A wireless safety and surveillance recorder system for aircraft incorporates a plurality of strategically spaced wireless sensors for monitoring critical components and operational characteristics of the aircraft. The captured data and a wireless image are transmitted to a monitor in the cockpit and recorded on a "black box" flight recorder, and may be transmitted to ground control stations for real time or near real time surveillance. The system may include a second recorder for providing redundancy and may include redundant sensors.

1. Field of Invention
The subject invention is generally related to safety and surveillance equipment for aircraft and is specifically directed to a wireless data collection and transmission system for commercial aircraft.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Aircraft safety is of ever increasing importance. This is particularly true with respect to commercial airlines as more and more people and freight are moved in this manner. The airways are becoming increasingly crowded with traffic. While air travel is still the safest form of transportation, if the present growth rate continues there will be a fatal accident involving aircraft on a daily basis within the next decade. Therefore, not only is it of critical importance that additional safety precautions be devised and adapted but also that better and more efficient accident reconstruction methods be developed, as well. The effort to reconstruct the cause of the fatal crash of TWA Flight 800 in July, 1996 has exceeded $25,000,000.00.
Electronic systems have already greatly enhanced the safety record of commercial aircraft. Global tracking systems are now in place to monitor the flight of the aircraft from its destination. Radar and global positioning systems are commonplace. All of these electronic systems have increased the ability to track the performance of an aircraft frame the moment it lifts off until it safely lands.
In addition, the on board avionics including electronic monitoring and diagnostic equipment, particularly on large commercial jets, continues to evolve, giving both the on board crew and the tracking station more complete, accurate and up-to-date information regarding the condition of the aircraft while in flight.
Flight recorders long have been incorporated in order to provide a record of each flight and in order to provide critical information to aid in the determination of the causes of an accident or malfunction should one occur. In the prior art systems transducers, sensors and other monitoring equipment, such as by way of example, pressure gauges, temperature sensors and the like are positioned at strategic locations throughout the aircraft for monitoring the operation of these components. The transducers, sensors and other monitoring equipment are hardwired to the on board "black box" data recorders and to various monitoring equipment in the cockpit. While the data collected and transmitted by this equipment provides useful real-time information to the flight crew and is useful in reconstructing the cause and effect of catastrophic incidents, the systems of the prior art have shortcomings reducing the effectiveness of the data.
Typically, the hardwired systems of the prior art will stop collecting data once there has been a structural failure of the airframe or a disruption in aircraft power. This is because the transmission lines of the hardwired system are interrupted, or the power system is either interrupted or the aircraft power source ceases to operate. This precludes the collection and transmission of critical data at the very moment when it is most critical, i.e., at the moment when a catastrophic event occurs.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a data collection and retrieval system that would continue to monitor and collect data after a power interruption or other catastrophic failure. Further it would be desirable to have redundant recordings of the critical data and redundant monitors and capture as well. While such a system would be of great benefit to the airline industry in general and to the commercial airlines in particular, there are no systems currently available which meet these needs.

Wireless transducer data capture and retrieval system for aircraft


Attenuation caused by dispersion in an optical fiber communications system is compensated. A number of low-speed channels is to be transmitted across an optical fiber. Each low-speed channel is allocated a different frequency band for transmission. The attenuation caused by dispersion is estimated for each of the frequency bands. The power of each low-speed channel is adjusted to compensate for the estimated attenuation. The power-adjusted low-speed channels are frequency division multiplexed together to produce an electrical high-speed channel suitable for transmission across the communications system.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to optical fiber communications, and more particularly, to the use of independent gain control for different frequency channels in an optical fiber communications systems utilizing frequency division multiplexing.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the result of continuous advances in technology, particularly in the area of networking, there is an increasing demand for communications bandwidth. For example, the growth of the Internet, home office usage, e-commerce and other broadband services is creating an ever-increasing demand for communications bandwidth. Upcoming widespread deployment of new bandwidth-intensive services, such as xDSL, will only further intensify this demand. Moreover, as data-intensive applications proliferate and data rates for local area networks increase, businesses will also demand higher speed connectivity to the wide area network (WAN) in order to support virtual private networks and high-speed Internet access. Enterprises that currently access the WAN through T1 circuits will require DS-3, OC-3, or equivalent connections in the near future. As a result, the networking infrastructure will be required to accommodate greatly increased traffic.
Optical fiber is a transmission medium that is well suited to meet this increasing demand. Optical fiber has an inherent bandwidth which is much greater than metal-based conductors, such as twisted pair or coaxial cable. There is a significant installed base of optical fibers and protocols such as the SONET protocol have been developed for the transmission of data over optical fibers. The transmitter converts the data to be communicated into an optical form and transmits the resulting optical signal across the optical fiber to the receiver. The receiver recovers the original data from the received optical signal. Recent advances in transmitter and receiver technology have also resulted in improvements, such as increased bandwidth utilization, lower cost systems, and more reliable service.
However, current optical fiber systems also suffer from drawbacks which limit their performance and/or utility. Many of these drawbacks are frequency dependent. For example, optical fibers typically exhibit dispersion, meaning that signals at different frequencies travel at different speeds along the fiber. More importantly, if a signal is made up of components at different frequencies, the components travel at different speeds along the fiber and will arrive at the receiver at different times and/or with different phase shifts. As a result, the components may not recombine correctly at the receiver, thus distorting or degrading the original signal. In fact, at certain frequencies, the dispersive effect may result in destructive interference at the receiver, thus effectively preventing the transmission of signals at these frequencies. Dispersion effects may be compensated by installing special devices along the fiber specifically for this purpose. However, the additional equipment results in additional cost and different compensators will be required for different types and lengths of fiber.
As another example, the electronics in an optical fiber system typically will have a transfer function which is not flat. That is, the electronics will exhibit different gain at different frequencies. In other applications, an electronic equalizer may be used to compensate for these frequency-dependent gain variations in the electronics. However, in an optical fiber system, the electronics produce an electrical signal which eventually is converted to/from an optical form. In order to take advantage of the wide bandwidth of optical fibers, the electrical signal produced by the electronics preferably will have a bandwidth matched to the wide bandwidth of the optical fiber. Hence, any electronic equalizer will also have to operate over a wide bandwidth, which makes equalization difficult and largely impractical.
Furthermore, as optical fiber systems become larger and more complex, there is an increasing need for efficient approaches to manage and control these systems. In a common architecture for optical fiber systems, the system includes a set of interconnected nodes, with data being transmitted from node to node. In these systems, there is commonly also a need for control, administrative or overhead information to be transmitted throughout the system or between nodes. Information describing the overall network configuration, software updates, diagnostic information (including both point to point diagnostics as well as system-wide diagnostics), timing data (such as might be required to implement a global clock if so desired) and performance metrics are just a few examples of these types of information.
Thus, there is a need for optical communications systems which reduce or eliminate the deleterious effects caused by frequency-dependent effects, such as fiber dispersion and the nonflat transfer function of electronics in the system. There is further a need for systems which support the efficient transmission of control and overhead information.

Channel gain control for an optical communications system utilizing frequency division multiplexing


The present invention relates to genes responsible for disorders with a vascular component, the identification of mutations in said genes and the detection of their sequences as well as methods for detection and treatment for disorders with a vascular component. This invention further relates to proteins encoded by said genes and their applications.

Venous malformations (VMs) are bluish-purple lesions that can be single or multiple (Vikkula et al. 1998). They are most often localized on the skin and mucous membranes. In two families in which these lesions are inherited as an autosomal dominant trait, a locus (VMCM1) was identified on chromosome 9p21 that is linked to the phenotype (Boon et al. 1994; Gallione et al. 1995). It was found that the mutation in this locus is in the gene encoding the endothelial-specific receptor tyrosine kinase TIE-2. The R849W mutation in the intracellular kinase domain of TIE-2 leads to hyper-activation of the receptor in a ligand-independent manner (Vikkula et al. 1996). Another amino acid substitution, Y897S, identified in a separate family, seems to have a similar effect (Calvert et al. 1999).
Recently a second locus (VMGLOM) was identified on chromosome 1p21-22 for a subtype of VMs called "glomangiomas" because of the presence of undifferentiated smooth-muscle cells ("glomus cells") in histological slides (Boon et al. 1999). Three positional candidate genes: DR1 (depressor of transcription 1), TGFBR3 (transforming growth factor-β receptor, type 3) and TFA (tissue factor) were screened and excluded. The identification of a candidate gene in the 5 Mbp VMGLOM locus would allow detection of mutations involved with venous malformations. It is thus an aim of the present invention to provide nucleic acid sequences representing genes involved with disorders with a vascular component as well as methods for diagnosis and treatment of disorders with a vascular component.

