Disclosed is an electrode having a novel configuration for improving performance of the electrode used in solid-oxide fuel cells, sensors and solid state devices, in which the electrode providing electron conductivity is coated with ion conductive ceramic ceria film, enabling an electron conductive path and an ion conductive path to be independently and continuously maintained, and additionally extending a triple phase boundary where electrode/electrolyte/gas are in contact, and a method for manufacturing the same. The electrode is manufactured by coating the prefabricated electrode for use in a SOFC or sensor with a porous oxygen ion conductive ceramic ceria film by a sol-gel method, whereby the electron conductive material and ion conductive material exist independently, having a new microstructure configuration with a greatly extended triple phase boundary, thus improving electrode performance. Accordingly, such electrode does not require high cost equipment or starting materials, owing to the sol-gel method by which low temperature processes are possible. Moreover, the electrode microstructure can be controlled in an easy manner, realizing economic benefits, and the electrode/electrolyte interfacial resistance and electrode resistance can be effectively decreased, thereby improving performance of electrodes used in SOFCs, sensors and solid state devices.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrode for use in solid-oxide fuel cells (referred to hereinafter as "SOFC"), sensors, solid state devices, and the like, in which the electrode is coated with ion conductive ceramic ceria film, extending a triple phase boundary where electrode/electrolyte/gas are in contact, thereby enhancing performance thereof, and a method for manufacturing the same. More particularly, the invention relates to a novel electrode in which a prefabricated electrode for use in a SOFC or sensor is coated with porous oxygen ion conductive ceramic ceria film by a sol-gel method, enabling an electron conductive path and an ion conductive path to be independently and continuously maintained, thereby solving an interconnection cut-off problem, enhancing electrode performance due to a great enlargement of triple phase boundary where electrode/electrolyte/gas are in contact, and further enabling the manufacture of the electrode at a lower temperature by employing a sol-gel method, resulting in preventing generation of undesired interfacial reaction products, and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In fabricating SOFCs, an electron conductive ceramic material, La1−xSrxMnO3 (referred to hereinafter as LSM) has been used as a cathode material (M. J. L. Ostergard and M. Mogensen, Electrochemica Acta. 38: 2015–2020, 1993; H. Kamata, A. Hosaka, Yuji Ikegami and J. Mizusaki, H. Tagawa, in first European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, eds. Ulf Bossel, Proceedings Vol. 2: 725–733, 1994). In a common method for manufacturing cathodes, an electron conductive material such as LSM, and an ion conductive material such as yttria-stabilized zirconia (referred to hereinafter as YSZ), that is, the electrolyte material, are mixed, considering a thermal expansion coefficient with an electrolyte, and the mixture is used to manufacture cathodes with high performance. Such cathodes are deposited on a dense electrolyte surface, which is made of an ion conductive solid oxide such as YSZ, fabricating a SOFC. Since the state-of-the-art SOFC now developed for a high capacity requires a high temperature of around 1000° C. for cell operation, there is a problem in that it is hard to find an interconnect material which is easy to process and is low in cost. In addition, such an SOFC has a disadvantage in that electrode particles are sintered upon long-term cell operation, decreasing an active area for reaction, thereby degrading cell performance (J. Mizusaki, H. Tagawa, K. Tsuneyoshi, A. Sawata, M. Katou, and K. Hirano, "The La0.6Ca0.4MnO3 YSZ composite as an SOFC air electrode", Denki Kangaku, 58: 520–527, 1990). Accordingly, it is desired to lower temperatures for cell operation, and so many researchers have attempted to develop a low-temperature SOFC which operates at 500 to 800° C. Research to realize low operating temperatures in sensors and solid state devices is also actively underway. However, for general SOFCs, sensors and solid state devices which employ YSZ as the electrolyte and operate at 700 to 800° C., the cathode performance is so low, compared to anode performance, that it is necessary to improve the cathode performance.
Cathode performance of SOFCs is determined mainly depending on interfacial resistance, which is caused by generation of an interfacial reaction product such as SrZrO3 or La2Zr2O7 at a contact surface of the cathode with the YSZ electrolyte and on electrode polarization resistance, caused by electrochemical reactions occurring at the cathode. For this reason, improvement of cathode performance can be achieved by reducing those resistance values. Specially, as for a low-temperature SOFC which operates at 700 to 800° C., SOFC performance is considerably affected by electrode polarization resistance (Rel) according to a process of oxygen reduction at the cathode, and by interfacial resistance (iRinterface) between electrode and electrolyte (T. Tsai and S. A. Barnett, in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells V, eds. U. Stimming, S. C. Singhal, H. Tagawa and W Lehnert, The Electrochemical Society Proceedings Series PV 97–18, 368–375, 1997; M. Suzuki, H. Sasaki, S. Otoshi, A. Kajimura, N. Sugiura, and M. Ippommatsu, J. Electrochem. Soc. 141: 1928–1931, 1994). Thus, it is necessary for electrode polarization resistance at the cathode and interfacial resistance between the cathode and the electrolyte to be reduced, in order to manufacture a high performance SOFC.
A reaction (½O2+2e−→O2−) occurring at the cathode of a SOFC takes place mainly at the triple phase boundary in which the cathode, electrolyte and oxygen are in contact. The triple phase boundary is considerably affected by characteristics of a reaction occurring at a contact surface of the electrolyte and cathode. Therefore, it is desirable to form such a cathode/electrolyte interface where oxygen is diffused well and a contact area for the electrolyte and cathode is increased. As a result, resistance of the cathode/electrolyte interface is decreased, and also the area of triple phase boundary is increased, decreasing the electrode polarization resistance, thereby improving overall cathode performance. Methods for controlling microstructure of such a cathode to increase electrode performance include the following. One example is a two-dimensional method by which electrode powder with fine particles is well dispersed, thereby maximizing packing density in the electrode/electrolyte interface (M. Suzuki, H. Sasaki, S. Otoshi, A. Kajimura, N. Sugiura, and M. Ippommatsu, "High performance solid oxide fuel cell cathode fabricated by electrochemical vapor deposition", J. Electrochem. Soc., 141(7): 1928–1931, 1994). Another example is a three-dimensional method by which electrode reactions occur even at portions of the electrode distal from the electrolyte, as well as at the triple phase boundary (T. Kenjo and M. Nishiya, LaMnO3 air cathodes containing ZrO2 electrolyte for high temperature solid oxide fuel cells, Solid State Ionics, 57: 295–302, 1992). Although such a three-dimensional method is desirable for improvement of electrode performance, it is applicable only to a mixed conductor, or a composite conductor having both ion- and electron-conductive paths. Accordingly, widely used are methods for manufacturing electrodes including the step of mixing electrode powder (electron conductive material) and electrolyte powder (ion conductive material), forming interpenetrating microstructures, thereby increasing electrode performance (U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,239). Recent reports disclose methods of infiltrating electrocatalysts into those electrodes for increasing cell performance (U.S. Pat. No. 6,017,647).
The simplest method of increasing a contact area of the electrode/electrolyte interface is to control temperatures in assembling the electrode and the electrolyte. In the course of fabricating a general SOFC which employs YSZ as the electrolyte, the cathode material coats the surface of the electrolyte, followed by sintering at 1100 to 1400° C., thereby assembling the cathode and the electrolyte. However, if the cathode material containing LSM is assembled with the electrolyte at temperatures above 1200° C., an interfacial reaction product such as SrZrO3 or La2Zr2O7 is generated at the electrode/electrolyte interface, resulting in degradation of SOFC performance (M. Mogensen and Steen Skaarup, Solid State Ionics 86–88, 1151–1160, 1996). On the other hand, if the sintering temperature is lower than 1200° C., the assembling of the cathode and the electrolyte is not achieved in an easy manner, so the interfacial resistance between the cathode and electrolyte becomes severe, resulting in degradation of SOFC performance.
As mentioned above, there are now commonly used technologies for increasing the cathode/electrolyte contact area and the area of triple phase boundary, comprising the step of solid state mixing LSM powder and YSZ powder, and using the mixture to manufacture cathodes having inter-penetrating microstructures (T. Kenjo and M. Nishiya, Solid State Ionics 57: 295–302, 1992; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,543,239; 6,017,647). However, also in these cases, the temperature in assembling the electrode/electrolyte should be well controlled to fabricate high performance cells. That is, when assembling, an interfacial reaction product such as SrZrO3 or La2Zr2O7 is generated at the cathode/electrolyte interface, which degrades cell performance. In addition, where ion conductive powder and electron conductive powder are mixed, with an increase of the YSZ content, the electron conductive path may be broken, greatly increasing resistance, thereby causing an interconnection cut-off problem (D. W. Dees, T. D. Claar, T. E. Easler, D. C. Fee, and F. C. Mrazek, J. Electrochem. Soc. 134: 2141, 1987). Accordingly, where powder serving as an electron conductor is mixed with electrolyte powder to form an inter-penetrating microstructure, a minimum of a specific weight ratio or volume ratio of the electrolyte to the electrode must be employed to fabricate cells (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,937,246; 5,993,988; and 6,017,647).
Virkar et al. proposed a new microstructure of an electrode where an electrochemical reaction is extended in a three-dimensional manner (U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,239). That is, an electrolyte is coated with slurry containing an electrolyte material, followed by thermal treatment, forming a porous electrolyte layer on the dense electrolyte. An electrocatalyst material serving as an electrode is infiltrated into the porous electrolyte layer. In such a way, the triple phase boundary is extended in a three-dimensional manner. This method, however, requires a high sintering temperature of approximately 1450° C. to assemble the dense electrolyte layer with the porous electrolyte layer formed thereon. In addition, there is a disadvantage in that if an electrocatalyst material serving as an electron conductor (that is, LSM, Pt, LSCF, etc) fails to sufficiently coat the entire porous electrolyte layer, internal resistance (IR) is considerably increased. Another disadvantage is that a low melting point of the perovskite-type material such as LSM or LSCF causes the electrode surface area to decrease upon long-term operation, decreasing the area for electrochemical reaction, thereby degrading cell performance. On the other hand, the microstructure of the electrode according to the invention, is formed by coating a porous electrode with a porous oxygen ion conductive film. This is in contrast to the method of Virkar et al., whose microstructure of the electrode is formed by coating the porous electrolyte with a porous electrode material. Advantageously, in accordance with the invention, a microstructure of the electrode is formed at lower temperatures using a sol-gel process. Further, the electrode having such a microstructure of extended triple phase boundary is able to prevent a surface area from being decreased due to the electrode sintering at high temperatures, while which is likely to be observed upon using Virkar's method, since the electrode and electrolyte are coated with an electrolyte material, such as Sm-doped ceria (SDC), which is harder to sinter than material.
Wallin et al. (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,937,264; 5,993,986; and 6,017,647) reported that after manufacturing a cathode using a conventional method by which an electron conductive material and ion conductive material are mixed, the electrocatalyst in a solution state is then infiltrated into the cathode, thereby being capable of increasing electrode performance. However, this method has problems in that an interfacial reaction product is generated between the electron conductive material and the electrolyte and interconnection cut-off is caused, since the electron conductive material and ion-conductive material are mixed, forming the so-called interpenetrating networks.
Application of YSZ sol to SOFCs is disclosed in Japanese Pat. Nos. 06283179 and 02038362, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,993,988. In particular, Japanese Pat. Laid-open Publication No. Heisei 6-283179 discloses that YSZ slurry coats the support of the cathode or the anode, followed by thermal treatment. Cracks or pinholes caused by such thermal treatment may be filled up using YSZ sol, thereby forming the dense YSZ electrolyte thin film. On the other hand, in the invention, porous SDC film is formed on the electrode and electrolyte. As illustrated in FIG. 1, triple phase boundary of electrode/electrolyte/gas is continuously extended even to regions of the porous electrodes distal from the electrolyte, thereby decreasing electrode polarization. Thus, this approach is different from the above reference.
Ohara et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,993,988) teach that a solution of nickel acetate tetrahydrate is mixed with YSZ sol, followed by spray pyrolysis, preparing a composite powder whose NiO particles are surrounded by YSZ particles. The composite powder prepared by Ohara et al., may be used to prevent Ni particles from being sintered after reduction, owing to well-dispersed YSZ particles. This method is different from the method of forming a microstructure of the electrode of the present invention, as illustrated in FIG. 1. According to Ohara et al.'s method, the composite powder is prepared only when the amount of Ni:YSZ is in a specific range of 90:10 to 50:50 mole %. This is based on the fact, as mentioned above, that with an increase of the YSZ content, electron conductivity is greatly decreased, causing an interconnection cut-off problem. Moreover, the above method is based on the fact that YSZ particles partially cover Ni particles so Ni particles are prevented from being sintered by a pinning effect, but in this case the electron conductive path is broken, so the YSZ particles fail to form a continuous triple phase boundary. For this reason, Ohara's method cannot maximize performance of the electrode, while the present invention achieves maximized electrode performance.

