Provided is a seal structure, according to the present invention, for sealing opposite surfaces of flanges between adjacent tail ducts, which can be prevented from being worn or aged deteriorated due to a thermal deformation in a high temperature atmosphere or vibration of a gas turbine combustor, and which can maintain a satisfactory sealing function for a long time. The seal structure is characterized in that recess grooves are formed in opposed surfaces of adjacent flanges at the outlet end of tail ducts, striding between the opposed surfaces, a seal assembly composed of a seal member and a leaf spring is inserted in the recess grooves, the seal member has a pair of continuous beads which are arranged facing the inner surfaces, on the combustion gas passage side, of the recess grooves, striding between the opposed surfaces of the flanges within the recess grooves, the leaf spring is arranged so as to be contact with the seal member within the recess grooves so that the beads are pressed against the surfaces on the combustion gas passage side by the resilient force of the leaf spring so as to create seal surfaces.

I. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a seal structure between tail ducts of a plurality of combustors which are arranged in the circumferential direction of a gas turbine, in the connection between the outlet ends of the tail ducts and an inlet nozzle of the gas turbine, and in particular to a simple seal structure for sealing between opposed surfaces of adjacent flanges of the outlet ends of the tail ducts in order to prevent compressed air on the high pressure side from entering into a combustion gas passage.
II. Description of Related Art
Referring to FIG. 17 which is a sectional view illustrating a commonly known configuration of a premix combustion type gas turbine combustor, a gas turbine 01 is mainly composed of a compressor 02, gas turbine combustors 03 and a gas turbine 04. The combustors 03 are installed in a wheel compartment 05 having a hollow space defined between the compressor 03 and the turbine 04, each being composed of an inner duct 06 defining therein a combustion zone, a tail duct 07 coupled to the front end of the inner duct 06, an outer duct 08 arranged, concentric with the inner duct 06, a pilot nozzle 09 extended from the rear end of the inner duct 06 on the axial line of the inner duct, a plurality of main nozzles 010 arranged around the pilot nozzle 09 at equal circumferential intervals, a bypass duct 011 coupled to a side wall of the bypass duct 07 and opened to the wheel compartment 05, a bypass valve 012 connected in the bypass duct 011, and a bypass valve changing mechanism 013 for adjusting the opening degree of the bypass valve 012.
In the above-mentioned configuration, the compressed air compressed in the compressor 02 flows into the wheel compartment 05 (as indicated by a void arrow in the figure), then is turned by an angle of about 180 deg. (as indicated by the solid line arrow in the figure) after passing through an annular space defined between the outer peripheral surface of the inner duct 06 and the inner peripheral surface of the outer duct 08, and is finally led into the inner duct 06 at the rear end of the latter. Next, the compressed air is mixed with fuel injected from a pilot burner (which is not shown) so as to carry out premixed combustion, and accordingly, a high pressure and high temperature combustion gas is produced. The thus produced combustion gas is led through the tail duct 07 so as to be discharged from the outlet end of the latter in order to drive the turbine 04. It is noted that a part of the compressed air is fed into the tail duct 07 and the like from the wheel compartment 05 by way of the bypass duct 011 in order to regulate the density of the combustion gas.
Further, there are shown a flange part 019 connecting between the combustion gas outlet end of the tail duct 07 and a turbine nozzle part 018, first stage rotor blades 016 attached to a turbine main shaft 015, first stage stator vanes 017A provided just downstream of the turbine nozzle part 018 and second stage stator vanes 017B. The compressed gas flows through a space surrounding the outer periphery of the flange part 019 at a pressure higher than the combustion gas passing through the inside of the flange part 019, and accordingly, sealing is required in order to prevent the compressed gas from entering into the inside of the flange part 019.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-257862 discloses a seal structure for the outlet flange part 019 of the tail duct of the gas turbine combustor. This seal structure is used for sealing the inner edge side and the outer edge side of opposed parts of the outlet end of the tail duct of the gas turbine combustor and the turbine inlet nozzle, and is adapted to prevent a seal part from being worn due to thermal explanation of flanges provided to the opposed parts so as to prevent deterioration of a sealing function by providing an air passage for introducing cooling air (compressed air) into a combustion gas passage, in the seal part.
Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-339706 (JP '706) discloses a seal structure between opposed parts of the outlet end parts of the tail duct of a gas turbine combustor and a turbine inlet nozzle or a seal structure between adjacent tail ducts, in which a planar seal assembly composed of a textile-like or nit-like metal fabric and a sheet-like nonporous high-temperature resistant metal shim arranged on the high pressure side of the metal fabric, is inserted in a slot formed in a seal part in order to enhance the seal performance.
FIG. 18A to FIG. 18C show the seal structure of the outlet end part of the tail duct. That is, FIG. 18A is an explanatory view illustrating the seal structure as viewed from the turbine nozzle side, FIG. 18B is a view illustrating the seal structure as viewed in the direction of the arrows b in FIG. 18A, and FIG. 18C is an enlarged view illustrating a part c in FIG. 18B. A plurality of combustors are arranged in the number from 16 to 18, circumferentially around the gas turbine body, and there are shown outlet end parts 07 of the tail ducts of the combustors, flanges 019 provided at the outlet end parts of the tail ducts, for connection to a turbine nozzle part 018, combustion gas passages g extended from the tail ducts 07 to the turbine nozzle part 018, and compressed air passages a defined between the adjacent tail ducts 07 within the wheel chamber 05.
The seal structure between the outlet end parts 07 of each adjacent tail ducts has such a configuration that a planar seal assembly 023 disclosed in JP '706 is inserted in recess grooves 24, 25 which are formed spanning between opposed surfaces t1, t2 of the outlet flanges 19 in order to seal between the flanges 019 of the tail ducts. It is noted that as shown in FIG. 18A, the seal assembly 023 has a handle 023a for gripping the seal assembly 023 during the handling of the seal assembly 023.
The tail duct part of the gas turbine combustor is presented in a high temperature atmosphere, and accordingly, a seal member itself requires a certain degree of rigidity in order to hold its effective sealing function under the high temperature atmosphere. However, with this high rigid seal member, it is likely to cause a slight gap between a flange of an equipment and a seal surface.
Further, due to a thermal deformation, relative displacements in all directions, that is, a circumferential direction, a radial direction and an axial direction occur. However, there has not yet been found a heat resistant and low rigid seal member which can follow up the above-mentioned relative displacements.
Further, due to vibration, the seal member is lifted up from the associated seal surface, resulting in occurrence of problems, that is, an inferior sealing effect, abrasion of the seal surface, an aging effect such as deterioration of the seal surface caused by contact therewith due to long time use, gradual increase of leakage at the seal surface and the like.
In particular, opposed surfaces of the flanges of the adjacent tail ducts are subjected to a remarkable relative displacement in the axial direction of the tail duct (in the direction indicated by the arrow b shown in FIG. 19), being caused by thermal deformation and vibration. As shown in FIG. 19, the opposed surfaces t1, t2 of the two flanges 021, 022 of the adjacent tail ducts remarkably cause a relative displacement Δδ in the axial direction b of the tail duct, due to thermal deformation, and since the combustion gas g around the outlets of the tail ducts has a pressure which is lower than that of the compressed air a in the wheel compartment arranged outside of the tail ducts by a value corresponding to a pressure loss, and accordingly, due to the pressure difference therebetween, the conventional seal member 023 is pressed against the inner surfaces 024a, 025a, on the combustion gas passage side, of recess grooves 024, 025 which are formed spanning between the opposed surfaces t1, t2.
In this case, the conventional seal member 023 would cause a gap between itself and the seal surface 025a due to the relative displacement Δδ, resulting in occurrence of leakage r.
It is noted that, in the case of occurrence of the leakage between the tail ducts of the combustors, the compressed air a in the wheel compartment 05 arranged outside of the tail ducts is mingled with the combustion gas g flowing through the tail ducts so as to increase the air mixing ratio, resulting in a temperature rise, and accordingly, there would be caused problems of an increase in emission of NOx, deterioration of combustion efficiency, and the like.

Seal structure for gas turbine combustor


A video decoder comprising a first comfort noise addition block and a second comfort noise addition block. The first comfort noise addition block may be configured to (i) add comfort noise to luminance data and (ii) adjust a distribution of the comfort noise added to the luminance data. The second comfort noise addition block may be configured to (i) add comfort noise to chrominance data and (ii) adjust a distribution of the comfort noise added to the chrominance data. The first and the second comfort noise addition blocks may be integrated into a video output path of the video decoder. The distribution of the comfort noise added to the luminance data and the distribution of the comfort noise added to the chrominance data may be adjusted independently.