VMGLOM gene and its mutations causing disorders with a vascular component


A multiple thrust range, live loaded packing system for stems and shafts extending into a packing chamber containing a packing ring, and a packing gland engaging the ring and having an outer end portion projecting outwardly of the chamber includes a first thrust member engaging an outer end portion of the gland and a second thrust member spaced from and facing the first thrust member. A spring is mounted between the thrust members for normally biasing the thrust members apart and a spacer is mounted between the thrust members around the spring for establishing a minimum spacing distance between the thrust members. One or more tension members extend between the thrust members to secure the thrust members against the spacer for exerting a selected live load on the packing gland via the spacer, the spring and the first thrust member. At least one of the thrust members has a plurality of opposite stop surfaces selectively engageable with the spacer to provide different thrust range values of live loading depending on which stop surface is engaged with the spacer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed towards a new and improved multiple thrust range, live loaded packing system for a valve stem and for a valve employing such system so that at least two ranges of thrust values may be provided to exert a live load on a packing ring around the valve stem. The packing system also provides a means to determine if the preferred or prescribed thrust values are being applied.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Over the years, a wide variety of piston rod packing systems, stuffing box sealing systems, valve stem sealing and piston ring sealing systems have been developed and some of these systems have utilized a live load thrust against a packing member to facilitate sealing around the piston rod or valve stem. U.S. Pat. No. 601,614 to Dudley; U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,862 to Sebastian; U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,660 to Luthe; U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,970 to Vogeli; U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,329 to Stalph; U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,507 to Lindackers et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,757 to Wood, disclose packing or stuffing box systems in accordance with the prior art.
Additionally, the following U.S. patents disclose various configurations of packing systems, valves and specialized live loading packing arrangements for rotary shafts and stems:
______________________________________ Platts et al. 534,575 Platts et al. 548,089 Jacobsen 2,441,705 Astill et al. 3,787,060 Hansen 4,061,157 Francart, Jr. 4,745,944 Lephilibest 4,773,442 Suggs 5,024,453 Wood et al. 5,129,625 ______________________________________
However, none of the aforementioned patents appear to disclose a live loaded valve or stem packing arrangement wherein the simple reversal of one or more components results in a packing system having multiple ranges of thrust value capability.

Multiple thrust range live loade packing system for stems, shafts, etc.


A shielding enclosure (70) includes a cover (72) and a plurality of flanges (74) extending from the cover. At least one flange defines a fixing piece (76). The fixing piece has at least one retaining portion (764), and the retaining portion provides a space (78) allowing a tool is inserted in a generally perpendicular direction relative to the cover of the shielding enclosure.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shielding device for a printed circuit board, and particularly to a shielding device having a shielding enclosure that may be easily removed.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Electronic components of a printed circuit board radiate electromagnetic waves which generate noise or unwanted signals. Accordingly, it is highly desirable to provide shielding for electronic components of printed circuit boards, which is susceptible to electromagnetic radiation. Since the electric telecommunication equipment must withstand interference of electromagnetic radiation, shielding device must be used therein in order to decrease radiation emission.
The shielding device usually contain an enclosure and a frame. The cover of the shielding device can be opened to access of the electronic components inside the enclosure. Referring to FIGS. 8 and 9, a conventional shielding device includes a frame 10 and a shielding enclosure 30. The frame 10 is mounted on a printed circuit board 20, and is used for surrounding electronic components on the printed circuit board 20. The frame 10 is made up of a plurality of walls. Each wall positions a plurality of projections 12. The shielding enclosure 30 includes a cover 32 and a plurality of flanges 34. The shape of the cover 32 is similar to that of the frame 10. Each flange 34 forms a fixing piece 36, which includes a body portion 362 and a tab 364. The body portion 362 is perpendicularly connected to the cover 32, and is spaced from a bottom surface of the flanges 34. The body portion 362 defines a through hole 3622 for receiving a corresponding projection 12. The tab 364 is perpendicularly extended from the body portion 362. The tab 364 is spaced from the bottom surface of the flanges 34, thereby defining a clearance.
In assembly, each projection 12 is received in a corresponding through hole 3622 for securely attaching the shield enclosure 30 to the frame 10. During removal of the shield enclosure 30, a suitable tool is inserted into the clearance under the tab 364. Then, the tool is used to raise the fixing piece 36 away from the frame 10. Accordingly, the projection 12 is separated from the through hole 3262, thereby the shield enclosure 30 being removed from the frame 10. Since the opening direction of the clearance is parallel with the cover, the tool needs to be substantially horizontally inserted into the clearance under the tab 364. Accordingly, the printed circuit board needs to preserve an extra space for the tool to be received therein. When a plurality of shielding devices are positioned adjacent to each other or the electronic component on the printed circuit board 20 is close to the fixing piece 36 of the shielding enclosure 30, the tool is difficult to be inserted into the clearance. Therefore, this makes it difficult to remove the shielding enclosure 30.
Therefore, an improved shielding device is desired in order to overcome the above-described shortcoming.

Electromagnetic shielding device for printed circuit board


Phosphites inhibitors for organic material represented by the formula: ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1, R.sup.2, R.sup.4 and R.sup.5 independently represent hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, a cycloalkyl group, an alkylcycloalkyl group, an aralkyl group or a phenyl group; R.sup.3 is hydrogen atom or alkyl; X is a direct bond, sulfur atom, or methylene group which may optionally be substituted with alkyl or cycloalkyl; A represents a dihydric alcohol residue; B is a direct bond or alkylene; and one of Y and Z represents an alkoxy group or an aralkyloxy group, and the other one represents hydrogen atom or an alkyl group; and a process for producing the same are provided.

It has been known that organic materials such as thermoplastic resin, thermosetting resin, natural or synthetic rubber, mineral oil, lubricating oil, adhesive, paint, etc. are deteriorated by an action such as heat, oxygen, etc. on production, processing and use to cause deterioration of the strength of the organic material due to a phenomenon (e.g. molecular cleavage, molecular closslinking, etc.), change in flow properties, coloring, deterioration of surface physical properties, etc., which results in decrease of a commercial value. It has hitherto been known that the organic material is stabilized by containing various phenol and phosphorous antioxidants for the purpose of solving these problems about heat deterioration and oxidization deterioration.
As the phosphorous antioxidant, for example, tris(2,4-di-t-butylphenyl)phosphite is used.
However, these known phosphorous antioxidants had a problem that the stabilizing effect to heat deterioration and oxidization deterioration is insufficient.
On the other hand, as those for solving the problem of the phosphorous antioxidant, there is suggested, for example, a cyclic phosphite having a phenolic hydroxyl group, such as 2,10-dimethyl-4,8-di-t-butyl-6-{2-3-(3-t-butyl-4-hydroxy-5-methylphenyl)p ropionyloxy!ethoxy}-12H-dibenzod,g!1,3,2!dioxaphosphosine, etc. (JP-A-5-86084).
The present inventors have produced various phosphorous compounds and studied intensively. As a result, it has been found that specific cyclic phosphites having an alkoxy group or an aralkyloxy group in place of the phenolic hydroxyl group shows not only excellent discoloration-resistant effect but also excellent stabilizing effect which is the same as or superior to that of the cyclic phosphites having the phenolic hydroxyl group. Thus, the present invention has been accomplished.

Phosphites, process for producing them and their use


A storage device includes a base bounding a storage space and an opening into the storage space, a first panel pivotally attached to the base and a second panel pivotally attached to the first panel. The first and second panels pivot between a stored position including the first panel positioned against the base and the second panel positioned against the first panel, and a closed position including the first panel first panel positioned against the top of the base and the second panel received against the base overlying the opening into the storage space enclosing the storage space.

The need to reduce clutter in personal spaces has produced many innovative storage solutions, including a wide variety of closet organizers, storage containers, storage bins, compartmented storage assemblies, and the like. Because personal workspaces, desktops, dresser tops, and other similar areas are particularly prone to accumulate clutter, a variety of specialized tabletop storage devices have been developed that are designed to be placed on tabletops and used to hold and organize items such as jewelry, letters, pens and pencils, scissors, and the like. Although tabletop storage devices have enjoyed considerable attention by devoted artisans, existing tabletop storage devices have little or no utility apart from the primary functions of organizing and storing items, and are aesthetically unpleasing. Given these and other deficiencies in the art, there is a continuing and ongoing need for further improvement in the art of storage devices.


