internal combustion engines in aircraft, another thirty years were required to solve the problems of controlling rotor-craft as a zero horizontal speed take-off and vertical landing machine. The rotor-craft uses airfoil designed rotor-blades to provide lift and guidance.
This invention addresses a multitude of means to change the way we fly, and introduces a machine for flight that will solve many current aviation problems as we move aviation into a more meaningful future. All flight movements such as vertical ascent and descent are continually being considered for development in many forms and shapes of machines for flight. The uses of airfoil flight seems to be the main direction for these developments, as opposed to the elimination of airfoils for lift and guidance. Aircraft using airfoils for lift and guidance have excessive weight problems to overcome, as well as the elimination of external structures attached to the main fuselages of these airplanes.
A means to lower an aircraft to ground level for ground support services would be an advantage. Some military aircraft require little terminal ground support means. However; flight crew personnel fly with the aircraft and are trained to provide ground and flight support needs. Commercial aircraft operators use motorized ground support machines, in conjunction with especially designed terminal settings, to fulfill these commercial transport needs.
The flight and ground functions of this invention, with automatic means to transport will reduce air terminal congestion and many other problems. It will move air commerce into additional locations, away from the present terminals, located near major cities. This flying machine will support the expanding world population and fulfill their needs, as opposed to the economic and social inconveniences, of fixing an old inadequate system of transport, by air.
This aircraft with automated means to transport eliminates the use of airfoil designs for lift and guidance. It replaces the need for airfoils, that are replaced with engine propulsion means within this new aircraft design.


Multi-piece golf balls having at least one layer made from a polyamide non-ionomeric composition are provided. The polyamide composition consists essentially of about 40 to about 99% by weight polyamide; about 1 to about 60% by weight of an acid anhydride-modified polyolefin; and about 1 to about 60% of a fatty acid additive selected from the group consisting of fatty acid salts, fatty acid amides, and mixtures thereof. The ball includes a core, preferably a dual core construction; and a cover of at least one layer. In another preferred construction, a multi-layered core containing an inner, intermediate, and outer core layer is made. For example, the intermediate core layer may be made of a rubber composition; and each of the inner core and outer core layers may be made of the polyamide composition. The resulting ball has high resiliency along with a soft feel.

Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to multi-piece golf balls and more particularly to golf balls having at least one layer made of polyamide/acid anhydride-modified polyolefin compositions. The golf ball includes a core having at least one layer and a cover having at least one layer. Preferably, the ball contains a dual-core having an inner core and surrounding outer core layer or a multi-layered core having an inner core, intermediate core layer, and outer core layer. Preferably, at least one of the core layers is formed from a composition comprising a blend of polyamide and acid anhydride-modified polyolefin and fatty acid salt and/or amide.
Brief Review of the Related Art
Multi-piece, solid golf balls are used today by recreational and professional golfers. Basically, these golf balls contain an inner core protected by a cover. The core acts as the primary engine for the ball and the cover helps provide the ball with durability and wear-resistance. The core and cover may be single or multi-layered. For example, three-piece golf balls having an inner core, inner cover layer, and outer cover layer are popular. In other instances, golfers will use a four-piece ball containing a dual-core (inner core and surrounding outer-core layer) and dual-cover (inner cover layer and surrounding outer cover layer). Intermediate (casing) layer(s) may be disposed between the core and cover layers to impart various properties. Thus, five-piece and even six-piece balls can be made. Normally, the core layers are made of a natural or synthetic rubber material or highly neutralized ionomer polymers (HNPs). These ionomer polymers are typically copolymers of ethylene and methacrylic acid or acrylic acid that are partially or fully neutralized. Metal ions such as sodium, lithium, zinc, and magnesium are used to neutralize the acid groups in the copolymer.
Such ethylene acid copolymer ionomer resins are relatively hard materials having good durability, cut-resistance, and toughness. The ionomers may be used to make cover, intermediate, and core layers. When used as a core material, the hard ionomer resin helps impart a higher initial velocity to the golf ball. This is particularly advantageous for driver shots off the tee. The ball tends to have good flight distance. However, one disadvantageous feature of such balls is they tend to have a hard "feel." Some players experience a harsher, less comfortable feel when their club face makes contact with these hard balls. The player senses less control and the harder ball tends to have low initial spin. It is generally more difficult to hit hard balls with the proper touch and control. This can be particularly troublesome when making approach shots with irons near the green.
Thus, the industry has looked at numerous non-ionomeric materials such as polyolefins, polyamides, polyesters, polyurethanes, polyureas, fluoropolymers, polyvinyl chlorides, polycarbonates, polyethers, polyimides, and the like for making components and layers in golf balls. For example, Kim et al, US Patent Application Publication US 2010/0167845 discloses golf balls having a core, at least one intermediate layer, and at least one cover layer prepared from blends of polyamides with functional polymer modifiers of the polyamide. The functional modifier of the polyamide can include ∝-olefin copolymers or terpolymers having a glycidyl group, hydroxyl group, maleic anhydride group, or carboxylic group. The polyamide composition is preferably blended with a polyalkenamer rubber/functionalized organic modifier material.
Sullivan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,872,774 discloses a multi-layered golf ball having a core, intermediate layer, and cover. The intermediate layer is made of a composition comprising a non-ionomeric acid polymer and non-ionomeric stiffening polymer including blends of polyamides and polypropylene and polyethylene copolymers that have been grafted with maleic anhydride or sulfonate groups.
In Rajagopalan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,800,690 golf balls having at least one layer formed from a composition comprising a polyamide and non-ionomeric material including grafted or non-grafted metallocene-catalyzed olefinic polymers such as polyethylene and copolymers of ethylene are disclosed. The olefinic polymers may also contain functional groups such as epoxy, anhydride, amine, oxazoline, sulfonic acid, carboxylic acid, and their salts.
Although some non-ionomeric compositions containing polyamides as mentioned above may be somewhat effective for making certain components and layers in a golf ball, there is still a need for new compositions that can impart high quality performance properties to the ball. Particularly, there is a continuing need for improved core constructions in golf balls. The core material should have good toughness and provide the ball with high resiliency. The core material, however, should not be excessively hard and stiff so that properties such as feel, softness, and spin control are sacrificed. The present invention provides golf balls having an optimum combination of properties.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Golf ball materials based on blends of polyamide and acid anhydride-modified polyolefins


