The present invention is directed to polymeric compounds comprising a main backbone derived from at least the following monomeric components: (I) 20 to 99.9% by weight, preferably 50% to 99% by weight, of at least one cationic monomer according to formula (I), and (II) 0.1 to 80% by weight of a hydrophobic unsaturated nonionic monomer that polymerizes in the presence of an initiator, optionally a water-soluble monomer (III) different from either monomer (I) and monomer (II), and optionally a crosslinking agent (IV). Said compounds are particularly useful to overcome the problem of dye bleeding and/or dye transfer in laundry processes.

Various attempts have been made to overcome the problem of dye bleeding and/or dye transfer in laundry processes. The term "dye bleeding" often refers to the fact that certain dyes will come off the fabrics during laundering, thereby causing color fading of the fabrics. Such a phenomenon seems to be more prominent for cellulosic fabrics dyed with non-reactive dyes such as direct, vat, azoic and sulfur dyes (D R. Warring and G. Hallas, "The chemistry and application of dyes", Plenum Press, New York, 1990). Dyes that come off the fabrics are often called "migrating dyes" and the process to overcome dye bleeding are often referred to as "dye fixation".
On the other hand, there is also a need to take care of the migrating dyes that have already come off the fabrics and are present in the wash liquor. Otherwise, such migrating dyes might redeposit on fabric surfaces and thereby cause color contamination. This process is often referred to as "dye transfer inhibition" and/or "stain inhibition".
Hence there is a need for additives that can be added into laundry detergents and/or after rinse products to help either prevent dyes on fabrics from bleeding, i.e. fixing, or substances that can prevent migrating dyes from re-deposition. Indeed much efforts have been made to overcome such problems, and substances that could help tackle such problems are often referred as dye fixatives, dye transfer inhibitors, anti-deposition agents, dye scavengers and/or staining inhibitors.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,694,364, there is disclosed the use of tertiary polymeric amines which function as anionic dye scavengers. The polymeric amines are chemically affixed on the surface of a substrate material such as cellulosic materials, for example, cotton in any of its forms, purified cotton cellulose, cellulose sponge and the like. To affix the polymeric amines, the cotton substrate is modified by phosphorylation and chemisorption of the polymeric amine. In related U.S. Pat. No. 3,673,110, there is disclosed the use of both the tertiary polymeric amines and quaternary ammonium compounds as the dye scavenging material. The latter Edwards patent discloses other processes for chemically affixing the dye scavenger compounds to a cellulosic material substrate also for use in controlling undesirable random dyes in a liquid bath such as when laundering textile articles. For example, the hydroxylated surface of the cellulosic material is chemically modified to establish anionic functional groups. Each of the anionic functional groups is capable of chemically binding nitrogen compounds such as the aforementioned disclosed dye scavenger compounds.
In addition to modifying the fabric surface to present dye transfer, it is also possible to add into the laundry sacrificial materials that absorb migrating dyes, thereby prevent the re-deposition on fabrics of value and concern. Such materials are often made in the form of fabrics treated with various chemicals that are believed to be capable to attracting dyes from the wash liquor. In Kleinschmidt, U.S. Pat. No.3,816,321 there is disclosed a dye scavenging article for scavenging anionic dyes released from dyed fabrics being laundered to prevent dye transfer during the laundry process. The dye-scavenging article includes a support matrix such as a polyurethane material to which there is chemically bonded a dye-scavenging compound. The dye-scavenging compound includes polyquartenary ammonium compounds.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,380,453 discloses generally the use of N-trisubstituted ammonium-2-hydroxy-3-halopropyl compounds and salts of epoxy propyl ammonium as dye scavenger compounds. The preferred dye scavenger compound is glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride, which is applied to, adsorbed by, or impregnated in the cellulosic material substrate. The resulting cellulosic material substrate is disclosed as being suitable for use in conventional washing machines for laundering clothes to eliminate random dyes from the wash and rinse waters, thereby eliminating undesirable discoloration of clothes due to the transfer of dyes from other clothes in the washing machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,698,476 discloses an article for removing extraneous, random free-flowing dyes from laundry washing applications. The laundry article includes two components, a dye absorber and a dye transfer inhibitor, which are introduced into the wash water via a support matrix. The dye absorber is chemically attached to the support matrix to maintain a relational association during the laundry washing application. On the other hand, the dye transfer inhibitor is released from the support matrix into the wash water to be evenly distributed during the laundry washing application.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,698,476 discloses materials that are suitable as dye absorbers for the laundry article, including quaternary N-substituted ammonium)-hydroxy-haloalkyl compounds such as 2-hydroxy-3-chloropropoyltrimethylammonium chloride; polyquaternary ammonium compounds; polyamphoterics; quaternized starches; proteins; chitin or its hydrolyzed form, chitosan; choline chloride; polyvinyl amine (PVAm); polyethylene imine (PEI); as well as combinations thereof. Dye transfer inhibitors include polyvinyl pyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinyl Imidazole, polyamine-N-oxides, cationic starches, magnesium aluminate, hydrotalcite, proteins, hydrolyzed proteins, polyethylene imines, polyvinyl oxazolidone, enzymes, oxidants, cationic surfactants, amphoteric surfactants, propylene oxide reaction products, polyamino acids, block co-polymers of alkylene oxides, polyamines, polyamides, methyl cellulose, carboxyalkyl, celluloses, guar gum, natural gums, alginic acid, polycarboxylic acids, cydodextrins and mixtures.
Another approach for tackling the problem of undesirable dye transfer is through the use of an oxidation catalyst that is capable of removing migrating dyes in the wash liquor, thereby preventing re-deposition. Such catalysts, e.g. selected manganese complexes, can be added into laundry detergents as special additives.
Certain polymers have also been found to be useful in preventing migrating dyes from re-deposition. For examples, the use of poly(vinyl pyridine) and its various derivatives and co-polymers in preventing dye re-depositions can be found in the following references.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,348,441 discloses a method for laundering soiled fabrics using a non-aqueous detergent formulated to control dye transfer and sudsing in high efficiency washing machine. U.S. Pat. No. 5,466,802 discloses the use of quaternary polyvinylpyrridinium derivatives as anti-dye transfer agent. U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,815 discloses the use of quaternary polyvinylpyrridinium derivatives as anti-dye transfer agents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,380,447 discloses a process and fabric finishing compositions for preventing the deposition of dye in fabric finishing processes. U.S. Pat. No. 6,191,098 discloses polyvinylpyridinium derivatives as anti-dye transfer agents. U.S. Pat. No. 6,156,829 discloses a product and process for making quaternized, water-soluble vinylpyridine carboxylate polymers. U.S. Pat. No. 6,271,386 discloses a product and process for making quaternized, water-soluble vinylpyridine carboxylate polymers. U.S. Pat. No. 6,103,831 discloses water-soluble dye complexing polymers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,863,879 discloses dye transfer inhibitors for detergents (BASF, vinylamine derivatives). U.S. Pat. No. 6,165,969 discloses the use of quaternized polymerizates containing units of vinyl imidazole as a color fixing and color transfer inhibiting additive to detergent post-treatment agents and detergents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,830,844 discloses dye transfer inhibitors for detergents: Water-insoluble particles, crosslinked polymers containing polymerized units of 1-vinylpyrrolidone and/or 1-vinylimidazoles).
Various derivatives based on vinylpyridinum, poly(vinylpyridine-N-oxide) have been found to be efficient dye transfer inhibitors. The preparation and application of such compounds have been documented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,121,223 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,456.
Amine based products are believed to be able to provide dye transfer inhibition properties. For example, the use of N,N,N′,N′-tetrakis-(2-hydroxypropyl) ethylenediamine) as dye transfer inhibitors is explored in U.S. Pat. No. 5,827,813. Other references relating to the use of amine based substances as dye transfer inhibitors include U.S. Pat. No. 6,251,846, U.S. Pat. No. 6,156,722 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,292.
In addition to the aforementioned references, the use of polyglycosides (U.S. Pat. No. 6,159,921) and various enzymes exhibiting peroxidase activities (U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,621) as dye transfer inhibitors is referred.
In comparison to the seemingly plentiful references on various substances and their utilities as laundry detergents to provide dye transfer inhibition properties, there appears to be very few references on substances that could help prevent bleeding of dyes from fabrics. Among the very few citations, the use of bis-(hydroxyphenyl)sulfone with formaldehyde as dye bleeding prevention agent is reported in U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,949.
The use of nitrogen-containing polymers is known for use in laundry applications, particularly for soil-release properties. Published PCT application WO-A-98/23714 discloses water-soluble use of nitrogen-containing soil-release polymers in detergent products. Some of these polymers are formed from acrylamide monomers and are polymerized with co-monomers that are amines of alkylacrylates. A nitrogen-containing soil release polymer is described in WO-A-98/23714 and is formed from dicarboxylic add monomers and hydrophilic co-monomers that are secondary amines, which contain (poly)alkyleneoxy groups. Published PCT application WO-A-98/23714 discloses polymers formed from alkyleneacrylate monomers having a terminal quaternary ammonium group and co-monomers, which are (meth)acrylic add or esters or salts thereof. The only example is a polymer formed from a cationic monomer, namely methacrylamidopropyl trimethylammonium chloride (MAPTAC), and anionic monomer, namely acrylic acid (AA) and a neutral monomer, namely isobutylacrylate (IsoBuA).
U.S. Pat. No. 3,749,682 discloses copolymers of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and vinyl acetate for use as soil anti-redeposition agents.
Published PCT application WO-97/42285 discloses cotton soil-release polymers comprising a polyamine backbone and quaternary ammonium cationic groups.
Published European patent application 995,791 discloses a broad range of hydrophobically modified polycarboxylate polymers that are said to be useful for promoting soil release from fabrics, particularly cotton and cotton-containing fabrics. The polymers can comprise up to three moieties A, B and C wherein A is a polymerized residue of a monomer selected from one or more C3-C8 monoethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids, B is a polymerized residue of a monomer selected from one or more C3-C60 alkyl (meth)acrylates, ethoxylated C1-C24 alkyl (meth)acrylates, and poly(alkylene glycol) (meth)acrylates, alkyl or aromatic ethers of poly(alkylene glycol) and the corresponding maleate mono and di-esters thereof, and C is a polymerized residue of a monomer selected from one or more ethylenically unsaturated monomers which are copolymerizable with the monomers in A and B.
According to published British patent application 2,104,091, copolymers of anionic and cationlc vinyl monomers can be used as detergency builders, for a wide range of detergent products, e.g. for ware washing, hard surface cleaning, textile cleaning and hair products.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,783,533 discloses various amphoteric copolymers as rheological modifiers of lamellar phases of detergent or cosmetic compositions.
JP-A-59135293 discloses detergent compositions, which contain an amphoteric copolymer consisting of at least 10 mol % cationic vinyl monomer units, at least 10 mol % anionic vinyl monomer units and at least 10 mol % nonionic vinyl monomer units. The preferred proportion of cationic vinyl monomer units to anionic vinyl monomer units is a molar ratio from 1:2 to 2:1.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,731 disposes water-soluble terpolymers, which are useful in automatic machine dishwashing detergent formulations. These terpolymers contain as polymerized units (a) from about 92 to about 30% by weight of one or more C3-C6 monoethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids, (b) from about 5 to about 50% by weight of one or more aminoacryloyl derivatives, and (c) from about 25% by weight of one or more monoethylenically unsaturated monomers polymerizable with (a) and (b).