Electrode having microstructure of extended triple phase boundary by porous ion conductive ceria film coating and method to manufacture the said electrode

Korea Institute of Science and Technology


Methods for treating obsessions and compulsions by local administration of a Clostridial toxin. The obsessions or compulsions can be eye poking, body rocking, finger biting, counting, checking and related disorders treated by low dose, intramuscular administration of a botulinum toxin.

The present invention relates to methods for treating certain obsessive compulsive disorders. In particular, the present invention includes methods for treating various repetitive and/or injurious motor activity symptoms of certain obsessive compulsive disorders by peripheral administration of a Clostridial toxin.
Obsessions are persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses or mental images that cause distress and anxiety. Obsessions can involve themes of aggression, contamination, sex or somatic concerns. Compulsions are repetitive, stereotyped motor acts an individual feels required to perform to reduce anxiety or distress. The compulsion usually can be resisted only temporarily, with resistance followed by an increasing sense of unease and tension. The mounting tension is released only by performing the irrational motor act or ritual. Compulsions very in complexity from simple actions such as touching, lip licking, tapping and rubbing to complex behaviors such as repetitive hand washing, hair pulling and body rocking. Additionally, compulsive behaviors can include hoarding, repeating, checking (i.e. repeated checking that a door is locked), counting (i.e. compulsive counting of footsteps) and arranging behaviors, as well as various self-injurious behaviors, such as self-biting (i.e. finger biting), head banging, eye poking, skin picking, skin cutting, skin burning, eye enucleation and castration. Unfortunates with such disturbing self-injurious compulsions must frequently be restrained or fitted with suitable restraints (such as a mouth guard) to prevent further injury to themselves. These compulsions can be severely disabling and can accompany psychosis, intoxication, Tourette's syndrome and mental retardation.
Thus, obsessive compulsive disorders can combine both obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, and can be defined as a chronic condition characterized by recurrent intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors that consume much of the afflicted person's attention and activity, thereby impairing everyday functioning. The behaviors of an obsessive and/or compulsive disorder typically begin in late childhood or early adulthood and the patient experiences marked tension and distress upon resisting the obsessions and compulsions. Epidemiologic data indicates a lifetime prevalence of 2 to 3 percent worldwide and obsessive compulsive disorders are more common in males and in first born children. See e.g. page 2490 of Fauci, A. S. et al., editors, Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, McGraw Hill, fourteenth edition (1998).
Functional neuroimaging (i.e. positron emission tomography) studies, brain lesion analysis, and the results of neurosurgical intervention to treat obsessive compulsive disorders indicate that dysfunction within particular basal ganglia and ventral prefrontal cortical structures provides a proposed pathophysiology for obsessive compulsive disorders. See e.g. pages 963-964 of Zigmond, M. J. et al, editors, Fundamental Neuroscience, Academic Press (1999).
Clearly, obsessive compulsive disorders can cause great embarrassment, distress and anguish to both the cognizant patient so afflicted as well as to his or her caregiver.
Tourette's Syndrome
Tourette's syndrome is usually characterized by multiple motor tics and one or more vocal tics. The tics can appear simultaneously or at different periods during the illness. The tics can occur many times a day, and recurrently throughout a period of more than one year. During this period, there is almost never a tic-free period of more than a few consecutive months. Those afflicted with Tourette's syndrome suffer disturbances which can comprise complex tics and cause marked distress or significant impairment in social, occupational, and other important areas of functioning. The onset of the disorder is typically before the age of eighteen. The complex tics of Tourette's syndrome are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., stimulants) or a general medical condition (e.g., Huntington's disease or postviral encephalitis) and are thought to be a part of the Tourette's disease process. The anatomical location, number, frequency, complexity, and severity of the tics often change over time. The tics typically involve the head and, frequently, other parts of the body, such as the torso and upper and lower limbs. The vocal tics include various words or sounds such as clicks, grunts, yelps, barks, sniffs, snorts, and coughs. Coprolalia (a complex vocal tic involving the uttering of obscenities), is present in a few individuals (less than 10%) with this disorder. Complex motor tics involving touching, squatting, deep knee bends, retracing steps, and twirling when walking may be present. In approximately one-half the individuals with this disorder. The first symptoms to appear are often bouts of a single tic, most frequently eye blinking, less frequently tics involving another part of the face or the body. Initial symptoms can also include tongue protrusion, squatting, sniffing, hopping, skipping, throat clearing, stuttering, uttering sounds or words, and coprolalia.
Whereas the repetitive motor activities symptomatic of Tourette's syndrome can be characterized as true tics (that is, as habitual, repeated contraction of certain muscles, as in throat clearing, sniffing, lip pursing or excessive blinking) they are an isolated and distinct subset of behaviors distinct from obsessive compulsive disorders, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (the "DSM-IVR", fourth revised edition). There are a number of obsessive and/or compulsive disorders which involve more complex non tic repetitive motor activity, frequently injurious, as can occur in dermatillomania, trichotillomania, hand washing, head banging, eye poking, body rocking, finger biting, counting, and checking disorders.
Dermatillomania (Compulsive Skin Picking)
The primary characteristic of compulsive skin picking is the repetitive picking at one's own skin to the extent of causing damage. Usually, but not always, the face is the primary location for skin picking. However compulsive skin picking, also known as dermatillomania or neurotic excoriation, can involve any part of the body. Individuals with compulsive skin picking may pick at normal skin variations such as freckles and moles, at actual pre-existing scabs, sores or acne blemishes, or at imagined skin defects that nobody else can observe. The compulsive skin picking patient may use his or her fingernails, as well as their teeth, tweezers, pins or other mechanical devices. As a result, dermatillomania can cause bleeding, bruises, infections, and/or permanent disfigurement of the skin.
Sometimes skin-picking is preceded by a high level of tension and a strong itch or urge to pick. Likewise, carrying out the skin-picking can be followed by a feeling of relief or pleasure. A compulsive skin picking episode can be a conscious response to anxiety or depression, but is frequently done as an unconscious habit. Individuals with compulsive skin picking often attempt to camouflage the damage caused to their skin by using make-up or wearing clothes to cover the subsequent marks and scars. In extreme cases, individuals with compulsive skin picking avoid social situations in an effort to prevent others from seeing the scars, scabs, and bruises that result from skin picking.
The primary treatment modality for compulsive skin picking depends on the level of awareness the individual has regarding the problem. If the compulsive skin picking is generally an unconscious habit, the primary treatment is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy called habit reversal training (HRT). HRT is based on the principle that skin-picking is a conditioned response to specific situations and events, and that the individual with compulsive skin picking is frequently unaware of these triggers. HRT challenges the problem in a two-fold process. First, the individual with compulsive skin picking learns how to become more consciously aware of situations and events that trigger skin-picking episodes. Second, the individual learns to utilize alternative behaviors in response to these situations and events. Unfortunately HRT does not have a high success rate. If the patient is unaware of or not fully cognizant of his compulsive skin picking, pharmacologic therapy is recommended. Significant side effects have occurred from the current drug therapy.

