Systems and methods are disclosed for treating teeth to correct for malocclusions. This may be accomplished by applying a series of labels to a digital dental model and applying a rolling ball process to identify tooth boundaries separating one tooth from a neighboring tooth and to also determine the crown/gum margin. The user may further assign regions to the dental model to indicate hard regions and soft regions. With the dental model labeled and defined, the user may then generate a treatment plan for moving the labeled and defined tooth or teeth relative to one another to correct for any malocclusions. Upon approval of the treatment plan, a series of 3D printed dental appliances or aligners to be worn in series by the patient may be fabricated to ultimately move the tooth or teeth to a desired position.

Orthodontics is a specialty of dentistry that is concerned with the study and treatment of malocclusions which can result from tooth irregularities, disproportionate facial skeleton relationships, or both. Orthodontics treats malocclusion through the displacement of teeth via bony remodeling and control and modification of facial growth.
This process has been traditionally accomplished by using static mechanical force to induce bone remodeling, thereby enabling teeth to move. In this approach, braces having an archwire interface with brackets are affixed to each tooth. As the teeth respond to the pressure applied via the archwire by shifting their positions, the wires are again tightened to apply additional pressure. This widely accepted approach to treating malocclusions takes about twenty-four months on average to complete, and is used to treat a number of different classifications of clinical malocclusion. Treatment with braces is complicated by the fact that it is uncomfortable and/or painful for patients, and the orthodontic appliances are perceived as unaesthetic, all of which creates considerable resistance to use. Further, the treatment time cannot be shortened by increasing the force, because too high a force results in root resorption, as well as being more painful. The average treatment time of twenty-four months is very long, and further reduces usage. In fact, some estimates provide that less than half of the patients who could benefit from such treatment elect to pursue orthodontics.
Kesling introduced the tooth positioning appliance in 1945 as a method of refining the final stage of orthodontic finishing after removal of the braces (debanding). The positioner was a one-piece pliable rubber appliance fabricated on the idealized wax set-ups for patients whose basic treatment was complete. Kesling also predicted that certain major tooth movements could also be accomplished with a series of positioners fabricated from sequential tooth movements on the set-up as the treatment progressed. However, this idea did not become practical until the advent of three-dimensional (3D) scanning and use of computers by companies including Align Technologies and as well as OrthoClear, ClearAligner, and ClearCorrect to provide greatly improved aesthetics since the devices are transparent.
However for traditional trim model to individual tooth, the gum geometry is lost and the fake gum is recreated, often remodeled by a technician. Hence, the gum geometry may not be accurate at first and an animation of gum changes over time due to lack of a physical model is even harder to model. Such inaccurate modeling causes the resulting aligner to be mismatched resulting in devices which are too large or too small resulting in patient discomfort.
Another problem is that without the real gum as the reference, some so-called modeled treatments cannot be achieved in reality resulting in potential errors, e.g., a tooth movement can occur within a mis-modeled gingival, however, the tooth movement may actually be moved exteriorly of a patient's real gingival.
Another problem of trimming and hole filling and creating an individual tooth and gum model is there is little information that can define the real boundary of two teeth. Such trim and fill models force the boundary surfaces to be defined even if they are arbitrary.
Depending on what boundary surface is defined, the movement can be restricted or relax, meaning some real life movement can be achieved; however, due to such inaccuracies, the modeling software is unable to model accurately due to models colliding into each other. This may cause the real treatment outcome to create gaps between teeth and further requiring final refinements which increase cost and patient dissatisfaction. On the other hand, if the modeled movement is relax, the software may enable movements which are physically impossible in reality and this may cause the modeled device to push teeth into one another unable to move. This may also cause the plastic shell of the aligner to sometimes stretch so much that the shell applies an uncomfortable amount of force, which could be painful, to a patient.
Another problem of trim and hole fill is the filling of the geometry like a real tooth, for below, the below lines are likely of boundary surfaces modeled, such models look like a real tooth; however, such sharp boundaries cause deeper undercuts which, once printed and thermal formed to have a plastic shell, make removal of the plastic shell from the printed model difficult due to the deep undercuts. To compensate for this, a bevel object is typcially created to fill the clevis increasing inaccuracy and costs.
Another problem of trim and hole filling is the model size is too large to communicate between the user and manufacturer thus requiring that the model size be reduced resulting in missing model details. These inaccuracies could misguide professionals, e.g., the full complex model may not show a gap between two adjacent teeth however the reduced model may show one.
These 3D scanning and computerized planning treatments are cumbersome and time consuming. Accordingly, there exists a need for an efficient and cost effective procedure for planning the orthodontic treatment of a patient.


An example lighting device includes a luminaire having a miniature illumination light source matrix including miniature illumination light sources configured to be driven by electrical power to emit incoming light rays for illumination lighting. Luminaire further includes an optical lens sheet positioned directly over and abutting the miniature illumination light source matrix and configured to extend over the illumination light source matrix and including an input surface coupled to receive the incoming light rays and an output surface lens array. Input surface is a substantially planar lateral surface extending across an entirety of the miniature illumination light source matrix. Output surface lens array includes a plurality of miniature optical lenses, including a respective miniature optical lens for each of the miniature illumination light sources to refract the incoming light rays into an outputted beam pattern of output light rays for the illumination lighting.

Typical luminaires output illumination lighting at one beam angle. If changes to the output light pattern of the illumination lighting are desired, e.g., in a restaurant, the luminaire can be modified mechanically, which necessitates human labor and costs associated therewith. Some luminaires in the marketplace claim to provide different beam angles, but sacrifice optical efficiency (e.g., by blocking the light), or have a very large format size. For example, a two lens system can change the relative distance of the two lenses, which changes the total focus of the system, as a result the beam shape can change. Illumination lighting luminaires also exist with electrically controllable beam shaping and steering optical systems, but costs of such systems can be very high and have reliability problems.
Existing luminaires utilize high and mid power light emitting diodes (LEDs) as illumination light sources. The optical lens element is relatively large, and spaced out to avoid the interference between the LEDs, which factors into the optical efficiency and lighting distribution. For a wide angle lighting distribution (e.g., a high angle batwing) and asymmetric lighting distribution, the spacing requirement for the optical lens element is very critical. For a given size of illumination area, the optical element, lighting distribution, and control of the beam patterns are limited.
Current thin panel optics for luminaires are edge lit with light guide technology. Unfortunately, the optical density of the luminaire is limited by the edge sides of the luminaire, which are very thin compared to a flat side of a luminaire panel. Because the luminaire panel can only have one lighting distribution, it is not feasible to dynamically shape the lighting distribution.

Lighting device with miniature illumination light sources and optical lens sheet


This invention discloses a new switching device supported on a semiconductor that includes a drain disposed on a first surface and a source region disposed near a second surface of said semiconductor opposite the first surface. The switching device further includes an insulated gate electrode disposed on top of the second surface for controlling a source to drain current. The switching device further includes a source electrode interposed into the insulated gate electrode for substantially preventing a coupling of an electrical field between the gate electrode and an epitaxial region underneath the insulated gate electrode. The source electrode further covers and extends over the insulated gate for covering an area on the second surface of the semiconductor to contact the source region. The semiconductor substrate further includes an epitaxial layer disposed above and having a different dopant concentration than the drain region. The insulated gate electrode further includes an insulation layer for insulating the gate electrode from the source electrode wherein the insulation layer having a thickness depending on a Vgsmax rating of the vertical power device.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed herein relates generally to the device configuration and fabrication process of semiconductor switching devices. More particularly, this invention relates to a novel and improved device configuration and fabrication process for providing high frequency power switching devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As there is an ever growing demand for high frequency switch power devices, conventional device configurations and manufacturing processes of power switching devices are still limited by speed-limiting capacitance between the gate and drain of the power transistors, e.g., MOSFET and IGBT. There is an urgent need to overcome such limitations especially when high frequency switching power supplies are providing power to wide range of electronic devices.
Referring to FIGS. 1A to 1D for conventional techniques as that shown in FIGS. 1B and 1D for reducing the gate-drain capacitance for the typical planar and trenched DMOS cell of FIGS. 1A and 1C respectively. Specifically, a terrace gate dielectric layer that is thicker than regular gate oxide layer is formed under a terrace gate. The gate-drain capacitance is reduced because there is a thicker terrace gate oxide layer between the gate and the drain. For a trenched DMOS cell shown in FIG. 1D, similarly, a thicker gate oxide layer is formed at the bottom of the trench to reduce the gate-drain capacitance. However, such device configurations still have problems and limitations. One problem with the terrace gate-oxide design is that the process is not self-aligned; therefore it is hard to reduce the cell size. In carrying out the process of forming the terraced gate the terrace dielectric and gate electrode are subject to lithographic misalignment. The size of the device is increased due to a requirement to allow for misalignment tolerance between the terraced gate and the terrace dielectric layer. A second problem for this design is that the thick terrace dielectric layer reduces the accumulation of carrier in the drain area under the dielectric terrace and this increases the Rdson of the device. Furthermore, the reduction of Crss is limited by the thickness of the terrace dielectric. This is especially true for the thick trench bottom oxide approach in trench device where the thick bottom oxide is hard to make. The increase of oxide thickness in the trench bottom also reduces the accumulation of carriers in the drain region under the thick oxide hence increase the device on-resistance Rdson.
In another patented invention U.S. Pat. No. 5,894,150, Hshieh et al. disclose a split gate configuration to achieve a purpose of reducing the gate-drain capacitance. The gate of a DMOS cell is splitted into two segments as that shown in FIG. 1E. The split gate configuration reduces the gate-drain capacitance because it eliminates the contribution to the gate-drain capacitance from the gate-drain overlapping areas. It is clear that the split gate configuration disclosed by Hshieh does achieve gate-drain capacitance reductions. However, with the split gate configuration, there are still some fringing electric field couplings between the gate electrodes to the epitaxial layer connecting to the drain electrode. Further improvements are still required to eliminate the fringing capacitance resulted from such couplings between the gate and the drain.
Baliga disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,998,833 another DMOS cell as that shown in FIG. 1F to reduce the gate-drain capacitance by placing the source electrode underneath a trenched gate. There are some shielding effects provided by the source electrode underneath the trenched gate. However, similar to a configuration as that shown in FIG. 1E, there are still fringing capacitance between the gate electrodes and the epitaxial layer connected to the drain electrode. Therefore, further improvements are still required to further reduce the gate-drain capacitance such that further improvements of high frequency switching performance can be achieved.
Therefore, a need still exists in the art to provide an improved device configuration and manufacturing methods to provide MOSFET device with further reduced gate-drain capacitance such that the above-discussed limitations as now encountered in the prior art can be resolved.