Hydrophobically modified polymers as laundry additives


A method and a system for reconstructing a partial transport stream are described. One embodiment of the method includes time-stamping each packet when the packet arrives, storing of the selected subset of packets and the associated timestamps in a storage medium, reading the stored packets and their timestamps from the storage medium, and reconstructing the partial transport stream with the packets and their timestamps.

Digital video is being used in an increasing array of applications ranging from personal computers (PC) and video conferencing to digital televisions (TV), set-top boxes, and personal video recorders (PVR). These varied video systems can process content from cable, satellite, and terrestrial broadcasts as well as streaming video and video-on-demand over the internet. The digital television industry faces several challenges in order to accelerate worldwide deployment of these technologies. It needs to make TV compelling and engaging, lower the cost of the roll-out of interactive services on digital TV, and develop a whole range of products in cost effective ways to take advantage of new market opportunities.
In particular, the fast-growing PVR systems (also known as Digital Video Recorders DVR) allow consumers to interactively choose which content they want to watch, from broadcast media or video-on-demand, and when to watch it. The viewers have the control, management rights, and personalization options on digital content. For example, the PVR/DVR systems allow viewers to record TV broadcasts from cable, satellite, or over-the-air to a hard disk. These systems record automatically, allowing viewers to pause, rewind, and replay live television. Furthermore, the PVR/DVR systems allow easy management of pre-recorded programs, and the ability to schedule and specify the recordings.
An important component of a PVR/DVR system is the storage medium. Traditionally, hard disks have been used as the storage medium. Newer systems have also employed conventional VHS tapes to record digital content in a compressed format, for example, the Digital VHS (D-VHS) format. These systems interface with digital video processing integrated circuits (ICs) using the IEEE 1394 digital interface. The format of digital content stored can range from full transport streams to partial transport streams and program streams.
Full transport streams contain fixed-size packets from several different compressed programs interleaved together. For example, broadcast signals use full transport streams. These carry not only the content information within the packets, but also the temporal information, which is important for maintaining precise display rates in a television receiver. On the other hand partial transport streams contain only a selected subset of packets, usually filtered based on the packet identifier (PID). From a storage perspective, systems based on partial transport streams are superior to the ones based on full transport. Program streams, used ubiquitously in DVDs, are non-packetized streams of data usually containing only a single compressed program. Systems based on program streams require additional control information to be stored, since the stored content has only limited temporal information
Since content in a transport-stream based PVR/DVR system could originate from a storage medium (and not a broadcast signal), an important problem is reconstructing the stream precisely. All temporal information must be recreated. For full transport streams, a hardware module can read data from the storage medium at a fixed, known rate and recreate the temporal information. However, the problem is more challenging for partial transport streams. Proper gaps for packets that were dropped due to PID filtering have to be recreated. The transport stream reconstruction problem also arises when a partial transport stream has to be recorded on an ISO-61883 compliant storage medium connected via IEEE 1394 interface. For example, the input to a D-VHS tape must be a partial transport stream with very low jitter so that the content can be played back to the digital TV system as precisely as a broadcast signal.

Reconstructing a partial transport stream


A fluctuating oscillator includes: an adder that has an input terminal to which an input signal including a main signal and an uncorrelated signal that is uncorrelated with the main signal and is higher in frequency than the main signal is input, and adds a feedback signal to the input signal; a threshold discrimination unit that generates a pulse signal by comparing an addition signal added by the adder with a threshold; a transient response unit that generates an output signal by transiently responding the generated pulse signal; and a feedback loop that feeds back the output signal to the adder as the feedback signal.

There is known a fluctuating oscillator, which is an oscillator using a stochastic resonance phenomenon in which a signal is boosted and a reaction is improved under a certain probability by adding noise to the signal. Since the fluctuating oscillator oscillates with fluctuation such as 1/f fluctuation, it is possible to achieve comfortable control for a human such as flickering a lighting device like a firefly or biologically moving a robot. Furthermore, the fluctuating oscillator can also be used as a sensor that senses a weak signal buried in noise. Since the conventional fluctuating oscillator includes an analog circuit, it has been required to flexibly adjust circuit parameters such as a resistor and a capacitor in order to oscillate the fluctuating oscillator at a desired frequency.
Therefore, Patent Literature 1 discloses a fluctuating oscillator that can flexibly adjust circuit parameters. Specifically, Patent Literature 1 discloses a fluctuating oscillator including a noise generator, an adder that adds, to an input signal, a noise signal generated by the noise generator and a transient response signal to be fed back, a threshold discrimination unit that generates a pulse signal by comparing an addition signal output from the adder with a threshold, a transient response unit that causes transient response of the pulse signal, a feedback loop that feeds back the transient response signal from the transient response unit, and an intensity adjustment unit that adjusts intensity of the transient response signal flowing through the feedback loop.
However, since the fluctuating oscillator of Patent Literature 1 includes a noise generator, there is a problem that the circuit scale increases and the cost also increases accordingly. Furthermore, since the noise generator is provided, there is also a problem that the power consumption increases. Furthermore, when the natural frequency of the fluctuating oscillator is adjusted, work of adjusting the circuit parameters such as the threshold of the threshold discrimination unit and the time constant of the transient response unit is required. However, if there is a noise generator, it is also required to adjust the level of the noise signal generated by the noise generator, and there is a problem that it takes time and effort to adjust the circuit parameters.

Fluctuation oscillator and signal sensing device


A method for analyzing a speech signal to isolate speech and nonspeech portions of the speech signal is provided. The method is applied to an input speech signal to determine boundary values locating isolated words or groups of words within the speech signal. First, a comparison signal is generated which is biased to emphasize components of the signal having preselected frequencies. Next, the system compares the comparison signal with a threshold level to determine estimated boundary values demonstrating the beginning and ending points of the words. Once the estimated boundary values are calculated, the system adjusts the boundary values to achieve final boundary values. The specific amount of adjustment varies, depending upon the amount of noise present in the signal. The final pair of boundary values provide a reliable indication of the location and duration of the isolated word or group of words within the speech signal.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to speech recognition systems and, in particular, to a system for determining the location of isolated words within a speech signal.
Description of Related art
A wide variety of speech recognition systems have been developed. Typically, such systems receive a time-varying speech signal representative of spoken words and phrases. The speech recognition system attempts to determine the words and phrases within the speech signal by analyzing components of the speech signal. As a first step, most speech recognition systems must first isolate portions of the speech signal which convey spoken words from portions carrying silence. To this end, the systems attempt to determine the beginning and ending boundaries of a word or group of words within the speech signal. Accurate and reliable determination of the beginning and ending boundaries of words or sentences poses a challenging problem, particularly when the speech signal includes background noise.
A variety of techniques have been developed for analyzing a time-varying speech signal to determine the location of an isolated word or group of words within the signal. Typically, the intensity of the speech signal is measured. Portions of the speech signal having an intensity greater than a minimum threshold are designated as being "speech," whereas those portions of the speech signal having an intensity below the threshold are designated as being silent portions or "nonspeech." Unfortunately, such simple discrimination techniques have been unreliable, particularly where substantial noise is present in the signal. Indeed, it has been estimated that more than half of the errors occurring in a typical speech recognition system are the result of an inaccurate determination of the location of the words within the speech signal. To minimize such errors, the technique for locating isolated words within the speech signal must be capable of reliably and accurately locating the boundaries of the words, despite a high noise level. Further, the technique must be sufficiently simple and quick to allow for real time processing of the speech signal. Furthermore, the technique must be capable of adapting to a variety of noise environments without any a priori knowledge of the noise. The ability to accurately and reliably locate the boundaries of isolated words in any of a variety of noise environments is generally referred to as the robustness of the technique. Heretofore, a robust technique for accurately locating words within a speech signal has not been developed.