Numerous types of spatial and temporal artifacts are characteristic of transform compressed digital video (i.e., MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, WM9, DIVX, etc.). Artifacts can include contouring (particularly noticeable in smooth luminance or chrominance regions), blockiness, mosquito noise, motion compensation and prediction artifacts, temporal beating, etc.
Less structured (or "random" noise) is more characteristic of analog video, which is familiar to consumers through broadcast TV (cable or terrestrial), VHS/PAL video cassette playback, and film grain. In fact, film producers may desire the "look and feel" of particular film grain artifacts as a very noticeable artistic effect. Even when random noise is not desirable as an artistic effect, the random noise may be much less visually disturbing than a similar amount of the structured noise that is characteristic of digital video.
Random noise can visually mask (or hide) other video artifacts. Two common reasons to add some type of random noise to video for display are: 1) to mask digital encoding artifacts and 2) to display film grain as an artistic effect. Conventional solutions for adding noise to video use noise that is either pre-generated or generated on-the-fly. The problem with pre-generated noise is storage. For HD video rates, storage commonly uses expensive on-chip memories in order to meet the high video rates. In order to reduce storage requirements, the amount (or period) of the noise may be so short that visible structure is apparent.
Because of the cost of storage, on-the-fly generated noise is preferable. At HD video rates, on-the-fly generation of noise typically uses a low-cost, low-complexity method for generating the noise. A low complexity method that is known for generating pseudo-random noise is a linear-feedback-shift-register (LFSR).
Conventional solutions do not integrate the noise addition into the video output path of a compressed video decoder. However, the ideal point at which to add noise is after all filtering has been performed on the reconstructed video, but before the video values/ranges are adjusted. This cannot be accomplished without noise addition that is integrated into the video output path of the compressed video decoder.
It would be desirable to have a method and/or apparatus for masking of video artifacts and/or insertion of film grain in a video decoder.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for masking of video artifacts and/or insertion of film grain in a video decoder


A structure includes a first conductor pattern, a second conductor pattern, and a plurality of first openings and a plurality of lines. The first conductor pattern has a sheet shape. The second conductor pattern has a sheet shape and is opposite to the first conductor pattern, at least in part. The plurality of first openings are provided in the first conductor pattern. The lines are provided in the first openings, respectively, and one end thereof is connected to the first conductor pattern. Unit cells each containing the first opening and the line are repeatedly arranged.

In recent years, there has been proposed, as described in Patent Documents 1 to 4, for example, a metamaterial that artificially controls a dispersion relationship of an electromagnetic wave propagating in a structure by periodically arranging conductor patterns or conductor structures. For example, a metamaterial, which is controlled such that a wavelength of the electromagnetic wave is remarkably shortened, is used thereby to enable a resonator antenna to be reduced in size. Further, when a metamaterial structure that controls electromagnetic wave propagation in a certain frequency band (electromagnetic Band Gap: which will be denoted as EBG below) is used, an electromagnetic interference between circuits due to unwanted electromagnetic wave propagation from a high frequency circuit can be prevented.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses therein a small-sized antenna structure utilizing a composite right and left handed (CRLH) line as one form of a metamaterial. A decode line in the antenna disclosed in Patent Document 1 is configured with periodically arranging unit cells each containing a conductor plane, a conductor patch arranged in parallel with the conductor plane, and a conductor via for connecting between the conductor plane and the conductor patch. Further, Patent Document 1 discloses therein that a conductor element is provided between the conductor plane and the conductor patch to increase a capacity between the adjacent conductor patches in order to be operated as a left handed medium at a lower frequency side. Furthermore, for a similar purpose, there is disclosed that a slit is provided near the connection part between the conductor plane and the conductor via to form a coplanar line, thereby increasing an inductance between the conductor plane and the conductor patch.
Additionally, Patent Document 2 discloses several EBG structures therein. For example, FIG. 4 illustrates cross-section configurations of a resonance via-type EBG structure and equivalent circuits per unit cell, respectively. FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate top views of an inductive grid-type EBG structure, and FIG. 5 illustrates equivalent circuits per unit cell of the inductive grid type EBG structure, respectively.
Patent Document 3 discloses therein a uniplanar compact photonic bandgap structure (which will be called UC-PBG structure below) as one form of the inductive grid-type EBG structure. The UC-PBG structure is configured of two conductor layers, that is, a conductor layer which has a first conductor plane having no opening and a conductor layer having a periodical structure of a conductor pattern.
Patent Document 4 discloses therein an alternating impedance electromagnetic bandgap structure (which will be called AI-EBG structure below) as one form of the inductive grid type EBG structure. The AI-EBG structure is also configured of two conductor layers similar to the UC-PBG structure, that is, a conductor pattern layer having a periodical structure of the conductor pattern and a conductor plane layer having no opening. The conductor pattern layer is configured with an inductance element made of a large square conductor patch forming a periodical structure and a small square conductor patch connecting between adjacent large conductor patches as the layout shown in FIG. 1A in Patent Document 4. A small conductor patch and each large conductor patch, which function as an inductance element, are connected to an apex of the large conductor patch.

Structure, antenna, communication device and electronic component


A disposable diaper (1) comprising a liquid permeable topsheet (2), a liquid impermeable backsheet (3), and liquid retentive absorbent members (41), (42), and (43) interposed between the two sheets, wherein the absorbent members (41) (42), and (43) are disposed in series in the direction of from the rear portion (B), through the crotch portion (A), to the front portion (C), an elastic member is disposed in its stretched state on both sides of the series of the absorbent members, and

A disposable diaper generally has a one-piece, vertically long absorbent member disposed on an area from the rear portion, through the crotch portion, to the front portion. Elastic members are usually arranged on the leg portions to give an improved fit to wearer's legs for leakage protection.
In conventional disposable diapers, the leg portions contract with contraction of the elastic members whereas the absorbent member is not so contractible in its longitudinal direction because of its stiffness. As a result, the absorbent member sometimes becomes baggy (swelling outward) by the excess length while worn, which can cause inconveniences such as liquid's staying in the crotch portion, overhydration, and leakage. Because so-called fitted type (tape type) disposable diapers, in particular, are generally folded widthwise and compression packaged in a bag as folded for distribution and sale, the absorbent member gets oddly creased and more liable to bagging out when the diaper is worn.
JP-A-11-216161 proposes a disposable diaper in which an absorbent core is divided along imaginary lines extending in the diaper length direction and also along imaginary lines perpendicular to those imaginary lines. The absorbent core has a particle layer made mainly of a superabsorbent polymer and a fiber layer underlying the particle layer. If absorption by the particle layer results in gel blocking, further transfer of liquid to the fiber layer would be hindered. The division of the absorbent core aims to make the fiber layer capable of direct absorption from the side faces and to increase the total absorption area of the core. To achieve the aims, the gaps between divided sections of the core should be retained during use of the diaper. Therefore, the proposed disposable diaper is incapable of preventing bagging of the absorbent member and the resultant inconveniences while worn.

Abstract: the absorbent members (41), (42), and (43) are arranged such that a gap is produced between any adjacent two of them when the diaper is stretched flat and that any adjacent two of the absorbent members come into close contact when the diaper is worn.


Techniques for integrated circuit device fabrication are provided. In one aspect, an integrated circuit device comprises a base, at least one die attached to the base, and a counterbalancing layer on at least a portion of at least one side of the base adapted to compensate for at least a portion of a thermal expansion difference existing between the base and the die. In another aspect, warping of an integrated circuit device comprising at least one die attached to a base is controlled by applying a counterbalancing layer to at least a portion of at least one side of the base adapted to compensate for at least a portion of a thermal expansion difference existing between the base and the die.

Metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) power transistor devices have gained popularity in certain applications for their high power capabilities. There are various types of MOS power transistor devices, including diffused metal oxide semiconductor (DMOS) devices, such as lateral DMOS (LDMOS) devices, vertical DMOS devices and trench DMOS devices.
A MOS power transistor device may comprise one or more transistor dies mounted on a base. The die(s), base and potentially other components of the transistor device may be contained, at least partially, in a package. For example, the base is typically surrounded by polymer or ceramic walls that form cavity sidewalls of the package. A polymer or ceramic lid is then placed on top of the sidewalls. These "packaged" components are referred to herein collectively as a device package. The base, which typically comprises the bottom of the device package, may be mounted on a heat sink to remove heat from the device package during operation.
A method commonly used to mount the die on the base is soldering. During soldering, however, elevated temperatures are experienced causing both the die and the base to expand. The die and the base typically comprise different materials, and therefore expand by different magnitudes. For example, dies typically comprise silicon which, when heated, will expand by a lesser magnitude than the base, which typically comprises copper, or some alloy thereof. This differential expansion and its associated contraction, e.g., during cooling, can cause warping of the base.
Warping of the base is undesirable. For example, depending on the amount of warping that occurs, the device package may not be suitable for attachment to the heat sink. Specifically, attaching a warped base to a heat sink can result in voids, or gaps, being present between the base and the heat sink. These voids can serve as an impediment to the thermal path between the device package and the heat sink, and thus can lead to overheating of the device.
Therefore, techniques for minimizing or eliminating warping in power transistor devices, and other types of integrated circuit devices, would be desirable.

Controlling warping in integrated circuit devices


A first receiver of a victim communication device may detect a first signal from an aggressor transmitter that potentially may interfere with a second signal intended to be received at a second receiver of the victim communication device. It may be determined whether the first signal interferes with the second signal based, at least in part, on the characteristics of the first signal and the second receiver. If the first signal may interfere with the second signal, the second receiver may implement reconstruction and cancelation of the interference attributable to the first signal.