A method and a device for low x-ray radiation dosage while taking x-ray images of a patient's teeth is disclosed. The method includes use of an x-ray source and receiver positioned at least partially inside the patient's mouth. The device includes an x-ray source and receiver attached together by a bite holder and configured to both be disposed at least partially inside the patient's mouth across a tooth while taking x-ray images of a patient's tooth.

Typical dental x-rays are performed with an x-ray source or an x-ray receiver disposed outside the mouth of a patient, and the other of the x-ray source or x-ray receiver disposed inside the mouth of the patient. The patient's cheek or lip may force a gap between source or receiver and the tooth. Because of this gap, increased x-ray flux may be needed to obtain an image of the tooth. The cheek or lip may also block the medical professional's view, resulting in images taken at incorrect locations. As a result, the x-ray image may need to be retaken. Increased x-ray flux due to the large gap and due to retakes of the image may expose the patient to extra, undesirable radiation, which can cause health problems. For example, see Korean Patent Number KR 10-1147059 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,752,990, 3,906,235, 4,100,417, 4,193,002.


A compact molded case circuit breaker operating mechanism crossbar assembly allows a unitary crossbar design to be used within a wide range of circuit breaker ampere ratings. A common phenolic crossbar and a metal staple are used for the higher ratings. An L-shaped filler in combination with the crossbar and staple are used to adapt the crossbar to the staple for the lower ratings.

Industrial-rated circuit breakers are available having operating components that are designed for automatic assembly to provide cost improvement as well as improved operating efficiency. The precision alignment performed by the automated assembly equipment allows the operating components within the circuit breaker operation mechanism to be installed within very close operating tolerances. The operating mechanism assembly includes a pair of powerful operating springs that are overcentered for rapidly driving the movable contact arm and the attached movable contact away from the stationary fixed contact to interrupt the circuit current. The operating mechanism includes a cradle operator which engages a latch assembly to prevent the movable contact arm from being driven to its open position under the urgence of the charged operating springs. The compact latch assembly includes a primary and secondary latch operating within a common support structure.
As described within U.S. Pat. No. 5,089,795,the operating mechanism includes a crossbar unit that attaches the movable contact arm to the operating mechanism assembly. A force-resistant phenolic resin material having a solid steel core is used to fabricate the crossbar that connects the individual movable contact arms within the different poles in order that the contacts within each pole are opened and closed in unison. The metal staple and the crossbar vary in size to accommodate the various circuit breaker ampere ratings.
It would be economically advantageous to have a common-sized crossbar assembly that will accommodate a large range of circuit breaker ampere ratings and facilitate the assembly of the circuit breaker operating components.
One purpose of the invention is to provide a common crossbar assembly capable of being used within a large range of circuit breaker ampere ratings without deterring from the automatic assembly of the circuit breaker operating mechanism components.