Method for determining boundaries of isolated words within a speech signal


A display support device for displaying flags and banners comprises a base having a cavity; a shaft attached to a rotatable member received by the cavity for rotation freely in all directions; and a clamping arrangement for clamping the rotatable member against the cavity of the base to prevent relative movement therebetween. This attachment arrangement employs a plunger, positioned for movement along the longitudinal axis of the base, which is forced out of the bottom of the base by the rotatable member pressing against the bottom wall of the cavity of the base under the action of the clamping arrangement. The plunger, when the display support device is loosely clipped or strapped to the disparate object, acts to tighten the clip or strap so as to clasp the display support device to the disparate object, regardless of the surface irregularity of the object.

Different mounting arrangements for the display of flags, sports pennants and banners are known such as wall brackets, lawn or sidewalk sockets, floor stands, flag and banner poles for indoor and parade use as well as outdoor flag poles and the like. In addition, it is known to display flags and placards on personal vehicles for a diversity of reasons, such as, to express support for a sports team, mark the location of the vehicle in a parking lot, request emergency assistance, signal distress as well as for decorative and symbolic purposes. Known arrangements for supporting flags on automobiles are disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. D295,730, 3,036,545, 4,015,557, 4,163,426, 4,348,978, 4,519,153, 4,875,431, 4,964,360, 5,233,938, and 5,299,525.
One particular drawback of the known arrangements noted above is that each is adapted for only one distinctive function and cannot be affixed to disparate supporting structures having different surface irregularities. An addition deficiency is that these known arrangements typically orient the flag on a pole which is fixed against movement relative to a base structure thereby preventing angular adjustment of the flag pole. One exception is the wall mounted bracket, however, these brackets permit the angular adjustment of a flag pole relative to the base in only one, restricted, plane around a single shaft of rotation. Moreover, many of the known arrangements employ complex support structures and are expensive.

Display support device for displaying replaceable indicia


Some embodiments provide a method for a managed forwarding element. The method receives a set of packets for processing by the managed forwarding element. For each of several packets in the set, the method associates the packet with one of several groups of other packets in the set. Each group of packets shares a set of characteristics. For each group of packets the method identifies a set of actions to perform and executes the specified set of actions on all of the packets in the group together.

A software virtual switch operating on a host in a datacenter will often have dozens of VMs directly connected, resulting in the virtual switch seeing thousands or even millions of packets per second. One of the main challenges in developing such a software switching element is performance. A hardware switch has application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that are specifically designed to support in-hardware forwarding. Software switches, on the other hand, operate on standard machines, such as x86 boxes, and are therefore executed by general-purpose processing units (e.g., CPUs), which are more versatile but slower than the operation-specific circuits. Thus, methods for increasing the performance of the software switching element are needed.


The purpose of the Krazy koozie is to provide the consumer with an apparatus intended for use with beverage containers of various sizes and shapes. The Krazy koozie performs functions of prior existence regarding protecting the hand of the consumer when holding a hot beverage cup, providing insulation to a cold beverage container, collapsible storage capabilities, preventing condensation stains on preferred surfaces, but combines all existing functions with the ability to expand and contract easily around various beverage containers. Unlike existing products on the market, the Krazy koozie combines all the desired functions of existing apparatuses allowing a consumer to use my invention during most situations with many beverage containers. The existing market is lacking of a universal apparatus for insulating a beverage container, my invention introduces this idea and provides many opportunities to not only consumers, but those currently involved in the market as it exists today.

Various types of insulating jackets and sleeves have been created and marketed for the purposes of keeping various beverage containers hot or cold as well as hindering condensation that frequently forms on the outside of a cold beverage container. Sleeves such as that invented by Carlson (U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,656), intended for insulating the hand while holding a beverage cup, lacks the insulating material needed in order to maintain the temperature of the liquid within the beverage cup. Much like Carlson's sleeve, Tunberg's (U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,349) intended use is that of fitting a beverage cup as well, however, instead of concentrating on protecting the hand when holding a hot beverage within a cup Tunberg focused on protecting the cup when making confectionary drinks. Both Tunberg's and Carlson's sleeves lack the capability to collapse for easy storage as well as to fit around various sizes and shapes of beverage containers. Other beverage container holders such as that invented by Henderson (U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,525), intended for easily storing when not in use as well as claiming a support base, lacks the capability to fit various beverage containers due to it's "substantially rectangular body portion" and is limited to that of a cylindrical beverage container. Much like the problems mentioned with Henderson's invention, McGough's (U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,015) invention although also claiming the ability to collapse, lacks as Henderson's with the inability to fit around various sizes and shapes of beverage containers. As I have shown, many varying products concern themselves with varying functions without being capable of performing them all. This invention has the ability to fit various beverage containers such as: a 12 oz. aluminum can or glass bottle, a 16 oz. plastic bottle, a 12 oz. or 16 oz. cup, a 22 oz. aluminum can or bottle, as well as many other sizes of cups with varying circumferences. This invention has a collapsible base for easy storage, can be used when making confectionary drinks, keeps various beverage containers hot or cool, hinders condensation stains due to it's base, as well as protecting ones hand when consuming a hot beverage. As all prior art limits itself to few functions and capabilities, this invention combines multiple functions and presents them in a single design.


A method of installing electrical cabling by securing an electrical cable clip to a structure using a fixing element that passes through the clip into the structure, subsequently inserting one or more electrical cables into a cable receiving channel defined by the clip and securing the electrical cables in that channel. The structure will typically be the wall of a building or the like and the fixing element is preferably a nail that is fired through the base portion of the electrical cable clip by means of a nail gun.

The invention relates to improvements in cable installation and particularly, but not exclusively, to the installation of fire resistant cables.
United Kingdom regulations and standards for fire resistant cable installations require that the cable is fixed to building structures by metallic fixings that maintain their support during a fire. Currently, such cables are installed using a P-shaped metallic clip, which is fitted around the cable and then screwed to the building structure. Typically, one screw is used and is screwed into a pre-drilled hole, which may have to be plugged to accept the screw. If two cables are to be installed side-by-side, an extended U-shaped clip may be used. Such clips are usually secured by means of two screws, one on each side of the cables. As with the P-shaped clip, the clip is fitted around the cables and is then secured to the building structure by means of the two screws.
The typical spacing between fixings in a fire resistant cable installation is 300 mm. With this spacing, to install 100 m of cable, over 330 fixings are required. It is estimated that it would take approximately 24 hours to install 330 conventional P-shaped fixings. This adds to the cost of installing cabling. A further disadvantage of installing cabling using known clips is that the clip must be fitted around the cable before being secured to the building structure and the installer has to hold the clip in place and provide support for the cable while screwing the screw(s) into its (their) hole(s). This makes installation more awkward and time consuming.
An object of the invention is to at least partially alleviate one or both of these problems and/or at least provide an alternative to existing practice.


In accordance with a request from a portable telephone 60, a sound data delivering server 20 delivers a trial-listening music data to the portable telephone without charging a fee to a user of the portable telephone, or delivers a regular music data to the portable telephone upon charging a fee to the user. The delivered trial-listening music data is actually reproduced by the portable telephone; however, the number of reproduction times is limited, and the trial-listening music data is erased from a memory (RAM 63) of the portable telephone after the trial-listening music data is reproduced for the predetermined number of reproduction times. Thus, a system is provided in which the user of the portable telephone can obtain the trial-listening music data of an incoming call melody without being charged for the fee, and can actually reproduce the trial-listening music data with the use of the user s portable telephone.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system having a client-side terminal (for example, a portable telephone) and a sound data delivering server that are communicable with each other for delivering a sound data (for example, a melody for announcing an incoming call (hereinafter called "an incoming call melody"), which is reproduced by the client-side terminal at a predetermined timing (for example, when the portable telephone receives a call), from the sound data delivering server to the client-side terminal.
2. Description of the Background Art
In accordance with the development of communication technique in recent years, portable telephones, mobile computers, and others utilizing the wireless technique are becoming widespread as one of the communicable client-side terminals. On the other hand, as a service that these client-side terminals can receive, a sound data delivering service (referred to as incoming call melody requesting service in the case of portable telephones) is also spreading widely.
Generally, in these services, a user of the client-side terminal can select a desired sound data from numerous sound data prepared in a sound data delivering server. Further, the sound data delivering server is configured to deliver a selected sound data to the client-side terminal and to charge a fee to the user of the client-side terminal.
However, in the above-mentioned service, when the sound data is delivered to the client-side terminal, the delivered sound data is registered in a non-volatile memory of the client-side terminal, whereby one of the sound data registered in the client-side terminal is automatically erased. For this reason, the above-mentioned service is not fully satisfactory to the user if the user of the client-side terminal eventually feels that the music reproduced on the basis of the newly delivered sound data is not preferable or if the user feels that the music reproduced on the basis of the erased sound data is more preferable.
Therefore, the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 11-127262/1999, for example, is constructed in such a manner that the delivered sound data is not immediately registered in the non-volatile memory but, instead of this, the delivered sound data is stored in a volatile memory to be capable of being subjected to trial listening (reproducible) and, when a predetermined key operation is carried out in accordance with the result of trial-listening, the sound data is registered in the non-volatile memory.
However, in the above-mentioned prior-art technique, the sound data for trial-listening (trial-listening sound data) and the sound data for registration (regular sound data) are not differentiated, so that even if the user of the client-side terminal wishes the sound data to be delivered for trial listening, the user is charged for the fee every time the sound data is delivered to the client-side terminal. For this reason, if the result of trial listening is not preferable for the user, the above-mentioned prior-art service is not fully satisfactory to the user. Therefore, one of the objects of the present invention is to provide a system, a method, a delivering server constituting the system, a client-side terminal which is substantially a computer as well, and a computer-readable recording medium, in which the user can carry out the trial-listening of the delivered sound data without being charged for the fee (or by being charged for a fee less expensive than in the case of properly purchasing the sound data).