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of communication systems, and, more particularly, to interference cancelation using at least two receivers of a communication device.
It is common for conventional wireless communication systems to integrate multiple radios into a single communication device. For example, a communication device might include at least two radios, such as a wireless local area network (WLAN) radio and a wireless wide area network (WWAN) radio. Each radio may independently send and receive radio signals. Radio signals from one source may interfere with radio signals from another source, even if the radio signals are not on the same fundamental frequencies. Interference associated with a signal from a different communication system may cause degradation of performance.
Self-jamming interference refers to interference caused by an aggressor transmitter that is co-located with a victim receiver in the same communication device. Interference cancelation may be used to mitigate self-jamming interference. Using conventional techniques for interference cancelation, a victim receiver may remove an estimated interference signal component from a received signal based on a known transmitted signal of the co-located aggressor transmitter. However, a source of interference may be an unknown signal from an external device (e.g., not co-located in the same communication device).

Interference cancelation using cooperative sensing


An improved pultrusion process for preparing composites comprises combining polymer precursors in a mixer and continuously introducing the resulting mixture, together with reinforcing fibers, into an impregnation chamber maintained under conditions such that the mixture remains in liquid form of low viscosity. The impregnated fibers are continuously withdrawn from the chamber through a die in which polymerization of the precursors takes place to form the desired composite.

In recent years, the use of the pultrusion process to form composite structure has become increasingly popular since it enables such structures to be fabricated on a continuous basis. As the process is commonly practiced, the reinforcing material, for example, glass filaments, or other reinforcing fibers such as carbon and high strength organic fibers, combined in associated groupings or "tows" are passed through a tank containing the polymer which is to form the continuous phase in the form of a liquid solution, or in melted form. The plastic coated tows are thereafter drawn through a heated die, the coated tows emerging therefrom as a relatively rigid composite. In the case of pultrusions which employ thermoplastic polymers, the pultruded products can thereafter be subdivided into short segments, commonly known as "prepreg", which can be injection or compression molded to form articles of superior strength.
In carrying out the process according to the procedures previously known, however, and with reference to the use of thermosetting polymers as the continuous phase, the polymers must undergo a time-consuming condensation reaction which results in a high degree of polymerization shrinkage, in addition to the normal thermal shrinkage. Consequently, in order to avoid cracking of the composite caused by shrinkage, the cure cycle must be undesirably slow and carefully controlled.
When resort is to thermoplastic polymers, on the other hand, polymers with advantageously high glass transition temperatures, t.sub.g, also have undesirably high viscosities, even at elevated temperatures. Consequently, in order to reduce their viscosities so that "wetting" of the reinforcing filaments can take place to the degree necessary, it is desirable to heat the materials to as high a temperature as possible, but below their decomposition point. Unfortunately, however, the difference between the temperature at which practical viscosities are experienced, and that at which polymer decomposition commences is frequently relatively small, making control of the process difficult.
The problem of filament wetting has previously been recognized, and various methods have been proposed to avoid it, for example, as shown in European Patent Application Publication Nos. 0 056 703, and 0 102 159. Such methods have not been altogether successful, however, at least to the fact that they present other disadvantages, for instance, in some cases a need to melt the polymers. In instances where thermoplastic polymers must be melted to carry out the required coating of the filaments, the polymerization, grinding, and melting steps preparatory to the coating operation involving processing and energy expenditure which are costly, and thus desirable to avoid if possible. Furthermore, maintaining a polymer in a melting condition over protracted periods inevitably leads to the gradual degradation of the polymer, detrimentally influencing its physical properties.
In addition, and irrespective of the nature of the system used to coat the filaments during the pultrusion process, it is frequently difficult to adequately wet the filaments, due to the relatively high viscosities of the coating liquid. Uncoated, or improperly coated filaments are prone to abrasion damage in subsequent handling and processing, leading to broken and, therefore, shortened filaments which provide poor physical properties in the composite, particularly in making prepreg for injection molded products. Consequently, poor wetting tendencies must be offset either by lowering the processing speeds, resulting in increased cost, or undesirably reducing reinforcing material loadings, detrimentally influencing physical properties, or both.

Pultrusion process for preparing composites


The accelerator apparatus prevents air from remaining within a pump chamber and discharged fuel vapor from causing a pumping effect so as to a destabilize engine operation and increase of an exhaust gas content of harmful material, in an accelerator apparatus in which an accelerated fuel passage draws and discharges fuel to the pump chamber of an accelerator pump, which is connected to a main fuel passage. The pump chamber of the accelerator pump is mechanically coupled with a throttle valve and is connected to a fixed fuel chamber storing a fuel delivered to an intake passage at a fixed pressure by the accelerated fuel passage. Air remaining within the pump chamber and a fuel vapor generated within the pump chamber are discharged to the fixed fuel chamber, and fuel extruded from the pump chamber due to a pumping effect of the remaining air and the fuel vapor enters into the fixed fuel chamber, thereby preventing the alteration of a rate of the fuel flowing through a main fuel passage. Fuel in the pump chamber is fed to the fixed fuel chamber during acceleration so as to increase a pressure in the fixed fuel chamber, and an accelerated fuel is obtained by increasing the amount of the delivered fuel to the intake passage.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to accelerator apparatus provided in diaphragm carburetors for supplying fuel to compact, general purpose engines.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known that an accelerator apparatus having an accelerator pump mechanically coupled to a throttle valve may be provided as a means for increasing a rate of fuel flow delivered to an intake passage of a carburetor in response to an increased amount of air intake, during accelerated operation of an engine.
In known diaphragm carburetors, as depicted in conceptual diagrams in FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 2C, in which fuel delivered from a fuel tank by a fuel pump is held in a fixed fuel chamber at a fixed pressure by utilizing a diaphragm and an atmospheric pressure. Such fuel then is delivered to an intake passage from the fixed fuel chamber and supplied to an engine.
Referring to the structure shown in FIG. 2A, which is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 60-195365, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference; a main jet 54 defining a maximum rate of fuel flow and a regulating needle valve 55 regulating a rate of fuel flow are disposed in a main fuel passage 53 extending from a fixed fuel chamber 51 to a main nozzle port 52. Further, a pump chamber 58 of an accelerator pump 57 is connected to main fuel passage 53 downstream of regulating needle valve 55 by a single accelerated fuel passage 59. Further, referring to the structure shown in FIG. 2B, which is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-238411, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference; a check valve 56, which prevents air from flowing into main jet 54 and fixed fuel chamber 51, and regulating needle valve 55 are disposed in main fuel passage 53. Accelerated fuel passage 59 is connected to main fuel passage 53 between main jet 54 and check valve 56. Further, referring to the structure shown in FIG. 2C, which is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 6-67842 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-213013, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference; check valve 56 and regulating needle valve 55 are disposed in main fuel passage 53. Accelerated fuel passage 59 is connected to main fuel passage 53 between check valve 56 and regulating needle valve 55.
Accelerator pump 57 and accelerated fuel passage 59 define an accelerator apparatus. Regardless, whether the throttle valve is a butterfly throttle valve or a rotary throttle valve, as described in each of the Japanese references mentioned above, accelerator pump 57 discharges fuel in pump chamber 58 during acceleration and is coupled mechanically to the throttle valve so as to deliver fuel to main nozzle port 52 from accelerated fuel passage 59 and main fuel passage 53, and accelerator pump 57 draws in fuel in fixed fuel chamber 51 to pump chamber 58 from main fuel passage 53 and accelerated fuel passage 59 during deceleration.
In the accelerator apparatus described above, connecting accelerated fuel passage 59 to main fuel passage 53 has been attempted to improve the carburetor's acceleration response. Nevertheless, when introducing fuel into a newly manufactured carburetor or after the carburetor has not been in use for a long period of time, it frequently occurs that air remains in pump chamber 58. Further, if fuel vapor is generated in pump chamber 58 due to engine heat which remains after the engine is shut down, such fuel vapor may accumulate within pump chamber 58 due to a positional attitude of accelerator pump 57 and a configuration of accelerated fuel passage 59. Further, air and fuel vapor are discharged little by little during engine operation so as to enter into main fuel passage 53, and disrupt the rate of fuel flow set by main jet 54 and regulating needle valve 55. In particular, in the structure shown in FIG. 2A, discharged air and fuel vapor entering main fuel passage 53 adversely affect the regulation of the rate of fuel flow of regulating needle valve 55. Similarly, in the structures shown in FIGS. 2B and 2C, discharged air and fuel vapor entering main fuel passage 53 dilutes an air-fuel mixture during discharging. Further, fuel vapor exerts a pumping effect, pushing out fuel within pump chamber 58 due to vibration of the engine during engine operation or a negative pressure pulsation of a venturi portion to which main nozzle port 52 is open. As a result, and fuel may be delivered to the intake passage irregularly so as to make an air-fuel ratio unstable.
As a result of these phenomena, undesirable results may occur. For example, engine operation may become unstable, and the content of harmful materials may be increased in the exhaust gas.

Accelerator apparatus for diaphragm carburetor


A process for producing alkylaromatics using a multibed alkylation reaction zone is disclosed. The alkylation reaction zone effluent is divided into three portions, the first being recirculated to the inlet of the reaction zone, the second being cooled and recirculated to one or more other beds in the reaction zone, and the third being passed to a product recovery zone where the alkylaromatic is recovered. This process insures that all of the catalyst beds operate in an optimum temperature range. This in turn insures that byproduct formation is minimized and catalyst life is maximized. Ethylbenzene and cumene may be produced by this process.