Molded case circuit breaker operating mechanism crossbar assembly


A door operator for operating a door includes a housing, an output shaft with a cam disc, an opening piston guided in the housing, which piston, on a first side, bears against the cam disc, an energy accumulator acting upon the opening piston for storing a closing energy for the door, and a damping piston guided in a cylindrically shaped hollow space of a cylinder element, and which piston, on a second side, bears against the cam disc, wherein the cylinder element is firmly connected to the opening piston.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a door operator, in particular to a door closer for operating a door.
2. Related Art
Door operators are understood to be in particular door closers, servo-assisted door closers and door drives. In door closers, an energy accumulator is usually pre-loaded by manually actuating the door leaf. The door can be closed again without manual actuation by discharging the energy accumulator. The door closers are either attached directly to the door leaf, to a door transom or to a wall. With an attachment to a door leaf, an arm assembly is attached to the output shaft of the door closer. It is via this arm assembly that the force is transferred onto the wall, respectively onto the transom.
When mounting the door closer to the transom or to the wall, the force is transferred onto the door leaf via the arm assembly. As an alternative, it is likewise possible to connect the output shaft coaxially to the axis of rotation of the door. The problem with those prior art door closers is always the important opening momentum which is likewise required for pre-tensioning the energy accumulator. In particular when used by children, elderly people or physically handicapped individuals, an opening momentum too important is generally inconvenient and does not allow for a barrier-free access.


A composite article of manufacture formed from at least three sheets of material laminated to one another. At least one surface of each of the sheets has a plurality of spaced-apart ridges which extend in a predetermined direction along the surface, and each of the pluralities of ridges is arranged so as to nest between a plurality of ridges on an adjacent sheet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to composite articles, particularly those suitable for use as construction materials.
2. Description of Related Art
As natural resources are depleted, there is an increased need for replacing naturally-derived materials with man-made components. This is particularly true for construction materials, which are typically made from wood.
Although various plastics can be suitable for replacing construction materials made from wood, it may be difficult to provide a plastic replacement component which has the same strength and rigidity as the wood component it is intended to replace. Thus, there is a need for composite articles manufactured from plastic, particularly construction materials which can be readily used in place of traditional wood materials.

Composite articles formed from sheets having interconnecting ridges


The present invention provides a writing technique which can perform high-accuracy overlay writing in electron beam writing equipment performing mark detection by light.

The present invention relates to a lithography technique. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electron beam writing technique used in a semiconductor process.
Electron beam measuring equipment which detects a wafer position by light to measure it by electron beam is proposed. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-22676, mark positions are detected by light and electron beam to identify the distance between both, thereby feeding back a mark detected value by the light to position control of the electron beam.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-214117, a method of detecting a wafer position by light to perform writing by electron beam is proposed.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-275500, a method of measuring the focus and stigma of an electron beam by a transmitted electron which has transmitted through an aperture on a stage is proposed.

Electron beam writing equipment and electron beam writing method

Abstract: Electron beam writing equipment has an electron source; an electron optical system illuminating an electron beam emitted from the electron source onto a sample for scanning to form a desired pattern on the sample; a stage mounting the sample; a mark substrate provided on the stage; means beaming a light beam for position detection which is on the same side as the illumination direction of the electron beam for illuminating the mark substrate; light detection means which is on the same side as the means beaming a light beam for detecting reflected light reflected on the mark substrate; and electron detection means which is on the side opposite the light detection means with respect to the mark substrate for detecting a transmitted electron obtained by illumination of the electron beam onto the mark substrate, wherein relative position information of the light beam and the electron beam is obtained based on the signals of the detected reflected light and transmitted electron.