A frameless glass door arrangement for a doorway bounded in part by a top section and a bottom section is disclosed. The frameless glass door arrangement includes two hinge parts rotatably embedded in the respective top section and bottom section; and a glass door leaf including a main body including a top edge, a bottom edge and a lateral edge, the glass door leaf further including two tongue-shaped extensions disposed adjacent to the lateral edge. The extensions extend outward from the respective top edge and bottom edge of the main body and into the respective hinge parts so that the doorway is completely transparent after the glass door leaf is installed in the doorway.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to a frameless glass door, especially a swinging glass door or a door which rests in stops, with a glass door leaf installed in a doorway and with hinges at the bottom and top or on the side.
2. Description of the Related Art
Glass facades, glass walls, and glass doors have become widely accepted not only for business entryways but also for offices and in the area of modern interior architecture. They offer an unimpeded view in both directions and contribute to a feeling of openness and to a connection between indoors and outdoors. Barriers are thus eliminated, and "threshold anxiety" is reduced in business areas.
Glass doors require fittings, especially hinges, which are usually made of metal and which must be attached to the glass door leaf by flanges at the top and bottom. For this purpose, U-profiles of metal are used, which grip the hinge-side corner areas and partially enclose and thus support the glass door leaf. The axes of rotation or mandrel mounts, which engage in mating parts in the floor or ceiling structure, are located on these metal profiles.
A special type of design is based on a multi-layer laminated glass pane. A flat piece of a hinge part is embedded in the laminated construction, so that the glass is not enclosed as usual between two cheeks of a U-profile but rather encloses the hinge part.
It is felt to be a disadvantage of the prior art that, although these glass doors are indeed frameless, they still have visible metal hinge parts.


A conductive layer comprising metal-oxide or metal-oxides is applied to a substrate by. providing a layer comprising a metal-salt or a mixture of metal-salts on the substrate, PA1 bringing the layer into contact with an alkaline solution, and, subsequently, PA1 subjecting the layer to a thermal treatment (heating).

The invention relates to a method of applying a conductive, transparent metal-oxide layer to a surface of a substrate.
Such layers are applied, inter alia, to windows of cathode ray tubes. The conductive layer has an anti-static effect and a shielding effect, that is, the intensity of the electromagnetic stray field emitted by the cathode ray tube is reduced by applying said conductive transparent layer.
A method of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph is disclosed in WO 95/29501. In said document, a description is given of a method in which a sol/gel coating of ITO (indium-tin oxide, i.e. a layer containing SnO.sub.2 /In.sub.2 O.sub.3) is cured by means of a laser in a hydrogen-containing atmosphere. Within the scope of the invention, a conductive metal-oxide layer must be understood to mean a layer which comprises an oxide or oxides of a metal or of a mixture of metals and which is capable of conducting electric current.
As regards the known method and methods of applying conductive layers in general, the relatively high resistance and the instability of the conductive layer constitute a problem.
Although conductive layers manufactured in accordance with the known method have a lower resistance than conductive layers manufactured by earlier methods, their resistance is still relatively high for specific applications and they often exhibit, as a function of time, an instability in the conductivity. In general, the conductivity decreases as a function of time. A decrease in conductivity causes a reduction of the shielding and anti-static function of the conductive layer. A reduction of the resistance leads to an improvement of the shielding effect.

Method of manufacturing a conductive layer on a substrate


The preset disclosure provides a driving method of a backlight, a backlight driving device, a backlight, a display assembly and a virtual reality apparatus. The backlight includes multiple rows of light sources arranged in an array. The driving method includes: after a preset time has elapsed from receipt of a synchronous display signal for each frame of image, lighting the light sources row by row, wherein each row of light sources is successively lit at least twice.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is a computer simulation technology that can create a virtual world to experience. Computer technology and display technology are combined in VR applications to construct a virtual environment that allows users to immerse in the virtual environment with a strong immersion.
A VR apparatus includes a display assembly which may be a liquid crystal display assembly. The liquid crystal display assembly has a backlight. When the display assembly displays images, the backlight is always lit.
Generally, the liquid crystal display assembly applied in the VR apparatus is required to provide a frame rate for displaying images higher than that of a common display assembly, and has a higher response speed. While displaying images, the liquid crystal display assembly in the related art is likely to cause residual image, deteriorating the display effect.

Driving method of a backlight, driving device, backlight, display assembly and virtual reality apparatus

BEIJING BOE OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


An objective is to provide, in a motor controller used for an electromotive power steering system, a concrete realistic method for easily performing abnormality judgments in its control system. The electromotive power steering system includes: a d-q command value setting unit for determining, for current to be applied to the motor, d-axis and q-axis current command values in a d-q coordinate system; a current detector for detecting a three-phase AC current actually flowing in the motor; a three-phase AC/d-q coordinate transformer for transforming the three-phase AC current detected by the current detector into a d-axis current detection value and a q-axis current detection value in the d-q coordinate system; a voltage controller for controlling a voltage applied to the motor, based on the d-axis current command value and the q-axis current command value, and on the d-axis current detection value and the q-axis current detection value; and an abnormality judging unit for judging, by either comparing the q-axis current command value with the q-axis current detection value, or comparing the d-axis current command value with the d-axis current detection value, whether a system-control abnormality has occurred.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to motor controllers for electromotive power steering systems that perform power-assisted steering by applying torque generated by a motor to a steering mechanism.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electromotive power steering system has conventionally been known, in which torque generated by a motor such as a three-phase brushless motor is transmitted to a steering mechanism, perform power-assisted steering. See. e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 187,578/2001.
Relationships between a motor M for assisting this electromotive power steering system and a microcontroller C for controlling the motor M are illustrated in FIG. 7, and a block diagram representing a functional configuration of a motor controller for a conventional electromotive power steering system is illustrated in FIG. 8.
FIG. 8 represents the relationships among the microcontroller C for controlling the conventional electromotive power steering system, values inputted into the microcontroller C, and the motor M that the microcontroller C controls. The motor M, (not illustrated), assistively supplies torque to the electromotive power steering system, and the motor M is driven by a power circuit 52 that is controlled by the microcontroller C. Here, a vehicle speed V obtained by a vehicle speed sensor 42, steering torque T obtained by a torque sensor 43, and a rotor angle θre of the motor M detected by a resolver R connected to the motor M and by a rotor-angle detecting circuit 45 are inputted into the microcontroller C. Moreover, because the motor M is controlled with electric current feedback being applied thereto by the microcomputer C, the electric current (U-phase current iua, V-phase current iva) flowing through the motor M, detected by a motor-current detector 41 (a U-phase current detector 41u, a V-phase current detector 41v), is inputted into the microcontroller C.
Next, FIG. 9 is explained. In this motor controller, the vehicle speed V detected by the vehicle speed sensor 42 and the steering torque T that has been detected by the torque sensor 43 and phase-compensated through a phase-compensation circuit 44 are inputted into the microcontroller C. Moreover, the motor controller is provided with a target current calculator 61 for determining a target current command value Ia*′ (an effective current value flowing through the U-phase, V-phase, and W-phase) by which current is applied to the motor M. In order to improve the steering feel, a convergence correction value Ico*, is calculated from the vehicle speed V and a rotor angular rate ωre. ωre is obtained by a rotor angle θre of the motor M, detected by the resolver R and a rotor angular detecting circuit 45, as passed through a rotor angular rate calculator 65. The convergence correction value is given to an adder 62. In the adder 62, the target current command value Ia*′ (the effective value), inputted from the target current calculator 61, and the convergence correction value Ico*, inputted from convergence corrector 64, are summed, and a convergence-compensated target-current command value Ia* is set, which represents the amplitude of current (sine wave current) to be applied to the U-phase, V-phase, and W-phase of the motor M. Moreover, in order to enable the current value to be treated as a dc current amount independent from the rotor angle θre of the motor M, in a q-axis current command value calculator 66, a q-axis current command value iqa* is determined with a d-q coordinate conversion being applied to the target current command value Ia* after the convergence correction has been performed. On the other hand, a d-axis current command value ida* is set to zero.
The d-axis current command value ida* and the q-axis current command value iqa* are inputted into subtractors 67d and 67q, respectively. These subtractors 67d and 67q are constituted so that a d-axis current detection value ida and a q-axis current detection value iqa are given, which are obtained by passing the output from the U-phase current detector 41u for detecting the U-phase current iua that actually flows in the U-phase of the motor M, and the output from the V-phase current detector 41v for detecting the V-phase current iva that actually flows in the V-phase, through a three-phase AC/d-q coordinate transformer 68. Consequently, from the subtractors 67d and 67q, deviations for the d-axis current command value ida* and the d-axis current detection value ida, and deviations for the q-axis current command value iqa* and the q-axis current detecting value iqa, are outputted, respectively.
The deviations outputted from the subtractors 67d and 67q are applied to a d-axis current PI (proportional integration) controller 69d and a q-axis current PI controller 69q; whereby a d-axis voltage command value Vda* and a q-axis voltage command value Vqa* are obtained, respectively.
The d-axis voltage command value Vda* and q-axis voltage command value Vqa* are inputted into a d-q/three-phase AC coordinate transformer 72. The rotor angle θre detected in the rotor angle detecting circuit 45 has been also inputted into this d-q/three-phase AC coordinate transformer 72; therefore, the d-q/three-phase AC coordinate transformer 72 transforms, in accordance with the following equation (1), the d-axis voltage command value Vda* and q-axis voltage command value Vqa* into command values Vua* and Vva* in the three-phase AC coordinate system, respectively. Then, the U-phase voltage command values Vua* and V-phase voltage command value Vva* obtained are inputted into a three-phase PWM (pulse width modulation) modulator 51.
                                                                        [                                                                                V                        va                        *                                                                                V                        ua                        *                                                                                V                        wa                        *                                                                                ]                            =                                                                                [                    C                    ]                                                        -                    1                                                                                [                                                                                V                          da                                                                                V                          qa                                                                                ]                                                                                =                                                                                2                      3                                                                                [                                                                                cos                                                                                θ                              re                                                                                -                              sin                                                                                θ                              re                                                                                cos                                                                                (                                                                                θ                                  re                                                                -                                                                                2                                                                        π                                                                    3                                                                                )                                                                                -                                                          sin                                                                                (                                                                                θ                                    re                                                                    -                                                                                2                                                                            π                                                                        3                                                                                )                                                                                cos                                                                                (                                                                                θ                                  re                                                                -                                                                                4                                                                        π                                                                    3                                                                                )                                                                                -                                                          sin                                                                                (                                                                                θ                                    re                                                                    -                                                                                4                                                                            π                                                                        3                                                                                )                                                                                ]                                                                                [                                                                                V                          da                                                                                V                          qa                                                                                ]                                                                                (        1        )
However, a W-phase voltage command value Vwa* is not calculated in the d-q/three-phase AC coordinate transformer 72, but rather in a W-phase voltage command value calculator 73, on the basis of the U-phase voltage command value Vua* and V-phase voltage command value Vva* that have been calculated in the d-q/three-phase AC coordinate transformer 72. That is, in the W-phase voltage command value calculator 73, the U-phase voltage command value Vua* and V-phase voltage command value Vva* are inputted, and, in the W-phase voltage command value calculator 73, a W-phase voltage command value Vwa* is obtained by subtracting from zero the U-phase voltage command value Vua* and V-phase voltage command value Vva*.
The W-phase voltage command value Vwa* calculated in the W-phase voltage command calculator 73, similarly to the U-phase voltage command value Vua* and V-phase voltage command value Vva*, is applied to the three-phase PWM modulator 51. The three-phase PWM modulator 51 generates PWM signals Su, Sv, and Sw corresponding to the U-phase voltage command value Vua*, V-phase voltage command value Vva*, and W-phase voltage command value Vwa*, respectively, and the generated PWM signals Su, Sv, and Sw are outputted to the power circuit 52. Thereby, voltages Vua, Vva, and Vwa, corresponding to the PWM signals Su, Sv, and Sw, are applied to the U-phase, V-phase, and W-phase, respectively of the motor M, whereby the motor M generates torque required for the power-assisted steering.
Moreover, in the above described prior art, an abnormality judging unit 74 is provided, for judging whether an abnormality such as an offset has occurred. The unit 74 is configured to judge, on the basis of the d-axis current detection value ida and q-axis current detection value iqa outputted from the three-phase AC/d-q coordinate transformer 68, whether an abnormality has occurred. Provided that the U-phase current iua, V-phase current iva, and W-phase current iwa each have an amplitude Ia, the d-axis current ida and the q-axis current iqa are expressed by the following equation (2), which is understood to be independent of the rotor angle θre. Therefore, the abnormality judging unit 74 can acquire the d-axis current ida and the q-axis current iqa without regard to the rotor angle θre, and determine, on the basis of the acquired d-axis current ida and the q-aixis current iqa, whether or not an abnormality is present. It is described in this document that the effective value of the current flowing through the motor M also need not be calculated.
                              [                                                                      i                  da                                                                                i                  qa                                                              ]                =                  [                                                    0                                                                                -                                                                  3                        2                                                                                I                    a                                                                                ]                                    (        2        )
However, in the above described prior art, no concrete practical method for the abnormality judgment is described at all. That is, it is not described, for example, which portion of the amplitude Ia, the d-axis current detecting value ida and the q-axis current detecting value iqa are used.
Therefore, an objective of the present invention is to provide a concrete practical means for easily performing abnormality judgments in a motor control system for electromotive power steering systems.


