A method of manufacturing a field emission device comprises: sequentially forming cathodes and a light blocking layer on a substrate, and patterning the light blocking layer to form blocking layer holes; sequentially forming an insulating layer and a gate material layer on the light blocking layer, and patterning the gate material layer to form gate electrodes in which gate electrode holes are formed; coating a photoresist on the gate electrodes, and exposing and developing the photoresist to form resist holes inside the gate electrode holes; isotropically etching portions of the insulating layer exposed through the resist holes to form insulating layer holes; etching portions of the gate electrodes exposed by the insulating layer holes to form gate holes, and removing the photoresist; and forming emitters on the cathode electrodes exposed by the blocking layer holes.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a field emission device and, more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a stable and reliable field emission device.
2. Related Art
Field emission devices emit electrons from an emitter formed on a cathode by forming a strong electric field around the emitter. Field emission devices are used in a wide range of applications including field emission displays (FEDs) which are flat panel displays. FEDs produce an image by colliding electrons emitted from a field emission device with a phosphor layer formed on an anode. Since FEDs are only a few centimeters thick and feature a wide viewing angle, low power consumption and low manufacturing costs, FEDs together with liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma display panels (PDPs) are attracting attention as the next generation of display devices.
Field emission devices can also be used in backlight units (BLU) of LCDs. LCDs display an image on a front surface by selectively transmitting light emitted by a light source disposed at the rear side of an LCD panel. Examples of the light source which can be disposed at the rear side of an LCD panel include a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL), an external electrode fluorescent lamp (EEFL), and a light emitting diode (LED). Besides these, a field emission type backlight unit can also be used as the light source. Field emission type backlight units, in principle, have the same driving mechanism for luminance as FEDs. However, field emission type backlight units are different from FEDs in that field emission type backlight units do not display an image but only function as light sources. Field emission type backlight units attract attention as the next generation of backlight units for LCDs because of their thin structure, low manufacturing costs, and brightness control. Field emission devices can also be applied to various systems using electron emission, such as X-ray tubes, microwave amplifiers, and flat lamps.
Micro tips formed of a metal, such as molybdenum (Mo), have been used as emitters of field emission devices. However, recently, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) having good electron emission properties have often been used as emitters. Field emission devices using CNT emitters have the advantages of low cost, a low driving voltage, and high chemical and mechanical stability. CNT emitters may be formed by printing CNT paste or by directly growing CNTs using chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The direct growing of CNTs requires high growth temperature and complex synthesis conditions, thereby making it difficult to achieve mass production. Accordingly, CNT paste has become preferable in recent years.