Power MOSFET device structure for high frequency applications


A system for measuring intraocular pressure (IOP) of an eye, comprising a plurality of force sensors that are adapted to contact a surface of an eye, measuring the forces exerted on the force sensors when in contact with the eye surface, and processing the measured forces to determine the 10P of the eye as a function of the measured forces.

As is well known in the art of ophthalmology, measuring the intraocular pressure (IOP) of the eye is an important indicator of the health of the eye. Elevated IOP has been associated with progressive damage of the optic nerve known as glaucoma, which, if left untreated, may lead to permanent loss of sight.
Various apparatus and techniques have thus been developed to measure IOP. Among the techniques are applanation tonometery, dynamic contour tonometry, transpalpebral diatom tonometry, non-contact tonometry, electronic indentation tonometry, rebound tonometry and digital palpation tonometry.
Applanation tonometry measures approximate intraocular pressure either by the force required to flatten a constant area of the cornea (e.g. Goldmann tonometry) or by the area flattened by a constant force.
In applanation tonometry, a special calibrated disinfected probe attached to a slit lamp biomicroscope is used to flatten the central cornea a fixed amount. Because the probe makes contact with the cornea, a topical anesthetic, such as oxybuprocaine, tetracaine, alcaine, proxymetacaine or proparacaine, is introduced onto the surface of the eye in the form of one or a few eye drops. A yellow fluorescein dye is often also used in conjunction with a cobalt blue filter to aid the examiner in determining the IOP.
Goldmann tonometry is considered to be the gold standard in tonometry, as it is the most widely accepted method of determining "approximate" intraocular pressure. However, as is well known in the art, Goldmann tonometry is an inherently imprecise measurement.
Dynamic contour tonometry (DCT) is a measuring technique that employs the) 5 principle of contour matching instead of applanation to eliminate the systematic errors inherent in previous tonometers. These factors include the influence of corneal thickness, rigidity, curvature and elastic properties. DCT is not influenced by mechanical changes, such as those seen in refractive surgery that would otherwise cause error in applanation tonometers.
An exemplar apparatus that employs DCT to measure IOP is the PASCAL Dynamic Contour Tonometer (Ziemer Ophthalmics). The PASCAL uses a miniature pressure sensor embedded within a tonometer tip that is contour-matched to the shape of the cornea. When the sensor is subjected to a change in pressure, the electrical resistance is altered and the PASCAL's computer calculates a change in pressure in accordance with the change in resistance.
The tonometer tip rests on the cornea with a constant appositional force of one gram. This is an important difference from all forms of applanation tonometry wherein the probe force is variable.
In transpalpebral diaton tonometry, a diaton tonometer is employed to measure intraocular pressure through the eyelid. It is typically regarded as a simple and safe method of ophthalmotonometry. Transpalpebral tonometry requires no contact with the cornea, therefore sterilization of the device and topical anesthetic drops are not required.
Non-contact tonometry or air-puff tonometry uses a rapid air pulse to applanate the cornea. Corneal applanation is detected via an electro-optical system. Intraocular pressure is estimated by detecting the force of the air jet at the instance of applanation.
Modern-day non-contact tonometers have been shown to correlate very well with Goldmann tonometry measurements and have thus generally been considered a fast and simple way to screen for high IOP. Further, since non-contact tonometry is accomplished without the instrument contacting the cornea the potential for disease transmission is reduced.
Electronic indentation tonometry employs a Tono-Pen, i.e. a portable electronic, digital pen-like instrument that determines IOP by making contact with the cornea. Electronic indentation tonometry is especially useful for very young children, patients unable to reach a slit lamp due to disability, patients who are uncooperative during applanation tonometry, or patients with cornea disease in whom contact tonometry cannot be accurately performed.
In palpation tonometry, also known as digital palpation tonometry, measuring intraocular pressure is performed by gently pressing the fingertips of both index fingers onto the upper part of the bulbus through the eyelid. This technique requires medical experience and results in an estimation of the level of intraocular pressure based on the skills of the ophthalmologist.
A major drawback associated with each of the noted techniques is that each technique requires professional assistance to measure IOP.
A further drawback associated with each of the noted techniques is the need for topical anesthesia and complex instrumentation to measure IOP, which makes multiple daily measurements impractical.
It would thus be desirable to provide improved systems and methods for measuring IOP that overcome the disadvantages and drawbacks associated with conventional systems and methods for measuring IOP.
As has been demonstrated by the inventor earlier in publications [1], [2], and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,959,570 B2 [3], using a multitude of force sensors, it is possible to infer the intraocular pressure of the eye by measuring the forces obtained from such sensors during gradual indentation of the eye with these probes.
It has further been shown in [2], that when the force probes are applied with differ indentation rates, the measured force is different, whereby for the same amount of indentation, higher forces are obtained under higher indentation rates.
It has further been demonstrated, that when the force probes applied to the eye are tilted or displaced laterally, the relative magnitude of the forces obtained from different probes changes and therefore interferes with the correct interpretation of the data and extraction of IOP [1-2].
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for measuring IOP using an apparatus that can conforms to the anatomy of the face and therefore can be performed by the patient without professional assistance and eliminate the errors associated with variable position of the indentation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for applying a repeatable force under controlled rate of increase.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for interpretation of force data obtained from multiple probes that account for sensor misalignment.

Contoured facial mask with multiple contact probes for use with tactile tonometer

THE ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS ON BEHALF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA


The present invention relates to compounds that have the ability to modulate the activity of GPR40 and are therefore useful in the treatment of GPR40 related disorders. In addition the invention relates to the compounds, methods for their preparation, pharmaceutical compositions containing the compounds and the uses of these compounds in the treatment of certain disorders related to GPR40 activity.