A lighting source that can be deployed in a hazardous environment is disclosed. For example, the lighting source comprises at least one light emitting diode and a power supply for providing power to the at least one light emitting diode. The lighting source also comprises an enclosure for housing the at least one light emitting diode and the power supply, where said lighting source is for deployment in a hazardous environment.

There are many industrial environments where explosive atmospheres are present due to the nature of the products produced or processed. Facilities such as oil refineries, gas processing plants, mines, grain elevators, etc. are some examples of such environments where electrical discharges must be tightly controlled in order to prevent explosions.
Over the years standards have been developed to insure electrical products which minimize the potential for electrical discharges such as sparks or arcs. Through a design process of careful component selection, proper pc board trace spacing, appropriate dielectric insulation, etc. products can be produced which can be safely used in these hazardous environments.
In order to develop safety requirements for these various hazardous environments a series of classifications have been developed to categorize them. For example Class 1 hazardous environments include those containing flammable gases, vapors or liquids; Class 2 includes combustible dusts; Class 3 includes ignitable fibers. Environments where those explosive atmospheres are abnormally present are further classified as Division 2 environments, whereas those explosive atmospheres are normally present are classified as Division 1 environments. Therefore, an environment which consisted of flammable gases which were sometimes present would be considered a Class 1 Division 2 area.
As with any type of environment, lighting is an important element. Lighting serves multiple purposes with two applications in particular of interest in this application: signaling and general illumination. Signaling is the use of lighting to indicate some state or presence. Obstruction lighting used to indicate the presence of towers and buildings to aircraft is one example (e.g. beacons used on the tops of radio transmission towers). General illumination lighting is that lighting used to make objects and spaces visible in dark environments (e.g. walkway lights used to illuminate gantries and ladders in refineries). And for those locations where explosive atmospheres could be present, a lighting fixture which is resistant to exposing electrical discharges would be advantageous. Present designs for these devices typically use traditional light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent, or gas discharge lamps. Such sources while providing good photometric properties have a major disadvantage of limited lifetime. The average lifetimes typically range from 1 k to 20 k hours for traditional light sources. Furthermore, such sources are often quite expensive when they are manufactured to meet safety requirements for various hazardous environments.
Therefore, there is a need for a light source that is capable of providing a longer lifetime while operable in a hazardous location.

Method and apparatus for providing an LED light for use in hazardous locations


A circuit for processing a jump operation also enables handling pending interrupts or exceptions. The jump operation has an operand specifying a destination address. If an interrupt or exception is pending, a destination program counter is set to the contents of the operand. Then the program counter is set to an interrupt or exception handler address. If no interrupt or exception is pending, then the program counter is set to the destination address.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of computer processors and in particular to implementing context switching within such processors.
2. Related Art
In designing processors, there are a number of cost/performance tradeoffs. Higher performance often comes at the expense of interrupt overhead, interrupt latency, and context switch degradations.
FIG. 1 shows a traditional computer. A CPU (central processing unit) 101 executes tasks, interacting with a memory 104, via a bus 103. The memory 104 provides an instruction stream to the CPU 101. Also attached to the bus 103 are peripherals, e.g. 102. When the CPU receives an interrupt, at line 105, it can communicate over the bus 103 with the peripherals, e.g. 102. The peripherals are typically i/o (input and/or output) devices. The interrupts are asynchronous and arise with frequencies from 500 Hz to 100 kHz, depending on the nature of the application. Real time applications, such as video compression and decompression require interrupt rates towards the upper end of this range. Multimedia processing also requires frequent interrupts and context switching between processing different types of media, such as video and audio. There is some performance degradation with each interrupt, known as interrupt overhead. In order to support such real time applications, the processor must guarantee some maximum time between assertion and handling of an interrupt, i.e. a maximum interrupt latency.
Modern processors typically implement multi-tasking. FIG. 2 shows a timing diagram of a multi-tasking environment. In this environment, task 1 is swapped out, after an interval of time, in favor of task 2. Task 2 is then swapped out after an interval of time in favor of task 3. Task 3 is then swapped out, after a third interval of time in favor of task 1 again. With each swap, the processor must perform a context switch. As stated above, the primary reasons for swapping are expiration of a time slice allocated to a current task; the current task being voluntarily blocked, e.g. seeking i/o (input and/or output); or an interrupt freed a higher priority task, which will be discussed in more detail below.
During the context switch, the processor stores a data structure in memory 104 as illustrated in FIG. 3. This data structure includes a pointer 301, known as a "task handle" or "task i.d.". The pointer points to the location of the task record 302 which includes fields for the content of all registers in the processor 101, the stack pointer 304, the frame pointer 305, and the program control and status word PCSW 306.
To increase processor performance, the designer can add registers or increase cache size. Historically INTEL chips had 8 registers. Newer RISC chips have 32. While further increasing the number of registers should theoretically improve performance, performance degrades because more data must be stored during a context switch. As a result, the context switch takes longer. Where there are frequent context switches, as in multimedia processing, performance is seriously impacted.
One prior solution to the problem of lengthy context switches was the so-called "lightweight context switch". This idea was a partial solution which works only in the case of the current task being blocked (also called "voluntary block"). In the case of a voluntary block, the task is interrupting itself. Accordingly, it knows which registers it is using and causes the task record to contain the contents of those registers, and only those registers, which the task is actually using. The lightweight context switch offers no advantages with the other two types of context switches, i.e. time slice expiration and higher priority tasks being freed.
This leaves room for additional improvements that work more generally in the case of all types of context switches.