Sound data delivering system, sound data delivery method, delivering server utilized in the sound data delivering system, client-side terminal utilized in the sound data delivering system, and computer-readable recording medium containing a program applied to a computer utilized in the sound data delivering system


A desired spatial resolution upon a measurement can be attained by making an electromagnetic wave including a terahertz wave (frequency thereof is equal to or more than 0.01 [THz], and equal to or less than 100 [THz]) incident to a device under test. An electromagnetic wave measurement device includes an incident lens which makes an electromagnetic wave to be measured having a frequency equal to or more than 0.01 [THz] and equal to or less than 100 [THz] incident to a device under a test while decreasing a beam diameter of the electromagnetic wave to be measured, a scanning stage which rotates, about a line orthogonal to an optical axis of the incident lens as a rotational axis, the device under the test or the optical axis, and an electromagnetic wave detector which detects the electromagnetic wave to be measured which has transmitted through the device under the test, where a coordinate on the optical axis of a position which gives the minimum value d of the beam diameter is different from a coordinate on the optical axis of the rotational axis.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tomography using an electromagnetic wave (frequency thereof is equal to or more than 0.01 [THz], and equal to or less than 100 [THz]) (such as a terahertz wave (frequency thereof is equal to or more than 0.03 [THz], and equal to or less than 10 [THz]), for example).
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has conventionally been known a measurement device which irradiates a terahertz wave generated by a terahertz wave generator on a device under test, and uses a detector for terahertz wave to detect the terahertz wave which has transmitted through the device under test, thereby measuring the device under test.
As this type of a measurement device, there has been known a measurement device which includes a first optical system which condenses a terahertz wave generated by a generator for terahertz wave, and irradiates the condensed terahertz wave on a device under test, and a second optical system which makes the terahertz wave which has transmitted through the device under test incident to a detector for terahertz wave (refer to Abstract of Patent Document 1, for example).    (Patent Document 1) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-133178

Electromagnetic wave measuring apparatus


In a coal-fired boiler, a heat recovery unit is located upstream of a dry electrostatic precipitator so as to reduce the temperature of exhaust gas flowing to the dry electrostatic precipitator and thus prevent reverse ionization in the electrostatic precipitator. The heat recovery unit located upstream of the dry electrostatic precipitator will in no way be corroded even if the concentration of dust is reduced in the dry electrostatic precipitator. A desulfurization unit does not require a cooling/dust removing section and eliminates the need for a wet electrostatic precipitator. The dry electrostatic precipitator includes a gas passage divided into a plurality of parallel passages and dampers operable to close the passages. This arrangement prevents dust from being dispersed as a result of hammering without charge.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for removing dust and SO.sub.x from exhaust gas in a coal-fired boiler.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIGS. 4 and 5 are block diagrams of conventional systems for removing dust and SO.sub.x from exhaust gas in a coal-fired boiler.
With reference first to FIG. 4, the system includes a coal-fired boiler 1. The temperature of exhaust gas from the boiler 1 is reduced to 120.degree. to 160.degree. C. in an air preheater 2. Dust is removed from the exhaust gas in a dry electrostatic precipitator 4 until its concentration is reduced to about 100 mg/m.sup.3 or slightly higher. Furthermore, in order to save the energy necessary to reheat the gas after desulfurization, heat is recovered in a rotary-reheat type of gas-gas heater 7. Thereafter, the temperature of the exhaust gas is reduced to its saturation temperature in a cooling/dust removing section 6a of a wet type of exhaust gas desulfurization unit 6, and the dust is further removed from the exhaust gas. The concentration of SO.sub.x is reduced in a SO.sub.x absorbing section 6b provided separately from the cooling/dust removing section 6a. Finally, the exhaust gas is reheated in the gas-gas heater 7 and is then discharged through a chimney.
This prior system suffers from the following problems.
(1) As shown in FIG. 6, the temperature of exhaust gas in the electrostatic precipitator is high, and the specific resistance of dust produced by the burning of some types of coal is above 10.sup.11 .OMEGA.-cm. When the specific resistance of the dust exceeds 10.sup.11 .OMEGA.-cm, reverse ionization occurs in the electrostatic precipitator. This substantially deteriorates the performance of the electrostatic precipitator. For this reason, a large electrostatic precipitator is needed to collect dust at a required rate.
(2) If the concentration of dust at the outlet of the electrostatic precipitator is reduced to 100 mg/m.sup.3 N or lower, then SO.sub.3 remaining in the gas is atomized when the exhaust gas is cooled by the gas-gas heater. SO.sub.3 thus atomized is then deposited in the gas-gas heater. This results in the corrosion of members made of the same metal such as carbon steel, stainless steel, etc. It thus becomes necessary to raise the concentration of dust above 100 mg/m.sup.3 N so as to neutralize SO.sub.3 as a countermeasure against the corrosion problem. As a result, the concentration of dust is approximately 20 mg/m.sup.3 N at the outlet of the desulfurization unit 6. If dust leakage (approximately 10%) takes place in the gas-gas heater 7, then the concentration of dust at the inlet of the chimney is reduced only to 30 mg/m.sup.3 N at most.
(3) The desulfurization unit uses a lime (limestone, hereinafter)-gypsum method. When it is attempted to recover the by-product gypsum for reuse, if the concentration of dust at the inlet is 100 mg/m.sup.3 N or more, the dust deteriorates the purity of the gypsum. In order to prevent such a problem and maintain the purity of gypsum at a predetermined level, the desulfurization unit must sometimes be of separation type including a cooling/dust removing section 6a and a separate absorbing section 6b, particularly in the case where the concentration of SO.sub.2 at the inlet is low. This results in an increase in the consumption of space and in the running cost.
FIG. 5 shows a system used when the emission standards for dust to be discharged from the chimney are more severe, for instance, when the concentration of dust at the inlet of the chimney must be reduced to 10 mg/m.sup.3 N or less. This system includes a leak-free type of gas-gas heater wherein heat exchange is effected through a heating medium. The equipment in this system is made from economical carbon steel. This system is different from the system of FIG. 4 in that a heat recovery section 3a is separated from a reheater section 3b, and in that a wet electrostatic precipitator 8 is provided downstream of the purifier 6. However, this system suffers from the problems (1) and (3). In order to reduce the concentration of dust from 20 mg/m.sup.3 N to 10 mg/m.sup.3 N, a wet electrostatic precipitator is used which takes up more space and increases the running cost of the system.

Method and system for handling exhaust gas in a boiler


A first type of measurement and a second type of measurement are performed to determine a fingerprint of an object. A physical attribute of the object is also determined.

User identification devices have become increasingly popular for decreasing security threats, increasing safeguard techniques, and to help prevent fraud. Typically, a user identification device is used to gain access to a location or a system or may be used simply for identification, such as gaining access to your personal electronic device. One type of conventional user identification device is a biometric sensor in fingerprinting. Fingerprints have been widely accepted as unique identifiers for individuals. That is no two people have been known to have the exact fingerprint. Conventional fingerprint sensors typically require a user to place a finger or hand on the sensor. The fingerprint is detected by the sensor, and compared to a catalogued fingerprint for the user.
One type of conventional fingerprint sensor is a capacitive fingerprint sensor. A fingerprint is comprised of ridges and valleys. When a finger is placed on the sensor a capacitance is measured. The measured capacitance varies per user because each user has different ridges and valleys on their respective fingers.
Capacitive fingerprint sensors are popular but may be inaccurate due to the inability to make fine-grain measurements. For example, a conventional capacitive sensor may comprise two conductive plates and a dielectric formed there between. The capacitance changes as a result of placing a finger on one of the conductive plates. These sensors may be inaccurate due to noise. The change in capacitance sensed by the sensors when measuring a fingerprint should be much larger than a nonsystematic error in measurement, which may be caused by changes in contact between the device and the finger, or much larger than any errors in measurement that may result from natural or seasonal drift, such as drift resulting from seasonal, environmental changes or ageing Some conventional sensors are not capable of taking fine grain-measurements for different sections of a fingerprint and thus may result in two people having indistinguishable capacitive measurements.
Furthermore, conventional fingerprint sensors are subject to spoofing. For example, a gel formed as an authorized person's fingerprint or a finger removed from a deceased person may be used by an unauthorized user to trick a fingerprint sensor and gain access to a location or a system, because conventional fingerprint sensors typically do not determine a physical attribute of the object with the fingerprint, such as whether the physical attribute is such as living or dead human tissue.