The G-protein-coupled receptor GPR40 functions as a receptor for long-chain free fatty acids (FFAs) in the body. As such is implicated in a large number of metabolic conditions in the body. For example it has been alleged that a GPR40 agonist promotes insulin secretion whilst a GPR40 antagonist inhibits insulin secretion and so depending upon the circumstances the agonist and the antagonist may be useful as therapeutic agents for a number of insulin related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, insulin resistance, neurodegenerative diseases and the like.
Diabetes is typically a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces to regulate blood glucose levels. Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common outcome of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to adverse physiological changes to those suffering from the disease, especially to the nervous system and the cardiovascular system.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that more than 220 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes. In 2005, an estimated 1.1 million people died from diabetes (although the actual number is likely to be much larger as this figure does not include people who have died from diabetic complications such as heart disease or kidney failure). Of all diabetes deaths, almost 80% occur in low- and middle-income countries, almost 50% in people under the age of 70 years and approximately 55% in women. The WHO further predicts that diabetes deaths will have doubled between 2005 and 2030 unless urgent preventive steps are taken to curb or reverse this epidemic. Whilst at least a part of the diabetic epidemic can be attributed to genetic factors, the primary driver is the rapid epidemiological transition associated with changes in dietary patterns and decreased physical activity, as evident from the higher prevalence of diabetes in the urban population.
Whilst a healthy diet, regular physical activity, maintaining a normal body weight and avoiding tobacco use can prevent or delay the onset of the disease, there are currently no effective therapeutic strategies for the prophylaxis or treatment of diabetes.
The pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes is characterized by beta cell dysfunction and progressive insulin resistance with compensatory hyperinsulinemia, followed by declining insulin secretion and increasing hyperglycemia. The long-term adaptation of the beta cell mass to rising glucose concentration is achieved mainly by increasing the number of beta cells through hyperplasia and neogenesis (Bonner-Weir S, 2002; Rhodes C J, 2005).
Type 2 diabetes is also characterized by elevated plasma levels of long-chain FFAs, which further impair beta cell insulin secretion. Normally, FFAs provide essential fuel to the beta cell, but become toxic when chronically present at elevated levels. In the endocrine pancreas, short-term exposure of beta cells to dietary fatty acids potentiates glucose-induced insulin release (Haber E P et al., 2003, Yaney G C and Crokey B E, 2003), while long term exposure impairs insulin secretion and induces secretary failures (lipotoxicity; Lee Y et al., 1994, Unger R H, 2002) and beta cell apoptosis (lipoapoptosis; Shimabukuro M et al., 1998, Lupi R et al., 2002).
There is increasing evidence that lipids can also serve as extracellular ligands for a specific class of receptors and thus act as "nutritional sensors" (Nolan C J et al., 2006). The discovery of these receptors suggested that lipids, specifically, free fatty acids (FFAs), can regulate cell function. Recently, free fatty acids (FFAs) have been demonstrated as ligands for orphan G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and have been proposed to play a critical role in physiological glucose homeostasis (Rayasam G V et al., 2007).
GPR40, GPR120, GPR41 and GPR43 exemplify a growing number of GPCRs that have been shown to be activated by free fatty acids (Kotarsky K et al., 2003, Brown A J et al., 2003). GPR40 and GPR120 are activated by medium to long-chain free fatty acids whereas short-chain fatty acids activate GPR41 and GPR43 (Kotarsky K et al., 2003, Nilsson N E et al., 2003, Brown A J et al., 2003).
Each GPR displays a characteristic tissue distribution. GPR40 is preferentially expressed in pancreatic beta cells (Salehi A et al., 2005). The gene encoding GPR40 is located downstream of CD22 on chromosome 19q13.1 (Sawzdargo M et al., 1997) close to a region that has shown linkage to elevated serum triglycerides in families with type 2 diabetes (Elbein S C and Hasstedt S J, 2002). Two polymorphisms, an Arg211His substitution and a rare Asp175Asn mutation have been identified in the GPR40 gene (Haga H et al., 2002). Lately, GPR40 expression was also seen in omental adipose tissue and pancreatic alpha cells (Fodgren E et al., 2007).
It is well established that fatty acids function acutely to maintain basal insulin secretion and to 'prime' the islet β-cells to respond to glucose following a prolonged fasting (Gravena C et al., 2002). Furthermore the finding that activation of the receptor resulted in elevation of intracellular Ca2+ via coupling to Gαq/11, leading to activation of PKC suggested a possible role for GPR40 in insulin secretion (Poitout V 2003, Fujiwara K et al., 2005, Schnell S et al., 2007). Down-regulation of GPR40 expression in the mouse insulinoma cell lines resulted in a decrease in the ability of fatty acids to potentiate insulin secretion (Itoh Y et al., 2003, Shapiro H et al., 2005). GPR40 was shown to play a role not only in fatty acid modulation of insulin secretion, but also in GSIS after high-fat feeding (Kebede M et al., 2008).
To investigate the role of GPR40 on metabolism, several groups have studied the phenotype of GPR40 knock out or GPR40 over-expression in different rodent models. GPR40−/− mice on HFD became as obese as their wild type (WT) counterparts but were protected from obesity-induced hyperinsulinemia, glucose-intolerance, hepatic steatosis, hypertriglyceridemia and increased hepatic glucose output (Steneberg P et al., 2005). Another group investigating the effect of chow diet on GPR40−/− mice showed the lack of loss of acute palmitate stimulated GSIS (50% reduction) in isolated islets. On the other hand, these islets did not show any effect on inhibition of GSIS after 72 hr of exposure to palmitate or oleate, compared to WT (Latour M G et al., 2007). In another study, when GPR40 was specifically over-expressed in pancreatic beta cells, the transgenic mice become glucose intolerant, lost first-phase insulin secretion and finally became diabetic. Beta cell morphology was also affected in these mice (Steneberg P et al., 2005).
Though the above mention observations favour antagonism of GPR40 as a control of diabetes, another set of studies proved the opposite. A comprehensive study with a series of potent and selective agonists for GPR40 showed that these compounds significantly enhanced GSIS in wild type but not in GPR40−/− mice. They also showed lowering of blood glucose in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats and high fat diet induced obese mice. These compounds didn't seem to mediate the chronic toxic effect of free fatty acids on islets (Tan C P et al., 2008). In another recent report, it has been shown that though GPR40 is required for insulin secretion in response to FFA GPR40−/− mice were not protected from high fat diet induced insulin resistance or hepatic steatosis (Lan H et al., 2008).
As fatty acids potentiate insulin secretion in a glucose-sensitive manner it is conceivable that if the effects of fatty acids on insulin secretion are mediated at least in part through GPR40, a small-molecule GPR40 agonist may act as a glucose-sensitive secretagogue (Briscoe C P et al., 2006).
It has recently been shown that GPR40 is expressed in endocrine cells of the gastrointestinal tract, including cells expressing the incretin hormones GLP-1 and GIP, and that GPR40 mediates FFA-stimulated incretin secretion (Edfalk S et al., 2008, Parker H E et al., 2009).
It is well established that acute exposure to FFAs stimulates insulin secretion, whereas chronic exposure impairs beta-cell function and induces apoptosis. It was observed that oleic acid, action of which was mediated at least in part through GPR40, could protect NIT-1 cells from palmitate-induced lipoapoptosis. Moreover, it was found that oleic acid promoted the activation of extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase-MAPK pathway mainly via GPR40, which increased the expression of early growth response gene-1, leading to the anti-lipoapoptotic effect on NIT-1 cells. It was suggested that GPR40 might be implicated in the control of beta-cell mass plasticity (Zhang Y et al., 2007).
Clinical studies have shown that total body fat mass is related to both bone density and fracture risk and that fat ingestion reduces bone turnover. These effects are at least partially mediated by endocrine mechanisms, but it is possible that lipids might act directly on bone. Receptors known to bind fatty acids were found to be expressed in osteoblastic (GPR120) and osteoclastic (GPR40, 41, 43, 120) cells. A synthetic GPR 40/120 agonist mimicked the inhibitory effects of fatty acids on osteoclastogenesis (Cornish J et al., 2008).
GPR40 was recently identified in neurons throughout the brain. Recent studies show that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are capable of improving hippocampal long-term potentiation, learning ability of aged rats, and cognitive function of humans with memory deficits. It is probable that certain PUFA may act, as endogenous ligands, on GPR40 on the neuronal cell surface (Yamashima T, 2008).
In another study involving adult monkeys showed that the GPR40 protein increased significantly in the second week after global cerebral ischemia as compared with the control. This data suggest that GPR40 might have a role in regulating adult hippocampal neurogenesis in primates (Ma D et al., 2007; 2008).
Accordingly compounds that modulate GPR40 are expected to have useful therapeutic properties especially in relation to metabolic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, hyperglycemia, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, hyperinsulemia, hypercholesteremia, hypertension, hyperlipoproteinemia, hyperlipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, dyslipedemia, metabolic syndrome X, atherosclerosis, diabetic neuropathy, diabetic retinopathy, and hypoglycemia,
Compounds of this type may also be useful in the treatment of cognitive disorders, osteoporosis, inflammatory disorders, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, ketoacidosis, thrombotic disorders, nephropathy, sexual dysfunction, dermatopathy, dyspepsia, cancer and edema. As such there is significant interest in the development of compounds with this mode of action.