Performing pending interrupts or exceptions when interruptible jumps are detected

Philips Electronics North America Corporation


A rack for securing wheeled vehicles, particularly bicycles, includes wheel-receiving wells for receiving the front wheel of the vehicle and contacting the wheel at least at two points. A wheel-engaging arm, pivotally mounted to the rack, is pivoted upwardly and is extensible outwardly against a biasing element. The arm is adapted to engage the wheel of the bicycle at least at a third point for securely holding the vehicle.

To reduce traffic congestion and pollution from automobile exhaust, transit authorities are continually searching for ways to enhance transit system ridership. One way to enhance such ridership is to encourage bicycle riders to use public transportation for long-haul portions of their trips and to rely on their bicycles for short trips at either end of their transit system travel. Encouraging such bicycle use will cause greater numbers of transit system users to leave their cars behind and the result will be reduced pollution and traffic congestion. Passengers may be more inclined to use mass transit if they know that they will still be able to travel moderate distances relatively easily at either end of their transit ride, without having to further wait for connecting vehicles. Transit travel is further enhanced by having a bicycle available when further travel is to areas near transit lines but not directly served thereby.
However, transporting a bicycle on the transit vehicle is a problem. At periods of low ridership, it is relatively straightforward to bring a bicycle onto a bus or train, since there is ample room to accommodate both the rider and the bicycle. However, during peak hours, busses or trains are typically filled to capacity and therefore, bringing a bicycle on board is difficult if not impossible. A bicycle brought on board during peak hours can impede the entry and exit of other passengers. Further, once the bicycle is on board, if large numbers of passengers board later, it can be difficult for the bicycle rider to exit at a desired stop without injuring other passengers.
To alleviate such problems, some transit systems have banned bike riders during peak hours. However, such a ban defeats the goal of increasing ridership and encouraging bicyclists to use the system. Therefore, transit systems have employed bicycle racks in conjunction with busses or trains wherein the bicycle racks are attached externally to the vehicle. With some externally mounted bike racks, the bus driver or train operator must load the bike for the rider. In cases where the bus operator loads the bike, transit system efficiency is reduced since time is required for the transit operator to leave his operating position to assist with loading the bicycle onto the bike rack after having previously secured the vehicle to prevent undesired movement. Some systems employ racks where the riders must load the rack themselves without assistance from the driver. Such racks have heretofore been difficult to load, requiring a rider to set the bicycle aside and use both hands to bring the rack into a loading position. Only then could the rider pick up the bicycle and place it in the rack. When more than one bike was loaded onto the rack, it became difficult to add additional bikes as other bicycle riders board the transit system. Further, with more than one bike on a rack, it is difficult to remove bikes held at the rear of the rack, typically requiring the removal of all the bikes in front of the rear bike. Then, the other bikes, whose owners are not leaving the transit system at that particular stop point, would have to be reloaded onto the rack. Often, bicycle riders are required to sit near the front of the bus in order to be able to disembark and move their bicycles out of the way of bicycles at the back of the rack. Such extra unloading and loading undesirably lengthens the time required at that particular transit stop, which can lead to passenger frustration and difficulty in maintaining scheduling of subsequent stops.
Heretofore, bicycle racks for mounting to transit vehicles have employed relatively elongated members which extended a substantial distance from the transit vehicle. However these elongate members are typically small in cross section relative to their length, and might result in unintended collision between the elongate members of the rack and other objects when no bicycles are mounted thereon, since the transit vehicle operator or persons driving near the transit vehicle might not see the elongate member. Such unintentional collisions could damage the rack, the bus, the bicycles or the object collided with. If the rack was made to fold up when not in use, it has heretofore been necessary to have the transit operator lower the rack prior to loading, or if the rack is lowered by the riders, the operation required excessive expenditure of time.
Bicycle racks according to the prior art have secured the bicycles to the racks by use of straps or clamps or other means that caused chipping of the paint on the bicycles, leading to rider dissatisfaction.
Automated washing of vehicles with prior art racks mounted thereon can become a problem. Frequently the racks become entangled with the washing apparatus, requiring the halting of the washing process and operator intervention to untangle the rack. It therefore becomes necessary to remove the rack from the vehicle prior to washing.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A computer system with densely-mounted components and effective cooling is provided. A hard drive mounting structure for xe2x80x9chot swapxe2x80x9d hard drives utilizes a hard drive assembly in which a hard drive is mounted between a pair of parallel rails connected by a retaining portion. The rails provide a precise mechanism for loading and unloading the xe2x80x9chot swapxe2x80x9d drive, without increasing the overall height of each hard drive assembly. A handle with double-cam actuation is used during insertion and removal of the hard drive assembly. In accordance with the present invention, two half-height hard drives may be stacked in a server mountable in a 2U rack. A tool-less lock is provided for releasably securing expansion cards to the computer case without the use of screws.

This invention relates to computer systems, and more specifically, the design and layout of components of computer systems.
With the growth of computing applications, there has been an associated increase in the need for servers and larger scale computer systems. These server systems include such components as CPUs, hard drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, tape backup systems, peripheral cards, monitors, and universal power supplies. Network servers require a significant amount of storage capacity, typically in the form of hard disk drives. A single server may use many hard disk drives to increase the total storage capacity, or, in an arrangement known as a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (xe2x80x9cRAIDxe2x80x9d), to provide secure data redundancy. In a RAID system, if one hard drive fails, information in the other drives is used to recover the lost data. Some RAID systems provide for xe2x80x9chot swapping,xe2x80x9d in which a failed hard drive can be replaced and the lost data reconstructed from the remaining drives without powering down the system.
xe2x80x9cHot swapxe2x80x9d drives include several characteristics not normally required by conventional PC hard drives. xe2x80x9cHot swapxe2x80x9d drives require greater accessibility than conventional drives, which are typically mounted in the computer chassis and attached to an internal hard drive bay. It is desirable to place the xe2x80x9chot swapxe2x80x9d drives in easily accessible bays, mounted such that they are readily removable without having to open the computer case. It is additionally desirable that the drives be capable of making proper electrical connections with the network computer when being replaced. When the interface connectors on the hard drive are not properly mated to their corresponding connectors, connector pin damage or failures caused by intermittent breaks in the electrical transmissions between the computer and the drive may result.
The various server components can be mounted vertically on a server rack or cabinet in a dedicated server location, often with temperature, humidity, and particle controls. Using such racks, server components can be stored with high space efficiency, while allowing easy visual and manual access. Server racks and cabinets have standard size mounting holes to which computer equipment can be attached. Rack-mounted equipment are typically provided in xe2x80x9cUxe2x80x9d sizes. A 1U sized component measures 1.75xe2x80x3 high, 19.00xe2x80x3 wide, and 20.00xe2x80x3 deep, while a 2U sized component is 3.5xe2x80x3 high. These slim form factors allow a larger number of devices to be mounted on a given rack. However, these slim cases pose difficult design problems for engineers attempting to add additional components into the limited available space. For larger components, such as monitors, RAID disk arrays, or larger servers, the rack must be provided with taller openings, such as a 4U or 6U rack.
One type of server manufactured and sold by the assignee of this invention is the VArServer 700. The body of the VArServer 700 is provided with five hard drive bays into which half-height hard drives can be mounted to form a RAID array. Hard drives sold by different manufacturers are typically provided in standard sizes, thus allowing the hard drives from different manufacturers to be used interchangeably. Half-height hard drives are 1.625xe2x80x3 tall and are often chosen for server systems because of their increased storage capacity (up to 36 GB, at the time of this application""s filing). The drives in the VArServer 700 are mounted in two stacks of two drives, plus a single drive. Because of the size of the array of hard drives and the thickness of the drives and the related mounting structure, the server requires a tall 4U chassis.
Another type of server manufactured and sold by the assignee of this invention is the VArServer 500. The VArServer 500 has a compact 2U form factor, which limits the size of the hard drives its chassis can accommodate. Because of its limited size, the VArServer 500 may utilize xe2x80x9clow profilexe2x80x9d drives, which are approximately 1.0xe2x80x3 high, rather than the half-height drives preferred in server systems.
It is also known to mount different size drives in a single case. In one type of system, a low profile drive is mounted on top of a half-height drive in a 2U case. Although this provides increased storage capacity over a system using only low profile drives, a disadvantage of this system is that the low profile and half-height drives cannot be used interchangeably. In particular, this limits the type of xe2x80x9chot swappingxe2x80x9d that can be used for this server.
Hard drives are not the only system components that create challenges for design engineers. High-end computer systems may utilize numerous expansion cards, such as video accelerators or network cards. These cards plug into expansion slots using various methods well known in the art. These cards are referred to as xe2x80x9cPCI cards,xe2x80x9d because they often operate in conjunction with a PCI bus on a computer. As the number of components increase, while the amount of available space inside the server case decreases, providing secure mounts and expansion slots for such cards poses a significant problem.
Another limiting factor with high-end computing systems is ensuring effective heat dissipation from the various hardware components. In particular, the central processing unit and the electrical components mounted on the various circuit boards in the computer system generate large amounts of heat. Without proper cooling, these components can fail or can cause other components mechanisms to fail. One conventional method of cooling these components is the use of a fan mounted on a side of the chassis to force air to flow from outside the chassis into and over the circuit boards. In a given chassis, this method is effective when the number and size of the components to be cooled are small. However, as more and more components are squeezed into smaller server cases, it becomes increasingly difficult to create an effective airflow. In addition, these additional components increase the overall cooling requirements of the system.
In accordance with the present invention, a computer system with densely-mounted components and effective cooling is provided. In one embodiment, a hard drive mounting structure for xe2x80x9chot swapxe2x80x9d hard drives utilizes a hard drive assembly in which a hard drive is mounted between a pair of parallel rails connected by a retaining portion. The rails provide a precise mechanism for loading and unloading the xe2x80x9chot swapxe2x80x9d drive, without increasing the overall height of each hard drive assembly. A handle with double-cam actuation is used during insertion and removal of the hard drive assembly. In accordance with the present invention, two half-height hard drives may be stacked in a server mountable in a 2U rack.
A computer system for highly dense mounting of components is provided, wherein the computer system comprises a case including a drive bay and a drive assembly removably mounted in the first drive bay, wherein the drive assembly of the computer system comprises a hard drive and a hard drive chassis. The hard drive chassis comprises a first rail provided along a first side of the hard drive; a second rail substantially parallel to the first rail and provided along a second side of the hard drive opposite the first side; and a retaining portion adjacent a front side of the hard drive and connecting a front end of the first rail to a front end of the second rail; wherein the top and bottom portions of the hard drive are not covered by the hard drive chassis.
In another aspect of the present invention, a first notch is provided on a first interior side of the first drive bay; a shoulder is provided on a second interior side of the first drive bay opposite the first interior side; a handle is rotatably connected to the retaining portion of the first drive chassis and has a first end and a second end distal from the first end. The handle is rotatable about an axis located between the first and second ends of the handle. The handle defines a closed position in which the first end of said handle is a first distance from the front end of the first rail of the first drive assembly, and defines an open position in which the handle is rotated about the axis such that the first end of the handle is a second distance from the front end of the first rail of the first drive assembly, the first distance being less than the second distance. A first latch is provided on the first end of the handle and adapted to engage the first notch when the first drive assembly is inserted into the first drive bay and the handle is in the closed position; and a cam is provided at the second end of the handle and adapted to abut the shoulder when the first drive assembly is inserted into the first drive bay.
In another aspect of the present invention, a clip for retaining expansion boards is provided, wherein the retaining clip comprises a clip body; a stabilizing projection attached to a top portion of the clip body, adapted to be mounted on a computer case such that said stabilizing projection is positioned on an exterior of the case and the clip body is positioned on an interior of the case; and a first flange attached to a side of the clip body and adapted to abut a first expansion board, thereby preventing horizontal movement of the first expansion board.