Embodiments of the disclosure provide systems and methods for processing unstructured texts in a medical record. A disclosed system includes at least one processor configured to determine a plurality of word representations of an unstructured text and tag entities in the unstructured text by performing a named entity recognition task on the plurality of word representations. The at least one processor is further configured to determine position embeddings based on positions of words in the unstructured text relative to positions of the tagged entities and concatenate the plurality of word representations with the position embeddings. The at least one processor is also configured to determine relation labels between pairs of tagged entities by performing a relationship extraction task on the concatenated word representations and position embeddings.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has been widely used in the medical domain to automatically extract useful information. NER and RE from unstructured text are fundamental tasks in many important NLP information extraction applications. For example, such tasks may include medical report structuring and biomedical text mining using free texts such as electronic medical records and biomedical research articles.
Traditional NER and RE methods are heavily dependent on hand-crafted features and language-specific lexical resources such as gazetteers and require a large amount of domain knowledge. Over the past few years, the development of deep neural networks has enabled automatic learning of features, which freed the time-consuming process of creating hand-crafted features. However, existing NER and RE methods still have many drawbacks. For example, a NER task typically employs a bi-directional recurrent neural network (RNN), e.g., LSTM or GRU, for sequential encoding and a conditional random field (CRF) network for decoding. However, RNN is slow to train and its capability to capture long range dependency is limited in sequence-to-sequence learning tasks. In addition, word embedding is a typical and crucial input for such models. However, a potential limitation of using only word-level information is the incapability to encode orthographic information in entities. Although it has been proposed to extend word embedding with character-level information using neural networks to improve NER performance, no character-level model has been developed that can effectively capture character-level information. On the other hand, the RE task typically utilizes a syntactic dependency parser to exploit the dependency relations among words in context. There are two main problems with this approach: (1) dependency parser is not always available in the medical domain, and the use of dependency parsers from another domain will strongly limit its accuracy and value; (2) such models are not end-to-end trainable, namely dependency parsers need to be pre-trained and its results will be used as input to the RE model.
Furthermore, in the existing methods, NER and RE are typically applied in sequence, i.e., NER is performed first and the results are used as inputs to the RE task. Such pipeline methods suffer from error propagation.
Embodiments of the disclosure address the above problems by systems and methods for joint NER and RE using a CNN.

Method and system for joint named entity recognition and relation extraction using convolutional neural network

SHENZHEN KEYA MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION


A flexible electrochromic device including a flexible transparent electrode including a predetermined pattern, an insulating layer formed on a portion of the transparent electrode other than the predetermined pattern, a semiconductor layer formed on the predetermined pattern, an electrochromic monolayer formed on the semiconductor layer, a flexible counter electrode disposed to face the transparent electrode and an electrolyte provided in a space between the transparent electrode and the counter electrode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flexible electrochromic device and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a flexible electrochromic device, which includes a patterned insulating layer, a nanocrystalline semiconductor layer adsorbed on a predetermined pattern and an electrochromic material layer improving contrast and operational properties of a display device, and to a method of manufacturing such an electrochromic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electrochromic device is a device that can exhibit a visual chromism effect through chemical or physical transformation of the molecular structure of electrochromic material caused by various external stimuli including electrical stimulus. Such a device is based on the principle of inducing visual change in color or shade due to a redox reaction. The redox reaction is caused by the transfer of ions or electrons contained in the electrolyte supplied between a transparent electrode and a counter electrode into an electrochromic material layer upon the generation of potential difference between the two electrodes by external electrical stimulus. The electrochromic device can control the optical properties and thus can be used for information treatment, such as the recording, display and output of information data.
In regard to the electrochromic device, WO97/035227 discloses a nano electrochromic display, in which electrical active material such as viologen is adsorbed on a nanocrystalline semiconductor material. In addition, WO98/035267 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,870,657 disclose an electrochromic device including semiconductive metal oxide having an adsorbed redox chromophore. However, since the nanocrystalline semiconductor material should be formed at high temperatures of 450° C. or more in order to exhibit desired properties, it is difficult to apply on a flexible transparent substrate.
The flexible nanocrystalline electrochromic device, which is a display device using a flexible transparent substrate such as plastic, is receiving attention in terms of having wide application fields by virtue of the flexible properties thereof. However, in the case where the flexible substrate is used, a process of forming metal oxide such as TiO2, which is the main constituent of the semiconductor electrode, should be conducted at low temperatures of 200° C. or less, and thus, high reliability of TiO2 cannot be assured, undesirably exhibiting insufficient display performance.
In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2002-100416 discloses a photoelectric conversion device manufactured by attaching a semiconductor particle layer to the surface of the conductive layer of a conductive support via electrophoretic deposition.
However, such techniques suffer because they do not include a process of forming a nanocrystalline pattern on a flexible substrate, and achieving low contrast and long response time.

Flexible electrochromic device and method of manufacturing the same


A retainer mechanism for an axial piston machine embodies a shoe plate having a plurality of openings defined in a circumferential outer portion thereof to receive a plurality of shoes and a biasing mechanism operative during assembly to apply a force to an inner portion of the shoe plate to hold the plurality of shoes against a swashplate disposed in the axial piston machine. Prior to assembly the shoe plate has a force transferring surface that is generally frusto-conical in shape. During assembly, the biasing mechanism applies a force to the inner portion of the shoe plate to generally flatten the frusto-conical shaped force transferring surface and urge it against a flat bearing surface of the respective shoes.