Fingerprint and physical attribute detection

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A child lock apparatus is capable of electrically controlling a child lock function, which disables a door opening operation when a door of a vehicle is opened from a vehicle cabin side by operating a door inner handle. The child lock apparatus includes a child lock mechanism which child-locks the door, and a controller which controls the child lock mechanism based on driving conditions of the vehicle detected by a driving condition detector. The controller controls the child lock mechanism to child-lock the door if the driving condition detector detects that the vehicle is running.

The present invention generally relates to a child lock apparatus which disables a door opening operation made by a door inner handle positioned in a vehicle cabin, so as to prevent an unintentional door opening operation.
When a child sits, for example, in the back seat of an automobile, he or she may manipulate a door inner handle of a door and unintentionally open the door. In order to prevent such an unintentional door opening operation, there is provided a child lock apparatus which disables the door opening operation even if the door inner handle is manipulated from the vehicle cabin side.
Japanese Patent Publication No. H05-61430 (claims and FIG. 4) discloses a conventional child lock apparatus, which includes a child lever for locking and unlocking a child lock. The child lever is provided at one end surface of the door that faces to the vehicle body, and it is connected to a switch (lock release manipulation switch) so that the operating condition of the child lever is outputted to a control circuit (a flip-flop circuit, a first AND gate circuit, a second AND gate circuit, an actuator drive circuit, etc.) in accordance with the ON/OFF signal of the switch. When the child lever is manipulated to lock the child lock, the control circuit supplies an electric current to the actuator to operate the same, so that the door is child-locked and is not opened by the door inner handle.
However, in the above conventional child lock apparatus, the child lever is provided at one end surface of the door that faces to the vehicle body. Therefore, the child lever is not manipulated if the door is closed. In other words, it is necessary to open the door in advance, and thus locking/unlocking the child lock requires complicated operations.
Further, since locking the child lock is manually operated, if the child lock remains inadvertently unlocked by shear mistake, the child lock apparatus does not provide a reliable child lock performance and it allows a child to open the door, by the manipulation of the door inner handle, while the vehicle is running.
In view of the above, the present invention in one preferred mode seeks to provide a child lock apparatus which can reliably child-lock the door during the running of the vehicle.


An internal ceiling cladding for a large vehicle for passenger transport, in particular, a rail vehicle, includes a cladding element, arranged in the vicinity of a door drive and arched elements adjacent thereto. The cladding element is provided as base module and includes a surface on the side thereof facing the vehicle longitudinal centre for the exact matching up of a further cladding element.

It is generally customary in rail vehicles for door drives arranged on the roof side to be clad by way of a respective element and for there to be arranged between these elements coving elements which likewise form part of the internal cladding. As a rule, the design and especially the shaping of the cladding elements and of the coving elements are fixed at the actual vehicle design phase, frequently in collaboration with the customer. The appearance which is thereby imparted to the vehicle is barely capable of being altered subsequently, in particular after the vehicle has been delivered, unless at considerable cost.
The aforementioned disadvantage is applicable for example to what is disclosed in the publication EP 1 186 499 A2, namely a coach body of a rail vehicle having an internal cladding which is arranged in the roof region and which includes three cladding sections extending transversely with respect to the longitudinal direction of the coach body. An air duct is in each case fitted between the central cladding section and the two lateral cladding sections. The underside of these air ducts is situated in the plane of the lateral cladding sections, with the result that the air ducts can be fitted into the contour of the internal cladding.
The prior art also includes, by way of the document DE 197 46 795 A1, a large-capacity vehicle in which an internal cladding for the ceiling region includes two sandwich cover plates which are each formed continuously over the length of the vehicle and cover one half of the roof. This internal cladding which defines the appearance of the vehicle is also virtually no longer capable of being modified to any degree after the vehicle has been delivered.

Internal ceiling cladding for a large vehicle for passenger transport in particular a rail vehicle


A hydrogen reforming system includes a cyclical compression chamber having an entry port for receiving hydrogen-containing gas and an exit port for delivering reformed hydrogen-containing gas, an arrangement for heating the hydrogen-containing gas to a non-combustible temperature, and a drive system for cycling the cyclical compression chamber. The cyclical compression chamber has an operational cycle with an internal pressure and temperature absent combustion effective for reforming the hydrogen-containing gas.

The present disclosure relates generally to a method and system for producing hydrogen by reforming hydrogen-containing gas, and particularly to a method and system employing a cyclical compression chamber for reforming methane gas into hydrogen gas.
Fuels such as methane may be reformed by a variety of methods, such as POX (partial oxidation), CPOX (catalytic partial oxidation), ATR (autothermal reforming), and SMR (steam-methane reforming) for example, to produce hydrogen. Steam-methane reforming of hydrocarbons such as methane (natural gas, CH4) is an endothermic reaction that takes place at high temperatures between 500 and 1100 degree-Celsius (deg-C.). These methods tend to control equilibrium conversion and reaction rates by varying temperature, utilizing catalysts, and injecting steam or water, with the resulting systems tending to be complex and with complicated operation and control systems.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art to provide a method and system for effectively reforming hydrogen-containing gas into hydrogen gas that overcomes the complexities of present methods and systems.

Method and system for producing hydrogen by reforming hydrogen-containing gas


According to some embodiments of the present invention, methods and apparatus are described for performing a supplementary process. In one embodiment, a method is provided for receiving an override signal. If the override signal indicates performance of a supplementary process, the method further provides for determining an upsell in dependence on a purchase, determining an upsell price in dependence on the purchase, and offering to exchange the upsell price for the upsell.

Point-of-sale ("POS") terminals, such as cash registers, are used in a wide variety of businesses for performing such processes as calculating the total price of a purchase (goods or services) and calculating the amount of change due to a customer. Some POS terminals furthermore track items sold and adjust a database of store inventory accordingly.
A POS terminal may perform a supplementary process in addition to performing the processes listed above. A supplementary process can increase sales, and thereby increase the average profit gained per transaction. One such supplementary process is described in a parent application of the present application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/920,116, entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING SUPPLEMENTARY PRODUCT SALES AT A POINT-OF-SALE TERMINAL, filed Aug. 26, 1997 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,119,099 on Sep. 12, 2000. Described therein is a supplementary process in which a customer at a POS terminal is offered an "upsell" in exchange for an amount of change due. The POS terminal determines an upsell in dependence on a purchase of the customer, and also determines an upsell price (the amount of change due) based on the purchase. For example, a customer purchasing a first product for $1.74 and tendering $2.00 may be offered a second product in lieu of the $0.26 change due. The upsell price, $0.26, thus depends on the purchase price $1.74.
Another supplementary process is a computer-determined "suggestive sell". U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,219 describes a system for suggesting items for a customer to purchase from a primary category at conventional item prices. Still another supplementary process is described in a parent application of the present application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/841,791, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELLING SUBSCRIPTIONS TO PERIODICALS IN A RETAIL ENVIRONMENT, filed May 5, 1997 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,926,796 on Jul. 20, 1999. Described therein is a supplementary process in which a customer purchasing an issue of a periodical at a POS terminal is offered the opportunity at that time to purchase a subscription to that periodical.
Such supplementary processes may be performed solely within the POS terminal itself. For example, a cash register may be programmed to calculate an amount of change due, and determine an upsell to offer in exchange for the change due. Alternatively, the supplementary process may be performed with the assistance of a device in communication with the cash register. For example, a remote server computer connected to the cash register via a communications network may determine an upsell to offer in exchange for the change due.
A supplementary process performed at a POS terminal may undesirably slow the rate at which customer transactions are completed. For example, it may take several seconds for a cashier operating a POS terminal to offer a customer an upsell in exchange for an amount of change due, and for the customer to decide whether to accept such an offer. Offering a customer a choice of several upsells in exchange for an amount of change due could impose yet further delays on completing customer transactions.
Such delays may be acceptable under some conditions, yet unduly burdensome under other conditions. For example, during lunch or other times of day, there may be a long line at a POS terminal. It would be inadvisable to add to the wait of each customer in line by performing a supplementary process as well. However, eliminating the supplementary processes may speed the completion of customer transactions, but at the cost of the extra profit derived from such supplementary processes. Accordingly, a need exists for controlling the performance of supplementary processes at POS terminals.

Method and apparatus for controlling the performance of a supplementary process at a point of sale terminal


CMC with CMDS greater than or equal to 0.76, optionally with a non-ionic co-thickener or a CMC with CMDS less than 0.75 is used as both the rheology modifier and partial clay substitute in tape joint compounds. This significant reduction of clay level is sufficient to eliminate most of the negative characteristics of clay in joint compound.