A method and apparatus for determining position is comprised of the steps of capturing an image related to the present position and comparing the captured image with one or more images from an iconic map. The iconic map is a map which stores images of a substantially flat surface over which a robot or vehicle is to operate. The stored images contain randomly occurring characteristics such as the fibers in a carpet, brush marks appearing in brushed concrete, and the like. Although such naturally occurring features are essentially random, when analyzed in small enough images, each image becomes unique. The position is determined based upon the image from the map which provides the highest correlation. Speed, wheel slippage, and other parameters can be calculated using the disclosed method.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to position determining systems used for navigation and, more particularly, to systems of the type in which vision is used by a robot to determine its position so that it may autonomously travel and perform preprogrammed tasks within a particular environment.
2. Description of the Background
High repeatability, position estimation is a key technology for mobile robotics applications such as seaport and manufacturing facility automation. Near term operations in those applications requires positioning repeatabilities of approximately three millimeters. Three millimeters represents a significant improvement over the current industry standard of approximately five millimeters. The three millimeter repeatability must be achieved at an acceptable cost per unit. High end laser and inertial units are capable of meeting the technical specifications. However, their $20,000 to $100,000 plus per unit cost is far too high to be economically justifiable for most applications. Thus, a significant tradeoff exists between price and performance which prohibits flat floor mobile robotics companies from servicing existing demands in the market.
The least expensive positioning systems are so-called dead reckoning systems produced from low cost wheel encoders and a compass. Those systems produce an estimate of position based on the integration of rate measurements. Thus, they suffer from significant error accumulation in the estimate. High end dead reckoning systems, such as military grade inertial systems, reduce that problem by using rate sensors with very low error bias, but at a cost that is order of magnitudes higher than those acceptable to flat floor markets.
One low cost alternative is to combine the low cost dead reckoning system with a triangulation system, which can be used to reset the accumulated error by calculating a fix on the position. Triangulation systems do not perform integration, and thus are not affected by sensor bias. However, they suffer from dilution of precision problems that arise during the conversion of their measurements to the coordinate system of interest, e.g., a range and orientation of the sensor is converted to Cartesian space (xy). Triangulation systems take measurements with respect to external beacons or other items of infrastructure which make them vulnerable to sabotage. In certain industrial applications, sabotage is a key concern. Furthermore, the placement of beacons or other items of infrastructure represents a significant additional overhead cost to the end user. In certain applications, approximately one-third of the total cost of the system is due to the installation of beacons or other items of infrastructure.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,769 entitled "Automated Vehicle Drift Correction" discloses a navigation system which carries out a dead reckoning calculation of the vehicles position based on inputs from sensors and the motion of a steering wheel in the preceding time interval. U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,278 entitled "Method Of Determining The Position Of A Vehicle, Arrangement For Determining The Position Of A Vehicle, As Well As A Vehicle Provided With Such An Arrangement", also relies upon dead reckoning.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,170,352 entitled "Multi-Purpose Autonomous Vehicle With Path Plotting" is an example of an autonomous vehicle which operates in conjunction with a plurality of laser, sonic, and optical sensors. Such sensors detect targets and obstacles in the work area and provide coded signals which direct vehicles over a most expedient route to a target while avoiding any obstacles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,305 entitled "Navigation System For A Mobile Robot" discloses an apparatus for creating and maintaining a map of an environment the mobile autonomous robot is to transverse. A credibility measure is increased or decreased whenever a map feature assigned to a location matches or does not match, respectively, a geometric beacon corresponding to such location.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,113 entitled "Automated Vehicle Control" discloses a system in which data identifying locations of notational points on the floor of the area of interest are entered into a computer together with a look-up table specifying pairs of those points between which movements of vehicles may be required.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,773 entitled "System For Navigating A Free-Ranging Vehicle" discloses a system in which the surface to be traversed carries a grid of passive marker elements with the vehicle being provided with detectors for detecting such elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,647,784 entitled "Vehicle Guidance and Control System" discloses a system in which vehicles determine their own position in relation to marker boards consisting of patterns of reflective coded strips by scanning a narrow laser beam in a predetermined direction across the strips. Positions can be determined by using triangulation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,492 entitled "Vehicle Control And Guidance System" discloses a vehicle guidance system which uses dead reckoning to predict the position of the vehicle. At the end of predetermined intervals, the dead reckoning is corrected by an independent fixed-target detection system using a scanning laser.
Other low cost alternatives are based on the use of vision systems to take range readings, e.g., stereo vision, of known features in an environment, such as doorways and room corners. A position is determined based on such readings. Although that method does not require the placement of infrastructure, it suffers from the significant problem of shape dependence. Briefly, what a feature looks like depends upon the angle from which it is viewed. That problem entails such computational complexity that commercially practical vision systems that operate on natural features have never been produced.
Thus, while substantial work has been directed at solving the aforementioned problems, it is seen from the prior art discussed above that such problems have not been solved. Many position determining systems are still dependent upon infrastructure which is expensive. Furthermore, once the infrastructure is in place, the facility can usually not be modified without the additional expense of modifying the infrastructure. Additionally, robots relying upon such infrastructure can easily be sabotaged.
Dead reckoning systems do not provide the repeatability required by today's commercial application. Combining dead reckoning systems with some form of triangulation or other correction method introduces infrastructure, and all of the problems associated therewith.
Vision systems, which can provide higher accuracy than dead reckoning systems and which are typically free of artificially imposed infrastructure, are difficult and costly to implement. If a feature is unrecognizable because it is approached from a different angle, the robot may become disorganized and cease to function. Thus, the need exists for a position determining system which is highly accurate, independent of all infrastructure, relatively immune to sabotage, and which provides the high repeatability demanded in today's marketplace at a competitive cost.

Infrastructure independent position determining system


Chalcogenide compounds with cation exchange capability and methods of using the compounds are described. Compounds of the general formula A2xMxSn3-xS6 are described wherein x is 0.1-0.95, A is Li+, Na+, K+ or Rb+ and M is Mn2+, Mg2+, Zn2+, Fe2+, Co2+ or Ni2+. Compounds of the general formula H2xMxSn3-xS6 are also described wherein x is 0.1-0.95 and M=Mn2+, Mg2+, Zn2+, Fe2+, Co2+ or Ni2+. The compounds can be layered compounds. The compounds are capable of intercalation of Cs+, Sr2+, Hg2+, Pb2+, Cd2+, and/or Ag+ ions. A process involving contacting the compounds with a solution comprising one or more ions including Cs+, Sr2+, Hg2+, Pb2+, Cd2+, and/or Ag+ is also provided. The one or more ions can be removed from the solution by the compounds. A process comprising contacting compounds of the general formula A2xMxSn3-xS6 with a solution containing UO22+, Th4+ or Pu4+ ions is also described.

Clays, zeolites and titanosilicates are used as inorganic ion exchange materials. These materials are excellent adsorbents for cesium and strontium, but they display low selectivity and binding affinity for mercury.
Layered chalcogenides with ion exchange properties remain scarce. The materials that are known are mainly limited to alkali ion-intercalated transition metal dichalcogenides AxMQ2 (A=alkali ion; M=early transition metal, Q=S, Se, Te). However, such materials are not suitable for practical applications as ion exchangers, due to their thermodynamic and hydrolytic instability.
Accordingly, there still exists a need for improved ion exchange materials.

Chalcogenide compounds with a clay-like cation-exchange capacity and methods of use


A method for pairing elements of a first set of elements {x(i)} with elements from a second set of elements {y(j)} subject to a plurality of pairing restrictions. In accordance with one embodiment of the method, for each of a plurality of iterations of the method, or until a set of pairings is found that satisfies the plurality of pairing restrictions, a random set of pairings between elements of the second set of elements and elements of the second set of elements is selected. The set of mismatched pairings is identified and, if the number of pairings in the set of mismatched pairings is not greater than a maximum number, pairings in the set of mismatched pairings are interchanged. If the number of pairings in the set of mismatched pairings is greater than one, each mismatched pairing is swapped with another pairing if the resulting pairings satisfy the plurality of pairing restrictions.

The problem of assigning random pairings between data elements subject to a set of restrictions occurs in many areas. The pairings may be between elements of the same data set, in which each element of the data set is paired with another element from the same set, or between elements from different data sets in which each element from a first data set is assigned to an element of a second data set.
An example of an assignment problem between elements from different data sets is the assignment of a set of people to a set of tasks. Some people are restricted from performing specific tasks, so the assignment is restricted. For example, a person may be unable or unqualified to perform a particular task.
An example of pairings between elements of the same data set is a "Secret Santa" gift exchange, in which each person in a workgroup is assigned to give a gift to another (randomly selected) member of the workgroup. There may be restrictions to the assignment. For example, a person may not be permitted to buy a gift for a direct supervisor or receive a gift from a direct subordinate. A restriction is used to designate a specified pairing of gift giver and gift receiver as prohibited.
The assignment may be made manually, whereby a person randomly assigns pairs and then makes changes as needed in an attempt to avoid prohibited pairings.
Alternatively, all of the possible pairings can be examined, and the finally set of pairings can be chosen at random from among those pairings that meet all of the restrictions.
However, as the number of data elements becomes large, both of these methods fail. For example, in a group of 15 elements (a 15 member workgroup for example) there are billions of possible pairings. If, in addition, there are many restrictions, a manual search is unlikely to find a set of pairings that meets all of the restrictions. An exhaustive search, even by a fast computer will also take a prohibitively long time, even with as few as 10-15 entries.

Method for assigning random pairings to data entries


A data processor of this invention capable of extending the expressible range of constant data in which a portion of the expressible range not necessary for an instruction is removed from that range and the vacancy thus made is utilized for extending the range of data necessary for the instruction.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a data processor, more particularly to a data processor which utilizes constant data (literal) contained in an instruction.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Constant data (literal) included in an instruction utilized in a conventional processor has a narrow expressible constant range because of its inherent nature that the data itself is included within the instruction to result in a limited bit width.
Therefore, when constant data exceeding the expressible range is required, (1) the same instruction has to be repeated a number of times, or (2) an instruction whose width is greater than the one containing constant data must be used, or (3) other instructions which necessitate the use of a main storage means must be used.
The conventional data processor increases the number of its instructions in such a case, which consequently lowers the overall efficiency of the data processor.

Apparatus and method for processing literal operand computer instructions

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The invention provides a novel peptide isolated from the venom of the spider Grammostola spatulata which peptide has antiarrhthymic activity. The invention also provides methods of treating arrhthymia comprising administering to a patient in need of such treatment an effective amount of the peptide. The invention further provides pharmaceutical compositions and methods of mediating hypotonic cell swelling induced calcium increase in cells.