The alkylation of aromatics with olefins to produce monoalkyl aromatics is a well developed art which is practiced commercially in large industrial units. One commercial application of this process is the alkylation of benzene with ethylene to produce ethylbenzene which is subsequently used to produce styrene. Another application is the alkylation of benzene with propylene to form cumene (isopropylbenzene) which is subsequently used in the production of phenol and acetone. Those skilled in the art are therefore familiar with the general design and operation of such alkylation processes.
Commercial cumene processes usually run with a molar ratio of phenyl groups per propyl group in the alkylation reactor that is greater than the stoichiometric ratio of 1:1 in order to avoid forming by-products. A high molar ratio primarily acts as a heat sink and controls the exothermic temperature rise in the reactor, thus reducing n-propylbenzene formation which is promoted at high temperature. Current specifications for n-propylbenzene in cumene product streams are in the range of 250 to 300 wppm, where wppm refers to parts of n-propylbenzene by weight per million parts of cumene by weight. A high molar ratio also reduces formation of diisopropylbenzene (DIPB) and triisopropylbenzene (TIPB) by polyalkylation and of propylene dimer and propylene trimer by oligomerization.
Prior art methods are known for controlling the temperature rise by using the excess benzene in the alkylation reactor effluent. The alkylation reactor effluent contains excess or unreacted benzene, of course, primarily because the molar ratio in the alkylation reactor is greater than stoichiometric. One prior art method distills this excess benzene from the reactor effluent and recycles a benzene stream to the inlet of the alkylation reactor, or to one or more of the reactor beds in the case of a multibed reactor. Another prior art method recycles some of the reactor effluent without separation to the inlet of the alkylation reactor. Both prior art methods leave room for improvement. In the former method, distilling benzene from the reactor effluent wastefully consumes utilities used in vaporizing and condensing benzene. In the latter method, recycling reactor effluent to the alkylation reactor inlet requires a large quantity of reactor effluent recycle to all of the reactor beds.
Not only must excessively high temperatures in the alkylation reactor be prevented, but excessively low temperatures must be avoided as well. For solid cumene alkylation catalysts, low temperatures accelerate catalyst deactivation by allowing heavy polyalkyl aromatics to deposit in the catalyst pores. Rapid deactivation shortens the catalyst life and necessitates more frequent shutdowns for the catalyst to be regenerated or replaced, thereby hurting the profitability of the cumene process.
Thus, a method is sought for preventing excessive temperatures, both high and low, in a multibed cumene alkylation reactor while efficiently using the excess benzene in the alkylation reactor effluent.

Alkylation process using interbed recycling of cooled reactor effluent


The present application discloses a display substrate including a plurality of pixels arranged in an array of matrix. Each of the plurality of pixels includes several OLED devices emitting light of different color. Each OLED device includes at least a first electrode, a second electrode, and an emitting layer located between the first electrode and the second electrode. At least one layer in either part of the first electrode or the emitting layer forming a microcavity characterized by an optical length. Any two OLED devices emitting light of same color in two adjacent pixels of the plurality of pixels have two microcavities respectively with different optical lengths. At least one OLED device emitting any one colored light in any one pixel of the plurality of pixels has a microcavity with different optical length from other OLED devices emitting light of different color in the same one pixel.

It has been known that human eyes have limited ability to distinguish two separate points with a smallest angle of 1′ to the eye pupil center. Assuming that two points on a screen are separated by 1 cm, the farther away of the screen is from the eyes, the smaller is the angle to the eye pupil center. Typically, a person reads a smart phone screen at a distance of 25 cm. At this distance, the smallest distinguishable separation of two points on the smart phone screen is no less than 0.1 mm. As the brightness of the two points increase, the smallest distinguishable separation will be even larger. For a smart phone with QHD display resolution (a quarter of FULL HD of 1920×1080), the nearest distance between two color blocks of a same color is about 0.04 mm (or 0.02 mm for green color blocks). Human eyes hardly distinguish the difference of the two points. If two adjacent pixels emit light at a same time, human eyes only see light as if it emits from a single light-emitting point.

Display substrate and a display apparatus


It is an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor apparatus for solving a trade-off between the area, power consumption, noise and accuracy of correction of a variation correction circuit that corrects variations in resistance and threshold voltage, etc. The present invention comprises a multi-value voltage generation circuit shared by a plurality of reading circuits, a multi-value voltage bus that supplies multi-value voltages to the reading circuits and switches that select a voltage suited to variation correction from multi-value voltages, wherein the multi-value voltages are distributed from the multi-value voltage generation circuit to the plurality of reading circuits, the switches select an optimum voltage for correction in the respective reading circuits to thereby correct variations in the elements.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor apparatus and, more particularly, to a circuit that corrects variations in various elements in a semiconductor apparatus and variations in characteristics due to the variations in the elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Examples of variations in elements of a semiconductor apparatus include variations in resistance or capacitance of a resistor or capacitor, threshold voltage Vt or ON-current of a transistor, base-emitter voltage Vbe of a bipolar transistor, resistance, capacitance, sensitivity or offset voltage of various sensor elements.
Variations in these elements cause characteristics of a circuit to change. For example, these characteristics include offset voltage, sensitivity, speed, output current, etc.
The following explanations will be focused on an infrared imaging device, but the present invention is applicable to any semiconductor apparatus capable of improving characteristics by correcting variations.
An example of a circuit that corrects variations in elements of a semiconductor apparatus is a semiconductor apparatus proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-114467 (hereinafter referred to as "Document 1") by the inventor of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 19, this semiconductor apparatus includes a bolometer 1601 that converts incident infrared radiation to an electric signal, a transistor 1602 that applies a constant voltage to the bolometer 1601 and converts a resistance variation of the bolometer 1601 to a current variation, a capacitor 1603, one end of which is connected to the collector of the transistor 1602 and the other end of which is grounded, for integrating variations in the current that flows through the transistor 1602 and a variation correction circuit 1604 that corrects variations among a plurality of the bolometers 1601. The bolometers are arrayed two-dimensionally and bolometer signals corresponding to one column (V1 to Vn) in vertical direction are read by one reading circuit 1605 and all pixels are read by providing one reading circuit for each column (H1 to Hn). In FIG. 19, reference numeral 1609 denotes a bias circuit that supplies a bias voltage to a transistor of a cancellation circuit 1607, 1613 denotes a bias circuit that gives a bias to the bolometers and 1614 denotes a bias circuit that gives a bias voltage to the variation correction circuit 1604.
A certain reading circuit 1605 needs to correct and read variations of the bolometers of V1 to Vn and the variation correction circuit 1604 carries out corrections by changing its current value from one bolometer to another.
The variation correction circuit 1604 includes a plurality of current sources 1606 and current values of the current sources 1606 are arranged in binary form from MSB (most significant bit) to LSB (least significant bit) by sequentially changing two times each value. By changing current sources to be turned on by the bolometers 1601, it is possible to correct current variations due to resistance variations of the bolometers 1601.
Furthermore, an example of an imaging device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-004401 (hereinafter referred to as "Document 2") includes reading circuits 1605 similar to those in FIG. 19, but corrects variations using the bias cancellation circuit 1607 instead of using the correction circuits 1604.
The bias cancellation circuit 1607 is usually used to cancel a bias component of a bolometer current and store only a signal component in a capacitor.
The imaging device disclosed in Document 2 configures resistance of this bias cancellation circuit 1607 (see FIG. 19) with a plurality of resistors that vary in binary form, thus allowing the bias cancellation circuit itself to have a variation correction function. That is, the bias cancellation circuit (bias current cancellation circuit) in Document 2 adopts a configuration comprising an FPN correction memory, a group of switches ON/OFF-controlled by digital data output from the FPN correction memory, one ends of which are commonly connected to a power supply and a group of resistors, one ends of which are connected to the other ends of the plurality of switches and the other ends of which are commonly connected to the collector of the transistor of the bias cancellation circuit 1607.
Furthermore, according to an example disclosed in Document 3 ("Low Cost 160×128 uncooled infrared sensor array", SPIE Vol.3360 Part of the SPIE Conference on Infrared Readout Electronics IV April.1999), a bias voltage is supplied through a transistor to detect resistance variations of bolometers and variations in currents flowing through the bolometers are detected as a voltage by allowing an integrating circuit to integrate them using an operational amplifier. Then, the output of the integrating circuit is subjected to sample and hold. The integration operation and sample-and-hold operation are carried out by a plurality of reading circuits simultaneously. The proposal then describes that the sample-and-hold outputs of the respective reading circuits are multiplexed sequentially and output to the outside.
As shown in FIG. 20, according to the technique disclosed in above-described Document 3, a bolometer 1701 is connected to the source of a P-channel MOSFET (hereinafter referred to as "PchMOSFET") 1702 through a switch and the gate of the PchMOSFET 1702 is connected to the output terminal of a digital/analog converter (hereinafter referred to as "D/A converter") 1703. Furthermore, a bolometer 1705, which is thermally short-circuited, is connected to the source of an N-channel MOSFET (hereinafter referred to as "NchMOSFET") 1704 and the gate of the NchMOSFET 1704 is connected to the output terminal of a D/A converter 1706. The connection point of the drain of the PchMOSFET 1702 and the drain of the NchMOSFET 1704 is connected to an integrator 1707 and a displacement current due to incident infrared radiation of the bolometer 1701 is converted to an integrated voltage by an integrating capacitor 1708.
Furthermore, an integrating circuit 1712 is constructed of the integrator 1707, the integrating capacitor 1708 and a reset switch 1709, and the integrating capacitor 1708 is periodically reset by the reset switch 1709. The integrator 1707 is made up of an OP amp (operational amplifier), the non-inverting input terminal of which is grounded and the inverting input terminal of which is connected to the input terminal of the integrating circuit 1712, with a parallel circuit of the capacitor 1708 and switch 1709 inserted between the inverting input terminal and a feedback path of the output terminal.
A sample-and-hold circuit (hereinafter referred to as "S/H circuit") 1710 carries out sample and hold on the output voltage of the integrating circuit 1712 and multiplexer switches 1711 output the outputs of reading circuits 1713 to the outside sequentially. According to this document, there are nine reading circuits 1713.
However, the present inventor has noticed that the above-described conventional variation correction circuit has the following problems:
First, there is a trade-off between the area of the variation correction circuit and noise generated from the variation correction circuit. For example, in the example shown in above-described Document 1, current-related noise of the variation correction circuit is reduced as the resistance of the current source 1606 increases and the volume of the resistor increases. This is because:                The current-related noise of the resistor is inversely proportional to resistance.        The 1/f noise of the resistor is inversely proportional to the volume.
There is normally a demand for making noise of the variation correction circuit smaller than noise of the bolometer and there is a need to increase the resistance of the current source 1606 and increase the volume of the resistor.
In addition, since there is also a need to sequentially increase the resistance in binary form from MSB to LSB twice at a time, the resistance of the LSB becomes extremely large, requiring a large area.
Second, there is a trade-off between power consumption and accuracy of correction. First, the example shown in above-described Document 1 requires another current that flows into the variation correction circuit 1604 in addition to the bolometer current. For this reason, further reduction of power consumption is preferred.
Furthermore, according to the configuration example described in above-described Document 1, the collector terminal of the current source 1606 (see FIG. 19) is connected to the capacitor 1603 and the collector terminal voltage changes together with an integration operation. For this reason, the current value of the current source 1606 varies subtly and it is susceptible to improvement in terms of linearity.
On the other hand, according to the example shown in FIG. 20 in above-described Document 3, since the drain of the transistor 1704 is controlled to a constant voltage by the operational amplifier 1707, there are few such problems, but there is a problem that power consumption of the D/A converters 1703 and 1706 that correct variations increases considerably.
Furthermore, the example shown in above-described Document 2 has relatively small current consumption but has a problem in terms of linearity as in the case of above-described Document 1.
Furthermore, the example of above-described Document 2 has a problem that the binary resistors arranged in parallel in the bias cancellation circuit cannot obtain sufficient accuracy of correction. Moreover, when resistors are used in series, there is also a problem that resistance becomes too small and the ON-resistance of switches, etc., grows to a noticeable level, failing to increase the accuracy of correction.
Third, the problems of the above-described area and power consumption make it difficult to apply the variation correction circuit to general LSIs such as a memory, cell-based IC and processor. With miniaturization technologies on the order of 100 nm in recent years, these LSIs have a problem that variations in threshold voltage Vt and ON-current of a transistor increase, which is accompanied by another problem that variations in an offset voltage of a sense amplifier or speed variations of a gate element become evident.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor apparatus capable of realizing a high accuracy variation correction function with low power consumption, low noise and a small area.