Computer system for highly-dense mounting of system components


A fuel cell includes a gas channel-forming member that forms a channel for supplying a reactant gas to a plane of an electrode. A basic structure of the gas channel-forming member is a corrugated plate portion in which ridge portions and trough portions continuously alternate with each other. In the gas channel-forming member, a plurality of corrugated plate portions are interconnected. Specifically, two adjacent corrugated plate portions are interconnected so that the trough portions of one of the two connect to the ridge portions of the other corrugated plate portion. The gas channel-forming member is disposed so that the direction of alignment of the connection planes S formed by the interconnection between the trough portions and the ridge portions is parallel to the plane of the electrode. This structure improves the diffusion efficiency of the reactant gas in the gas channel.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a fuel cell that has gas channel-forming members.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, fuel cells that generate power through electrochemical reactions between a hydrogen gas and oxygen have been drawing attention as an energy source. A fuel battery has a structure that is formed by stacking a plurality of cells each of which is constructed by integrating a membrane-electrode assembly made up of an electrolyte membrane and electrode catalyst layers formed thereon, separators, and gas channels disposed between the membrane-electrode assembly and the separators. The gas channels feed the reactant gases that are used for electric power generation of the fuel battery, for example, a hydrogen gas, or an oxidizing gas, into the membrane-electrode assemblies.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-310633 (JP-A-2005-310633) proposes a construction that employs an expanded metal, as a member for forming the gas channels. The expanded metal is a metal plate provided with regularly formed penetration holes of the same shape, and has been rolled into a flat platy shape.
However, in the foregoing related-art technology, although an expanded metal having many penetration holes is used, the channels are formed by streak-like recess portions that extend in a planar direction of the electrode catalyst layer, so that the directions of flow of the reactant gas are mostly in the planar direction of the electrode catalyst layer, and the reactant gas is unlikely to flow in a direction perpendicular to the plane (hereinafter, referred to as "the perpendicular-to-plane direction"). Therefore, there is a problem of the efficiency of the diffusion of the reactant gases in the gas channels cannot be sufficiently heightened.
Improvement in the gas diffusion layer is important from viewpoints of resolving the gas shortage on the electrode catalyst layer side, and is important from viewpoints of improving the drainage characteristic.


A dual system according to the present invention includes: a memory copying unit configured to, when an arithmetic device of a first computer module is installed into the dual system, execute a memory copy process of copying data in a memory region of a second computer module into a memory region of the first computer module; a substitute processing unit configured to execute a service substitute process that is executed by a different arithmetic device from an arithmetic device executing the memory copy process and that is part of processes involved in the information processing service by the dual system; and a shared memory that stores data of the service substitute process by the substitute processing unit. The shared memory is excluded from the target of the memory copy process.

For a system which is required to be highly reliable and available and is not allowed to cause communication timeout while constantly communicating with clients, a dual computer as shown in Patent Document 1 is used. For example, a dual system is applied to an application server, a virtual PC (Personal Computer) server of a thin client system, a production management server used in a manufacturing factory, an online payment system, and so on.
A computer that configures such a dual system has major hardware components in twos within the system, such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a memory and a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) adapter, and the components are caused to synchronize by a dedicated LSI (Large Scale Integration) and a driver. Thus, an OS (Operating System) of the dual system operates regardless of a dual state of the hardware.
When one of the hardware components causes an error, the dual system isolates the hardware component from the system and temporarily continues to operate with only the other hardware component (this state is referred to as a fallback state). After that, the isolated hardware component is initialized and installed into the system again. If the installation is completed without any problem, the system returns to the dual state.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. JP-A 2009-245015
Although the application and the OS operate without any specific problem when the system is in the dual state as described above, the system may be affected when the hardware component is installed into the system. To be specific, when the CPU is installed, memory copy from the main system to the sub system is performed so that the memories of both the main system and the sub system are caused to synchronize. A memory region that is constantly used by the system and always changed may be copied while the operation of the system is temporarily stopped. As a result, there is a case where communication with other computers is interrupted during the copy process and communication timeout occurs on a connected client computer that the system provides with an information processing service, and there is a possibility that execution of the application program is in trouble. A general system can avoid timeout by regulating TCP timeout values on both the server computer and the client computer, but the dual system is applied to a system required to be reliable and available because of the characteristics of the dual system. Therefore, it is desirable that only the server deals with the trouble.


A method for measuring a spectrum of a terahertz pulse includes generating a terahertz pulse using an ultrashort pulsed pumping light, generating a white light pulse using an ultrashort pulsed probe light, stretching and chirping the white light pulse modulating the chirped white light pulse such that the terahertz pulse and the chirped white light pulse irradiate into an electro-optic crystal synchronously, so that the chirped white light pulse is modulated by an electric field signal induced at the electro-optic crystal irradiated by the terahertz pulse, detecting a spectrum of chirped white light pulse modulated at the electro-optic modulating step by a multi-channeled detector, analyzing an electric field of the teraherz pulse irradiated to the electro-optic crystal from the spectrum of the chirped white light pulse detected by the multi-channeled spectrum detecting step, and transforming the analyzed electric field signal into a frequency spectrum of the terahertz pulse.