Retainer mechanisms are well known in the art and primarily function to hold the shoes of a piston assembly against a swashplate of an axial piston machine. A well known problem with axial piston machines is keeping the shoes in contact with the swashplate or keeping the shoes from tipping with respect to the swashplate. Many different styles of shoe plates have been used in an attempt to overcome the above noted problems. A widely utilized design of shoe plates include a circular shape with a flat surface on one side and a plurality of openings defined therein to receive the respective shoes. The flat surface of the shoe plate encircles a neck portion of the respective shoes and contacts an adjacent flat bearing surface. A force is applied to the shoe plate to hold the shoe plate against the respective shoes and thus hold the respective shoes against the swashplate.
One of the problems associated with this type of shoe plate is that the shoe plate is distorted when the force is applied to it. A distorted shoe plate delivers unequal contact on the bearing surface of the shoes and ultimately leads to the shoe tipping. Once the shoe tips, the fluid bearing film between the shoe and the swashplate is broken and catastrophic damage can result due to galling between the materials of the shoe and the swashplate.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.

Retainer mechanism for an axial piston machine


The present disclosure provides isolated laminin-421, methods for making recombinant laminin-421, and host cells that express recombinant laminin-421. The present disclosure also provides nucleic acid sequences encoding full length human laminin β2 chain, expression vectors and host cells thereof.

This application relates to cell biology, cell differentiation, cell therapy, molecular biology, proteins, nucleic acids, and laminins.
Basal laminae (basement membranes) are sheet-like, cell-associated extracellular matrices that play a central role in cell growth, cellular differentiation, cell phenotype maintenance, tissue development, and tissue maintenance. They are present in virtually all tissues, and appear in the earliest stages of embryonic development.
Basal laminae are central to a variety of architectural and cell-interactive functions. For example:
1. They serve as architectural supports for tissues, providing adhesive substrata for cells.
2. They create perm-selective barriers between tissue compartments that impede the migration of cells and passively regulate the exchange of macromolecules. These properties are illustrated by the kidney glomerular basement membrane, which functions as an important filtration structure, creating an effective blood-tissue barrier that is not permeable to most proteins and cells.
3. Basal laminae create highly interactive surfaces that can promote cell migration and cell elongation during embryogenesis and wound repair. Following an injury, they provide a surface upon which cells regenerate to restore normal tissue function.
4. Basal laminae present information encoded in their structure to contacting cells that is important for cellular differentiation, prevention of apoptosis, and tissue maintenance. This information is communicated to the cells through various receptors that include the integrins, dystroglycan, and cell surface proteoglycans. Signaling is dependent not only on the presence of matrix ligands and corresponding receptors that interact with sufficient affinities, but also on such topographical factors as ligand density in a three-dimensional matrix "landscape", and on the ability of basal lamina components to cluster receptors. Because these matrix proteins can be long-lived, basal laminae create a "surface memory" in the basal lamina for resident and transient cells.
The basal lamina is largely composed of laminin and type IV collagen heterotrimers that in turn become organized into complex polymeric structures. To date, six types IV collagen polypeptide chains and at least twelve laminin subunit chains have been identified. These chains possess shared and unique functions and are expressed with specific temporal (developmental) and spatial (tissue-site specific) patterns.
Laminins are a family of heterotrimeric glycoproteins that reside primarily in the basal lamina. They function via binding interactions with neighboring cell receptors on the one side, and by binding to other laminin molecules or other matrix proteins such as collagens, nidogens or proteoglycans. The laminin molecules are also important signaling molecules that can strongly influence cellular function. Laminins are important in both maintaining cell/tissue phenotype as well as promoting cell growth and differentiation in tissue repair and development.
Laminins are large, multi-domain proteins, with a common structural organization. The laminin molecule integrates various matrix and cell interactive functions into one molecule.
A laminin molecule is comprised of one α-chain subunit, one β-chain subunit, and one γ-chain subunit, all joined together through a coiled-coil domain. The twelve laminin subunit chains can form at least 15 trimeric laminin types in native tissues. Within the trimeric laminin structures are identifiable domains that possess binding activity towards other laminin and basal lamina molecules, and membrane-bound receptors. Domains VI, IVb, and IVa form globular structures, and domains V, IIIb, and IIIa (which contain cysteine-rich EGF-like elements) form rod-like structures. Domains I and II of the three chains participate in the formation of a triple-stranded coiled-coil structure (the long arm).
Four structurally-defined family groups of laminins have been identified. The first group of five identified laminin molecules all share the β1 and γ1 chains, and vary by their α-chain composition (α1 to α5 chain). The second group of five identified laminin molecules, including laminin-421, all share the β2 and γ1 chain, and again vary by their α-chain composition. The third group of identified laminin molecules has one identified member, laminin-332, with a chain composition of α3β3γ2. The fourth group of identified laminin molecules has one identified member, laminin-213, with the newly identified γ3 chain (α2β1γ3).
There have been no reports of isolated laminin-421 that is free of other laminin chains. Thus far, there are no studies on the function of laminin-421. Attempts to purify laminin-421 from cell sources by affinity chromatography using laminin chain antibodies have been unsuccessful in eliminating, for example, laminin β1 chain, which is a component of laminin-411.
The function of laminin-421 would be important to study using purified molecules. The availability of pure laminin-421 would enable studies of the effects of the protein on cellular differentiation and maintenance of cellular phenotypes. Thus, numerous research and therapeutic purposes including, but not limited to, treating injuries to tissues, promoting cell attachment, expansion and migration, ex vivo cell therapy, improving the biocompatibility of medical devices, and preparing improved cell culture devices and media, would be furthered if pure laminin-421 were available.
Thus, there is a need in the art for isolated laminin-421 for research and therapeutic purposes, and methods for making isolated laminin-421.