Wallboard is generally installed in large panels, which are nailed, screwed, or glued to the studding of walls of buildings. The joints where sections of the wallboard are butted together are covered with a joint compound and then a fiberglass or paper reinforcing tape is embedded within the joint compound and then permitted to dry. When the joint compound is dry, a second application of the joint compound is applied over the joint and is permitted to dry. A coating of the joint compound is also applied to cover nail heads or screws or any cracks in the wallboard and let dry. After the joint compound dries, the joint and covering of the nails or screws are lightly sanded and the wall is then finished with decorating material such as paint.
Typically, tape joint compositions, which are normally referred to as joint compounds, contain a binder, a thickener system, a filler, water, a biocide, clay and mica. This joint composition is a ready-mix, drying type composition that is normally sold in five-gallon cans or corrugated boxes. The water and filler are the ingredients that comprise the largest weight percentage in the joint composition. Joint compounds are either regular weight compounds that are the traditional type or lightweight compounds. The regular weight joint compounds have a weight of about 13 to 14 pounds per gallon (ppg) (1.55–1.65 g/cc) while the lightweight joint compounds have a weight of about 8 to 10 ppg (0.9–1.2 g/cc.) The lightweight joint compound is becoming the more desirable compound used in the industry.
Although attapulgite clay is the clay of choice for tape joint compound rheology control, it imparts to the tape joint composition many undesirable properties. Attapulgite clay (1) is a key factor causing rheology and viscosity instability with aging of the joint compound, (2) can contribute to cracking upon drying, (3) can give a mealy, grainy texture to the tape joint composition requiring repeated troweling to obtain a smooth surface on the wall, (4) is a natural product requiring either lot-to-lot standardization by the user or constant changes in water demand and clay use level due to its natural variability, (5) causes variability in extent of shrinkage upon drying, especially when use levels have to be altered due to lot-to-lot variability, and (6) may cause unwanted color variation in joint compound. Notwithstanding, attapulgite clay is typically used in the 1.5–3.5% by weight range.
There are benefits to the use of CMC in joint compounds. It does not entrap/entrain air, therefore pinholing post-sanding will not be a problem. Normally, CMC does not give sufficient slickness to a joint compound. However, when the attapulgite clay level is reduced, it does.
Although CMC has been used in tape joint compositions as a clay and/or mica replacement, it is difficult to accommodate in joint compound primarily because of the presence of low molecular weight cations, such as Mg++, Al+++ or Ca++ that are present. Even at relatively low concentrations, these cationic species can complex the CMC, resulting in gelation with undesirable joint compound rheology. Investigators have found ways to make specific CMC products perform acceptably under certain conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,891,582 discloses a joint composition for wallboard sealing containing a resinous binder, limestone, clay, mica, lubricant, stabilizer and a thickener which are mixed with water to form a dope which is normally applied by troweling. A water-insoluble, fibrous CMC is used as an asbestos substitute.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,318 discloses clay-free joint compounds made with typical, industry-accepted thickeners in combination with an associative thickener. This composition cannot be used when dolomite limestone is used.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,287 discloses the use of superabsorbent CMC with a carboxymethyl degree of substitution (CMDS) in the 0.35–0.75 range and a degree of polymerization (DP) between 200 and 4000 to serve as a swelling agent and can replace clay and/or mica in a joint compound formulation when used in an amount of 0.01 to 0.5% by weight.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,616 discloses a joint compound composition using unborated HPGuar. It is specifically stated that underivitized guar cannot be used. No mention is made of reduced clay levels. The present invention makes use of underivitized guar when the attapulgite clay is reduced to levels well below standard practice, e.g., to 0.25–0.75% (1.5–2.5% is "typical").
None of the prior art discloses the instant invention. Yet in spite of what was known in the prior art, a need still existed for simpler means for producing tape joint compounds.

Tape joint compounds with CMC thickener system


The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an electrowetting element, in which a first liquid material and a second liquid material having a surface energy which is lower than that of the first liquid material, which are not mixed together, are provided in a cell formed between a first substrate and a second substrate placed as facing; at least one of the first liquid material and the second liquid material is gelated or altered to have high viscosity; and the shape of the interface between the first liquid material and the second liquid material is changed by applying voltage in the cell. The method includes a step of stimulating at least one of the first liquid material and the second liquid material which is gelated or altered to have high viscosity, to alter one of the first liquid material and the second liquid material to have low viscosity. According to the present invention, an electrowetting element can be manufactured easily, and the electrowetting element manufactured by the present invention does not show increase of applied voltage, delay of operation and the like.

In recent years, electrowetting elements which utilize electrowetting effects have been attracting attention. Generally, an electrowetting element consists of a pair of substrates, and a liquid having relatively high surface energy and a liquid having relatively low surface energy, which are not mixed together, are filled between the pair of substrates. One of the pair of substrates has an electrode layer on a surface thereof, and a hydrophobic middle layer (insulating layer) is formed on a surface of the electrode layer. Electrowetting elements have properties that, when voltages are applied between hydrophilic liquids and electrode layers through hydrophobic middle layers, the hydrophilic liquids are attracted to the hydrophobic middle layers, and thus shapes of interfaces between the hydrophilic liquids and the hydrophobic liquids are altered. By utilizing such properties, electrowetting elements are used for optical lenses, display elements and the like (Non Patent Document 1).
As methods for manufacturing electrowetting elements described above, the methods disclosed in the following Patent Documents 1 and 2 have been known.
In the manufacturing method disclosed in Patent Document 1, a substrate surface is covered with a liquid having high surface energy (water), and an opening is provided on top of the substrate surface. Note that the substrate surface has hydrophobic first regions, and each of the first regions is surrounded by second hydrophilic regions (pixel walls).
When an injector, in which a low surface energy liquid (oil) is filled, ejects oil so as to move the oil along the substrate surface, drops of the low surface energy liquid are drawn into the first region, and a high surface energy liquid contacted with the first region is substituted with a layer of the low surface energy liquid.
Also, in the method for manufacturing an electrowetting device disclosed in Patent Document 2, first and second liquids in which one of them is conductive (high surface energy) and the other is insulative (low surface energy) are used, and the method comprises steps of making a chamber having a liquid inlet and a liquid outlet, and sealing the inside of the chamber by closing the liquid inlet and the liquid outlet after the first liquid and the second liquid are in turn introduced to the inside of the chamber.

Method for manufacturing electrowetting element and electrowetting display


An illuminating device includes a light source including a lighting device, such as a solid state lighting device, which emits light, a phosphor material which converts at least a portion of the light emitted by the lighting device to light of a different wavelength. A controller adjusts a ratio of on time to off time of a current waveform supplied to the lighting device. This enables the color of light emitted by the light source to be controlled.

The exemplary embodiment relates to an illumination apparatus which includes a light source including a solid state light emitting device (SSL) such as an LED, laser diode, or organic light emitting device (OLED). It finds particular application in connection with a modulated current source which reduces the observed variation in color temperature which can occur when the light source includes a phosphor material.
Light emitting diodes ("LEDs") are well-known solid state lighting devices that can generate light having a peak wavelength in a specific region of the light spectrum. LEDs are typically used as illuminators, indicators and displays. LEDs based on a gallium nitride (GaN) die have been developed that can efficiently emit light having a peak wavelength in the blue and/or UV region of the spectrum. To produce white light (light with a relatively uniform intensity across the visible range) or other selected light color, the LED is often combined with a phosphor material which includes a phosphor or group of phosphors. Each of the phosphors converts some of the light emitted by the LED to light of a different, generally longer, wavelength using a process known as phosphorescence.
Numerous phosphors and phosphor combinations have been developed for this purpose, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,998,925; 6,522,065; and 6,538,371; and U.S. Pub. Nos. 2008/0135860 and 2008/0124999. For example, a phosphor comprising (Y0.4Gd0.6)3Al5O12:Ce is used to convert a portion of a blue emitted light from a GaN die to yellow light. The total emission of the LED device, consisting of the blue GaN device generated light and yellow phosphor emitted light is a generally white light.
An LED has a relatively fast response to the input current, turning on quickly when the current is applied and turning off quickly when the current is switched off. However, the phosphor exhibits a different response. While the phosphor turns on (starts phosphorescing) relatively rapidly in response to the emitted LED light, it has a relatively long decay time. Moreover, the color of LED devices tends to shift over the design lifetime. This means that the color emitted by the illumination apparatus is not consistent over time.
Various attempts have been made to provide consistent color in LED devices. In one approach, multiple phosphors have been used, having different decay times. This requires careful control of the phosphor proportions. In other approaches, multiple LEDs with different emissions have been used, which together generate a desired color, without the need for phosphors. However, the control circuitry for such an arrangement tends to be complex.
Thus, a need exists for a method for achieving a selected color from a light source, such as one that includes a solid state light emitting device in combination with a phosphor material.

Color control of light sources employing phosphors


A jetting-fault analysis system can include a print head with a plurality of nozzles for ejecting a print medium, a testing substrate that can include a carrier and at least one color-changing material that changes color and forms a color pattern upon exposure to at least one color-change inducer, an applicator for delivering a color-change inducer to the testing substrate, and a color-pattern imaging system for analyzing the color pattern.