Method of manufacturing field emission device


Methods and structures for efficiently storing task file information for a significant number of SATA devices coupled to a SATA storage controller. A RAM memory within the SATA storage controller may store task file information for virtually any number of SATA devices coupled to a SAS communication domain. An arbiter and multiplexing logic is coupled to multiple client logic blocks or processes of the controller each operable to control one or more corresponding SATA devices. The arbiter and associated multiplexing logic grants each client process an opportunity to control its corresponding devices by retrieving saved state information from the task file RAM storage.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) storage devices and controllers and more specifically relates to efficient methods and structures for storing task file information (e.g., command block register information and control block register information) for a large number of SATA devices.
2. Discussion of Related Art
AT attachment and AT attachment with packet interface (ATA and ATAPI, respectively) have been, and remain, widely accepted standards for coupling disk drives to storage controller devices associated with host systems. The ATA and ATAPI specifications utilize standardized register definitions for exchanging information between a compliant storage controller and one or more storage devices (i.e., disk drives or other compliant storage devices). Originally, these registers were referred to collectively as a "task file". Later evolutionary developments of the ATA and ATAPI specifications began referring to these registers in separate portions as command block registers and control block registers. Some of the registers provide command or control information to the storage device while others record status information from the storage device. As used herein, "task file" refers to the earlier register definitions as well as the later evolutionary definitions of command block registers and control block registers.
The host storage controller interacts with each storage device in accordance with information exchanged through the corresponding task file (i.e., the corresponding register values). Various of the register values corresponding to each device are key to operation of state machines or other control logic defined by the ATA and ATAPI specifications for proper interaction between the storage device and the corresponding storage controller. Since a single ATA or ATAPI compliant storage controller may interact with multiple ATA or ATAPI compliant storage devices, the state information for each device reflected in the task file for each device was generally saved within the storage controller to assure continued, proper operation of the state machine as multiple devices would asynchronously interact with the storage controller. Further, a storage controller may process requests substantially in parallel (concurrently) on behalf of multiple clients (multiple requests from one or more host system processes). Each client may access one or more devices and each device may be accessed by one or more such clients.
Historically, storage controllers compliant with the ATA or ATAPI specifications would store task file information for each of the multiple storage devices with which the storage controller may interact. This saved task file information within the storage controller typically utilize register logic structures based on multiple flip flops and corresponding combinatorial logic to store task file information for each device. Typical storage controllers designed for ATA and ATAPI compliant devices permitted storage of task file information for up to eight storage devices.
Later developments in storage devices utilized ATA or ATAPI compliant register exchanges encapsulated within Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) protocol and communication architectures. So-called Serial ATA (SATA) protocols were developed to utilize high speed serial interfaces and have been applied with the SAS specifications to exchange information using the ATA or ATAPI register oriented command and control structures. A SATA controller or host adapter, like the earlier ATA or ATAPI storage controllers, therefore required storage of task file information for multiple SATA devices under its control. Utilizing the legacy approach of register and flip flop based storage components presents numerous problems in expanding the number of SATA devices under the control of a SATA storage controller or host bus adapter. In accordance with SATA specifications utilizing SAS transmission protocols, as many as 4096 SAS devices could be supported any of which could be compliant with SATA protocol specifications. Even a minimal, first generation, SAS compliant storage controller or host bus adapter was capable of supporting at least 128 SATA devices. Creating register structures to store task file information for each of such numerous SATA devices utilized a substantial portion of the silicon surface area of an integrated circuit or other discrete circuit structures within the SAS storage controller or host bus adapter. Such register file constructs, though simple and relatively inexpensive for a small number of registers, adds significant cost and complexity where the number of storage devices, and hence the number of related register files, grows dramatically.
It is evident from the above discussion that a need exists for improved methods and structures for storing task file information for a large number of SATA devices in a high speed SAS storage environment.

Methods and structures for efficient storage of task file information in serial ATA environments


A spectacle lens edging machine which supports a lens for rotation on coaxial half shafts, a grinding spindle with an axis parallel to the lens shafts, the grinding spindle is movable radially and axially relative to the shafts and has a grinding wheel thereon for grinding the periphery of a lens. An additional friction wheel driven grinding spindle for beveling the edges of the spectacle lens arranged on the bearing housing for the spindle and so moves radially and axially with the spindle. The grinding tool rotates on an axis extending radially to the axis of the spectacle lens and to the grinding spindle. An angular drive for the additional grinding tool includes a first friction wheel at the main grinding spindle and having a groove in its periphery and a second friction wheel extending into the groove with play to either contact one flank of the groove or to be out of contact therewith. The work spindle for the tool being connected with the second friction wheel, and the work spindle being in a bearing housing which is pivoted around an axis perpendicular to the axis of the grinding spindle so that contact between the grinding tool and the spectacle lens brings the friction wheels into engagement to drive the tool to rotate for beveling the periphery of the lens.