Use of a botulinum neurotoxin to alleviate various disorders


The invention provides in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo assays for Parkin activity, in which Parkin-mediated ubiquitination of a Sept4 protein is measured. The assays may be used to screen for agents that modulate Parkin protein ligase activity.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurological disorder characterized neuropathologically as a loss of dopamine neurons of the substantia nigra. This neuronal loss manifests clinically as alterations in movement, such as Bradykinesia, rigidity and/or tremor (Gelb et al., Arch. Neurol., 56:33-39, (1999)). Human genetic data have identified genes linked to the development of PD. One of these genes was localized to chromosome 6 using a cohort of juvenile onset patients and identified as Parkin protein (Kitada et al., Nature, 392:605-608 (1998)). Parkin protein is an E3 ligase protein that functions in the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway (UPS) (Shimura, Nature Genetics, 25:302-305 (2000)). The UPS is a major cellular pathway involved in the targeted removal of proteins for degradation and E3 ligases function to identify and label substrates for degradation by cellular proteasomes (Hereshko et al., Ann. Rev. Biochem., 67:425-479 (1998)) or lysosomes (Hicke, Trends in Cell Biology, 9:107-112 (1999)).
Another hallmark of PD is the presence of insoluble proteinaceusus cellular inclusions known as Lewy Bodies. Lewy Bodies are comprised of many proteins, the most prominent being the α-synuclein protein (Spillantini et al., Nature, 388:839-40 (1997)). Point mutations in the α-synuclein gene or multiplications of the gene, result in PD (Polymeropoulos et al., Science, 276:2045-7 (1997); Kruger et al., Nature Genetics, 18:106-8 (1998)).
New therapeutic agents for treating Parkinson's disease are urgently needed. The present invention provides new methods and materials useful for identifying and validating such new therapeutic agents and for other uses.


This invention relates to a capacitor electrode which includes porous layers made of a fiber and/or a whisker containing crystal tungsten oxides. The tungsten oxide fiber and/or whisker contain W18O49 as a main ingredient. The tungsten oxide fiber and/or whisker are made on a substrate. When manufacturing the capacitor electrode the substrate or its precursor is heated in vacuo or in an inactive containing a minute amount of oxygen, thereby completing the fiber and/or whisker.

Up to now, redox (oxidation-reduction) capacitors are popular. One example of such redox capacitors includes an electrode sheet, which is made by supporting an oxide such as manganese on a surface of activated carbon, mixing the activated carbon with conductive carbon or the like, and applying or rolling the mixed carbon onto a power collecting metal. Further, Patent Citation 1 discloses a capacitor in which electrodes are made of porous conductive ceramics prepared by the sol-gel process. Still further, Patent Citation 2 proposes a capacitor electrode which is made by uniformly forming a thin metal oxide film on acetylene black, and applying the thin oxide film onto a power collecting metal which has been mixed with carbon powder or the like.
The capacitor electrode of Patent Citation 1 has minute holes in the unit of nano and a large surface area. However, the conductive oxide of the capacitor electrode has a micromesh structure, so that the capacitor electrode suffers from high internal resistance and insufficient response. If a substrate for strengthening the capacitor electrode has poor conductivity, the capacitor electrode suffers from further increased internal resistance. With Patent Citation 2, the capacitor electrode has a large surface area, but becomes less effective as a whole since the carbon or the like has to be added. In addition, the power collector has to be used. Patent Citation 3 proposes a capacitor electrode which includes amorphous tungsten oxide, and has a large capacity. However, conductivity of a whisker itself is low compared with that of crystal tungsten oxides. Further, cyclic decay resistance of the whisker is low compared with that of the crystal tungsten oxide.
This invention has been contemplated in order to overcome problems of the related art, and is intended to provide a capacitor electrode which has low internal resistance and excellent conductivity, and a method of manufacturing such a capacitor electrode.    Patent Citation 1: Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2002-299164    Patent Citation 2: Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2004-103669    Patent Citation 3: Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2005-252217

Capacitor electrode and method of manufacturing the same


A rotary wing aircraft apparatus has arms extending from a body, and a rotor assembly attached to an end of each arm. Each rotor assembly has a rotor blade releasably attached by a lock mechanism. A clockwise rotor blade is releasably attached to a first rotor assembly by engagement in a clockwise lock mechanism, and a counterclockwise rotor blade is releasably attached to a second rotor assembly by engagement in a counterclockwise lock mechanism. The clockwise rotor blade is engageable only with the clockwise lock mechanism and the counterclockwise rotor blade is engageable only with the counterclockwise lock mechanism and cannot be engaged in the clockwise lock mechanism. A leg extends down from each rotor assembly to support the apparatus on the ground.

Unmanned remote control rotary aircraft have recently become popular for recreation and also in larger and more sophisticated versions for surveillance by military and police personnel. One popular configuration includes a number of arms extending laterally from the aircraft body, with a rotor assembly on the end of each arm. The rotor assemblies sometimes have upper and lower rotors that rotate in opposite directions to avoid exerting torque on the body which would cause it to spin.
Where the rotor assemblies have a single rotor, torque on the body from the rotational motion of the rotors is avoided by having the rotors rotate in opposite directions. The vertical lift is the same, but the torque imparted by rotation in one direction is cancelled out by the rotation in the opposite direction. Where an even number of arms and rotor assemblies is used, the rotational forces cancel each other and the body is substantially stable.
Where an uneven number of arms and rotor assemblies is used, such as in the popular three rotor configuration, two rotors spin in one direction and the third spins in the opposite direction. The rotational axis of the third rotor is then tilted slightly away from vertical so it exerts a horizontal force component that counteracts the torque force exerted by the other rotors, again resulting in a stable body. The degree of tilt can be adjusted by rotating the arm to adjust for varying rotor speeds.
Such multi-rotor unmanned remote control rotary aircraft are disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,052,081 and 8,292,215 to the present inventors Olm et al. To make the aircraft more compact for storage and transport the rotors can be removed and the arms folded into a side by side orientation. Although not shown in the patents, a leg assembly is typically attached to the bottom of the aircraft body, and to support the aircraft on the ground in the necessary orientation for landing and takeoff.


A clock 1000 of the invention includes a dead-weight body, dead-weight body lifting means 100 for lifting the dead-weight body supplied to a lower position to an upper position, a rotation wheel 210 having, at its periphery, plural reception parts 212 which can hold the dead-weight body, and an escapement mechanism which actuates the rotation wheel intermittently. The dead-weight lifting means includes a drive body 110 provided with a spiral drive surface having a horizontal or inclined axis, and a rotation drive source which rotation-drives the drive body around the axis. The dead-weight lifting means is constructed such that the dead-weight body is driven on the drive surface by rotation of the drive body thereby to be translated from the lower position to the upper position. The dead-weight body lifted by the dead-weight lifting means to the upper position is supplied to the upper reception part, whereby the rotation wheel rotates by the predetermined angle. Thereafter, the dead-weight body exhausted from the reception part is returned to the lower position. Hereby, it is possible to provide a novel clock structure suitable for a moving mechanism clock, in which the operation can be performed with smaller drive force than the conventional drive force, consumption energy is small, and appreciation of the mechanism operation is superior.