An information code includes a code region composed of a plurality of light-color modules and a plurality of dark-color modules. The code region includes a specified area which is preset and disables decoding of the information code by shielding light. The specified area is covered by a covering which exhibits a dark-color reflectance property when light of a first wavelength band is radiated thereto and which is transmissive to light of a second wavelength band. The first and second wavelength bands differ from each other. The light of the first wavelength band is visible light for example. Comparison between information code images imaged respectively on the light of the first and second wavelength bands makes it possible to determine whether the information code or an object with the information code is authentic.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information code and an information code reading apparatus that reads the information code.
2. Related Art
Recently, information codes, such as bar codes or QR Codes™, are used for various purposes. The ways of using such information codes are also various. For example, an information code can be optically read by executing a given application in a camera cell-phone or a smartphone to easily acquire the information specific to the information code. Thus, using an information code, users can easily enjoy such services as follow-up research of food, guide to a website, issuance of a coupon or a ticket, and the like.
As a technique for providing services by using an information code as mentioned above, an advertisement apparatus is well known as disclosed in JP-A-2001-273441. This advertisement apparatus produces a code image which is encoded with Internet address information of an advertiser or index information for specifying the internet address information. Then, the code image is printed, for example, on various products, gifts, leaflets, or the like, as printed media and provided to consumers. The consumers, on the other hand, can each acquire the code image provided as mentioned above using an optical device to extract and decode the code information encoded in the code image. In this way, each consumer can acquire the address information or the index information included in the code information. After acquiring the address information, the consumer can act on the basis of the address information. Thus, the consumer can enjoy the services provided by the advertiser. When the information acquired by the consumer is the index information, the consumer can connect to a predetermined server computer on the internet to acquire the address information corresponding to index information and then can act on the basis of the address information or the like. In this way, consumers can enjoy the services provided by the advertiser.
However, an information code simply indicated such as on a printed media can be easily copied by anyone by using a copying machine or the like. For this reason, the following problem could be caused. For example, a fraudulent code, i.e. an information code copied from an authentic information code with fraudulent intention, can be easily produced by anyone. Therefore, at a gate, for example, where entrance and exit are managed by reading an information code, such a fraudulent code cannot be detected unless the authenticity of the information code is determined.

Information code and information code reading apparatus


A separator of a mixture of liquid and gas, comprising an injection device, a separation chamber having a cylindrical internal surface and extending along a vertical axis, and a control chamber. The mixture is separated in the separation chamber into gas and liquid, with a cylindrical interface surface. The separation chamber comprises a first axial outlet for extracting the gas, a second outlet for extracting the liquid, and a third axial outlet in communication with the control chamber. The interface surface has, in normal operating conditions, a diameter lying between the diameter of the first outlet and the diameter of the third outlet. The control chamber is connected to the injection device by a return circuit.

Document WO-01/00296 describes an example of a separation device comprising a first separator comprising in series in a longitudinal direction of flow, an inlet for a mixture of a liquid and gas, an accelerator for rotating the said mixture, a separation chamber and a liquid outlet. By a cyclonic effect, a gaseous phase of the mixture is concentrated in the centre of the separation chamber in the form of a gas cylinder, surrounded by a liquid phase. This separator comprises a gas outlet at the centre of the separation chamber for extracting the gas.
However, some liquid is drawn towards the central zone and the extracted gas still comprises a fraction of liquid.
In order to improve the separation, the separation device of the document WO-01/00296 then comprises a second separator of the gravity type, fed by the gas outlet of the first separator.
Such a separation device is then bulky and costly.


An apparatus comprising (i) a first circuit configured to generate one or more node signals at one or more internal nodes and (ii) a second circuit configured to present one or more of the node signals and a trigger signal in response to one or more control signals.

Testing integrated circuits is expensive and time consuming. Complex very large scale integrated (VLSI) chips can have millions of internal nodes. Probing all of the nodes in the silicon during a debug process is difficult.
Existing solutions are inefficient, time consuming and expensive. Existing test methods include opening up a chip and using an electronic probing device. Opening up a chip can destroy the chip. Electronic probing tests one node at a time. The entire set up (i.e., chip, circuit board and system) can be too large to fit inside a vacuum chamber. Testing can require special infinite loop test patterns. However, the test patterns may not be able to reproduce the problem.
It would be desirable to implement a built-in logic to allow observation of internal nodes of a chip under normal operating conditions.

Built-in debug feature for complex VLSI chip


Compounds of Formula I ##STR1## are disclosed as inhibitors of plasmepsin and cathepsin D. The compounds are therefore useful to treat diseases such as malaria. In preferred compounds of formula I, Y is the residue of an N-acylated amino acid, a substituted 4-aminoproline or a substituted piperazinealkanoic acid. Intermediates in the solid phase synthesis of compounds of formula I, in which the compounds are attached to a solid support, are also disclosed.