The invention relates to an additional, friction-wheel-driven grinding spindle for bevelling the edges of spectacle lenses on a spectacle-lens-edging machine. The machine has two coaxial half-shafts for retaining and rotating a spectacle lens. It has a grinding spindle with an axis parallel to the half-shafts. The spindle can be moved radially and axially, along with the bearing housing that supports the spindle, relative to the half-shafts. The spindle carries a rough grinding and finish grinding wheel for grinding the spectacle lens periphery, and it optionally has a groove for grinding a ridge bevel.
A conical grinding tool arranged on the bearing housing follows the radial and axial movements of the bearing housing relative to the half-shafts supporting the spectacle lens. The tool rotates around an axis extending radially with respect to the spectacle lens. The grinding tool is intended for bevelling the edges of the spectacle lens periphery and is driven by the grinding spindle, via an angular drive which comprises a pair of friction wheels. The angular drive comprises a first friction wheel, which is positioned on a neck of the bearing housing, and a second friction wheel, which is seated on the work spindle, that bears the conical grinding tool and is mounted in a further bearing housing perpendicularly with respect to the grinding spindle.
A spectacle lens-edging machine of the above type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,597. This machine has proven successful, in particular, for providing grooves or scores in the region of the periphery of the ground-to-shape spectacle lens. For providing grooves or scores, the radial machining tool is moved in a controlled manner both axially and radially with respect to the spectacle lens. This can be carried out purely mechanically or by means of CNC control, wherein the computer also controls the grinding in accordance with a predetermined spectacle lens periphery.
In this known spectacle lens-edging machine, the angular drive is always in drive connection with the grinding spindle. As a result, the work spindle with the machining tool runs at high speed along with the grinding spindle and, accordingly, is subjected to an unnecessarily high degree of wear.
If only a slight bevel is desired to remove the sharp edge which has been produced during the grinding operation from the periphery of the ground-to-shape spectacle lens, then there is no need either for the radial machining tool to run constantly with the grinding spindle or for controlled guidance of the machining tool in the axial direction of the spectacle lens.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,270 discloses a spectacle lens-edging machine having two coaxial half-shafts for retaining and rotating a spectacle lens. A grinding spindle is arranged with its axis parallel to the half-shafts. The spindle can be moved radially and axially, with its bearing housing, relative to the half-shafts. The machine has a rough grinding and a finish grinding spindle for grinding the spectacle lens periphery. It has a grinding wheel with a groove for grinding a ridge bevel. The wheel has a grinding tool which rotates around an axis running essentially radially with respect to the spectacle lens and is intended for bevelling the edges of the spectacle lens periphery. The grinding tool is driven by a motor and is arranged in an axially displaceable manner on a retaining means which is itself fastened on a slide. The slide, in turn, can be pivoted around an axis. The slide is mounted on a retaining means which is fastened on the bearing housing for the half-shafts such that it can be displaced parallel to the half-shafts.
The grinding tool provides a safety bevel on the ground periphery spectacle lens. For this purpose, it has its own control means, to cause both the axial displacement of the grinding tool and the axis parallel displacement of the slide in order to bring the grinding tool into engagement with the edges of the spectacle lens periphery. This known apparatus is complicated because, in addition to the control means for the radial and axial movement of the spectacle lens relative to the grinding wheels, it is also necessary to have a further control means for moving the additional grinding tool once grinding of the spectacle lens periphery has been completed.

Additional, friction-wheel-driven grinding spindle for bevelling the edges of spectacle lenses on a spectacle-lens-edging machine


A method is disclosed of forming an oxide superconducting film comprising the steps of (1) mixing (a) the vapors of organic metal materials in such proportions as to provide a predetermined metal composition, or (b) said organic metal materials in such proportions as to provide a predetermined metal composition vaporizing and mixture, and (2) bringing the mixture into contact with a heated substrate so that an oxide superconducting film is formed on said substrate by a chemical vapor deposition process, wherein laser light is applied onto said substrate during formation of said oxide superconducting film on said substrate, whereby the crystallographic orientation of said oxide superconducting film being formed in the irradiated area of said substrate is such that the c-axis is parallel to the substrate.

This invention relates to a method of forming oxide superconducting films of Y-Ba-Cu-O (Y is at least one element selected from among Y and Ln (lanthanoids); and other systems while enabling the film to be suitably oriented (e.g., the c-axis is parallel to the substrate). The invention also relates to oxide superconducting members having the oxide superconducting films formed by that method. The concept of this invention is applicable to the fabrication of devices such as Josephson junctions.
A method has been known that produces an oxide superconductor by applying a laser beam onto a film formed by coating a solution containing organic metal salts (see Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application No. 255506/1990). In this method, ultraviolet rays are applied as an auxiliary source of exciting light. A method is also known whereby a thin film is formed containing a Y-Ba-Cu-O system, with the c-axis being parallel to a substrate such as MgO. This method utilizes sputtering in an O.sub.2 -Ar atmosphere under vacuum (see Science, Vol. 249, 28 Sep. 1990 Reports, 1549- 1552; Appl. Phys. Lett, 57(23), 3 Dec. 1990 p. 2484-2486; and Physica C 170(1990), 325-332, North Holland).
Many versions of the MOCVD process (organic metal chemical vapor deposition process) have been known as techniques for forming oxide films or oxide superconducting films by application of ultraviolet or laser light. See, for example, Proceedings of the 37th Symposium of the Japan Society of Applied Physics, spring 1990, p. 136, 27a-PB-7, 27a-PB-9 and page 138, 27a-PB-15; Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS '89), Tsukuba, 1989, p. 767; Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application Nos. 230522/1988, 224117/1988, 225599/1988 and 224116/1988.
However, the prior known method proposed in Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application No. 255506/1990 does not rely upon CVD and, as shown in FIG. 14, the c-axis of the oxide film formed by this method is not oriented in a constant direction as being parallel to the substrate but the ab-plane is parallel to the temperature gradient.
The second method which forms a superconducting film having the crystal growth direction oriented along the a-axis also does not rely upon CVD and, furthermore, the desired thin film oriented along the a-axis cannot be readily formed at a desired location in the matrix.
In addition, the many versions of the MOCVD process are not such that an oxide superconducting film oriented along the a-axis can be formed in a desired location.