Generally, various moving mechanism clocks which operate using weight of an object such as water or a ball have been known. For example, a Water-powered Armillary and Celestial Tower constructed in Sun dynasty of China was restored also in Japan, and is exhibited at Gishodo of Lake Suwa, Clockwork Science Museum in Shimosuwa, Suwa-gun, Nagano. In this Water-powered Armillary and Celestial Tower, plural buckets are respectively attached to a peripheral portion of a water wheel (wheel) turnably, and water is poured in one of these buckets, whereby the water wheel turns by weight of water. At this time, as a clocking mechanism of the clock, an escapement mechanism is used, which is formed in combination of plural levers in order to intermittently drive the water wheel (refer to, for example, the following Non-Patent Reference 1).
Further, at a Geneva Clock and Watch Museum located at Geneva, Switzerland, a moving mechanism clock is exhibited. That moving mechanism clock is so constructed that a metal ball is lifted upward by a chain conveyer, this metal ball is put in recess portions provided at the periphery of a rotation wheel one by one, and the rotation wheel is driven by weight of this metal ball. In this moving mechanism clock, gravity of the metal ball is used in place of the constant drive power like a power spring. Further, this moving mechanism clock does not have a particularly novel escapement mechanism but is constructed similarly to the general clocks. [Non Patent Reference 1] "Restoration of Water-Powered Armillary and Celestial Tower, Chinese Astronomical Observation Clock Tower in the 11th century" by Keiji Yamada and Hideo Tsuchiya, published by Shinyosha, 15, Mar., 1997


An insulator for a spark ignition device is disclosed which includes an electrically insulating ceramic core tube having a terminal end, a firing end and an inner bore which extends along a longitudinal bore axis from the terminal end to the firing end and an electrically insulating, ceramic core nose tube having a second outer surface and a second bore where the second outer surface of said ceramic core nose tube is in nested engagement with and directly bonded to the bore of the ceramic core tube proximate the firing end. The insulator also may include a similarly nested and directly bonded shoulder tube on an outer surface of the core tube, or a nested and directly bonded mast tube on an outer surface of the core tube. The ceramics may include alumina-based ceramics, as well other suitable ceramic materials, and the tube may be made from the same ceramic compositions or different ceramic compositions. The invention also includes a method of making the nested tube, directly boded insulators by controlling shrinkage during sintering.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to ceramic insulators, and more particularly to ceramic spark plug insulators and methods of making ceramic spark plug insulators.
2. Related Art
As illustrated in FIG. 1, conventional spark plugs 10 generally utilize a ceramic insulator 12 which is partially disposed within a metal shell 16 and extends axially above the metal shell toward a terminal end 18. A conductive terminal 20 is disposed within a central bore 22 at the terminal end 18. The conductive terminal 20 is part of a conductive center electrode assembly 24 disposed within the central bore 22. At the opposite or firing end 26, a center electrode 28 is disposed within the insulator 12 and has an exposed sparking surface 30 which together with ground electrode 32 disposed on the shell 16 defines a spark gap 34. Many different insulator 12 configurations are used to accommodate a wide variety of terminal configurations, electrode assembly configurations, shell configurations and the like. However, referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, the features of insulator 12 are representative of conventional contemporary spark plug insulators generally.
Insulator 12 is a monolithic ceramic article which is typically made by pressing a blank from spray-dried powder and subsequently grinding a near-net shape insulator preform (which allows for shrinkage) from the blank using a grinding wheel, and then firing the insulator preform to a high temperature sufficient to densify the preform and sinter the powder particles to form the finished insulator. Insulator 12 has a mast portion 36 that extends above shell 16 which is adapted to receive a spark plug boot (not shown) and which has a wall thickness sufficient to provide the necessary mechanical strength to the insulator, as it may experience stresses associated with handling and installation of the spark plug. Mast portion 36 houses a terminal stud 37 in the central bore 22 as shown, and in other configurations (not shown), may also house other portions of center electrode assembly 24. Insulator 12 also includes large shoulder 38 which is used in conjunction with turn-over 40 to retain insulator 12 within metal shell 16 during operation of an engine as pressure associated with the combustion gases presses outwardly against the insulator 12 and center electrode assembly 24. Insulator 12 also has a lower cylindrical portion 42 disposed in metal shell 16 proximate the threaded portion 43 of the shell.
Lower cylindrical portion 42 houses a three part (conductor/suppressor/conductor) glass fired in suppressor seal (FISS) 44 in the central bore 22 as shown, or in other configurations, another portion of center electrode assembly 24. Lower cylindrical portion 42 transitions through small shoulder 45 to a tapered core nose 46 disposed on a lower portion thereof. Small shoulder 45 is operative to engage shoulder 47 in shell 16, and together with large shoulder 38 and turn over 40 (or in other shell configurations (not shown) a preformed flange or shoulder) retains insulator 12 in shell 16. Tapered core nose 46 houses the center electrode 28 which may also include a sparking tip (not shown) as the sparking surface 30. Insulators 12 have a high dielectric strength, high mechanical strength, high thermal conductivity, and resistance to thermal shock sufficient for the high-temperature operating environment of an internal combustion engine.
Spark plug insulators used in internal combustion engines are subjected to high temperature environments in the region of about 1,000° C. In operation, ignition voltage pulses of up to about 40,000 volts are applied through the spark plug to the center electrode, thereby causing a spark to jump the gap between the center and ground electrodes. The purpose of the insulator is to ensure the integrity of the spark path and prevent the voltage pulses from finding other paths to ground, thereby diminishing the sparking performance of the plug. The high voltage and high temperature environment described can either degrade the performance of existing insulator materials or highlight performance limits associated with these materials. For example, the pressing processes leaves relics of the spray-dried powder which are known to have a detrimental effect on dielectric strength of the ceramic, since the cross-sectional area of the pressed blank is not uniform along its length in order to accommodate the shape of the insulator. Density gradients may be present so that some regions of the insulator are of lower density (higher porosity).
Referring again to FIG. 1, density gradients and regions of lower density frequently occur using the pressing methods described above at locations where the cross-sectional thickness of the insulator changes, such as either side of large shoulder region 38, or the region adjacent to small shoulder 45. These regions of reduced density have a lower dielectric strength, hence they are more susceptible to dielectric breakdown. As another example, the grinding processes used to form spark plug insulators remove a large amount of material from the pressed blanks. This material is typically reprocessed into subsequent batches of spray-dried powder, but is also a potential source of contamination. Such contamination can also introduce random, localized regions of reduced dielectric strength within the ceramic materials used for spark plug insulators. As another example, the grinding processes used to form the insulators also leave a relatively rough surface finish on the sintered insulator, which typically necessitates glazing of the terminal end or mast of the insulator, and promotes adhesion of deposits from the combustion process on the firing end.
Many different materials have been used or proposed for use in ceramic spark plug insulators, including various porcelains and metal oxides. Currently, the most commonly used materials are alumina-based ceramic materials, which also typically incorporate various glasses and other alloying constituents. Examples of alumina-based ceramic materials suitable for use as ceramic spark plug insulators include those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,879,260 (Manning) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,169,723 (Walker). The ceramic materials used for the insulator are dielectric materials. Dielectric strength of a material is generally defined as the maximum electric field which can be applied to the material without causing breakdown or electrical puncture thereof. The dielectric strength of spark plug insulators is generally measured in volts per mil (V/mil). A typical value for spark plug RMS dielectric strength for a standard spark plug design used in many applications is on the order of about 400 V/mil at room temperature. Dielectric strength of the insulators used in spark plugs is also a function of temperature. High temperatures cause an increase in the mobility of certain ions allowing current to more easily leak through the ceramic. Any leakage of current leads to localized heating which gradually degrades the resistance of the material to dielectric puncture. It has been observed that resistance of insulators to dielectric breakdown also tends to decrease over the life of a spark plug due to thermal stress on the spark plug cycling under an applied electric field and due to attendant thermal-electrical fatigue thereof. The exact nature of the microstructural and/or compositional changes are not completely understood, but are believed to be associated with localized heating to temperatures sufficient to bring about partial melting of the ceramic material.
As manufacturers continue to increase the complexity and reduce the size of internal combustion engines, spark plug insulators are needed that have a smaller diameter. Currently, size reduction is constrained due to the required dielectric strength of the insulator over the service lifetime of the plug, which is directly related to the thickness required for the walls of the insulator. Another factor limiting size reduction is that more manufacturers are demanding a longer service lifetime from spark plugs such as requesting 100,000 mile, 150,000 mile, and 175,000 mile service lifetimes from spark plugs. The longer the desired service lifetime, the higher the required dielectric strength. Also, the higher the required voltage, the higher required dielectric strength. Previously to increase the service lifetime or dielectric strength of a spark plug the walls of the insulator were increased in thickness. However, the current demand for more compact spark plugs for modern engines prevents or limits the use of thicker walled insulators. Therefore, as engines shrink in size and as longer service lifetimes and higher voltages are needed in spark plugs, a spark plug having an insulator with an increased dielectric strength and a reduced wall thickness and size is needed.
Therefore, for a spark plug insulator of a given size and wall thicknesses, it would be desirable to increase the dielectric strength and thereby reduce the susceptibility to dielectric breakdown during extended periods of service at high voltages and high operating temperatures in order to promote enhanced spark plug, and thus engine, performance. Alternately, for a given performance requirement, it would be desirable to increase the dielectric strength of the insulator material and thereby promote reduction of the size and wall thicknesses of the insulator material, thereby reducing the space envelope associated with the spark plug and enabling use of this space for other purposes.

Ceramic spark plug insulator and method of making


The invention is directed to obtaining a radio controlled timepiece that, in a case when the user who uses it moves from one country or one region to another where the time difference is different, has simplified an operation of correcting the time difference between the countries or regions and an operation of correcting the time difference due to daylight saving time's being executed. To this end, the invention provides a radio controlled timepiece 1 that, in addition to the radio controlled timepiece 1 in the prior art, it further includes offset time difference information storage means 8 that stores an offset time difference between a country where reference time information is formed and a country where a standard radio wave has been received and daylight saving time information storage means 9 that has stored therein for future use information on whether daylight saving time is being executed in the region where the standard radio wave has been received, and local standard time information forming means 10 that, with respect to the reference time information of the standard radio wave that has been received in a particular region, executes calculation processing by using at least either one of offset time difference information with respect to the reference time information corresponding to the particular region and daylight saving time information in the particular region, to thereby form local standard time information in the particular region.