Resistance to known antimalarial therapies is becoming an increasing problem and new therapies are therefore desperately needed. Upon infecting a host, the malaria parasite avidly consumes the host hemoglobin as its source of nutrients. Plasmepsin I and II are proteases from Plasmodium falciparum that are necessary during the initial stages of hemoglobin hydrolysis and digestion, which primarily occurs in the .alpha.chain, between Phe 33 and Leu 34, although other sites may serve as substrates for hydrolysis as well. It has been shown in cultures inhibition of plasmepsin by a peptidomimetic inhibitor is effective in preventing malarial hemoglobin degradation and in killing the parasite (Francis, S. E., Gluzman, I. Y. Oksman, A., Knickerbocker, A., Mueller, Bryant, M. L., Sherman, D. R., Russell, D. G., and Goldberg, D. E. (1994) EMBO J, 13, 306-317). Thus, persons of skill in the art expect that plasmepsin inhibitors will provide effective antimalarial therapy.
Cathepsin D is a human protease in the endosomal-lysosomal pathway, involved in lysosomal biogenesis and protein targeting, and may also be involved in antigen processing and presentation of peptide fragments. The protease therefore displays broad substrate specificity but prefers hydrophobic residues on either side of the scissile bond.
Cathepsin D has been implicated in a variety of diseases, including connective tissue disease, muscular dystrophy, and breast cancer. Most recently, cathepsin D is believed to be .gamma.-secretase, the protease which processes the .beta.-amyloid precursor protein to generate the C-terminus of .beta.-amyloid (Dreyer, R. N., Bausch, K. M., Fracasso, P., Hammond, L. J., Wunderlich, D., Wirak, D. O., Davis, G., Brini, C. M., Bucholz, T. M., Konig, G., Kamark, M. E., and Tamburini, P. P. (1994) Eur. J. Biochem., 224, 265-271 and Ladror, U.S., Synder, S. W., Wang, G. T., Holzman, and Krafft, G. A. (1994) J. Biol. Chem., 269, 18422-18428), which is the major component of plaque in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Consequently, persons of skill in the art expect that inhibitors of cathepsin D will be useful in treating Alzheimer's disease.
The present invention relates to amino acid (statine) analogs and their inhibitory action against aspartyl proteases, and more particularly, the invention relates to the identification of amino acid analogs that display selective inhibitory activity against plasmepsin and cathepsin D. Although statine-containing peptides are known which inhibit aspartyl proteases (Shewale, J. G.; Takahashi, R.; Tang, J., Aspartic Proteinases and Their Inhibitors, Kostka, V., Ed. Wlater de Gruyter: Berlin (1986) pp 101-116), there are only a few selective inhibitors for cathepsin D (Lin, T. Y.; Williams, H. R., Inhibition of Cathepsin D by Synthetic Oligopeptides, J. Biol. Chem. (1979), 254, 11875-11883; Rich, D. H.; Agarwal, N. S., Inhibition of Cathepsin D by Substrate Analogues Containing Statine and by Analogues of Pepstatin, J. Med. Chem. (1986) 29 (2519-2524), and for plasmepsin (Silva, A. M. et al., Structure and Inhibition of Plasmepsin II, A Hemoglobin-Degrading Enzyme From Plasmodium falciparum, Proceed Natl Acad Sci, 1996, 93, 10034-10039). The present invention also relates to the solid phase synthesis of such amino acid analogs.


In an image sensing apparatus comprising an array of image sensing elements, first and second shift registers are provided, each having stages divided into first and second sections, the stages of the first section of the first and second shift registers corresponding to odd-numbered elements and even-numbered numbered elements of the array, respectively. During each line scan, a transfer command pulse is generated to turn on gates to transfer image signals developed in the array to the corresponding stages of the first shift register of each shift register. A calibration sequence is stored into the second section of each shift register when the gates are in a turn-off state, and the shift registers are alternately driven to deliver the image signals followed immediately by the calibration sequences. The image signals delivered from the shift registers are combined to produce a complete video line signal. A difference in amplitude between the calibration sequences delivered respectively from the shift registers is detected for controlling amplitudes of subsequently delivered image signals.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to image sensing apparatus, and more specifically to a technique for cancelling an amplitude difference between signals shifted along respective shift registers of an image sensor. The present invention is useful for application to facsimile machines and earth observation satellites.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multi-element image sensing apparatus used in applications such as facsimile and earth surveillance include a calibration system for periodically checking the functions of the apparatus in addition to circuitry for sensing images. In these applications, a video signal is generated when the object of interest has a sufficient level of luminance for viewing, and a calibration is performed at other times. More specifically, the image sensing apparatus comprises a linear array of image sensing elements and two shift registers one of which is connected to the odd-numbered elements of the array and the other is connected to the even-numbered elements of the array. Due to manufacturing tolerances, the operating characteristics of the shift registers are not necessary the same. During low luminance periods, a calibration pulse sequence of known amplitude is shifted along the shift registers and the sequences delivered from the shift registers are matched against each other to detect an amplitude difference. In response to the amplitude difference, calibration is effected on the image signals subsequently output from the shift registers.
Since image sensing and calibration are effected during different periods of time, however, the operating characteristics of the shift registers at the time of calibration may differ from those of the shift registers during image sensing due to constantly varying environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity. Therefore, the result of a calibration provided at one time is not ideal for an error that occurs at another time.

Image sensing apparatus using calibration sequences stored in extended portions of shift registers


A decision rule is used that examines the computer-aided detected (CAD) regions of interest in a computed tomography (CT) slice pair taken from volumetric medical CT scan to determine whether the detected regions of interest are part of the same object is disclosed. Segmentation is performed after initially detecting a region of interest but before calculating features in order to refine the boundaries of the detected regions of interest. Segmentation occurs in the two-dimensional slices by segmenting the region of interest on each slice. Adjacent slices are examined to determine if adjacent objects are actually part of the same structure. If they are not, the objects are split apart. In this way, three-dimensional objects are formed from two-dimensional segmentations.

The present invention generally relates to forming well-segmented objects in three dimensional medical imagery and, in particular, relates to forming well-segmented objects in three dimensional medical imagery using a decision rule or classifier.
Computed Tomography (CT) systems produce volumetric images, providing three-dimensional information of structures internal to the body. This imagery is commonly viewed on film as a collection of many tens of two-dimensional images, also referred to as slices. Each slice is reviewed by the radiologist in the search for abnormalities. Although multiple slices provide more opportunities for a lesion to be detected, the possibility of missing a lesion is also increased due to the increased workload by generating a greater number of individual images per scan. A thoracic CT scan formerly produced approximately thirty sections with the 10-mm collimation that was standard for many years. State-of-the-art multidetector scanners now have collimation as thin as less than 1 mm, and commonly generate more than fifteen times as many section images for radiologists to interpret. With an increase in the number of CT scans being performed for a wide variety of diagnostic and screening purposes compounded by an increasing number of images acquired during each scan, computerized techniques for the automated analysis of CT scans for disease (and especially for lung nodules that may represent lung cancer and colon polyps that may represent colorectal cancer) are quickly becoming a necessity. Additionally, computer-aided detection (CAD) systems are now commercially available and are being developed to assist in challenges of detecting suspicious lesions such as, for example, lung nodules and colon polyps in thoracic imagery.
In initial processing steps, CAD systems typically detect many candidate suspicious areas. In subsequent processing, the initial detections are analyzed to determine whether or not to display a detected region to a user in the final stage. Accurate shape estimates of the initial detections are essential to make good decisions regarding whether or not detections are ultimately displayed.
CAD systems are used to assist radiologists in the detection of suspicious lesions. It is essential for CAD systems to have a reliable estimation of the shape of a lesion in order to make accurate decisions regarding whether or not an initial CAD system detection is ultimately displayed to a user. Therefore, there is a need for a method for accurate shape estimation of nodules or polyps.
Additionally, an object detector locates nearly all the areas of interest within the lungs or colon such as, for example, nodules and polyps. However, the detector Regions of Interest (ROIs) are intended to provide the core of the region of interest, and often underestimate the complete extent of objects that are identified. Some classes of features (e.g., intensity-based features, shape features, etc.) show improved separability with a better estimate of the extent of the ROIs. Therefore, it is beneficial to provide a refined segmentation to the features and classification algorithms in addition to the detection mask.
A common problem during the segmentation is for the region of interest (nodule, polyp, etc.) to be incorrectly attached to an anatomic structure during the step where slices are combined. The incorrect segmentations can lead to poor features, and as a result, can cause otherwise suspicious regions to be rejected during the classification stage.
Often, objects are formed with a simple connectiveness rule. With this rule, voxels are considered part of the same object if the voxels touch. Voxels are the smallest distinguishable box-shaped parts of three-dimensional images. However, when forming an object in three dimensions, simple connectiveness is not sufficient for adjacent slices to be considered part of the same object.
Particularly in the Z dimension in the XYZ coordinate system of non-isotropic CT data, adjacent voxels may actually be several times farther apart than those in the other dimensions. For example, the distance between voxels can be 5 mm or more and the voxels though adjacent can actually represent different structures. Therefore, particularly in these situations, using simple connectiveness is not sufficient since it may incorrectly join voxels that are not part of the same structure.
Additionally, sometimes a mathematical morphological opening is used to break any connections the region of interest has to an anatomic structure. However, this operation is insufficient if the region of interest and the anatomic structure have a high degree of overlap. In addition, previous approaches would often leave the region of interest connected to large anatomic structures. For example, in CT Lung CAD, the nodules would be attached to vessels and bronchial structures and in the CT Colon CAD, the polyps would be attached to folds. Therefore, simply using a mathematical morphological opening is also not enough.
Therefore, there is a need for a decision rule or classifier that examines the CAD detected regions of interest in each CT slice pair to determine whether the detected regions of interest are part of the same object or not. In this way, the detected regions of interest can be correctly separated from the anatomic structures.

Forming three dimensional objects using a decision rule in medical image data


Some embodiments include a first circuit to drive signals at first circuit output nodes, and a second circuit to generate output signals at second circuit output nodes. The second circuit includes a first transistor coupled between a supply node and a first node of the second circuit output nodes and a second transistor coupled between the supply node and a second node of the second circuit output nodes. Each of the first and second transistors includes a gate coupled to one of the first and second nodes. Other embodiments including additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.