Mechanosensitive ion channels (MCSs) were discovered in tissue cultured skeletal muscle cells using single channel patch clamp recording and have since been found in both the plant and animal kingdoms and in the cells of most tissues. Most of them open with increasing membrane tension [stretch-activated channels (SACs)], but a few are tonically active and close with increasing tension [stretch-inactivated channels (SICs)]. In at least one case, the channels are also sensitive to the sign of the patch curvature. In animal cells, the channels tend to display selectivity for either generic cations or potassium. MSCs form a family that is generally distinct from known channels families, i.e. most channels are not mechanically sensitive.
Ion selectivity of the MSC channel family is variable, as in the case of voltage-activated or ligand-activated channel families. In the animal cells, the most common forms are cation selective and, more particularly, potassium selective. The cation channels will pass divalents such as Ca.sup.+2 and Ba.sup.+2 as well as monovalents. Due to their ability to pass Ca.sup.+2, effects of cationic MSCs are potentially complicated. Even under voltage clamp conditions, incoming Ca.sup.+2 may activate other channels, such as Ca.sup.2+ activated Cl.sup.-- channels, a link that has been invoked in the regulation of cell volume.
Investigations of spider venoms for identification of biological entities with commercial potential has focused primarily on the agrochemical sector. The ultimate goal of these activities has been the search for chemical constituents which interact selectively with invertebrate species to induce paralysis and or death with minimal mammalian toxicological properties. However in recent years, spider venoms have joined the other predator-derived venoms being exploited for identification of compounds which identify mammalian targets and which assist the development of pharmaceuticals. The arachnid species Grammostola spatulata, commonly referred to as the Chilean pink tarantula spider, is a member of the Theraphosidae family and the Chelicerata order. Previous studies by Lampe et al. (1993) Molecular Pharmacology 4:451-460 showed that venom of G. spatulata contains a peptide which interacts in a non-selective manner with voltage-sensitive calcium channels.
Ventricular fibrillation is a frequent cause of sudden death in the United States and Europe. It has been suggested that abnormal mechanical factors induce electrophysical changes conducive to arrhythmia via "mechanoelectric feedback". Sarcolemma stretch-activated channels have been postulated as a mechanism of mechanoelectric feedback and they may play a role in the genesis of stretch-activated arrhthymias.

Antiarrhythmic peptide from venom of spider Grammostola spatulata


A textile composite material is used as tuft backing for tufted carpets, the composite material having at least one nonwoven fabric on which exclusively parallel-running, straight, load-absorbing, plastic, continuous filaments are rascheled, and a thin binding yarn serving as a knitting chain fixing the continuous filaments in position.

The invention relates to a backing for tufted carpets as are typically used in the living room and in the furnished area. According to DE-A1-39 41 189, such backings consist of a non-woven, spunbonded material of polyester and copolyester filaments which are irregularly joined and autogenously, thermally agglutinated during their formation and bonding. This document addresses the problem that high mechanical and thermal stresses occur when manufacturing and processing a tufted carpet which lead to unwanted deformations. These are, in particular, elongations in the lengthwise direction and shortenings in the transverse direction. There should also be great dimensional stability when laying or during ageing. This holds true in particular for backings or underlays having low weight equal to or below 150 g/m.sup.2.
The manufacture of tuft backings is explained in DE-A-39 41 189 as well. For example, a molten, synthetic mass of polyester, in particular polyethylene terephthalate or polyethylene terephthalate/polybutylene terephthalate, is extruded in the form of continuous filaments or bicomponent filaments. These filaments are bonded by needling and thermobonding. Lightweight, spunbonded materials are formed of between 20 and 500 g/m.sup.2, preferably under 150 g/m.sup.2. At the same time, the titers of the filaments are about 7 dtex.
In the interest of stabilizing these spunbonded materials, for example, polyester filaments are applied in the lengthwise direction on one or both of their sides. These filaments run straight, parallel to one another and exist as continuous, high-modulus filaments. Understood under the last term is a modulus of elasticity over 20 GPa, at room temperature and at temperatures over 200.degree. C., as well. The high-modulus filaments are secured to the formed fabric by means of special needling during or after the formation of the nonwoven fabric, starting from warp beams, with travelers or bobbins. The parallel-running, high-modulus filaments have titers of 0.28 to 27.2 dtex. Their distances from one another are 2 to 30 mm. It is suggested to apply such a quantity of filaments that, given stretching of the formed fabric in the lengthwise direction, a tearing is first determined from 80 daN/m width. Glass filaments are named as preferred high- modulus threads.
DE-U1-295 09 066 describes a textile composite material for stabilizing floors and ground cover! layers and as a load-absorbing filtration layer. In this case, the composite material consists of a formed fabric of plastic fibers. To attain high resistance to tearing in the main load direction without excessive stretching, and to absorb great tensile forces, exclusively parallel-running, load-absorbing, straight, plastic, continuous filaments are rascheled on the nonwoven fabric. Due to this, the textile composite material of nonwoven fabric becomes highly tear-resistant in the main load direction. The plastic, continuous filaments counteract an application of force immediately, without having to be substantially stretched beforehand.
The load-absorbing threads are applied with a width on the non-woven fabric corresponding to the width of the formed-fabric web. Their cross-section lies in the range of 2 to 100 mm.sup.2, their distance to one another is 1 to 100 mm. For example, polyester fibers form the base nonwoven fabric which contains the load-absorbing, parallel filaments rascheled on one or both of its sides. A thin binding yarn is guided as a knitting chain on the raschel machine and secures the load-absorbing, plastic, continuous filaments on the nonwoven fabric.
In one preferred specific embodiment, the load-absorbing filaments run warpwise and in the lengthwise direction of the nonwoven fabric web. Another variant is indicated in which, in each case, the load-absorbing filaments are rascheled in pairs on the nonwoven fabric, the distance to the thread pairs being 1 to 100 mm. In each case, polypropylene is specified as the preferred material for the nonwoven fabric, load-absorbing filaments and binding yarn.


Techniques for charge reuse in an integrated circuit. A processor may include a first logic circuit coupled to a source power supply node, a second logic circuit coupled to a destination power supply node, and a charge reuse circuit that selectively transfers charge from the first logic circuit to the second logic circuit. The charge reuse circuit may include an equalization device that selectively couples the source power supply node to the destination power supply node, and an equalization activation circuit that activates the equalization device in response to detecting assertion of an equalization control signal and further detecting that a voltage differential between the source power supply node and the destination power supply node is above a threshold value. The equalization activation circuit also prevents coupling of either the source power supply node or the destination power supply node to ground during activation of the equalization device.

Technical Field
Embodiments described herein relate to the field of processors and more particularly, to techniques for reducing power consumption in memory arrays.
Description of the Related Art
A processor is generally hardware circuitry designed to execute the instructions defined in a particular instruction set architecture implemented by the processor, for the purpose of implementing a wide variety of functionality specified by software developers. To implement a given architecture, processors typically include a variety of types of circuits. For example, a processor may include functional units that are designed to operate on data to produce arithmetic, logical, or other types of results. Functional units and other execution-related processor logic may be implemented using combinational logic gates that implement various Boolean functions, often in combination with state elements such as registers, latches, flip-flops, or the like. A processor may also include storage arrays that are primarily designed to store data rather than process or transform it; storage arrays may be used within processors to implement various types of caches, register files, queues, buffers, or other types of storage structures.
Power requirements tend to substantially influence the cost and performance of a system that employs a particular integrated circuit design. For example, excessive power requirements may in turn require more expensive circuit packaging and cooling. In mobile applications, power consumption directly affects battery life and total device run time. Accordingly, the power requirements of various circuits within an integrated circuit may have far-reaching implications for system cost and performance.

Integrated circuit power reduction through charge


A method for supplying a number of electric charging stations with electricity, wherein AC voltage provided by an electricity source is transformed into a prescribed AC voltage level by at least one transformer via at least one star winding and at least one delta winding and subsequently routed via AC voltage lines to the number of electric charging stations and converted directly to direct current in respective charging stations from the number of electric charging stations locally by at least two rectifiers of the charging stations.

The supply of electric loads, such as charging stations for vehicles, for example, with electricity in the form of AC voltage normally entails a reactive power on account of phase shifts. In order to assess a quality factor for a transmission of electric power to an electric load, a ratio of reactive power to active power of the electric load is taken as a basis for ascertaining a power factor.
There is therefore a need for methods for supplying charging stations with as high as possible a power factor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,803,215 A, which is incorporated by reference herein, presents a system for transmitting direct and/or alternating current to a charging station.
US 2012 280 655 A1, which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a charging station for vehicles that involves arriving AC voltage being converted into DC voltage by means of an output stage and an AC/DC converter.
An AC/DC converter is disclosed in US 2013 020 989 A1, which is incorporated by reference herein.
US 2013 307 486 A1, which is incorporated by reference herein, reveals a charging system that comprises a number of primary windings and a number of secondary windings.
A charging system for charging electric batteries by means of charging modules connected via a CAN bus is disclosed in the US 2014 035 530 A1, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Method and device for operating charging stations


A complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor layout structure is described. The CMOS image sensor layout structure includes a substrate, a plurality of light sensing devices, a plurality of transistors and a plurality of color-filtering film layers. The substrate has a pixel array region comprising a plurality of pixels. Each pixel has a light sensing region and an active device region. The pixels are isolated from one another by isolation structures and the light sensing regions have different sizes. The light sensing devices are defined separately within the respective light sensing regions. The transistors are disposed within the respective active device region. The color-filtering film layers are disposed separately above the pixels to form a color-filtering array.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image sensor structure. More particularly, the present invention relates to a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor layout structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
The process of forming a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor is compatible to the process of forming a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistor. Consequently, CMOS image sensors and CMOS transistors can be fabricated with other peripheral circuits on the same chip. Thus, the power consumption and the fabricating cost of image sensors can be significantly reduced. In recent years, many types of CMOS image sensors have gradually replaced charge-coupled devices in the low end of the sensor market and hence its importance is growing every day.
However, CMOS image sensors still have some defects that need to be rectified. For instance, most CMOS image sensors have different sensitivity toward incident light of different frequencies. In particular, the response of CMOS sensor to blue light is slightly inferior to its response to red light and green light.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,137,100 with the title "CMOS image sensor with different pixel sizes for different colors", a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor having color-filtering film layers of different sizes for resolving the problem of different light sensitivity is disclosed. Furthermore, in U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0100570A1 with the title "Image sensor and digital camera", a method of adjusting the light sensitivity through changing the dimensions of the color-filtering film layer is disclosed. However, the method of changing the size of the color-filtering film layers can be more complicated for the process, and have the disadvantageous question for the production.