A timepiece that is constructed so that, by receiving a radio wave including time information, the time may automatically be corrected to a correct time has already been put to practical use. Also, radio waves including time information that are used for radio wave correction, such as a "long wave" radio wave, have nowadays been transmitted in a plurality of countries such as Japan, the United States, Germany, Britain, etc.
However, regarding the above-described radio waves including time information, their frequency and transmission data format are different from each other.
On the other hand, the United States of America has four districts (regions) within her country each having a time difference that being different from each other. (For example, in Los Angels, a time that is obtained by subtracting 8 hours from the reception time (UTC time) is the local time (regional time) in that district; and in New York, a time that is obtained by subtracting 5 hours from the reception time (UTC time) is the local time (regional time) in that district.) In spite of this, the radio waves including time information and that are transmitted in U.S.A, is only one radio wave including the universal time information (UTC time)therein and which is transmitted only from the State of Colorado.
For this reason, after the user has received that radio wave, it is necessary for an user to separately perform adjusting operation for a time difference between the UTC time and the local time on the radio controlled timepiece side.
Also, in the United States, daylight saving time is introduced.
Therefore, after the user has received the above-described radio wave, it is necessary for the user to additionally judge at the time when the user has received the radio wave, whether or not daylight saving time has been put into effect and further adjust the above-described time difference once again.
On the other hand, in Japan, two types of radio waves including time information and each having frequency being different from each other, are transmitted, in one region
Accordingly, in a case when an user of the timepiece moves from one country to another different country with a radio controlled timepiece that is equipped with a reception system that is able to receive a plurality of radio waves including time information each being different from each other and each being uniquely to the respective country, performing a lot of complex operations become needed.
For example, in a case when an user moves between the United States and Japan, conventionally, it is necessary for the user to perform time setting operation by judging in which time zone the user is staying now (for example, by judging whether the user is in Japan, or Los Angels, or in New York)
In addition thereto, with linking this zone setting operation, a name of a country where the reception is made and an radio wave that is to be received in that country, are selected and fixed (note that, when Japan is selected, only Japanese radio waves are received.).
In addition, in a case when the radio controlled timepiece is used in a country where daylight saving time is carried out, a setting operation for the daylight saving time becomes separately needed. (Although the daylight saving time can also be corrected by receiving the relevant radio wave, when the reception is impossible and manual setting is needed, the setting operation for daylight saving time becomes separately needed in addition to the setting operation for the time zone.)
Therefore, for example, in a case when an user has moved from Japan to the United States of America where the daylight saving time is carried out, two separate operations of performing the setting operation for a zone plus the setting operation for the daylight saving time become needed. So the user feels inconvenience in doing so.
On the other hand, in a Japanese official gazette of Japanese Patent No. 3868465, there is described a method of performing an automatic correction of the displayed time of a timepiece using a time code signal that is transmitted through an radio wave used for a radio receiver. More specifically, in order to automatically correct the time information of a movable timepiece, it is described that more than one frequencies of radio waves with which a time signal is transmitted, are previously registered with the respective zone information and in a destination area where the timepiece has been moved, an operation for correcting time is performed using the corresponding frequency that was registered in the respective destination area.
Also, in a Japanese official gazette of Japanese unexamined Patent publication (KOKAI) No. Hei-5-19071, there is described a timepiece that displays a universal time. In more detail, there is described a timepiece that is constructed so that a universal time can be calculated from local standard time information and a time difference information between that time information and that universal time and there may be displayed this calculated time.
However, regarding the above-described prior arts, any of them doesn't disclose a construction which, in a globalized radio controlled timepiece, enables the user simply to perform the time difference adjustment that includes a time difference based on the daylight saving time being executed when the user moves.
On the other hand, in a radio controlled timepiece, as described above, that receives a standard radio wave including time information with a minimized antenna and automatically performs time correction, although it is possible to correctly display the time information included in the standard radio wave that has been received, such function has also aspects of inconvenience as well. For example, even when, in order for the user of a radio controlled timepiece to obtain some advanced margin to his scheduled time, the user wishes to try to display time with giving some prescribed advanced time from the standard time that received, this was followed by the following inconvenience. Namely, in a radio controlled timepiece, since when a standard radio wave has been received, the time of the timepiece is automatically corrected to the standard time that has been received, the user has a difficulty of displaying time with advancing with the prescribed margin of time relatively to the standard time or delaying in the same way.
To solve the above-described points of problem, as illustrated in, for example, Japanese official gazette of Japanese un-examined Patent Publication (KOKAI) No. 2001-13280 or Japanese official gazette of Japanese un-examined Patent publication (KOKAI) No. Hei-4-83196, a timepiece has been proposed which comprises a time information reception means that receives a radio wave including time information, an input means that inputs a time difference information showing a difference between time information that has been received and time information that is displayed, with one minute as an units a storage means that stores the time difference information, and a time correction means that corrects the displayed time information according to the time difference information.
According to the timepiece or information apparatus that is disclosed in each of the above-described known techniques, it is possible to advance or delay the time that is being displayed relatively to the time information that has been received, along the user's intention.
Therefore, not only does it have a high reliability on the display of time but it is also possible to arbitrarily display the time that the user wants to display. Therefore, the user can use it as a timepiece that is easy to use.
However, in the above-described timepiece or information apparatus, since the setting of the time difference relative to the time information is performed with an unit of one minute, in a case when the inputting operation for the time difference information is carried out with an unit of one minute, it is certainly possible to input this information with a relatively simpler manner. However, in a case when the time difference information exceeds an hour, the number of times of the inputting operations becomes increased, resulting in the operation becoming very troublesome. Especially, in a case when a person who uses the timepiece has moved, within an area where a standard radio wave is used, from one country or region to another country or region each having the respective time difference being different from each other, there arises the necessity for correcting the time to the standard time as used in that country or region to which the user moved. However, since the minimum unit of time in which a time difference changes is usually one hour, when the time difference information is input, it is necessary to input the time difference information at least for exceeding one hour.
Therefore, an inputting operation for that information with an unit of one minute, makes this inputting operation troublesome, resulting in causing operating efficiency of the timepiece to have significant problem.
Also, in a case when it is unable to receive a standard radio wave including time information, it is necessary to manually perform the time correction. However, in the timepiece proposed as described above, because no consideration is taken to the time correction in a case when it is unable to receive a standard radio wave including time information, if, for example, no reception of a relevant standard radio wave could be made by any reason, it becomes possible that the timepiece will be unable to perform a function as a timepiece. This shows that this timepiece includes a problem over its basic function.
An object of the invention is to provide a radio controlled timepiece that eliminates the above-described drawbacks in the past radio controlled timepiece and that, in a case when the user who uses that radio controlled timepiece moves between countries or regions each having the respective time difference being different from each other, eliminates the necessity of the user separately performing two different operations for correcting the time difference existing between two of those countries of regions and for correcting the time difference based on the daylight saving time as executed, and thereby enables to complete all necessary the time-difference correction or adjustment with one radio wave operation.
Another object of the invention is to provide a radio controlled timepiece that, in a case when the setting operation for the time difference is performed in connection with the user's moving from one country or region to another where the time difference is different from each other, enables for the user to perform the setting operation easily and further, even in a case when the user is unable to receive a standard radio wave, enables him to simply perform correction of the time information of his timepiece with his manual operation so as to provide a radio controlled timepiece having high operating efficiency and excellent reliability.