Some 3D printers require continuous operation in excess of several hours to several days in order to complete a single print job. To verify quality after the print job is completed, the printed part may be scanned, for example, via X-ray, for voids caused by misfiring or non-firing jets/nozzles (i.e., an unacceptable jet failure) from the print head. This quality check can add more time required to fully complete a print job. If voids, such as those caused by failed jets/nozzles, are detected, the part must be discarded and a new part must be made.
It would be beneficial to detect a jet/nozzle failure during a print job, or at least reduce the time to identify such a failure. However, when these kinds of voids form in the clear or semi-transparent inks/plastics/waxes that are sometimes used as jetted/printed material, they are difficult to identify. For example, the scanners and/or cameras used for quality analysis cannot distinguish a clear print-material pattern (such as a dot or another shape) on a test strip from a non-existent or mis-located pattern/dot.
Accordingly, conventional jetting fault-analysis systems and methods of detecting jetting faults are limited by the shortcomings of the scanners and cameras currently utilized for detecting voids which cannot detect faults in clear or transparent print materials. Additionally, conventional 3-D printing processes are limited by the long production times that are further lengthened by post-print fault analysis. What is needed in the art, therefore, is a jetting fault analysis system and method for detecting jetting faults for 3-D print jobs that utilize clear print materials, and can perform in situ fault analysis, instead of after a 3-D print job is completed, in order to shorten production times.

Chemically reactive test strip for detecting mis-firing print heads with clear fluids


The present application provides a method and a device for preventing window's lagging, and relates to the field of computer technology. The method comprises: when a child window is created by a thread, a middle window being firstly created in a thread different from the thread in which each child window of a window system is positioned, wherein the middle window is the parent window of the child window currently created, the parent window of the middle window is a frame parent window, and the thread in which the child window currently created is positioned differs from the thread in which the frame parent window is positioned; if window's lagging of a child window occurs, a window's lagging message of the child window in which window's lagging occurs being sent to the thread in which the corresponding middle window is positioned; and the middle window and the child window in which window's lagging occurs are separated from a window frame by the thread in which the middle window is positioned. By the present application, the middle window corresponding to the child window in which window's lagging occurs can be separated from the window system; the window's lagging state of the integral window system caused by the window's lagging of the child window is avoided; and the window's lagging problem of the integral window system caused by the window's lagging of the child window in the windows system of the Windows is solved.

Windows client software is designed based on window structure. Parent-child relationship, brother relationship, and etc, may exist between the windows. Based on these relationships, Windows operating system may manage display, focus, size, and etc. of windows, which greatly alleviates the windows developers' workload. For example: if a parent window is hidden, all child windows thereof would also be hidden and the focus of the windows would be lost, which are achieved under the Windows operating system.
This design also has some side effects. One of the most serious problems is ire that: once a child window experiences temporary lockup, the parent window would be locked up as well. For example: in the case that window's lagging and endless loop, etc. of a child window occur during a message processing, if the parent window is operated, such as changing the size of the parent window, displaying, hiding the parent window or setting the attribute of the parent window, window's lagging would occur in the parent window too, causing window's lagging of the integral window system occurs; then a user has to restart a windows if a new window is to be opened, which causes great inconvenience to the user. Herein window's lagging is a problematic status of the window system, showing that interfaces cannot be refreshed, buttons have no response to cocks and any of the operations fails to be performed.
For example, in a multi-tab browser, both the browser child window and the browser parent window of the browser frame are in a same thread. When a problem occurs in the browser child window, it would directly lead to window's lagging of the integral browser parent window, or even crash, that is, the integral browser is caused to be window's lagging state.
In the prior art, by arranging the parent window and the child window in different processes or threads, this could partially solve the problem that the frame parent window takes on window's lagging once window's lagging of the child window occurs. When window's lagging of a child window occurs, the thread in which the child window is positioned would fail to handle any message. At that time, if the thread in which the frame parent window is positioned does not send synchronization messages to the child window, the parent window can still respond to the user's operation. In this solution, since the Windows operating system would do a lot of logical processing to the windows that have parent-child relationship and brother relationship (for example, when the parent window is hidden, all the child windows of the parent window would be hidden, etc.), once window's lagging of a certain child window occurs, in the case that the parent window is hidden, the parent window would still send synchronous messages to the child window in which window's lagging occurs. Thus, since window's lagging of the child window occurs, window's lagging of the parent window would also occur, resulting in window's lagging of the integral window system occurs, that is, the integral window system is in the window's lagging state. For example, if window's lagging of the child window of the current tag of the browser occurs, when the browser frame parent window is hidden, synchronous messages would be sent to the child window which is in the window's lagging state, causing window's lagging of the integral browser.

Method and device for preventing window's lagging

BEIJING QIHOO TECHNOLOGY COMPANY LIMITED


Glucose is obtained from papermaking sludge by first removing calcium carbonate from the sludge to produce a mixture substantially depleted of calcium and containing cellulose; and then hydrolyzing the calcium-depleted mixture using either a dilute or a strong acid. The glucose, as well as calcium salts removed from the sludge, may be isolated and used in numerous applications.

Pulp and paper sludge (a byproduct of primary pulping operations, recycle streams or waste paper pulping and the like) represents an environmental and disposal problem for manufacturers of pulp and paper. Generally, pulp and paper sludge is unsuitable for paper making, although it generally contains the same components--cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose, calcium carbonate, clay, and other inorganic components--as those present in the paper pulp itself.
Paper sludge has traditionally been disposed of by landfilling, composting, incorporation into cement, and incineration. The latter option, in turn, creates another problem, namely, disposal of the resulting ash, which often makes up to 50% (and some times as much as 80% or higher) of the volume of the sludge itself.
The principal components of ash are calcium carbonate--in the form of precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) or ground calcium carbonate (GCC)--that typically constitutes 20% and up to 75% of dry sludge content, and clay. These two minerals are typically loaded into paper as a coating and filler to improve the mechanical characteristics as well as the appearance of paper. This makes papermaking sludge, particularly mixed office paper sludge, consisting of two major components, that is fiber and minerals, finely mixed with each other.
A typical recycling mill processes 600 tons of wastepaper per day, yielding 450 tons of pulp and producing 150 tons of papermaking sludge. The 228 mills currently under operation in North America produce 9 million tons of pulp residue, approximately 5 million tons of which is cellulose. The 154 European pulp and paper mills produce about 8 million tons of pulp residue, approximately 4 million tons of which is cellulose. The conversion of such waste material into glucose as alternate source of fuels, chemicals, and other useful products by acid and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose has long been desired. However, the mineral components of papermaking sludge dramatically decrease the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose component, making it technically unrealistic and economically prohibitive. Likewise, the high content of calcium carbonate in typical papermaking sludge renders the use of acid for cellulose hydrolysis practically impossible, because calcium carbonate reacts with and neutralizes the acid. For these reasons, industry has failed to develop a feasible approach to producing glucose from papermaking sludge using acid hydrolysis; and as a result, the cellulose component of papermaking sludge is generally largely or totally wasted. At best, the prior art describes utilization of paper sludge for production of low-end products of limited market value, without their chemical conversion into value-added products.
The carbohydrate content of plant materials consists of cellulose and hemicellulose, both polysaccharides. Chemical pulping of plant materials largely removes hemicellulose, which is much more susceptible to acid treatment and depolymerizes easily compared to cellulose. Hence, acid hydrolyses of conventional, chemically intact "biomass," on the one hand, and papermaking sludge, on the other, often differ substantially: the conventional and generally milder hydrolysis of biomass typically aims to produce sugars, most of which originate from hemicellulose (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,734,836, 4,436,586, 4,511,433, 4,612,286, 4,668,340), while papermaking sludge typically contains much less hemicellulose; accordingly, the hydrolysis conditions are generally more stringent in order to break down recalcitrant cellulose into glucose.
Acid hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose has been extensively studied since the beginning of this century, particularly in connection with sugar production and subsequent fermentation to ethanol; see Anderson and Porteous, "A Review of Developments in the Acid Hydrolysis of Cellulosic Wastes," IMechE, C88/85, pp. 77-86 (1985). Typical cellulosic-hemicellulosic materials for acid hydrolysis have included particulate wood in the form of chips, sawdust and shavings, and other plant materials and agricultural wastes (such as straw, bagasse, etc.), provided that the polysaccharides in those materials have appropriate chemical reactivity for acid hydrolysis. For example, Fagan, Grethlein et al. ("Kinetics of the Acid Hydrolysis of Cellulose Found in Paper Refuse," Env. Sci. Technol. 5(6):545-547 (1971)) detail processing of ball milled Kraft paper and municipal refuse (with no other components interfering with the hydrolysis) in the 180.degree. C.-240.degree. C. temperature range with sulfuric acid concentrations of 0.2%, 0.5%, and 1.0%, and on a scale of 0.5 gram with respect to paper amount. They showed that at 230.degree. C. with 1.0% acid, 52% of the cellulose could be converted to (unspecified) sugars; with 0.5% acid, the sugar yield was 39%. Subsequently, Grethlein ("The Acid Hydrolysis of Refuse," Biotechnol. Bioeng. Symp. No. 5, pp. 303-318 (1975)) disclosed that the glucose concentration in those experiments was only about 2 g/L (due to the limit of 1% slurry in the reactor). According to Mackie et al. ("Effect of Sulphur Dioxide and Sulphuric Acid on Steam Explosion of Aspenwood," J. Wood Chem. Technol. 5(3):405-425 (1985)), the action of 0.58% (w/w) sulfuric acid on aspen wood chips for 80 sec at 200.degree. C. liberated 16.4% pentosans (from the initial 18.3%), only 12% of which (i.e., 2.0% overall) was glucose. 70.5% of the initial wood was recovered from the reaction mixture as a solid residue (30.7% of that was lignin). Malester et al. ("Kinetics of Dilute Acid Hydrolysis of Cellulose Originating from Municipal Solid Wastes," Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 31:1998-2003 (1992)) showed that for dilute-acid hydrolysis of cellulose derived from municipal solid wastes, the best conditions were the most severe ones among those tested: pH 0.34 and temperature of 240.degree. C. Under these conditions, a glucose yield of 54.3% was achieved at a reaction time of 4.6 sec. The actual acid concentrations used and the concentration of glucose obtained were not reported.
Sulfuric acid has commonly been used as an active agent, though other acids, such as hydrochloric (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,237,110, 4,645,658, 4,650,689), phosphoric (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,409,032, 5,486,068), nitric (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,221,357, 5,536,325), trifluoroacetic (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,218), and also gaseous hydrogen fluoride (U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,432), sulfur dioxide (U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,471), and sulfur trioxide (U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,584) have also been used.
Once again, materials that contain along with cellulose some other components (such as calcium carbonate in papermaking sludge) capable of effectively neutralizing an acid cannot be considered appropriate substrates for acid hydrolysis. As a result, known techniques of acid hydrolysis of cellulose (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,532,594, 3,787,241, 4,160,695, 4,174,997, 4,201,596, 4,237,226, 4,242,455, 4,266,981, 4,281,063, 4,316,747, 4,316,748, 4,384,897, 4,427,453, 4,478,644, 4,529,699, 4,556,430, 4,615,742, 4,645,541, 5,486,068, 5,536,325, 5,562,777, 5,580,389, 5,597,714) have not been applied to hydrolyze cellulose in papermaking sludge.