Complementary metal oxide semiconductor image sensor layout structure


A method for calibrating a positron emission tomography scanner of a radiation therapy device is provided. The method includes applying at least one defined radiation dose in a sample body; measuring the activity generated by the radiation dose using the positron emission tomography scanner; and calibrating the positron emission tomography scanner based on the measured activity.

The present embodiments relate to calibrating a positron emission tomography scanner.
Positron emission tomography (PET) is an imaging method (process) that is used in nuclear medicine and radiation therapy. During PET, a positron is emitted in a body due to radioactive decay. After a short distance, the positron enters into interaction with an electron. The interaction destroys both particles. The destruction creates a pair of gamma quanta. The quanta are at an angle of 180° from one another. The gamma quanta penetrate the body to be examined and after exiting it are recorded by two opposed detectors. A positron emission tomography scanner for imaging includes a plurality of gamma radiation detectors, which surround the patient to be examined. DE 32 08 178 A1 discloses the plurality of gamma radiation detectors being disposed in a ring.
The relevant radioactive decay may be induced, for example, by injection or inhalation of a radioactively marked radiopharmaceutical, such as a tracer. Disease information may be determined based on the spatial distribution of the tracer.
Radioactive decay involving the formation of positrons occurs during radiation therapy from the irradiation of a body, for example, as a function of the radiation dose applied. PET systems may perform such dosage validation or monitoring of the radiation therapy and particle therapy. In particle therapy, measurements are performed in order to check whether the planned radiation dose matches the dose actually applied and/or whether the spatial distribution of an applied dose matches a desired spatial distribution.
PET systems may be used with a particle therapy system and may deviate from the conventional ring form. For example, an in-beam PET system may include only two opposed detectors. The additional opening between the two detectors, for example, may be used to position the patient, or irradiate the patient with a beam passing through this opening without the beam striking the detectors.
To enable precise dosage validation, PET systems are calibrated at certain time intervals, for example, daily. Radioactive sources may be used for calibration. The radioactive sources are disposed in a treatment chamber in which the PET system is also located. The radioactive sources generate a defined activity, which is measured by the PET system. The measurements are used to calibrate the PET system. This process may, for example, include checking an existing calibration of the PET system.
Calibration is complicated, since dedicated radioactive sources have to be set up in the treatment chamber and then removed. This process requires manual intervention, involves cost, and can suffer from errors.

Calibrating a positron emission tomography scanner


A card and blister package for small articles of commerce has a clear plastic blister piece, a card and a retainer piece. The blister piece had an article-receiving cavity and a flange extends along the upper edge of the cavity, and pluralities of upwardly extending locking posts are spaced apart along the flange. The card has openings for receiving therethrough the locking posts and the retainer piece had a plurality of integral downwardly-opening locking caps spaced therealong, whereby when the posts are engaged through the card openings the caps can be snapped into locking engagement with the blister posts so as to secure the card to the blister. Each cap is encircled by an arrangement of perforations, so as to detachably connect the cap to the retainer piece and whereby twisting of the cap will cause it to shear free of the retainer, and rotation through about 90 degrees will cause the caps to unlock from the posts, allowing the package to be opened.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to card and blister type packages, and more particularly to a three piece package having fastening features that can be snapped into locking engagement and disengaged by rotation of the features.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Card and blister packages are widely used for packaging small articles of commerce. Typically such a package will have a clear plastic blister piece; i.e. open topped enclosure that has a flange. The card has one side coated with a layer of dry adhesive. At a typical packaging station the product is placed in the blister cavity of a supported blister piece, then the card is placed over the blister with its adhesive-coated side engaged with the blister flange. The subsequent application and removal of heat and pressure along the flange causes the adhesive to liquefy, and a bond is formed between card and flange. The liquid adhesive on the remainder of the card will return to its dry state and remain on the card.
Today it is an ecologically responsible practice to recycle packaging materials, and for card and blister packages this requires in the first instance to separate the plastic component from the paper-based card component. With conventional packages the separation of source materials is often not complete since portions of the card will remain adhesively attached to the flange of the plastic blister portion, and printed paper torn from the face of the card, and as mentioned above, a significant amount of dried adhesive will remain on the discarded card.
Another drawback with other conventional clamshell style packages is that, in the interest of providing a package that is secure against tampering and pilferage, they are becoming quite difficult for the ordinary purchaser to open, and this has even resulted in serious injury to the hand and fingers.

Snap-lock twist-open card and blister package


A wall mount fiber optic connector includes a connector body portion to be mounted on a wall of an electronic system, and the connector body portion has ferrule-receiving passageways therein. Opto-electronic (O/E) converters are coupled to the ferrule-receiving passageways, with each O/E converter being associated with a respective ferrule-receiving passageway. Biasing members are coupled to the O/E converters, with each biasing member urging a respective O/E converter forward. The wall mount fiber optic connector also includes flexible circuits, with each flexible circuit having a first end coupled to a respective O/E converter. A printed circuit board is coupled to second ends of the flexible circuits. An electrical connector portion is carried by the connector body portion and is coupled to the printed circuit board.

Fiber optic cabling is used in various types of air, space, land and sea-based platforms to provide high-speed data communications for on-board electronic systems, such as radar and mission control computer systems. In a typical wall mount fiber optic connector, the receptacle connector portion is connected to the wall mount of the electronic system and extends rearwardly within an overall housing or system chassis of the electronic system. The mating plug connector portion is removably positioned into the receptacle connector portion from the outside of the housing.
Such typical wall mount fiber optic connectors are passive connectors, and consequently, these connectors merely pass the optical signals through the connector. Passive connectors require fiber optic cabling within the electronic system from the connector to opto-electronic (O/E) converters. O/E converters convert electrical signals to optical signals, and optical signals to electrical signals. When routing each optical fiber from the wall mount fiber optic connector to an appropriate O/E converter within the housing, several problems are encountered.
First, a minimum cable bend radius should be observed within the housing to avoid cracking the glass fiber. Second, each time an optical signal passes through a connector interface, the power level of the optical energy is reduced, which subtracts from the overall optical link budget of the electronic system.
In expanded function electronic systems, the optical fiber from the wall mount fiber optic connector may be routed through an optical fiber backplane within the housing, which then routes the optical fibers to specific locations on an electrical backplane that is also within the housing. Circuit boards containing the O/E converters connect through the electrical backplane to the optical fiber backplane. The use of an optical fiber backplane within the housing adds to the cost, weight and complexity of each electronic system, as well as to the overall volume of the system.
In an attempt to address the above noted problems, active fiber optic connectors are available. These connectors include O/E converters as part of the connectors for converting between the two signal types within the connector itself. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,665 to Kurashima et al. discloses such a fiber optic connector having a generally rectangular housing and includes receptacle connector portions to receive mating plug connector portions, and circuitry within the housing converts optical signals to electrical signals and vice-versa. The fiber optic connector is designed for easy assembly and includes reference surfaces and bias members to permit insertion of the fiber optic sleeves. However, the fiber optic connector in Kurashima et al. is not a wall mount fiber optic connector.
Another active fiber optic connector is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0118293 to Canace et al. The connector may be mounted to a bulkhead or wall, and includes fingers, to provide resilience for leeway in the positioning of the connector relative to the wall in the direction of the optical axis of the optical fibers. Flexible circuit boards are also used to mount the components within the housing. Unfortunately, this active fiber optic connector is not particularly well suited for harsh environments. Maintaining alignment of the optical fibers in the plug connector portion with the O/E converters in the receptacle connector portion is a problem under harsh environments, which are typically encountered in various types of air, space, land and sea-based platforms.

Wall mount fiber optic connector and associated method for forming the same


Systems and techniques for delivery of contextual interest from interaction information are described that process user interactions with digital content to generate user interest scores for various topics. A contextual user interest system uses user interaction data to identify and contextualize content, and assigns propensity scores to the contextualized content. By dynamically contextualizing pages of content, the contextual user interest system may adapt to changes in the content and provide more accurate and robust information over time, which is not possible using conventional techniques. The contextualized pages of content are used to assign user interest scores across a number of topics to users who have visited the pages of content, and the user interest scores are normalized in a manner that allows a user's degree of interest in a topic to be compared to that of another user.