Laser-assisted CVD process forming oxide superconducting films

International Superconductivity Technology Center


A program method of a nonvolatile memory device includes applying a program voltage to program cells for changing data; verifying the program cells, based on the changed data; and verifying program inhibit cells for maintaining stored data even when the program voltage is applied to the program inhibit cells, based on the stored data.

Nonvolatile memory devices retain data written in their cells even when their power supplies are interrupted. The nonvolatile memory devices include flash memory devices. Since flash memory devices can perform electrically batch-erasing operation for data of their cells, they have been widely used in computers and memory cards.
Flash memory devices may be classified into NOR flash memory devices and NAND flash memory devices according to the connection states of cells and bitlines. NOR flash memory devices can easily cope with the speeding up of operations while being disadvantageous in high integration due to their high power consumption. On the other hand, NAND flash memory devices are advantageous in high integration due to their lower consumption of cell current than NOR flash memory devices.

Nonvolatile memory devices having erased-state verify capability and methods of operating same


A system for subsea transfer of intervention fluids to a subsea intervention apparatus, the system, in certain aspects, including a structure and a frame pivotably mounted thereto, a plurality of frame fluid conduits on the frame for conducting fluid from a connector to conduit apparatus in fluid communication with the subsea intervention apparatus, a connector at an end of the frame for releasably holding an end of a fluid stab assembly, and having a connector fluid conduits in communication with the frame fluid conduits, the connector fluid conduits located for receiving fluid from a fluid stab assembly releasably held by the connector.

1. Field of the Invention
This present invention is directed to systems and methods for fluid transfer in subsea operations; to heave compensation in subsea operations; to systems and methods for compensating for the movement of sea-going vessels used in wellbore subsea operations; and, in certain particular aspects, to a heave compensation system located subsea.
2. Description of Related Art
In many situations, interventions are required to maintain the performance of an oil or gas well. Interventions typically include but are not limited to: removing debris from a well, shifting production levels in a well, unloading fluid from a well, stimulation of a production zone, and well logging. Often interventions require injection of one or more fluids into a well; e.g. but are not limited to: water, nitrogen, hydrate inhibitors, acids, and cements. Such fluids are transported to the well site, stored in transportable containers, and then pumped into well with specialized pumping equipment.
Well interventions can be performed on subsea wells. However, such interventions can be more complicated due to inaccessibility of the well. A typical subsea well intervention includes utilization of a mobile offshore drilling unit and related specialized equipment. This method of well intervention is costly and time consuming.
Certain prior art methods of performing well subsea interventions use a tool which is deployed from a deployment vessel and attached to the subsea well. The tool, known as a subsea intervention module, includes coiled tubing equipment, intervention tools, well control equipment, control systems, and other equipment required to perform well interventions on subsea wells. The intervention module can be powered and controlled remotely from a deployment vessel via control umbilical.
Intervention fluid and hydrate inhibitor are transferred from the deployment vessel to the tool via an intervention fluid conduit. The intervention fluid conduit is known as the pump down line or "PDL" which consists of a specialized string of steel coiled tubing which is designed to transfer a plurality of discrete fluids simultaneously. The PDL is deployed and connected to intervention module. Surface equipment lowers one end of the PDL to the intervention module on the subsea well after the intervention module has been deployed.
Wave motions at the surface can cause a deployment vessel to heave. Because a PDL is suspended from the deployment vessel, the PDL will heave with the same frequency and as the vessel. The wave-induced PDL motions must be controlled to allow for connection of PDL to an intervention module and to prevent damage to the PDL and any components of the intervention module which could come in contact with the heaving parts.
In the past flexible hoses have been used, but many of the intervention fluids have chemical properties which are incompatible with the lining materials of flexible hoses. High pressure gas intrusion into hose lining can cause separation of the lining from the hose. In addition, pressure differentials between the intervention fluid stream and the sea outside the fluid passages which would cause a collapse of the flexible hose. Also, the constant movement of the flexible hose can cause premature failure of the hoses.
The prior art discloses a wide variety of systems, apparatuses, and methods to compensate for the movement of vessels used in subsea operations. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,943,868; 3,991,837; 4,858,694; 5,190,107; 4,176,722; 4,059,148; 4,934,870; 4,899,823; 6,343,893; 4,962,817; 6,386,290 and the prior art references cited therein provide a small sampling of the prior art directed to heave compensation and to compensation for the movement of a vessel.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,276,454; 6,053,252; 6,698,520; 6,488,093; 6,659,180; 6,460,621; 6,547,008; 6,763,889; and U.S. application Ser. Nos. 10/368,762 filed Feb. 19, 2003 and 10/204,606 filed Feb. 20, 2001, and the prior art cited in these patents and applications, provide a small sampling of prior art references directed to subsea operations and to subsea intervention.
There has long been a need, recognized by the present inventor, for effective and efficient subsea intervention fluid transfer systems and heave compensation systems.
There has long been a need, recognized by the present inventor, for an efficient and effective heave compensation system for use with relatively small and/or monohull vessels.
There has long been a need, recognized by the present inventor, for an efficient and effective heave compensation system for use with a pumpdown line which is deployed from a fixed system on the deck of a vessel.