A device and method for controlling rotation of a displayed image is provided. The device includes a sensor unit for detecting whether the device has been rotated; a photography unit for taking a picture of the face of a user in response to a determination that the device is rotated; a rotation determination unit for determining a rotation of the displayed image based on the captured face image of the user; and an image rotation unit for rotating the displayed image according to the determined rotation of the displayed image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a device and method for controlling rotation of a displayed image, and, more particularly, to a device and method for using a captured image of a user to control rotation of an image displayed on a screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some recent devices for displaying images may display images by rotating them with respect to a rotation state of the devices.
Specifically, when such a device is positioned vertically, the device outputs a displayed image by rotating the displayed image in a vertical orientation; and when positioned horizontally, the device outputs the displayed image by rotating the device into a horizontal orientation.
However, since conventional devices tend to take only the rotation state of the devices into consideration in determining the orientation of the displayed image, the displayed image may rotate inappropriately, which causes problems for users when viewing the inappropriately rotated image.
Accordingly, a new technology for effectively determining whether to rotate a displayed image is required.

Device and method for controlling rotation of displayed image


A rotary motion feedthrough for coupling rotary motion from a rotatable shaft between an atmospheric side to a vacuum side includes a dynamic magnetic seal formed of magnets separated by pole rings which rings are formed integral with the shaft to form a magnetic system which rotates with the shaft.

Ferrofluid sealed rotary feedthroughs are well known in the art as devices for transmitting motion through the walls of vacuum chambers. A typical feedthrough device is shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B. The device employs a housing 10, bearings 12 and rotatable shaft 14, together with a magnet system 16 that is non-rotatably fixed within the housing 10. The magnet system 16 comprises at least one ring magnet 18 and associated magnetic pole piece components 20. Small annular gaps 22 bounded by the outside of the shaft and the inside of the pole piece components are filled with ferrofluid 24 (a colloidal suspension of ferromagnetic particles in a low vapor pressure fluid), which is held in place by the intense magnetic field generated by the magnet system 16. The ferrofluid permits the shaft 14 to turn freely but serves to block the flow of gas axially along the shaft, thereby allowing a pressure difference to exist between the "atmosphere" and "vacuum" ends 26 and 28, respectively, of the feedthrough 100. The particular design shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B uses four ring magnets 18 and five pole rings 20 to produce eight sealing gaps 22. Other magnetic designs e.g., one ring magnet with two pole rings are well known.
Some of the major disadvantages of the prior art are:
1. Very Precise Mechanical Tolerances are Required. If the magnetic gap region deviates very much from a true circular annulus, the seal will have reduced pressure capacity, and may not support the required pressure differential. Consequently, shaft and pole pieces must be aligned with great precision. This requires close-tolerance manufacture of housing, pole pieces and shafts. In devices of the type illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B, the dimensions of housing bore, shaft diameter, shaft bearing journals, pole piece outer diameter, and pole piece inner diameter are all typically controlled to within 0.0005 inch of their nominal values. In addition, the pole piece outer and inner diameters are typically specified to be concentric to within 0.0005 inch. These values represent a practical compromise between performance and manufacturing cost.
2. Static Sealing of Pole Pieces is Required.
Sealing must be accomplished in two places in prior art rotary feedthroughs. The first (and obvious) seal is the dynamic seal provided by the ferrofluid between the shaft 14 and pole pieces 20. The second is the static seal provided by O-rings 30 or other materials which seal the spaces between the housing and the outer diameter of the pole piece 20. Elimination of these static seals would simplify the feedthrough, improve reliability and reduce cost.
3. Magnetic Flux Leakage is Significant.
Conventional magnetic fluid feedthroughs 100 (FIGS. 1A and 1B) use main magnetic flux paths that include the magnets, pole rings, fluid gaps and shaft. At the outside diameter of the pole piece, some magnetic flux leaks from one pole ring to the next in a parasitic parallel path. This parasitic external flux represents a minor portion of the total magnetic energy in the system. However, the external flux levels are not zero, and are significant in some applications e.g., electron microscopes.
4. Self-Heating of Ferrofluid at High RPM is Significant. At high RPM, a significant amount of heat is generated in the ferrofluid 24 causing the fluid temperature to increase. Heat must flow through the pole piece 20 to some external heat sink, such as the housing 10 or a water-cooling circuit in the pole piece.