Recommendation systems may be used to guide user interaction and navigation with digital content via a computing device. Examples include forming recommendations regarding which article to read by a user, which advertisement to include in a webpage, digital movies for viewing, and so forth. To do so, recommendation systems may utilize user interest information formed from user interaction with digital content. Content-based filtering recommendation systems (e.g., systems based upon a TF-IDF representation, a naive Bayes classifier, and so forth) utilize a description of an item in conjunction with a profile of a particular user's interests. A user profile indicates what types of items a user is interested in, and candidate items categorized with keywords are compared to the user profile to identify and recommend items that match the user's preferences.
A page of a website, for instance, may be manually tagged with information that represents the content or context of the particular page. When a user visits the page, this information is then associated with the user to represent that the user is interested in those tags. However, manually tagging the content of every page of a website is hard to maintain for large websites, websites with dynamic content, and so forth. Further, the majority of contextual data is not collected from the page, as manual tags typically contain only a small set of arbitrarily decided topics.
Additionally, recommendation systems have a limited view of a particular user due to a small number of touchpoints that may be obtained regarding the user, e.g., that may occur within a particular website. A touchpoint can be any interaction with the user, such as viewing an ad, visiting a website, purchasing a good or service, and so forth. Although each touchpoint with a user can contain useful information, a particular website typically can only track touchpoints that occur within the particular website itself. Further, tags and data obtained from user touchpoints are not typically shared between recommendation systems, e.g., from different websites. As a result, conventional techniques are implemented as "walled garden" systems. This limits performance of the conventional techniques in that the amount of context and number of touchpoints is limited and thus limits the accuracy of recommendation or digital marketing systems over time, thereby resulting in inefficient use of computing resources and thus inefficient operation of a computing device that implements conventional recommendation systems.

Delivery of contextual interest from interaction information


A display processing system (1) includes: a state display unit (102) which displays a state of a monitoring target; an emphasis display unit (106) which emphasizes and displays difference of change when there is the change in the state of the monitoring target; and a display control unit (108) which changes, after a predetermined period of time passes, the emphasized display by the emphasis display unit (106) back to display of the state of the monitoring target by the state display unit (102).

In recent years, as computers are incorporated into clouds, and at data centers and the like, the enlarged scales and complexity of the information technology (IT) device and services are accelerated. Under such background, how to efficiently manage operation of a system and how to ensure the reliability are an important issue.
Patent document 1 describes an example of a process monitoring device for converting process data into graph data representing time-change and displaying the graph data. The process monitoring device described in patent document 1 has an enlarged graph display unit which subtracts a reference line value from process data, multiplies a magnification rate, and displays amplified graph data.
Patent document 2 describes an example of a graph generating machine having enlarging function. The graph generating machine having enlarging function described in patent document 2 calculates a rate of a difference of the maximum value and the minimum value in data with respect to the maximum value, make comparison with a setting value, and when the difference rate value is larger, the graph generating machine makes enlargement display.

Display processing system, display processing method, and program


A method of detecting gaits of an individual with a sensor worn by the individual. The sensor includes an accelerometer and a processing unit. The method includes obtaining an signal representing one or more sensor acceleration values; sampling the signal to obtain a sampled signal; segmenting the sampled signal into windows to obtain a segmented acceleration signal; extracting a feature set from the segmented acceleration signal; determining a probability value, for a respective window, n, where n is a positive integer greater than zero, the probability value giving an estimated probability value of gait occurrence for the individual during the respective window; modifying the estimated probability value by using a histogram of previously detected gait durations to obtain a modified probability value; and determining, based on the modified probability value, and by using a determination threshold whether or not the respective window represents gait occurrence.

Physical activity (PA) is one of the fundamental aspects of daily life closely associated with well-being and is recognised as a leading health indicator of populations. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported a strong connection between PA and risk of falling, cognitive function, muscular fitness, and functional health level of elderly people. PA becomes even more important when the increasing trend of aging populations is considered. PA is a crucial component in healthy aging, intervention in many treatments, and the reduction of the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, depression, obesity and some types of cancer.
Amongst different types of PA, gait (e.g. walking and running) is one of the most important and effective ones whose objective assessment can provide useful and valuable information. Thanks to recent advances in wearable technologies, various systems based on inertial measurement units (IMUs), including accelerometers and gyroscopes, attached to the lower limbs, upper body or to both of these locations, have been developed to monitor PA, particularly gait bouts. In some cases, an IMU in a smartphone has been employed where the phone has been fixed to different parts of the body. While these systems provide detection of gaits outside of the laboratory, they suffer from several drawbacks. Wearing multiple sensors, for example, on foot, shank, thigh, hip, or chest, may be cumbersome, uncomfortable and awkward in daily situations, especially when long-term measurements are targeted. Fixation and alignment of the sensors with body segments to guarantee fixed orientation/location during an entire measurement may require an intervention of an expert, as well as additional tests, which affect the usability of the system or can easily disturb the wearer and modify their usual daily activities.
Moreover, the power consumption of such systems may be high due to using multiple sensors and/or modalities (e.g. a gyroscope), which limits the duration of the measurements. The existing algorithms also lack the provision of real-time data processing and analysis, relevant for generating real-time feedback, due to their high complexity. Therefore, most of the known systems operate only offline so that recorded raw data must be later transferred into a server for further analysis.
Considering the above limitations, alternative solutions for PA monitoring, particularly gait, use a single IMU mounted on the wrist. The solutions offer comfort, high usability and discreet monitoring (e.g. integrated inside a wristwatch) thus leading to an increased user compliance. The currently known wrist-based methods have used the abstract modelling where several features based on time, frequency and statistics are extracted and fed into various types of machine learning models (e.g. a decision tree or a support vector machine (SVM)). Such methods are independent of sensor orientation. Therefore, there is no need for sensor calibration and alignment. These advantages make the wrist as a suitable sensor location for long-term measurements of gait in real world situations. However, the association of the gait activity with the wrist motion is more challenging than the motion of the upper body or lower limbs. The wrist may have "independent" movements of the gait (e.g. carrying a bag, hand in pocket) and non-gait (e.g. moving wrist when sitting or standing), which cause many problems for an accurate gait detection in everyday conditions.
Nowadays, advances in the technology, as well as increasing demand and interest for long-term monitoring of physical activities, mean that a high number of consumer-oriented activity trackers, particularly smartwatches, emerge in the market. They provide a nonintrusive and easy way to track physical activities in free-living conditions. However, their reliability and validity are not yet completely known. Several studies showed a significant drop of the performance (up to 50% of error) of such commercial products under different conditions.
Regarding gait detection, one major and challenging issue is the validity of the existing methods under real-world or unsupervised conditions. In fact, most of the methods were validated only in supervised (e.g. in a controlled laboratory setting involving measurements during short periods and limited space) or semi-supervised (e.g. a series of activities lasting longer time simulating real-life situation under the supervision of an observer). Such conditions may not match real-world situations where the gait activity is context dependent, self-initiated and purposeful. Moreover, in daily life, the gait can be disturbed by "stationary" motions (e.g. shuffling around, swinging, stepping, turning, fidgeting, jumping), unpredicted sequences of PA, a huge imbalance of the data (gait periods are significantly less frequent than non-gait ones), and the presence of other types of locomotion (e.g. cycling, fitness, sport). It has been shown that the performance of PA classification significantly decreases when the validation is performed under real-life circumstances. Only few works have evaluated their methods under completely real-world conditions, without any supervisions or pre-defined sequences of PA. Those works used a subject-borne camera as a reference to label PA in free-living conditions.

Method and system for gait detection of a person

The Swatch Group Research and Development Ltd


Method for manufacturing an image pickup lens unit. In the second molding step, by performing additional molding with respect to a first holder member 20 in which a lens 10 has been inserted, the separation of the lens 10 can be prevented and, at the same time, a second holder member 30 welded to the first holder member 20 can be molded. Therefore, molding of the second holder member 30 and the process of joining the second holder member with the first holder member 20 can be performed together. Additionally, when the lens 10 is fixed from the side of a third molding portion 63 of a second mold 52, the lens 10 and the third molding portion 63 are brought in contact by an elastic biasing force, thereby reducing breakage or deformation of the lens 10.

An image pickup lens unit incorporated in a mobile telephone or the like has a structure in which the periphery of the optical lens for imaging is held by a holder. Assembling the optical lens in to the holder is a task requiring extremely tight positioning accuracy, and is normally performed on an automatic assembly system using the image recognition technology. However, the above system is not only very expensive but also requires a very large space because production lines, are set up for different steps, such as a step of inserting a lens into a holder and a step of bonding the lens to the holder. As a result, facility replacement carried out for each change of lens type involves very extensive work, and hence many worker-hours are required.
A manufacturing method that addresses the problems described above is known. In this method, first, a plurality of resin optical lenses and a holder body and a cover for holding the optical lenses are individually molded in different portions of the same mold. Next, these resin members are moved and assembled while the holder body remains in the mold. Then, molding is performed again to form a molded assembly (see Patent Literature (PTL) 1).
Another manufacturing method is known in which, after an optical glass lens and a stop are positioned and set in a mold in advance, a holder is formed around the optical glass lens by injection molding to assemble an image-pickup lens unit at the same time (see PTL 2).
However, the manufacturing method disclosed in PTL 1 is disadvantageous in that it increases the number of molded components for joining the cover to the holder body and makes the molding step complicated. Additionally, since a resin flow path for such joining components needs to be created, it is very difficult to ensure filling properties and joint strength of a thin-wall holder used in an image-pickup lens unit to be included in mobile phones. Therefore, it is difficult to achieve downsizing desired for such an image-pickup lens unit to be included in mobile phones.
Also, in the manufacturing method disclosed in PTL 2, the optical lens and the stop need to be directly held between molds. If the holding force is not sufficient enough, resin that flows out through gaps may adhere to the optical surface of the optical lens or to the stop. On the other hand, if the holding force is too large, the optical lens or the stop may be deformed or damaged. Thus, since the allowable range of holding force is narrow, it is very difficult to carry out the holding operation. Additionally, since a positioning shape for positioning the lens is formed in the molds, the positioning shape may remain as a visible depression in the resulting molded part. Then, the entry of unnecessary light into the depression may cause optical defects, such as ghosts and flares. At the same time, visual specifications required for the image-pickup lens unit to be included in products, such as image-pickup apparatuses, may not be met. Moreover, such a positioning shape may cause deformation during mold releasing and may deteriorate the dimensional accuracy.