Until now, terahertz wave spectroscopy in a time domain using a single channel detector is known (Reference 1 K. Sakai, et al., "Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy and Imaging," Laser Kenkyu, Vol. 30, No. 7, Jul. 2002, p. 376–384). Using this known method, a probe light has to be scanned using mechanically structured optical delay line for measuring all spectra, which makes measurement time consuming, and which makes real time measurement impossible.
Lately, a method for measuring an electric field signal of the terahertz pulse using a chirped light in a real time by a multi-channeled detector is investigated. (Reference 2: Zhiping Jiang and X. -C. Zhang "Electro-optic measurement of THz field pulses with a chirped optical beam", Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 72, No. 16, 20 Apr. 1998, pp. 1945–1947.) In this method, an ultra-short pulsed light from a laser apparatus is separated by a beam splitter to a pumping light and a probe light. The pumping light pumps an emitter for generating the terahertz pulse. On the other hand, the probe light is stretched and chirped by a grating pair. A ZnTe crystal is irradiated by the generated terahertz pulse and the stretched and chirped light. The probe light is modulated by an electro-optic effect induced from the electric field signal of the terahertz pulse. The transmitted probe light is dispersed into a spectrum by a diffraction grating, and detected by a multi-channeled detector array. A waveform detected by the detector array is the spectrum of the probe light modulated by the terahertz pulse. A horizontal axis of the waveform is a wavelength. The positively chirped probe light is extended in the time domain, and longer wavelength delays reaching a ZnTe crystal. Therefore, substantially, light delays for a certain time, depending on a wavelength thereof. Accordingly, the wavelength can be transformed into a delay time. Subtracting the spectrum of the probe light which is not modulated by the terahertz pulse from the modulated probe light yields the electric field signal of the terahertz pulse. Analyzing the electric field signal by Fourier transform yields the frequency spectrum of the terahertz pulse.
A frequency spectral range W and a resolution ΔW of the frequency spectral measurement of the terahertz pulse are written asW˜(T0Tc)−1/2/2  (1)ΔW˜1/Tc  (2)where T0 is a pulse width of the probe light before being stretched and Tc is a pulse width of the probe light after being stretched. According to equation (1), for increasing the spectral range of the terahertz pulse (increasing W), Tc should be decreased. According to equation (2), for increasing the resolution of the frequency spectral measurement of the terahertz pulse (decrease ΔW), Tc should be increased. There is a trade-off between the frequency spectral range and the resolution of the frequency spectral measurement of the terahertz pulse. Therefore, wide spectral range and high resolution can not be obtained simultaneously.
As mentioned above, in known multi-channeled measuring method for measuring the spectrum of the terahertz pulse, when the spectral range is widen, the resolution of the measurement is lowered. On the other hand, when the resolution of the measurement is raised, the spectral range is narrowed.
A need thus exists for a multi-channeled measuring method and a multi-channeled measuring apparatus for measuring a spectrum of a terahertz pulse with both wide spectral range and high resolution.

Multi-channeled measuring method and apparatus for measuring spectrum of terahertz pulse


In an examining apparatus, an electron gun irradiates an intended position of an information recording medium with an electron beam. A stage holds the information recording medium such that the information recording medium can be moved along a rotation direction and a radial direction. A detector detects electrons which have acquired information of a surface of the information recording medium by irradiating the information recording medium with the electron beam. An image producing unit acquires an image of the surface of the information recording medium based on the electrons detected by the detector. The examining apparatus can examine as to whether or not a defect of an information recording medium such as a CD and a DVD is present, but also can examine a shape of the defect thereof. The examining apparatus can also examine an information recording medium having a large storage capacity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an apparatus and a method for examining appearances of information recording media. Information recording media typically are disks such as optical disks.
2. Background
In optical disks such as CDs (compact Disks) and DVDs (Digital Versatile Disks), small-sized concaves called "pits" are formed in surfaces of these optical disks, and these pits own information. These pits are optically read by optical pick-up heads, so that sound and pictures may be reproduced. Since optical disks are manufactured by employing a mother disk of these optical disks, structural objects which correspond to the pits are also present on this optical-disk mother disk.
When optical-disk mother disks and optical disks manufactured after injection molding are examined, examining apparatus irradiates the optical disks with light such as laser light, actually read signals of reflection light, and measure completion characteristics of recording operations, signal strengths, noise, and the like based upon the actually read signals in order to examine as to whether or not an error pit is present on the examined optical disks. Conventional examining apparatus are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Hei-9-54952 (refer to pages 3 and 4, FIG. 1), and Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2004-55119 (refer to page 5, FIG. 1).
The conventional information recording medium examining apparatus merely read out optical signals from optical-disk mother disks and optical disks. Therefore, these conventional examining apparatus cannot examine that error pits have what shapes. However, since there is a close relationship between shapes of pits and recording operations, it is desired to provide technical ideas capable of further examining shapes of pits of optical disks.
Also, while disks having large storage capacities are developed, for example, as to an optical disk having a storage capacity of 100 GB (gigabytes), dimensions of concaves/convexs of pits are reached to several 10 nm. Dimensions of these pits are required to be manufactured in precision of 1 nm levels. Therefore, when shapes of optical-disk mother disks and shapes of manufactured optical disks are tried to be examined, examination capabilities in 1 nm precision levels are necessarily required.

Information recording medium examining apparatus and method


A buffing pad adapted to be releasably engaged with a buffing apparatus having a hookface type attachment surface and a method of making the same are taught.

One construction of buffing pad commonly used in the automobile trade comprises a web of non-woven fibers. The attachment surface of the back-up pad of buffing apparatus, such as rotary and orbital buffers, is provided with a multiplicity of projecting, resiliently-flexible filaments bearing at the distal end thereof a bulbous substantially semi-spherical head or hook. This surface is commonly referred to as a hook-face attachment surface. When the buffing pad is placed against the attachment surface the head or hooks of the attachment surface mechanically interlock with the non-woven fibers of the pad to secure the pad in position. As such, this type of buffing pad has found great favor by allowing the user to easily reposition the pad or remove it entirely for replacement.
It has been found that commercially available buffing pads manufactured from thick fibers having a caliper of about 17 dtex while providing good adhesion to the back-up pad and good buffing properties for use on original automotive equipment manufacture painted surfaces tend to be too aggressive when used on other paint surfaces, e.g., the softer after-market air-dried or low-bake paints normally used in body repair shops. Buffing pads formed from finer fibers, e.g., having a dtex of 6.7, while proving acceptable for use with softer paint finishes are found to have a poor adhesion for the hook-face attachment surfaces of the back-up pad and are often displaced during use.

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company


An in-vehicle information distribution device includes a current-status-information acquisition unit that acquires current-status information, a status-type determination unit that refers to a status-type list table, and determines to which of status types classified in the status-type list table the current-status information corresponds, a status determination unit that refers to a status-type/status-determination-information correspondence table, acquires status-determination information corresponding to the determined status type, and determines a status of a train based on the status-determination information, and a display-content decision unit that refers to a status-type/display-content-information correspondence table, which classifies a display content to be displayed on a display device (AC-drive) and a display device (DC-drive) into status types, acquires display-content information corresponding to the determined status type, and selects display data corresponding to the display-content information.

Recently, advertisements greatly affect people due to the diversification of lifestyles. Because many people use railways daily, there are great advertising effects on them within a vehicle through displays and the like, and demand for advertisements is rapidly increasing.
In view of the demand as described above, recently, a display medium, such as an LCD display, is provided at a head jamb portion above a door in a railway vehicle to provide a service of showing traffic information, such as a destination, a station at which trains stop, a traveling location, and delay information, and also showing advertisement images using moving images or still images, through the display medium. Hereinafter, a device that distributes information in a vehicle mainly by displaying the information is referred to as an "in-vehicle information distribution device".
As described above, the in-vehicle information distribution device normally distributes traffic information, advertisement information, and the like. However, it is difficult to display correct traffic information at the time of the occurrence of an accident or a failure. Therefore, under such circumstances, there is a need to display a display guide or an emergency guide appropriate to the circumstances instead of normal display content.
Patent Literature 1 describes an in-vehicle image display system including an image display device, which displays images including advertisements, and an on-train image display server, which manages image data to be played by the image display device. In the in-vehicle image display system, the on-train image display server switches an advertisement image displayed by the image display device to a predetermined image based on emergency-situation information from a train-information management device or a ground emergency-situation detection device.
Patent Literature 2 describes displaying image information for evacuating passengers through an operation by a crew or after automatically detecting an accident, such as derailing.

In-vehicle information distribution system and in-vehicle information distribution method


Methods for the preparation of N-arylated oxazolidinone compounds via a copper catalyzed cross coupling reaction are disclosed.