Subsea intervention fluid transfer system


The present invention discloses a modulation device for generating an optical signal with quadruple frequency and the modulation method thereof. The modulation device in the present invention utilizes a commercial integrated modulator, a RF signal generator and a phase shifter to generate an optical signal with quadruple frequency. When the RF signal generator generates a first modulation signal, and the phase shifter shifts the first modulation signal by 90 degrees to generate a second modulation signal, the integrated modulator is biased to transmit the optical signal in maximum value and to modulate the first and second modulation signal so as to generate a output optical signal with quadruple frequency.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a modulation technique, and more particularly, to a modulation device for generating an optical signal with quadruple frequency and the modulation method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
The generation and transmission of millimeter-wave signals over an optical fiber have been intensively investigated for various applications, such as broad-band wireless access networks, radio over fiber (RoF), phase-array antennas, optical sensors, antenna remoting, and radars. The advantages of using millimeter-wave technology lie in the almost unlimited bandwidth and very low propagation loss. With the accelerated development of wireless communications, efficient and cost effective methods of generating and transmitting millimeter-wave signals are of utmost importance.
However, the traditional generation of optical millimeter-wave signals remains a major challenge in various optical fiber-supported systems. Limited by the frequency response of the regular modulator, and the electrical components and equipment, such as amplifiers, mixers, and synthesizers, are very expensive. Therefore, the cost effective generation of millimeter-wave signals is of great interest for various applications. Numerous optical millimeter-wave signals generation schemes based on frequency multiplication using modulators combined with optical filtering have recently been demonstrated. Nonetheless, these proposed systems are either very complex, suffer from low conversion efficiency and low signal-noise-ratio (SNR) or need more than one optical filter to remove undesired optical sidebands. The unavoidable optical filtering severely hinders the implementation of wavelength-division-multiplexer (WDM) RoF systems.
Therefore, to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention proposes a novel modulation device and method thereof for generating the optical signal with quadruple frequency. The present invention requires only a single integrated modulator to generate the optical signal, which simplifies the structure of circuit and dramatically reduces the total manufacturing cost.

Modulation device for generating optical signal with quadruple frequency and method thereof