The present invention is directed to an energy-efficient and environmentally friendly process for the production of chemical target compounds from cellulosic material. In a further aspect, the present invention is directed to a system for conducting the process according to the inventive process.

Due to limited resources of mineral oil and demands to reduce CO2 emissions the chemical industry seeks more sustainable production routes for the manufacture of commodity chemicals such as liquid fuels and base chemicals. Part of that strategy focusses on the conversion of cellulosic biomass into versatile chemicals or fuels such as ethanol. Lignocellulosic biomass contains cellulose (˜25-40% w/w d.s.), hemicellulose (˜15-25% w/w d.s.) and lignin (˜15-30% w/w d.s.) as major components and minor amounts of other carbohydrates, waxes, proteins and inorganic compounds. Among forms of plant biomass, lignocellulosic biomass derived from any forestry and agricultural waste streams, such as wood residues and cereal straw are particularly well suited for conversion to commodity chemicals and fuels because of their availability, low cost and environmentally sound production. Additionally, life cycle analyses of production processes utilising lignocellulosic feedstocks indicate reduced greenhouse gas emissions compared to processes based on other feedstocks.
Exemplary unit operations for e.g. the biotechnological conversion of lignocellulosic material (e.g. straw) to value-adding products (e.g. ethanol) are: mechanical de-sizing and/or physicochemical pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and product recovery. To ascertain maximum process efficiency it is mandatory to convert a maximum amount of polysaccharides into soluble sugars during the enzymatic hydrolysis unit.
Various process options that describe the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol and other base chemicals have been described within the state of the art. The EP 2 623 607 A1 discloses a process for the production of e.g. ethanol from cellulosic biomass wherein the flash steam from the high pressure pre-treatment of the cellulosic material is reused within the distillation of the ethanol (product recovery).
To realize these processes on an industrial scale it is particularly desirable to transfer the maximal amount of energy, carbon and mass content contained in the renewable feedstock to the desired end products. Further, according to the upcoming awareness of environmental issues, cleaner production methods are in great demand. At present none of the described conversion processes have realised this to a satisfactory extent.
Thus, there is a need for further processes for the conversion of biomass material to chemical target compounds which do not show these deficits.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Energy-efficient and environmentally friendly process for the production of target chemical compounds from cellulosic material


A dehydrogenated fuel tank 32 which is replenished with an organic hydride-contained hydrogenated fuel and a gasoline tank 48 which is replenished with normal gasoline are provided. In order to separate the hydrogenated fuel into a hydrogen rich gas and dehydrogenation product, a dehydrogenation reactor 22 and a separator 40 are provided. The hydrogen rich gas flows into a hydrogen pipe 44 and is supplied into the intake pipe 12. A dehydrogenation product pipe 42 is provided with a flow separator 46. The dehydrogenation product is guided into the gasoline tank 48 until the mixed ratio of the dehydrogenation product reaches the maximum allowable ratio in the gasoline tank 48. Only if the ratio reaches the maximum allowable ratio, the dehydrogenation product is collected into a dehydrogenation product tank 50.

As disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-343360, internal combustion engine systems provided with hydrogen generation capability are known. Specifically, the system includes a mechanism to generate a hydrogen rich gas and dehydrogenation products such as naphthalene from a hydrogenated fuel containing organic hydrides such as Decalin as well as a hydrogen engine which runs using the generated hydrogen rich gas as fuel.
In the system disclosed in the above-mentioned publication, while the hydrogen engine is operating, the hydrogenated fuel is separated into a hydrogen rich gas and dehydrogenation products by utilizing the heat generated by the operation. Then, only the hydrogen rich gas is extracted and used as fuel. The remaining dehydrogenation products are collected into a recovery tank. The recovery tank has a discharge pipe through which the dehydrogenation products can be discharged to the outside.
As described above, this prior art system can generate by itself hydrogen for use as fuel. It is therefore possible to realize a hydrogen-fueled system without having to install a high pressure hydrogen tank or the like.
Including the above-mentioned document, the applicant is aware of the following documents as a related art of the present invention.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-343360
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-255503
[Patent Document 3]
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-63128
By the way, for an internal combustion engine to output large power, it is effective to supply both gasoline and hydrogen to the internal combustion engine. This function can be implemented by, for example, applying the above-mentioned prior art system to a gasoline-fueled ordinary internal combustion engine.
In the above-mentioned prior art system, however, dehydrogenation products which are by-products of generating hydrogen rich gas are discharged for disposal. Thus, if the system is simply applied to an ordinary internal combustion engine, dehydrogenation products will have to be discharged frequently, requiring the user to do troublesome maintenance/management operations.

Internal combustion engine system with hydrogen generation capability


A blowout preventer comprises a pair of ram assemblies which are mounted on diametrically opposite sides of a BOP housing. A cylinder-ram is slidably received within each ram assembly and includes a cylindrical cavity. A back plate couples with the outer end of the cylinder-ram and a piston head is positioned in the cavity, forming first and second piston chambers. Hydraulic pressure in the first and second piston chambers forces the cylinder ram from an open position to a closed position, thereby sealing the BOP bore.

The present invention relates generally to a compact blowout preventer used in the oil and gas industry. Specifically, the invention relates to a compact blowout preventer featuring a nested cylinder actuator and ram system wherein the overall outer diameter of the device is reduced by combining the ram and actuator cylinder, and increasing the actuator piston area with a second nested cylinder and piston.
Blowout preventers are used in the subsea oil and gas production industry to seal the well bore in the event of a blowout. The blowout preventer ("BOP") may be mounted on a subsea wellhead or christmas tree or located on a surface vessel and connected to the subsea wellhead or christmas tree via a riser. During installation and workover operations, a workover string, such as drill pipe, wireline or coiled tubing, may be lowered through the BOP and into the well bore. In the event of a blowout during any of these operations, the BOP must therefore be able to seal the well bore in the presence of the workover string.
Typical ram-type BOP's normally include an elongated housing, a BOP bore which extends axially through the housing and a pair of opposing BOP rams which are movable laterally across the BOP bore toward and away from each other. The BOP rams are normally actuated by respective pistons which move perpendicular to the BOP bore and are therefore mounted in ram housings which extend laterally from the BOP housing. As a result, these types of BOP's tend to be quite large. For example, one known prior art 10,000 psi surface BOP having a 13⅝″ BOP bore comprises an envelope outer diameter of about 120 inches. Such BOP's require that the surface vessel be equipped with a correspondingly large rotary table to enable the BOP to pass through. However, surface vessels of this size are very expensive to operate.

Nested cyclinder compact blowout preventer


The invention relates to an aqueous multicomponent system comprising a hydrophobe modified polymer which forms a high-viscosity liquid during mixing and to the use of said multicomponent system, in particular, in the form of a cosmetic component or a washing and/or rinsing and/or cleaning agent.

(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a multicomponent system which forms a high-viscosity liquid on mixing and to the use of this multicomponent system, more particularly as a cosmetic preparation or as a laundry detergent and/or dishwashing detergent and/or cleaner.
There is a general need in practice for cleaners with a high viscosity to achieve an extended contact time with the surface and thus to improve the cleaning effect. However, a problem with high-viscosity liquids is that they are difficult to handle in practice. For example, high-viscosity cleaners are difficult, if not impossible, to dose or to apply by spraying.
(2) Description of Related Art, Including Information Disclosed Under 37 C.F.R. §§1.97 and 1.98
One solution to this problem would be, for example, to produce the high-viscosity cleaner at the point of application itself. Low-viscosity cleaners which only assume a relatively high viscosity on dilution with water were developed to achieve this goal. For example, EP 0 595 590 describes a concentrate which contains amine oxides, an anionic alkyl detergent, a hydrophobically modified polymer and a diluent. This concentrate forms a high-viscosity liquid on addition of 96 to 98 parts water.
Accordingly, the problem addressed by the present invention was to find alternatives which would enable a high-viscosity liquid to be made available at the point of application itself. More particularly, the problem addressed by the present invention was to provide an easier-to-handle alternative to the systems described in the prior art.
Another problem addressed by the present invention was to improve the outflow behavior of the mixture in relation to the prior art and/or to provide for better thickening than achieved with conventional thickener systems.
The articles by Iliopoulos et al. (1991), Langmuir 7, 617-619 and Panmai et al. (1999), Colloids and Surfaces A 147, 3-15 describe liquids which contain hydrophobically modified polymers and which pass through a viscosity maximum on addition of surface-active substances.
It has now surprisingly been found that a highly viscous liquid, more particularly one which advantageously satisfies the requirements of a cleaner with an extended contact time, can be formed from at least two particular low-viscosity liquids, of which at least one contains a hydrophobically modified polymer and of which at least one other contains a mixture of a hydrophobically modified polymer and detergents, by mixing in a suitable ratio.
Greater product adhesion to surfaces and hence a longer contact time are achieved in this way, affording the consumer visualization in addition to the increased cleaning effect.