Radio controlled timepiece and method of controlling the same


A method and system for translating peer-to-peer access across multiple Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) host bridges within a data-processing system are disclosed. In accordance with the method and system of the present invention, a processor and a system memory are connected to a system bus. A first and at least a second PCI local buses are also connected to the system bus via a first PCI host bridge and a second PCI host bridge, respectively. The two PCI local buses have bus transaction protocols that are different from those of the system bus. At least one PCI device is connected to each of the two PCI local buses, and shares data with the processor and the system memory. In addition, each PCI device shares data with the other PCI device as peer-to-peer devices across multiple PCI host bridges. A sequence of transactions is controlled through the two PCI host bridges to prevent a deadlock condition by not allowing a subsequent peer-to-peer write request destined for one of the two PCI local buses to be blocked from making progress through the two PCI host bridges.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and system for data processing in general and, in particular, to a method and system for handling
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) peer-to-peer accesses within a computer system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for translating PCI peer-to-peer access across multiple PCI host bridges within a computer system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A computer system typically includes several types of buses, such as system bus, local buses, and peripheral buses. Various electronic circuit devices and components are connected with each other via these buses such that intercommunication may be possible among all of these devices and components.
In general, a central processing unit (CPU) is attached to a system bus, over which the CPU communicates directly with a system memory that is also attached to the system bus. A local bus is intended for connecting certain highly integrated peripheral components on the same bus as the CPU. One such local bus is known as the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. Under the PCI local bus standard, peripheral components can directly connect to a PCI local bus without the need for glue logic. Thus, PCI provides a bus standard on which high-performance peripheral devices, such as graphics devices and hard disk drives, can be coupled to the CPU, thereby permitting these high-performance peripheral devices to avoid the general access latency and the bandwidth constraints that are associated with a peripheral bus. A peripheral bus such as an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, is for connecting various peripheral devices to the computer system. These peripheral devices typically include input/output (I/O) devices such as a keyboard, floppy drives, and printers.
Generally, each system bus, local bus, and peripheral bus utilizes an independent set of protocols (or rules) to conduct data transfers between various devices attached to it. Each of these protocols is designed into a bus directly and is commonly referred to as the "architecture" of the bus. In a data transfer between different bus architectures, data being transferred from the first bus architecture may not be in a form that is usable or intelligible by the receiving second bus architecture. Accordingly, a mechanism is developed for "translating" data that are required to be transferred from one bus architecture to another. This translation mechanism is normally contained in a hardware device in the form of a bus-to-bus bridge (or interface) through which the two different types of buses are connected.
Incidentally, various bus-to-bus bridges have been designed to match the communication protocol of one bus with that of another in order to permit system-wide communications between devices on different buses. For example, a bus-to-bus bridge connecting between a system bus and a PCI local bus is called a PCI host bridge. The PCI host bridge contains all the logic and hardware for translating data communications between the system bus and the PCI local bus, and ensures that data is transferred between these two buses intelligibly.
In a PCI-based system where there are multiple PCI host bridges, there needs to be a way, however, for a PCI host bridge to differentiate as to whether a PCI device, during a direct memory access (DMA) request, is trying to access the system memory or another PCI device. Further, if the requesting PCI device is trying to access another PCI device, i.e., a peer-to-peer access, the PCI host bridge also needs to determine whether the other PCI device is under the same PCI host bridge as the requesting PCI device or under a different PCI host bridge.
A peer-to-peer access typically has some different characteristics than a DMA access to the system memory. Some of these differences can be attributed to the fact that an access to a PCI memory may have side effects depending on how the access is performed, such as the order of the access, the width of the access, etc. For example, prefetching more data on a read operation than what a requesting PCI device is requesting can cause a problem. This is because a read access to addresses on a PCI device may cause side effects, and accessing data outside of what is requested may also have undesirable side effects. In addition, a PCI local bus may allow some unusual operations that are typically not supported by the system interconnect to which the PCI host bridge is attached. As an example, the PCI local bus allows discontiguous bytes to be accessed within a single 4-byte or 8-byte access. If this discontiguous access were to be allowed for peer-to-peer transactions, and if the system interconnect does not support such discontiguous transaction without breaking up the transaction (which is a high probability), and if this discontiguous transaction causes different side effects to the transaction when broken up, then the peer to-peer transaction would probably not function properly when such is attempted to perform across multiple PCI host bridges. Thus, in order to support peer-to-peer transactions across multiple PCI host bridges, additional requirements are necessary. Some of these requirements affect the way a PCI host bridge operates, and some put certain restrictions on the transactions that are allowed by a peer-to-peer access. The additional rules and requirements for supporting PCI peer-to-peer access across multiple PCI host bridges are the subject matter of the present disclosure.

Method and system for translating peripheral component interconnect (PCI) peer-to-peer access across multiple PCI host bridges within a computer system

International Business Machines Corporation


The present disclosure includes sensing device embodiments. One sensing device includes a heater layer, a resistance detector layer, constructed and arranged to indicate a temperature value based upon a correlation to a detected resistance value, an electrode layer, and a sensing layer.

The present disclosure is related generally to the field of temperature sensors. More particularly, the present disclosure is related to temperature sensors for use on sensing devices.
In some applications, sensing devices are constructed using a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) resistive sensing material on a thermally isolated microbridge structure (BRIDGE), for example, as the structure for a MOSBRIDGE fire sensor. As will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, resistance circuits can be used to measure resistance and that resistance can be indicative of various qualities affecting the circuit.
When a fire starts, the combustion activity produces gases that can be detected by sensing devices. These fire sensing devices are used to measure a change in the gases around the sensing device. This can be beneficial, in some situations, for example where a change in gas can be detected before other signs of fire have occurred in the vicinity, like particulates production in smoke or a significant increase in temperature.
For example, with respect to fire sensing, a MOSBRIDGE based sensing device can be used to interact with gases around the MOSBRIDGE sensor. The sensor can be fabricated from materials that interact with the gases such that some of the gases produced can change the resistance of the material forming the sensor (e.g., the MOS of the MOSBRIDGE).
This change in resistance can be used to identify a changing gas environment around the fire sensor thereby indicating that a fire is changing the gas environment. However, heating of the sensor material can also create a similar resistance condition, and may lead to erroneous fire indication, in some instances.
Typically such devices utilize a material that needs to be heated in order to optimize its sensitivity. In order to heat the material, such devices typically utilize a platinum heating element. One approach to identifying the temperature of the sensing material is to monitor the heating element to determine the temperature of the sensor. However, in some situations, electro-migration from the temperature sensor may disable or destroy the heater. This is particularly true in situations where the devices are miniaturized. For example, a sensor with an area of around 20 microns may have such characteristics although this disclosure is not limited to such sizes.
To remedy this issue, Nickel-Chromium heaters could be used as a substitute for the platinum heaters, but these heaters have low temperature coefficients of resistivity and, therefore, monitoring the heater's resistivity to determine temperature of the sensor may be problematic in some situations.
In designs, the heater can be fabricated having a number of conducting legs extending away from the central portion of the device. Accordingly, these legs provide a portion of the resistance attributable to the heater layer and therefore the heater layer has only a portion of its resistance in the area proximate to the sensing material (e.g., central heated zone of the device) and so changes in the temperature of the heater may not be accurate.
Additionally, this central zone can be small (e.g., 20 microns×20 microns) in some device configurations and, as such, temperature changes can occur quickly thereby making measurement of the heater unreliable in some applications. However, having such a small sensing area can allow for the sensing device to operate under a low power level (e.g., under 10 milliwatts, in some applications) versus other larger devices and therefore, such devices could be useful.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A chip holder and a mounting device for the installation of a chip holder in cutting-tool bodies. The chip holder includes a male thread and one or more through, suitably peripheral recesses for accommodating torque-transferring fingers included in the mounting device, as well as for allowing passage of cooling liquid through a bore formed in the tool body in which bore the holder is placed. The mounting device includes one or more torque-transferring fingers, which have looking hooks in order to provisionally clamp the chip holder upon installation. Furthermore, the invention relates to a cutting-tool unit having an installed chip holder.

Within the modern technique of cutting or chip removing machining of metallic work pieces, tool systems are utilized that include a large number of tools and tool bodies having different properties and different work tasks. Complete turning, milling and drilling tools, as well as individual tool bodies, may be coupled together with other tool bodies, e.g., adapters and extension details, in order to form complete tools. For this purpose, the individual tool bodies are formed with coupling members included in a universal coupling system common to the entire tool set, e.g., of the type that is commercially available under the trade name COROMANT CAPTO®. In this connection, the different tool bodies generally are formed with through bores, in which there is a female thread for the engagement with coupling details. This bore may also be utilized to feed a cooling liquid or fluid to the active cutting inserts of the tool, with the purpose of cooling and/or lubricating the same. The different tool bodies are stored in an inactive state in at least one magazine adjacent to the machine tool in question, and are picked out individually from the magazine by means of a tool changer, when they are to be mounted in the machine for active operation. The same tool changer also restores the tool body to the magazine after finished operation. In order to make it possible to distinguish different tool bodies, and in order to keep control of the status of the individual tool body, information-carrying chips are built into the tool bodies. More precisely, the chips are mounted in the female thread of the bore mentioned by way of introduction.
Previously, the mounting of the chips has been effected by two washers provided with threads, one of which serves as a stop for the chip, and the other one as a lock member for the chip. Thus, a first washer is screwed in a distance into the narrow section of the bore that has a female thread, in addition to which a chip is fixed or locked by a subsequent locking washer. However, for a plurality of reasons, this mounting technique is inappropriate and troublesome. Thus, it is vital that the chip is located in a predetermined position inside the bore, because otherwise difficulties arise in reading the chip information, since this is carried out by a reader placed in a predetermined position adjacent to the machine. Therefore, in practice, the chip should be located in the immediate vicinity of the shoulder between the narrow and wide sections of the bore, however without projecting from the shoulder surface. Since the internal bore is not visible from the outside of the tool body, the screw-in of the first stop washer, which determines the final, axial position of the chip in the bore, is fussy and difficult to master. If the stop washer is screwed in too far, the chip is located in an erroneous position. Another disadvantage of the known mounting technique is that not only the two washers, but also the chip requires a central hole in order to allow the cooling liquid to pass through the tool body. However, since the narrow section of the bore has a limited cross-section area, the possibilities of constructing the chip and the washers with desirably wide holes are limited. Thus, the manufacturers of the chips have been compelled to limit the size of the central hole in such a way that the cross-section area thereof becomes smaller than the cross-section area of the outlet from which the cooling liquid is fed into the tool body. In other words, the chip and the appurtenant washers form an obstacle to the free flow of the cooling liquid through the tool body.
The present invention aims at overcoming the above-mentioned problems by providing a new chip holder, as well as an expedient mounting device for the mounting of such a chip holder in a tool body. Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide a chip holder that allows the information-carrying chip to be located in a reliable way in a correct, predetermined position, in which an external reader can read the chip information in a distinct and reliable way. It is also an object to provide a chip holder that has a good capability of letting cooling liquid pass in order to, in such a way, reduce or eliminate the flow-obstructing effect of the chip. It is also an object to provide a chip holder that is simple and inexpensive to manufacture, and that increases the latitude to construct the proper chip in an optimal way. The chip holder should also be simple to mount by means of an expedient mounting device.
The invention also aims at providing an expedient device for the mounting of the chip holder according to the invention. In this aspect, an object of the invention is to provide a device that in a reliable way ensures that the chip holder gets a precise, predetermined position in the narrow section of the cooling-liquid bore. An additional object is to provide a mounting device that allows a simple, quick and comfortable mounting of the chip holder, in spite of the fact that the same is not visible from the outside of the tool body.