Rotary motion feedthrough with rotating magnet system


A sphygmomanometer includes a pulse wave detecting section, a pulse wave amplitude calculation section, a pace change calculation section, and a pulse wave amplitude correction section. The pulse wave detecting section detects pulse waves, and the pulse wave amplitude calculation section calculates an amplitude of a pulse wave. The pace change calculation section calculates the amount of change of the increasing/decreasing pace of the cuff pressure between pulse waves based on the difference between the increasing/decreasing pace of the cuff pressure during a period of the pulse wave and the increasing/decreasing pace of the cuff pressure during a period of a preceding pulse wave. The pulse wave amplitude correction section corrects the amplitude of the pulse wave based on the amount of change of the increasing/decreasing pace of the cuff pressure. A blood pressure value is determined based on the corrected amplitude of the pulse wave.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an oscillometric type blood pressure measurement device, a blood pressure measurement method and a blood pressure measurement program.
2. Description of the Related Art
An oscillometric type blood pressure measurement device as a device that automatically measures a blood pressure value of a living body is known (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H09-253059, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H03-55026, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2002-209859.)
An oscillometric type automated blood pressure measurement device gradually changes a compression on a living body through a cuff wrapped around one part of the living body at a predetermined pace and, at the same time, detects cuff pressure during a period of this change in compression. Then, from the detected cuff pressure, the oscillometric type automated blood pressure measurement device detects a pulse wave that is a pressure component synchronized with a pulse of the living body and superimposed on the compression, and determines the blood pressure value of the living body based on a change in amplitude of that pulse wave.
FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a change in detected cuff pressure in a period where the cuff is being inflated by a basic oscillometric type blood pressure measurement device. In FIG. 10, a horizontal axis represents time and a vertical axis represents detected cuff pressure.
A straight line illustrated by a broken line of FIG. 10 illustrates compression from the cuff (inflation base line), and the example of FIG. 10 illustrates a case where compression is increasing at a constant pace from the cuff inflation start. A solid line of FIG. 10 illustrating each mountain-shaped wave form is illustrating a pulse wave superimposed on the compression illustrated by a broken line.
Various ways are known for calculating an amplitude value of a pulse wave needed to determine a blood pressure value. For example, in FIG. 10, if a difference between a peak value of the pulse wave and the pressure, on a straight line connecting rising points of the pulse wave, at a time when the peak value is obtained (a1, a2 and a3 in FIG. 10) is calculated as a pulse wave amplitude, the blood pressure value can be determined with high accuracy.
The blood pressure measurement devices disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Applications do not obtain amplitude value by the aforementioned method, but they do perform a variety of innovations to raise a measurement accuracy of the blood pressure value.
The blood pressure measurement device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H09-253059 measures a change pace of a compression of the cuff at a time of pulse wave generation and raises the measurement accuracy of the blood pressure value by correcting the compression at the time of pulse wave generation according to this pace.
The blood pressure measurement device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H03-55026 raises the measurement accuracy of the blood pressure value by correcting an error in the blood pressure value that is subject to a pulse rate.
The blood pressure measurement device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2002-209859 raises the measurement accuracy of the blood pressure value by correcting pulse wave amplitude based on a photoelectric pulse wave detected from a photoelectric pulse wave sensor, correcting the compression based on a heartbeat period and determining maximum and minimum blood pressure values from post-correction pulse wave amplitude and pressure.
Control to increase a compression from a cuff at a constant pace is performed in an oscillometric type blood pressure measurement device in order to detect an amplitude value of a pulse wave with precision, as illustrated in FIG. 10.
Sphygmomanometers for home use have become more prevalent in recent years, but from a perspective of improving usability of sphygmomanometers for home use, miniaturization and cost reduction are demanded. Because of that, cost reduction and miniaturization of a pump that sends fluid to a cuff have advanced.
However, because pump size and cost have a mutual trade off relationship with output flow rate, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve a desired inflation pace as miniaturization and cost reduction advance.
FIG. 11 illustrates a state where a change pace of the compression in FIG. 10 changes in midstream. FIG. 11 illustrates a state of a time when the change pace of the compression of the cuff up to time t1 and the change pace of the compression of the cuff after time t2 change.
In this state, the compression of the cuff between time t1 and time t2 changes to a curved condition as shown by a dashed line, and the compression of the cuff is not changing in a constant manner. Accordingly, when amplitude a2 of the pulse wave is determined through the aforementioned method, an error is generated in relation to a precise amplitude a2′, and measuring accuracy of a blood pressure value decreases.
The blood pressure measurement devices disclosed in Patent Documents 1-3 do not calculate a difference between a peak value of the pulse wave and a pressure, on a straight line connecting rising points of the pulse wave, at a time when the peak value is obtained as a pulse wave amplitude value. Because of that, a situation where the compression of the cuff is not changing in a constant manner does not occur with Patent Documents 1-3 and, not surprisingly, this situation is not considered in Patent Documents 1-3.
Accordingly, one or more embodiments of the present invention provides a blood pressure measurement device, a blood pressure measurement method and a blood pressure measurement program that are capable of performing measurement of blood pressure value with high accuracy.