Atherosclerosis and its associated coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of mortality in the industrialized world. Despite attempts to modify secondary risk factors (smoking, obesity, lack of exercise) and treatment of dyslipidemia with dietary modification and drug therapy, coronary heart disease (CHD) remains the most common cause of death in the U.S.
Risk for development of this condition has been shown to be strongly correlated with certain plasma lipid levels. While elevated LDL-C may be the most recognized form of dyslipidemia, it is by no means the only significant lipid associated contributor to CHD. Low HDL-C is also a known risk factor for CHD (Gordon, D. J., et al.: "High-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol and Cardiovascular Disease", Circulation, (1989), 79: 8–15).
High LDL-cholesterol and triglyceride levels are positively correlated, while high levels of HDL-cholesterol are negatively correlated with the risk for developing cardiovascular diseases. Thus, dyslipidemia is not a unitary risk profile for CHD but may be comprised of one or more lipid aberrations.
Among the many factors controlling plasma levels of these disease dependent principles, cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) activity affects all three. The role of this 70,000 dalton plasma glycoprotein found in a number of animal species, including humans, is to transfer cholesteryl ester and triglyceride between lipoprotein particles, including high-density lipoproteins (HDL), low density lipoproteins (LDL), very low density lipoproteins (VLDL), and chylomicrons. The net result of CETP activity is a lowering of HDL cholesterol and an increase in LDL cholesterol. This effect on lipoprotein profile is believed to be pro-atherogenic, especially in subjects whose lipid profile constitutes an increased risk for CHD.
No wholly satisfactory HDL-elevating therapies exist. Niacin can significantly increase HDL, but has serious toleration issues resulting in reduced compliance. Fibrates and the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors raise HDL-C only modestly. As a result, there is a significant unmet medical need for a well-tolerated agent, which can significantly elevate plasma HDL levels, thereby reversing or slowing the progression of atherosclerosis.
PCT application publication number WO 00/02887 discloses the use of catalysts comprising certain novel ligands for transition metals in transition metal-catalyzed carbon-heteroatom and carbon-carbon bond formation.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,343, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses, inter alia, the CETP inhibitor, cis-4-[acetyl-(3,5-bis-trifluoromethyl-benzyl)-amino]-2-ethyl-6-trifluoromethyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-quinoline-1-carboxylic acid isopropyl ester, and processes for the preparation thereof.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,197,786, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses, inter alia, the CETP inhibitor, cis-4-[(3,5-bis-trifluoromethyl-benzyl)-methoxycarbonyl-amino]-2-ethyl-6-trifluoromethyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-quinoline-1-carboxylic acid ethyl ester, and processes for the preparation thereof.

Methods for preparing N-arylated oxazolidinones via a copper catalyzed cross coupling reaction


A new method for combining elemental iron and other metals to form an inexpensive ceramic to stabilize arsenic, alkaline red mud wastes, swarfs, and other iron or metal-based additives, to create products and waste forms which can be poured or dye cast.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for forming chemically bonded phosphate ceramics (CBPCs) of metal oxides and more specifically, this invention relates to a method for using trivalent oxides of metals to create a ceramic.
2. Background of the Invention
Haematite, having the chemical formula Fe2O3, is one of the most abundant minerals in nature. It exists as iron ore, in other minerals such as bauxite, and is also a component in clay minerals. It is the major component in laeritic soils (red soils found in the tropics). Similarly, manganese oxide, having a formula Mn2O3 is also a very common component in several lateritic soils and also exists as a mineral of manganese in the tropics.
When iron rusts, haematite is produced. Haematite also exists in metal machining wastes called swarfs, and in slags from steel industry. Iron mine tailings, containing haematite, are the most voluminous wastes that occupy land and pollute air with their dust. Thus haematite is abundant as a mineral as well as a waste and is a very inexpensive raw material. If a method is developed to bind haematite powder at ambient temperature by chemical reactions to form ceramics, the ensuring structural products can be very cost effective. This is particularly relevant in light of rising metal prices due to exhaustion of ore sites, and energy costs. This is because such a process will reduce energy consumption in the production of sintered structural products such as construction products and components.
Typically, tin chloride (SnCl2) or FeS are used to reduce haematite to iron oxides such as magnetite (Fe3O4) or to worstite (FeO). For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,133,498 issued to Singh et al. on Oct. 17, 2000 disclosed a method to produce chemically bonded phosphate ceramics for stabilizing contaminants encapsulated therein utilizing reducing agents. The iron oxide is then reacted with phosphoric acid solution to form ceramics.
These reducing agents have their drawbacks. First, tin chloride is very corrosive. Its chloride anions released in the reacted slurry tend to interfere with the setting reaction, thereby weakening the product. Also, the amount of tin chloride that needs to be added is a relatively high 5 wt.% of the total amount of haematite powder used. With its high cost, this component raises the cost of the product significantly so that any advantages of lower costs of the haematite are lost.
FeS releases sulfur dioxide (SO2), which is an atmospheric pollutant. The gaseous SO2 also generates additional porosity in the material and therefore weakens it. Furthermore, like tin chloride, FeS can be costly, resulting in a more expensive product. The ""498 patent does not provide an alternative to the use of SnCl2 and/or FeS.
The U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,645,518 and 5,830,815 issued to Wagh et al. on Jul. 8, 1997 and Nov. 3, 1998, respectively, disclose processes for utilizing phosphate ceramics to encapsulate waste. U.S. Pat. No. 5,846,894 issued to Singh et al. on Dec. 8, 1998 discloses a method to produce phosphate bonded structural products from high volume benign wastes. None of these patents provides a method for utilizing the waste materials of iron and manganese.
A need exists in the art for a method to produce low cost structural products using inexpensive iron and manganese oxides. These oxides would be available either as waste materials or as natural minerals and the ceramics generated therewith could be used to encapsulate metal wastes that require reduction environments such as hazardous materials (e.g. chromium and arsenic), fission products such as technetium wastes and low-level radioactive materials. The method should result in the formation of a durable and chemically stable ceramic. Also, the method should utilize inexpensive and commonly available reactants to produce low cost ceramics.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of producing chemically bonded phosphate ceramics (CBPCs) that overcomes many of the disadvantages of the prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a room temperature, non-toxic method for incorporating trivalent metal oxides in a ceramic. A feature of the invention is that elemental metal, or minerals and waste oxides containing the elemental metal, can be used to reduce the oxides. An advantage is that the oxide materials are abundant and therefore inexpensive.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of reducing haematite that does not use expensive, corrosive or polluting materials. A feature of the invention is that elemental iron is used to reduce haematite to more soluble species. An advantage of this feature is that the species can be utilized as a ceramic binder to encapsulate hazardous and radioactive waste.
Briefly, the process provides a method for forming ceramics from metal oxide, the process comprising supplying a mixture of elemental metal and the oxide, reacting the mixture with acid, and adding a retardant to the mixture to slow the setting rate.
Also provided is a method for stabilizing hazardous and radioactive waste by the formation of CBPC""s and incorporating the waste materials in either the haematite powder compositions or in the phosphoric acid solutions.
Finally, a method is provided for retarding the setting rate of Ferroceramicrete so as to facilitate its use in industrial settings.

Chemically bonded phosphate ceramics of trivalent oxides of iron and manganese


A space body has at least two space modules which can be interchangeably connected to one another. At least one closable connection opening is in each case provided on the space modules, via which a passage is produced when the space modules are connected. Furthermore, at least one coupling device connects in each case the space modules to one another. A supply interface is provided for coupling a supply line of the space modules.

From DE 10 2014 104 695 A1 a module with at least one coupling device is known for setting up a modular spacecraft. Furthermore, an androgynous coupling device for connecting modules is described. The coupling device is used to build up a modular constructed spacecraft, wherein the coupling device can be coupled to an identically constructed further androgynous coupling device for connecting the modules and comprises a plurality of coupling elements for this purpose. The interior of a sleeve-like linear guide element forms an expansion opening for interfaces providing network connection, data connection, hydraulic or pneumatic connection to the involved modules with each other. The sleeve-like linear guide element is surrounded by likewise sleeve-shaped nested coupling elements.
EP 0 196 793 A1 shows a modular satellite which modules comprise coupling devices for connecting the individual modules to one another. Each of these androgynous coupling modules is configured for coupling and connecting to an identically constructed coupling device and comprises a plurality of coupling elements for this purpose. With such an androgynous coupling device (androgynous interface) for orbitally maintainable satellite systems the reconfiguration of a modular satellite system composed of modules by robotic manipulation is enabled.
From WO 92/00223 an unmanned spacecraft is known. The spacecraft is configured modularly. Various subsidiary payload bodies are docked to a central mother body. Standardized interfaces are provided for this purpose, which enable the mother body to exchange for example control, data and electric energy with the subsidiary payload bodies. The subsidiary payload bodies are not self-sufficient systems and thus mostly dependent on the mother body. The subsidiary payload bodies serve only to provide further individual functions to the mother body.
The known space modules have the disadvantage that they may couple with each other, but not in any order. For example, the space modules can be coupled to a central satellite, but they cannot be assembled arbitrary in the known systems. This requires a precise planning especially concerning the control of the space modules. For this purpose, a separate central control module is required regularly for the entire space body, which takes over and coordinates the required control tasks of the individual space modules. The computer capacity of the controller is associated with the number of coupled space modules. The larger the space body is the more extensive is the control. If necessary, redundant systems are used in order to compensate controller failures. This is a complex system, which considerably increases the cost, for example for space flight.