Cutting-tool unit having a chip, a chip holder, and a device for mounting a chip holder


A non-transitory, computer-readable recording medium stores a program of reinforcement learning by a state-value function. The program causes a computer to execute a process including calculating a temporal difference (TD) error based on an estimated state-value function, the TD error being calculated by giving a perturbation to each component of a feedback coefficient matrix that provides a policy; calculating based on the TD error and the perturbation, an estimated gradient function matrix acquired by estimating a gradient function matrix of the state-value function with respect to the feedback coefficient matrix for a state of a controlled object, when state variation of the controlled object in the reinforcement learning is described by a linear difference equation and an immediate cost or an immediate reward of the controlled object is described in a quadratic form of the state and an input; and updating the feedback coefficient matrix using the estimated gradient function matrix.

A technique of reinforcement learning has traditionally been present according to which, based on an immediate cost or an immediate reward given to a controlled object corresponding to an input for the controlled object, a value function representing an accumulated cost or an accumulated reward of the controlled object is improved to thereby improve the policy for the accumulated cost or the accumulated reward to be optimized. The value function is a state-action-value function (a Q function), a state-value function (a V function), or the like.
For example, a technique of continuous actor-critic learning automaton (Cacla) is present as a prior art. According to the technique, a perturbation is added to an input, a temporal difference (TD) error relative to the input is calculated, and a feedback coefficient matrix that provides a policy is updated based on the TD error. For examples, refer to S. J. Bradtke, B. E. Ydstie and A. G. Barto, "Adaptive linear quadratic control using policy iteration", In Proc. of the 1994 American Control Conference, pp. 3475-3479, Baltimore, USA, 1994; D. Silver, G. Lever, N. Heess, T. Degris, D. Wierstra and M. Riedmiller, "Deterministic policy gradient algorithms", In Proc. of the 31st International Conference on Machine Learning, pp. 387-395, 2014; H. Van Hassett, Reinforcement learning in continuous state and action spaces, In Reinforcement Learning (pp. 207-251), Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 2012; L. Busoniu, R. Babuska, B. De Schutter, and D. Ernst, Reinforcement Learning and Dynamic Programming Using Function Approximators, CRC press, 2010; M. P. Deisenroth, G. Neumann and J. Peters, "A Survey on Policy Search for Robotics", Foundations and Trends in Robotics, Vol. 2, No. 1-2, pp. 1-142, 2013.

Apparatus, method and recording medium for controlling system using temporal difference error

OKINAWA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL CORPORATION


The method and apparatus rapidly separate drugs and their metabolites from saliva and, in a continuous sequence of steps, rapidly detect, identify and quantify them through surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

Determining safe and effective dosages for chemotherapy drugs has been and remains a significant challenge in the treatment of cancer, particularly because overdose can be fatal (see Ames B N, Gold L S, Willet W C, "The causes and prevention of cancer", Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 90, 7915-7922, 1995; Dollinger M, Rosenbaum E H, Cable G, Everyone's Guide to Cancer Therapy. Kansas City, Mo.: Somerville House Books; 1994). Intercalating drugs, which are the most widely used chemotherapy drugs, prevent cell growth through incorporation into DNA and RNA, which causes improper replication of cancerous cells and incomplete biochemical synthesis. The medicinal success of intercalating drugs is based upon the higher rate of cancer cell multiplication, as compared to that of normal cells. Nevertheless, normal cell growth is also adversely affected, and that is especially true of those cells that involve rapid cell turn-over, such as blood cell production in bone marrow. These dangerous side-effects preclude the use of clinical trials to establish statistical bases for dosages, which are therefore usually derived from knowledge obtained from experience gained with limited sets of previously treated patients.
A secondary approach for determining safe and effective dosage is to monitor metabolism of the drug during administration, with concentrations being adjusted accordingly. Such information can be extremely beneficial and important, since the patient's genetic makeup and nutritional habits can strongly influence the pharmacokinetics of a drug (Ames B N, "Micronutrients prevent cancer and delay aging", Toxicol. Lett. 102-103; 5-18, 1998). Unfortunately, current practices require the use of 10-20 mL of blood per analysis (Goodman M, Riley M B. "Chemotherapy: Principles of administration" in Cancer Nursing: Principles and Practice, 4th ed, Eds: Groenwald S L, Frogge M H, Goodman G, Yarbro C H, Jones and Bartlett: Boston, 1997), and the multiple samples that are required for profiling pharmacokinetics may further jeopardize the patient's health; consequently, they are rarely performed (Cone, E T, Jenkins A J. Handbook of Analytical Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Toxicology, Eds. Wong S H Y, Sunshine I, Chapter 18, CRC Press: New York, 1997).
Saliva analysis has long been considered an attractive potential alternative to the approaches referred to above, and recent research has shown that drug metabolism is often equally represented in saliva as it is in blood plasma, typically at microgram/mL concentrations (van Warmerdam L J, van Tellingen O, ten Bokkel Huinink W W, Rodenhuis S, Maes R A, Bijnen J H, "Monitoring carboplatin concentrations in saliva: a replacement for plasma ultrafiltrate measurements?", Ther Drug Monit, 17:5, 465-470, 1995; Takahashi T, Fujiwara Y, Sumiyoshi H, Isobe T, Yamaoka N, Yamakido M, "Salivary drug monitoring of irinotecan and its active metabolite in cancer patients", Cancer Chemother Pharmacol, 40, 449-52, 1997; de Jonge M J, J V Verwiej, W J Loos, B K Dallaire, A Sparreboom, "Clinical pharmacokinetics of encapsulated oral 9-amino-camptothecin in plasma and saliva", Clin Pharmacol Ther, 65, 491-499, 1999; Joulia J M, Pinguet F, Ychou M, Duffour J, Astre C, Bressolle F (1999) Eur J Cancer 35:296). Analysis of saliva provides a highly desirable option, in that it is non-invasive, reduces the risk of HIV infection, is readily obtained and is relatively easy to analyze chemically. The composition of saliva is 99.5% water, and the concentrations of interfering physiological chemicals are typically at least 100 times lower than in blood plasma or urine (Chamberlain, J., The Analysis of Drugs in Biological Fluids, 2nd Ed., CRC Press (1995). Current techniques for saliva analysis, however, like that of blood, require the use of samples of 10 to 20 mL in order to enable chemical separation and detection of drugs and their metabolites, and such quantities are difficult to obtain or generate, as a practical matter.
One approach that is effectively used for measuring chemicals, at concentrations similar to those at which chemotherapy drugs are present in biological fluids, employs surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The SERS method involves the absorption of incident laser photons within nanoscale metal structures, to generate surface plasmons, which then couple with nearby molecules (the analyte) to thereby enhance the efficiency of Raman scattering, by six orders of magnitude or more (Jeanmaire D L, Van Duyne R P, "Surface Raman Spectroelec-trochemistry", J. Electroanal. Chem., 84, 1-20 (1977); Weaver M J, Farquharson S, Tadayyoni M A, "Surface-enhancement factors for Raman scattering at silver electrodes: Role of adsorbate-surface interactions and electrode structure", J. Chem. Phys., 82, 4867-4874 (1985)). In addition to sensitivity, the rich molecular vibrational information provided by Raman scattering yields exceptional selectivity and allows virtually any chemical to be identified while also distinguishing multiple chemicals in mixtures (see Garrel R L, "Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy," Analytical Chemistry, 61, 401A-411A (1989); Storey J M E, Barber T E, Shelton R D, Wachter E A, Can-on K T, Jiang Y "Applications of Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) to Chemical Detection", Spectroscopy, 10(3), 20-25 (1995)).
Four methods have become common in the practice of generating surface-enhanced Raman scattering: (1) the use of activated electrodes in electrolytic cells (see for example Jeanmaire or Weaver above); (2) the use of activated silver and gold colloid reagents (Kerker, M., O. Siiman, L. A. Bumm, D. S. Wang, "Surface-enhanced Raman Scattering of citrate ion adsorbed on colloidal silver," Applied Optics, 19, 3253-3255 (1980); Angel, S. M., E. F. Katz, D. D. Archibold, L. T. Ein, D. E. Honigs, "Near Infrared Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. Part II: Copper and gold colloids," Applied Spectroscopy, 43, 367 (1989)); (3) the use of activated silver and gold substrates (Seki., H., "Surface-enhanced Raman Scattering of pyridine on different silver surfaces," J. Chemical Physics, 76, 4412-4418 (1982) or Li, Y.-S., T. Vo-Dinh, D. L. Stokes, Y. Wang, "Surface-Enhanced Raman Analysis of p-Nitroaniline on Vacuum Evaporation and Chemical Deposited Silver-Coated Alumina Substrates", Applied Spectroscopy, 46, 1354 (1992)); and (4) the use of sol-gels doped with silver or gold particles (Farquharson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,623,977, and corresponding International Application Publication No. WO 01/33189 A2, which are commonly owned herewith and the entire specification of which United States patent is hereby incorporated by reference thereto).
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering measurements have been reported for numerous drugs, including sulfa-drugs (Sutherland W S, Lasema, J J, Angebranndt, M J, Winefordner, J D "Surface-Enhanced Raman Analysis of Sulfa Drugs on Colloidal Silver Dispersion," Analytical Chemistry, 62, 689-693 (1990)), abused drugs (Perez R, Ruperez A, Laserna J J, "Evaluation of silver substrates for surface-enhanced Raman detection of drugs banned in sports practices," Analytical Chemica Acta, 376, 255-263, 1998; Carter J C, Brewer W E, Angel S M "Raman spectroscopy for the in situ identification of cocaine and selected adulterants," Applied Spectroscopy, 54, 18761881 (2000), and chemotherapy drugs (Rivas L, Murza A, Sanchez-Cortes S, Garcia-Ramos J V, "Adsorption of acridine drugs on silver: surface-enhanced resonance Raman evidence of the existence of different adsorption sites," Vibrational Spectroscopy, 25, 19-28, 2001); Nabiev I R, Morjani H, Manfait M, "Selective analysis of antitumor drug interaction with living cells as probed by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy," European Biophysics Journal, 19, 311-316 (1991); Fabriciova G, Sanchez-Cortez S, Garcia-Ramos J V, Miskovsky P, "Joint application of micro-Raman and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy to the interaction study of the antitumoral anthraquinone drugs danthron and quinzarin with albumins," J Raman Spectrosc 35 384-389(2004)).
In most of the measurements made in connection with the foregoing, SERS spectra were obtained to demonstrate the ability to identify small quantities of illegal drugs (sulfa-drugs, banned sports drugs, and cocaine) or to elucidate drug structure and surface interactions in binding (acridine, danthron, etc.). In several studies the ability to analyze drugs in urine or plasma by SERS has been suggested, but not successfully performed (Ruperez A, Lasema J J, "Surface-enhanced Raman spectrometry of triamterene on a silver substrate by the nitric acid etching method," Talanta, 44, 213-220 (1997); Farquharson S, Lee Y H "Trace drug analysis by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy," SPIE 4200: 89-95, (2000); Eliasson C, Lore A, Murty K V G K, Josefso M, Kail M, Abrahamsson J, Abrahamsson K, "Multivariate evaluation of doxorubicin surface-enhanced Raman spectra," Spectrochimica Acta Part A 57: 1907-1915 (2001)). In the work of Farquharson and Lee, the SERS spectrum of a urine sample from a chemotherapy patient was reported but, due to the presence of dominating obscuring peaks (e.g., of uric acid and creatinine) in the spectra, no drug was identified or quantified. In any event, no known prior art describes or suggests the use of saliva to detect drugs and/or their metabolites by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, albeit papers recently published do allude to such methodologies (Gift A, Shende C, Inscore F, Maksymiuk P, and Farquharson S, "Five minute analysis of chemotherapy drugs and metabolites in saliva: Evaluating Dosage," SPIE 5261: 135-141 (2004); Farquharson S, Shende C, Inscore F, Maksymiuk P, and Gift A, "Analysis of 5-fluorouracil in saliva using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy," J Raman Spectrosc, accepted (2004); Farquharson, S, Inscore, F E, Maksymiuk, P, Gift, A, Shende, C, "Medical applications of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy," Analytical Bioanalytical Chemistry, submitted, September 2004).