Semiconductor devices, including memory, often are used in computers and electronic products, e.g., digital televisions, digital cameras, and cellular phones, to store data and other information. A memory device often has many memory cells and associated circuits to transfer data to and from the memory cells. The circuits may transfer the data in the form of electrical signals. A signal may have one or more signal level values to represent different values of the data.
In some cases, a circuit used to transfer data within a memory device that operates at one operating supply voltage may function poorly in a memory device that operates at another supply voltage, e.g., a lower supply voltage. In other cases, factors such as fabrication process variations may put a circuit used to transfer data within a memory device under conditions that degrade signal level values of the signals transferred by the circuit, leading to lower transfer speed, higher power consumption, or both.

Current mode memory apparatus, systems, and methods


An amorphous form of aprepitant and a process for its preparation is provided. Also provided are mixtures of polymorph Forms I and II of aprepitant and a process for the preparation thereof.

1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to amorphous and crystalline forms of aprepitant and processes for their preparation.
2. Description of Related Art
Aprepitant, also known as 5-[[(2R,3S)-2-[(1R-1-[3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]ethoxy]-3-(4-fluorophenyl)-4-morpholinyl]methyl]-1,2-dihydro-3H-1,2,4-triazol-3-one, is represented by the structure of Formula I:
Aprepitant is a selective high-affinity antagonist of human substance P/neurokinin 1 (NK1) receptors. Aprepitant has little or no affinity for serotonin (5-HT3), dopamine and corticosteroid receptors, which are the targets of some therapies for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). Aprepitant, in combination with other antiemetic agents, is indicated for the prevention of acute and delayed nausea and vomiting associated with initial and repeat courses of highly emetogenic cancer chemotherapy, including high-dose cisplatin and is commercially sold under the trade name Emend®. See, e.g., Physician's Desk Reference, "Emend," 60th Edition, pp. 1944-1949 (2005).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,719,147 discloses aprepitant and a process for its preparation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,096,742 discloses a polymorphic form of the compound 2-(R)-(1-(R)-(3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)ethoxy)-3-(S)-(4-fluorophenyl)-4-(3-(5-oxo-1H,4H-1,2,4-triazolo)methylmorpholine characterized by an X-ray powder diffraction pattern with key reflections at approximately: 12.0, 15.3, 16.6, 17.0, 17.6, 19.4, 20.0, 21.9, 23.6, 23.8, and 24.8.degree. (2 theta) which is substantially free of a polymorphic form of the compound 2-(R)-(1-(R)-(3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)ethoxy)-3-S)-(4-fluoro)-phenyl-4-(3-(5-oxo-1H,4H-1,2,4-triazolo)methylmorpholine characterized by an X-ray powder diffraction pattern with key reflections at approximately: 12.6, 16.7, 17.1, 17.2, 18.0, 20.1, 20.6, 21.1, 22.8, 23.9, and 24.8.degree. (2 theta).
The present invention relates to the solid state physical properties of aprepitant. These properties can be influenced by controlling the conditions under which aprepitant is obtained in solid form. Solid state physical properties affect the ease with which the material is handled during processing into a pharmaceutical product such as a tablet or capsule formulation. The physical properties can also impact the type of excipients, for instance, to add to an aprepitant formulation. Furthermore, the solid state physical property of a pharmaceutical compound is important to its dissolution in aqueous fluid or even in a patient's stomach fluid, which have therapeutic consequences. The rate of dissolution is also a consideration in liquid forms of medicine as well. The solid state form of a compound may also affect its storage conditions.
These practical physical characteristics are influenced by the particular form of a substance. For example, polymorphism is the occurrence of different crystalline forms of a single compound and it is a property of some compounds and complexes. Thus, polymorphs are distinct solids sharing the same molecular formula, yet each polymorph may have distinct physical properties. Therefore, a single compound may give rise to a variety of polymorphic forms where each form has different and distinct physical properties, such as different solubility profiles, different melting point temperatures and/or different x-ray diffraction peaks. Since the solubility of each polymorph may vary, identifying the existence of pharmaceutical polymorphs is essential for providing pharmaceuticals with predicable solubility profiles. The amorphous and crystalline forms of a compound can be distinguished in a laboratory by X-ray diffraction spectroscopy and by other methods such as, infrared spectrometry.
Generally, amorphous materials do not exhibit the three dimensional long-range order ordinarily found in crystalline material and are structurally more similar to liquids where the arrangement of molecules is random. Additionally, amorphous solids are substantially not crystalline and therefore do not give a definitive x-ray diffraction pattern (XPD). They also do not give rise to a melting point and tend to liquefy at some point beyond the glass transition point.
The present invention relates to an amorphous form and polymorphic mixtures of aprepitant. Moreover the present invention relates to additional processes for preparation of amorphous aprepitant and polymorphic mixtures of aprepitant.

Amorphous and crystalline forms of aprepitant and processes for the preparation thereof


In one embodiment, an image processing system includes a memory and processing circuitry. The memory is configured to store a predetermined program. The processing circuitry is configured, by executing the predetermined program, to perform processing on an input image by exploiting a neural network having an input layer, an output layer, and an intermediate layer provided between the input layer and the output layer, the input image being inputted to the input layer, and adjust an internal parameter based on data related to the input image, while performing the processing on the input image after training of the neural network, the internal parameter being at least one internal parameter of at least one node included in the intermediate layer, and the input parameter having been calculated by the training of the neural network.

In recent years, a method of using a neural network has been used in the field of various types of image processing and image recognition. The neural network is a processing device in which one or more nodes simulating cells are connected by one or more edges that simulate nerves.
The neural network has biases and weighting coefficients, both of which are associated with respective edges, as its internal parameters. In addition, each node has an activation function, and the parameters of the activation function are also included in the internal parameters of the neural network.
Machine learning is used for calculating the internal parameters of the neural network. For instance, in a neural network aimed at removing noise of an image, the internal parameters are generally calculated in the following manner.
First, initial setting is manually performed on various conditions such as connection relationship between respective nodes, initial values of the biases and weighting coefficients associated with respective edges, and an initial value of the parameter of the activation function in each node.
Next, an image without noise (i.e., a "ground truth") and a "training image" in which noise is artificially superimposed on the ground truth are prepared. The initial parameters of the neural network are sequentially updated in such a manner that the difference between the training image processed in the neural network and the ground truth becomes smaller. Such a series of processing flow is called "training".
When difference, e.g., mean square error (MSE) of each pixel of respective images, between the ground truth and the image obtained by processing the training image in the neural network (i.e., the processed training image) becomes smaller than a predetermined value, the training will end. The respective values of the internal parameters of the neural network at the end of training are held as internal parameters calculated by training.
When using the neural network after the training, a noise-superimposed image in which actual noise is superimposed is inputted to a neural network having internal parameters calculated by the training, and an image in which noise is removed or reduced is obtained at the output of the neural network.
In the neural network, high noise removal performance or noise reduction performance is obtained, when the amount of superimposed noise in the noise-superimposed image to be used is as large as the amount of noise in the training image, which has been used in the training process. However, in the neural network, the noise removal performance or noise reduction performance may deteriorate when the amount of noise in the noise-superimposed image to be used is different from the amount of noise in the training image.
In order to cope with this problem, an approach may be considered in which plural training images, that have noise amounts different from each other, are used when training the internal parameters in the neural network, instead of using training images having a noise amount of a single magnitude. However, in this approach, when assuming the noise amount is same between the leaning process and the using process, the noise removal or noise reduction performance may be reduced, compared with the noise removal or reduction performance obtained by using the training images that have a noise amount of a single magnitude.

Image processing system and medical information processing system


An apparatus for providing amplified image data may include an image sensor including a number of pixel light sensing elements. Circuitry may output pixel exposure signals and a dark level signal. The differences between the pixel exposure signals and the dark level signal are uni-polar signals. A variable gain amplifier may shift the uni-polar signals to bipolar signals centered around zero, and may also amplify the bipolar signals. In this manner, a full scale output range of the variable gain amplifier may be substantially utilized.

Implementations of the claimed invention generally may relate to schemes for amplifying captured image data and, more particularly, to such schemes that involve amplification via a variable gain amplifier.
Image sensors are becoming increasingly prevalent in modern electronics. Such sensors typically convert received photons to electrical signals, and may be found in such devices as computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), phones, and other electronic devices. The image data from the sensor itself, which is typically in the form of an analog voltage, may be converted into digital data by circuitry for later processing by the device in which the sensor resides.
Various schemes may be used to convert such analog image data into digital data, and some of these schemes may involve variable gain amplifiers (VGAs).

Bi-polar signaling scheme for imaging system


The present disclosure relates generally to methods and compositions for transferring a genetic circuit from one prokaryotic cell (“donor cell”) to another prokaryotic cell (“recipient cell” or “target cell” which are used interchangeably herein). More specifically, the present disclosure relates to prokaryotic donor cells comprising (i) a genetic circuit of interest and (ii) one or more expressed transcriptional repressor proteins and the use of said donor cells in the efficient transfer of the genetic circuit into a prokaryotic recipient cell. The genetic circuit includes nucleic acid sequences encoding a RNA molecule or protein of interest.