Method of producing glucose from papermaking sludge using concentrated or dilute acid hydrolysis


A freezing sucker has a base plate, a main panel disposed on the base plate, a plurality of chilling chips disposed on the main panel, a top plate disposed on the chilling chips, and a plurality of temperature sensors disposed between the main panel and the top plate. A freezing machine has a controller and a control panel. A connector is connected to the main panel. A water pipe is connected to the connector and the freezing machine.

The present invention relates to a freezing sucker. More particularly, the present invention relates to a freezing sucker which will be frozen and defrosted quickly.
A nonmagnetic article cannot be attracted by magnets. A mechanical holder may hurt the nonmagnetic article while the mechanical holder holds the nonmagnetic article tightly.
An object of the present invention is to provide a freezing sucker which freezes a bottom of a working article in order to hold the working article without magnets.
Accordingly, a freezing sucker comprises a base plate, a main panel disposed on the base plate, a plurality of chilling chips disposed on the main panel, a top plate disposed on the chilling chips, and a plurality of temperature sensors disposed between the main panel and the top plate.


A method of production of a semiconductor device such as a plastic pin grid array (PPGA) and a plastic ball grid array (PBGA) having a cavity-fill form. In this method, first, a semiconductor element (3) is placed in a cavity (6) formed in a multiple step-like substrate (2). Under this state, a pellet (7), which is in a solid state at a normal temperature, made of an encapsulating resin composition containing specific components, and has specific characteristics, is placed on the semiconductor element (3). Next, the semiconductor device is heated so that the pellet can melt to fill the cavity (6) with the composition, thereby encapsulating the semiconductor device (3). According to the present invention, a semiconductor device having low stress performance and excellent moisture-proof reliability can be efficiently produced.

As a challenge required in line with the recent improvement in performance of semiconductor devices, how to package a high wattage multi-in/out device and also how to shorten a wire length between the device and a mother board have come to a technical aim. Besides, it is another theme how to achieve the above aim at a low cost, including process cost, with high reliability. As countermeasures to these problems, a cavity-fill formed PPGA or PBGA having a structure shown in FIG. 5 is proposed. Namely, a substrate 2 comprising a multi-layer circuit with a center hole is put on a metallic heat sink 1. Then, a semiconductor element 3 is incorporated within a cavity formed with the metallic heat sink 1 and the substrate 2, which is encapsulated with a resin layer 4. In FIG. 5, 9 are conductive globular bumps. As a method of encapsulating a semiconductor element, a method of encapsulating by covering a cavity with a ceramic board may be listed in addition to the above encapsulating method using the resin layer.
The sealing method using a ceramic board has some problems. The problems are; high cost of ceramic and incomplete sealing caused in bonding a ceramic board on a substrate to seal a cavity, because the bonding ability between organic materials, for example, a substrate or a bonding agent, and an inorganic material, for example, a ceramic board is inferior, resulting in a decrease in this sealing method one time. Meanwhile, in the encapsulating method by forming the encapsulating resin layer 4 to encapsulate the semiconductor element 3 (FIG. 5), a liquid resin composition is usually employed as a material for forming the encapsulating resin layer 4, which is formed by injecting the liquid resin composition into the cavity. However, when the liquid resin composition is employed, it should be stored at an extremely low temperature (about -40.degree. C. ). Also, since the liquid resin composition must be injected into a suitable position with a suitable amount by using an injector, special apparatus are required to control these conditions. Further, to obtain high fluidity, a liquid material with low moisture-proof reliability or a material containing solvent, which requires low-temperature preheating in curing, is employed, causing a lot of problems in relation to process reliability. Besides, in order to improve fluidity, a material with low content of a filler is employed, wherein a linear expansion coefficient becomes higher and greatly different from that of a semiconductor element, a substrate, a heat sink or the like, resulting in a problem that stress is applied when using.

Method of producing semiconductor device and encapsulating pellet employed therein


An a thermal fiber Bragg grating assembly. A platform provides two attachment locations and has a first coefficient of thermal expansion. A stick provides two ends and has a second coefficient of thermal expansion. A fiber Bragg grating provides two ends and has effective third coefficient of thermal expansion. One stick end is fixed to one grating end, the other stick end is fixed to one attachment location, and the other grating end is fixed to the other attachment location. The stick has a same cross-section area along its length that is equal to or less than the cross-section area of the grating. And the coefficients and lengths between respective locations and ends are such that the assembly exhibits an effective overall coefficient of thermal expansion approaching zero.

Due to its ease of use the fiber Bragg grating ("FBG") has been well accepted by the telecommunications and optical research communities for use in applications as a signal purifier and strain gauge. FBG-based devices, however, are sensitive to temperature and strain along the grating primary axis, which affects the resonance wavelength of the FBG. First, the optical fiber has a thermal expansion effect of its own. Second, the refractive index of the optical fiber also varies with temperature. In order to achieve more accurate measurement, the grating portions of such devices need to be athermal, but preferred materials for a FBG do not inherently have this characteristic. Fortunately, both the thermal expansion coefficient and the refractive index are linearly related to temperature, and by proper design thermal effects on an FBG can be minimized.
The resonance wavelength for an FBG follows the equation:λB=2neffΛ,  Eq. 1
where λB is the resonance wavelength, and Λ is the Bragg grating period. Thus, the variation to the resonance wavelength becomes:
                                          Eq            .                                                              2                                          :                                                                                Δλ              B                        /            Δ                                                                        T                =                                              2                                      (                              Δ                                                                                n                    eff                                    /                  Δ                                                                                T                            )                                    Λ                    +                      2                                                      n                eff                                                          (                                                      ΔΛ                    /                    Δ                                                                                T                                )                                                                            =                                  2                                              Λ                                            (                                                      (                                          Δ                                                                                n                          eff                                                /                        Δ                                                                                T                                        )                                    +                                      2                                                                                n                          eff                                                                                (                                                                                ΔΛ                              /                              Δ                                                                                T                                                    )                                                                    /                      Λ                                                                      )                                      .
The term (Δneff/ΔT) is the temperature coefficient of refractive index and (ΔΛ/ΔT)/Λ) is the coefficient of thermal expansion of the optical fiber.
The thermal expansion coefficient for the optical fiber is approximately 0.55×10−6/° C. and the exact value can usually be found from manufacturers' data sheets. The term (Δneff/ΔT), however, is less often provided by manufacturers and therefore usually needs to be verified experimentally.
For example, the inventors have conducted experiments in which they have gotten a value of dneff/dT=9.8×10−6/° C. Per Eq. 2, this gives the total variation of:
                                                        Δλ              B                        /            Δ                                                                        T                =                                  2                                Λ                                      (                                                (                                      Δ                                                                                n                        eff                                            /                      Δ                                                                                T                                    )                                +                                                                            n                      eff                                                                                (                                                                        ΔΛ                          /                          Δ                                                                                T                                            )                                                        /                  Λ                                            )                                                              =                                  2          ×          0.5                                                              μm          ×                      (                                          9.8                ×                10                            -                              6                /                °C                            +                              1.448                ×                0.55                ×                                                      10                                          -                      6                                                        /                  °C                                                      )                                                  =                                  10.6                                                              pm                                /                              °C
where neff=1.448 and Λ=0.5 μm are used.
To make a device athermal means to make the term ΔλB/ΔT vanish. It is obvious, however, that this cannot be accomplished by using optical fiber alone. Therefore, a new approach is needed.