SERS method for rapid pharmacokinetic analysis of drugs in saliva


The present application discloses an OTP memory. A cell structure includes a first active region and a second active region that intersect vertically; an EDNMOS is formed in the first active region, and a PMOS is formed in the second active region; a body portion of a channel region of the PMOS is formed a drift region of the EDNMOS, a first polysilicon gate of the EDNMOS serves as a control gate, and a second polysilicon gate of the PMOS serves as a floating gate; and the PMOS is programmed by means of hot carriers generated in the drift region of the EDNMOS. The present application further discloses a method for manufacturing an OTP memory. In the present application, high-speed writing can be implemented.

The OTP memory is a common non-volatile memory (NVM) and is primarily applied in the aspect of embedded NVMs with limited density and limited performance. The conventional NVMs such as the electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), the SONOS, and the embedded flash memory (E-Flash) are expensive. The embedded NVM technology by which the OTP memory is compatible with the CMOS is a successful solution in the current industry and is becoming more widely applied from the bit level in analog technology fine-tuning applications to the kilobit level of data or code storage.
There are many types of structural designs for OTP memory cells, including the following three representative types:
The first type is a capacitor coupling type: FIG. 1A is a schematic view of components of an existing first type OTP memory, and FIG. 1B is a schematic view of a layout corresponding to FIG. 1A. The cell structure of the existing first type OTP memory adopts a transistor 2 and a floating gate capacitor 1 to implement the basic programming and charge storage functions of the OTP memory. One side of the dashed line BB′ in FIG. 1B corresponds to the floating gate capacitor 1, and the other side corresponds to the transistor 2. The polysilicon gate of the transistor 2 and the top electrode of the floating gate capacitor 1 share the same polysilicon layer 3. The active region 4 corresponding to the source-drain region and the channel region of the transistor 2 is isolated from the active region 4 corresponding to the bottom electrode of the floating gate capacitor 1 by means of the field oxide. A contact hole 5 is used to lead out the electrode of the device, e.g., the source, drain, and gate of the transistor 2, and the lower electrode of the floating gate capacitor 1. The existing first type OTP memory has an excessively large memory cell area due to the existence of the floating gate coupling capacitor, which is not conducive to high-density applications at the kilobit level.
The second type is a series transistor type: FIG. 2 is a schematic structural view of an existing second type OTP memory. The cell structure of the existing second type OTP memory is a one-time programmable device monolithic structure formed by two PMOS transistors 6 and 7 connected in series. The first PMOS transistor 6 serves as a gate transistor, and the second PMOS transistor 7 serves as a memory cell of the device. Both the source region and the drain region of the first PMOS transistor 6 are formed by a P+ region, the drain region of the first PMOS transistor 6 and the source region of the second PMOS transistor 7 share the same region, and the source region of the first PMOS transistor 6 is connected to the source line SL, and the drain region of the second PMOS transistor 7 is formed by a P+ region and is connected to the bit line BL. The gate structure of the first PMOS transistor 6 is formed by stacking a gate dielectric layer such as a gate oxide layer and a polysilicon gate, the polysilicon gate of the first PMOS transistor 6 is a control gate (CG) and is connected to the word line WL, and the polysilicon gate of the first PMOS transistor 6 is represented by CG in FIG. 2. The gate structure of the second PMOS transistor 7 is formed by stacking a gate dielectric layer such as a gate oxide layer and a polysilicon gate, the polysilicon gate of the second PMOS transistor 7 is a floating gate (FG), and the polysilicon gate of the second PMOS transistor 7 is represented by FG in FIG. 2. During programming, the voltage difference between the word line WL and the source line SL makes the first PMOS transistor 6 conducting, for example, the voltage of the source line SL is 5V, and the voltage of the word line WL is 0V; and the voltage 0V of the bit line BL results in a hot carrier effect when the drain current of the first PMOS transistor 6 flows below the floating gate, and then hot carriers are injected into the floating gate, thereby implementing programming of the second PMOS transistor 7. The threshold voltage of the second PMOS transistor 7 is changed after the programming.
The third type is a dielectric breakdown type: FIG. 3 is a schematic structural view of an existing third type OTP memory, including a channel region 101 formed in an active region and isolated from the active region by means of a field oxide such as a shallow trench field oxide 102.
The gate structure includes a gate oxide layer and a polysilicon gate 104, and the gate oxide layer is laterally divided into a thick gate oxide layer 103a and a thin gate oxide layer 103b.
A side wall 105 is formed on the side of the polysilicon gate 104.
A drain region 106 is formed in the active region and is self-aligned with the side of the side wall 105 on the side of the polysilicon gate 104 close to the thick gate oxide layer 103a. The drain region 106 further includes a lightly doped drain (LDD) region, and the lightly doped drain region is self-aligned with the side of the polysilicon gate 104 close to the thick gate oxide layer 103a.
The drain region 106 is connected to the bit line BL by means of a contact hole 107, and the polysilicon gate 104 is connected to the word line WL.
In the structure shown in FIG. 3, since the thickness of the thin gate oxide layer 103b is relatively small, the thin gate oxide layer 103b is broken down during the programming.

OTP memory and method for making the same

Shanghai Huahong Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation


A safety system is provided for an anhydrous ammonia nurse tank (4) pulled by a tractor (1) with a tool bar applicator (2). The system includes a safety valve (10), and a breakaway coupling or connector (12) along a flexible hose (11) from the nurse tank to the applicator. The safety shutdown valve (10) closes in response to a break in the electrical connector in the event of a pull away or manual activation of a safety switch.

Various types of emergency shutoff systems have been proposed, including the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,036,441. The system disclosed in the '441 patent allows an operator to close off a line in the event of a leak, and automatically shuts the system down in the event of a nurse tank breakaway. Manual valve closure is thus permitted by the operator.
The prior art also includes valves with a "cam over in line" feature, as embodied in the Fisher Model C 407-10 internal valve. An excess flow feature of the valve enhances the unreliability of excess flow shutoff valves, so that the valve closes in response to a leak condition. One problem with this valve design is that errors in piping the system may result in "leaks" of varying magnitude that may undesirably result in closing the excess flow valve.
The disadvantages of the prior art are overcome by the present invention, and an improved emergency shutoff system and method are hereinafter disclosed.