Inducible systems that control the transcription from a given promoter are useful tools in molecular biology [1]-[3]. In general, these systems are composed of a protein repressor whose binding to its cognate DNA operator is dependent on the presence of an inducer. In the absence of inducer, the repressor is able to recognize its operator, preventing transcription from a promoter; when the inducer is present, the repressor is no longer able to recognize its operator, either by binding of the inducer to a domain of the repressor or by changing its 3D conformation, hence activating transcription. Inducers can be chemical (IPTG, sugars, small molecules, proteins, etc.) or physical (heat, light, pressure, pH etc.). There are many other ways to prevent transcription or to reduce the amount of protein being made in a cell: conditional degradation of proteins, reduction of plasmid copy numbers in the production strain, etc. These do not repress the promoter per se but act upon other components of the genetic circuit [22].
It may, in some instances, be desirable to control the transcription/translation of a specific gene in a host while being able to activate it in a target bacterium in the absence of inducer. For example, in the case of phagemid transduction of proteins and/or nucleic acids that are toxic to the target bacterium, such as for example CRISPR-Cas9-containing circuits [14], it is imperative that the strain being used to produce the particles does not express the toxic protein and/or nucleic acid encoded by the circuit: otherwise, the production strain would be killed or critically damaged. However, it is necessary that the toxic protein and/or nucleic acids are expressed/transcribed in the target strain to induce either cell death such as sequence-specific cell death or any other type of desired function in the target strain. This would also be true for any other toxic component that will be injected in a target strain, which could also render it toxic for the production strain. Additionally, it has been shown that the constitutive expression of components in genetic circuits, especially if they impose a burden (such as toxic components, or any component having unwanted function in the production strain) is disadvantageous for the cell and they tend to be deleted or mutated, causing undesired breakage of designs and components [15]. In that sense, having a conditional repressor that acts only in the production strain is advantageous from the engineering/manufacturing point of view.
A proposed solution for the specific case of genetic circuit transduction has been offered and involves positive regulators (a phage polymerase and its cognate promoter). The target cells may contain either the promoter or the polymerase only, with the other component being transduced by a phagemid [12][13]. However, this is not a practical approach when working with wild-type strains, because of difficulties to transform one of the components, or in environments where it is not possible to pre-load the target cells with one of the circuit constituents (for example, the gut environment).
Another possible solution for this would be to express the repressor controlling the expression of the toxic component in trans, i.e., not encoded in the circuit to be packaged. In this case, the repressor would only be present in the production strain but not in the target strain. There is, however, a main problem associated with this approach: since strains used to produce phagemids are the same species (or at least very closely related) as those that need to be targeted, the repressor used needs to be carefully chosen. For example, using AraC or LacI would effectively repress the transcription of toxic components in the production strain in trans, and phagemids produced in this way would inject a "naked", constitutive promoter into the target strains. However, if these are wild-type strains, they will most probably contain their own genes for Lad or AraC, so the injected promoter would be immediately repressed. Even antibiotic-induced systems, such as TetR, are very commonly found in many wild-type strains. The same can happen when using a phage master-repressor-promoter pair: wild-type strains carry a number of prophages in their genomes, and many of these could encode repressors that recognize the promoter being used.

Transcriptional control in prokaryotic cells using DNA-binding repressors


During off-peak operation of a power plant operating on a thermodynamic cycle wherein heat is rejected to an ambient fluid, heat is removed from a cold temperature storage medium. The cold temperature storage medium is stored until the power plant is experiencing a peak period. During the peak period, the stored cold temperature storage medium is used to absorb heat from the ambient fluid prior to heat rejection from the thermodynamic cycle to the ambient fluid, to improve performance of the thermodynamic cycle. In another aspect, the stored cold temperature storage medium is mixed with the ambient fluid prior to heat rejection from the thermodynamic cycle to the ambient fluid. Corresponding systems, apparatuses, retrofit methods, design and control techniques are also disclosed.

It is a well established fact that power plants perform better when ambient conditions allow for colder than normal condenser operation; cooler condenser temperatures allow for lower condenser pressures which together lead to greater power generation and thermodynamic efficiency. In fact, in certain circumstances this effect can be quite significant. Arrieta and Lora, in their paper "Influence of Ambient Temperature on Combined-Cycle Power-Plant Performance," Applied Energy 80 (2005) 261-272, indicate that ambient conditions at or near freezing can lead to an 8.3% increase in net power generation compared to design conditions and up to a 16.7% increase in net power generation compared to hot temperature conditions.
Large regular swings in electricity demand between low load hours and peak load hours necessitate techniques for storing energy. There are currently only a few utility-scale energy storage technologies in existence; the most popular being pumped storage technology in which water is pumped up a hill during off-peak hours and run down like a hydro-electric plant during peak hours. Geographically, pumped storage has already reached its limits. Currently, to deal with the lack of storage options and the large differences in regular demand, small "peak loading" power plants are built. These power plants have the ability to turn on and off quickly, but operate only a few hours a day, so that they need to charge significantly higher rates for the electricity they produce.
Thermal energy storage concepts have been around for quite some time and a great deal of research continues in this area. Most commonly in power generation settings, thermal energy storage relies on heat stored in a substance at high temperature and insulated until it is desired to move heat from that high temperature substance to a working fluid. For example, in many solar thermal power plants, synthetic salts absorb heat energy during the daytime, and are used as a heat source to generate steam at night. These salts may also incorporate a phase transition between molten and solid states to increase their energy storage potential. Alternatives on this approach have been proposed such as Ellis et al. in their U.S. Patent Publication 2009-0179429, but they are still essentially similar in that storage technologies such as these are meant to be capable of running an entire power cycle without any assistance when they need to be called upon.
Hot temperature storage technologies are appropriate for situations like solar thermal plants where, without such energy storage options, the plant would be unable to operate at all during the night time. However, it is believed that such storage technologies are impractical for saving off-peak energy for peak hour consumption on a large scale. The reason for this is that in order to convert the heat energy stored in the medium into electricity, a dedicated set of power plant equipment is needed (i.e., a turbine, condenser, pumps, and the like). Along the same line of reasoning, the reason why hot temperature storage methods work for solar thermal plants is that without the storage system, the remainder of the plant equipment would be idle during night time. In the case of a fossil fuel fired power plant that runs twenty four hours a day, an additional power plant would have to be constructed to handle the stored energy.
Thermal energy storage can also come in the form of low temperature storage technologies. The most common low temperature storage systems involve creating ice or some higher temperature ice alternative during off-peak hours, and using the ice for air conditioning during peak hours instead of running a chiller. These systems are widely used in commercial settings but they are limited in their use. They are only used to supply cooling for air conditioning purposes, not for generation of electricity using a heat engine operating on a thermodynamic cycle.

Techniques for indirect cold temperature thermal energy storage


A cooking grill has a bottom for accommodating a fire producing source, a plurality of legs turnably connected with the bottom and turnable between a storage position in which they are substantially coextensive with bottom and an operative position in which they extend substantially perpendicular to the bottom and upwardly from the latter, elements for fixing the legs in each of the positions, and a grate arrangeable between the legs and connectable to the legs, elements for holding the grill on the legs.

The present invention relates generally to cooking grills.
Cooking grills are known in the art. Some of the cooking grills are disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,829,977; 1,540,434; 4,541,406; 2,839,043; 2,515,521; 4,726,349 and design Pat. No. 414,648, international patent document WO 79/00504, and the publication Business Wire—"Just in Time for Summer: Hot Tips for Finding the Perfect Barbecue", May 16, 2000.
It is believed that the cooking grills can be further improved.


A navigation system for use in a vehicle receives a GPS signal for having a GPS time data that rolls over at an interval of 19.7 years with a start time of 0 a.m. Jan. 6th, 1980 from a GPS satellite, and acquires map generation date information that specifies map data generation time from map database in the navigation system. The GPS time data and the map data generation time information are utilized for calculating an accurate current date and time.

In recent years, various techniques for calculating a correct current time and date are disclosed based on GPS signals from GPS satellites for use in a navigation system.
GPS system currently in use worldwide adopts a time series that started at a reference time of 00:00:00 (a.m.) on Sunday, Jan. 6th, 1980. In this time series, the length of 1 second is the one defined in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The GPS signals from the GPS satellites include an elapsed time from the reference time, that is, so-called GPS time data for time measurement.
The GPS time data is made up from WN data that represents the number of weeks from the reference time and the number of elapsed seconds from 0 a.m. Sunday of the week specified by the WN data. The WN data is represented by using 10 bits of data, that is, a total of 1024 weeks from 0th week to 1023rd week. Then, the WN data "rolls over" to return to 0th week for measurement.
Therefore, the GPS time data in the above-described format is only capable of representing the time series from 0 a.m. of the 0th week of Sunday, Jan. 6th, 1980 to 11 p.m. 59 min. 59 sec. of the 1023rd week of Saturday, Aug. 21, 1999, and no further date and time.
However, the time series in the GPS time data is as accurate as the time series in UTC except for the portion of the Christian Era (the portion of years), thereby providing an accurate time measurement when the Christian Era year is corrected for the use in the navigation system.
For example, Japanese patent document JP-A-2002-90441 discloses a technique that the Christian Era year in the GPS time data is corrected based on a correct time information derived from a reference radio wave.
However, the technique in the above document uses a dedicated communication device for receiving the reference radio wave, thereby demanding an increased room in the navigation system. Further, the technique in the above document does not work properly when the reference radio wave is not available.