A cleaning apparatus includes a brush member to be brought into contact with a member to be cleaned to remove toner particles attached to the member. The brush member includes a conductive material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cleaning apparatus for removing dirt attached to a member included in image forming apparatuses such as copiers, facsimiles and printers, and more particularly to the cleaning apparatus including an electrically conductive brush attached to a brush roller for removing residual toner particles.
2. Discussion of the Background
In known image forming apparatuses such as copiers, printers and facsimiles, for example, a toner image is carried in the form of a sheet on a recording media, having been formed by an image forming mechanism such as electro-photography, for example. The toner image which is carried on the recording medium is formed on an image bearing body, such as photoreceptor, for example, before being transferred to the recording medium.
In an image forming apparatus, for example, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, the peripheral surface of a cylindrical electrophotographic photoreceptor, i.e., photoconductive drum as an image bearing member, is uniformly charged, and an electrostatic latent image is formed on the uniformly charged peripheral surface in accordance with image formation data. This electrostatic latent image is visualized with the use of developer, that is, a toner image is formed. Then, the toner image is transferred from the photoreceptor onto a piece of transfer medium, i.e., recording medium, and is fixed to the transfer medium, to obtain a copy or a print.
Up to now, a cleaning apparatus has been utilized in an image forming process of a toner image in order to clean the peripheral surface of the image bearing body, a charging roller and a transfer belt which form a toner image onto a recording medium. The cleaning apparatus removes residual toner particles attached to the cleaning target and dirt such as paper dust.
In unexamined Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publications No. 6-095570 and 7-140763, a cleaning apparatus is known to include a brush roller which is placed in contact with the peripheral surface of the target for cleaning. In the cleaning apparatus of this kind, the brush roller is rotated by a driving apparatus. Difference between the linear velocity of a brush brought into contact with the peripheral surface of a cleaning object and the linear velocity of the cleaning target causes residual foreign substance to be swept away, cleaning the peripheral surface of photoreceptor.
In unexamined Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2002-221883, a brush with a bristle of approximately 2 mm or less in length is proposed. However, the foreign substance is cleaned not by a difference of linear velocity between a brush roller and the cleaning target but by using elastic deformation to hold one edge of the bristle in contact with the peripheral surface of a cleaning target.
However, when foreign substances such as toner and paper dust, for example, are strongly adhered to the cleaning target, the foreign substances are not removed by the above-described removing mechanisms. If the foreign substances continue to accumulate, a blurred line may be printed during operation of the image forming apparatus.

Cleaning apparatus with conductive member