A method of quantitatively evaluating a cognitive impairment and its future change from a medical image of an individual's brain, the method comprising scanning the individual's brain with a scanning device so as to acquire at least one medical brain image; processing the medical brain image to obtain at least one feature of the image; using a pre-established prediction model to determine a condition of the cognitive impairment and predict its future change based on the at least one feature obtained.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the present invention. The subject matter discussed in the background of the invention section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background of the invention section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background of the invention section or associated with the subject matter of the background of the invention section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background of the invention section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
In clinical practice, physicians use various cognitive tests to assess cognitive decline and/or impairment due to dementia. The cognitive tests include dementia assessment tests and neuropsychological tests. Dementia assessment tests are developed based on clinically-relevant cognitive symptoms, while neuropsychological tests are developed based on the performance in different psychological domains. Dementia assessment tests that are widely used include the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), AD8, Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-cog), Alzheimer's Disease Co-operative Study ADL Scale for Mild Cognitive Impairment (ADCS-ADL-MCI), and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI). A typical neuropsychological evaluation will assess a person's general intelligence, attention and concentration, learning and memory, reasoning and problem solving, language, visual-spatial skills (perception), motor and sensory skills, mood and behavior. An example of such evaluation is Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS).
The clinical dementia rating (CDR) is a score estimated during a semi-structure interview used for staging the severity of dementia in Alzheimer's disease (AD) (Hughes et al., 1982) or non-AD dementia (Kazui et al., 2016). Compared with neuropsychological tests, the interview for the CDR focuses on patients' daily functioning and, therefore, is more congruent with standard diagnostic criteria of dementia (Lim et al., 2007).
The CDR interview is conducted by certified physicians or nurses, and administered to patients and appropriate informants. The interview consists of 6 different domains, i.e. memory, orientation, judgment and problem solving, community affairs, home and hobbies, and personal care. The functional impairment of each domain is graded by a five-point scale system: none=0, questionable=0.5, mild=1, moderate=2, severe=3. The scores over the 6 domains are then converted to a global score of the CDR. The CDR score has been validated to be reliable to diagnose dementia and to grade the dementia severity (Morris, 1993). To date, the CDR has been included by professional societies worldwide in the guideline of dementia care and diagnosis (Petersen et al., 2018).
However, current CDR has two significant limitations. The first imitation of the CDR is its inability to predict future outcome of the CDR in the upcoming 2 to 3 years. Although the CDR is reliable to grade the dementia severity, it cannot predict the progression of dementia. CDR future outcome is clinically important because medical professionals not only assess the severity of dementia of a patient, but also want to know whether and how fast dementia will be worsened in a few years to come. This limitation is clinically relevant especially in patients with very mild or questionable dementia, i.e. CDR=0.5. The outcome of these patients is heterogeneous, some may progress to dementia (CDR=1 or higher), some may turn to normal cognition (CDR=0), and some may stay in the same CDR (Daly et al., 2000). To address this limitation, some studies demonstrated that the sum scores of the six domains, i.e. sum of boxes (SOB) (O'Bryant et al., 2008), or the subscale score in the orientation domain (Kim et al., 2017), or combination of SOB with additional memory test (Lee et al., 2006) could be useful to predict dementia progression. However, all of the above measures rely heavily on the interview, and so they are affected by clinician's judgement, informant's reliability and cultural difference (Lim et al., 2007), which is the second limitation of the CDR.
Regarding this second limitation, the CDR has stringent conditions for a successful interview. It requires well trained medical professionals and availability of reliable informants to ensure the accuracy of the CDR. Trained professionals or reliable informants may be lacking in less developed or supported areas, undermining the availability of accurate CDR.
To address these limitations, Maillard et al. addressed the two limitations altogether by using the free water (FW) content, a metric derived from post-processing of the brain diffusion MRI. They reported that higher baseline FW was significantly associated with higher baseline CDR, and higher probability to change to a higher CDR score in later interviews (Maillard et al., 2019). In addition, to address the second limitation, Beheshti et al. estimated PAD on the basis of individual's morphometric features of gray matter of the brain extracted from T1-weighted (T1w) MRI, and found that PAD was associated with the scores of several clinical assessments of dementia including the CDR (Beheshti et al., 2018).
However, all existing methods/discoveries for addressing CDR limitations has their own limitations and disadvantages. For example, Beheshti et al. demonstrated that PAD was associated with the CDR, but it fails to report how PAD could predict the future outcome of the CDR. O'Bryant et al., Kim et al. and Lee et al. used the information obtained from interview to predict CDR outcome, however, all of the scores they measure rely on interview, and so they are affected by clinician's judgement, informant's reliability and cultural difference. Maillard's FW metric has been shown to be associated with the CDR at the baseline and it can also predict the CDR change in later visits. However, FW may be confounded by cerebral atrophy in pixels neighboring the ventricles and cerebral sulci due to the partial volume effect of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
Therefore, a method based on MRI scanning data of an individual patient that can predict the dementia progression of a given CDR and is free of these limitations is imperatively needed.
In another aspect of the field, diffusion MRI is widely used as a tool in understanding the morphometric features of an individual's brain. However, the diffusion-weighted images (DWI) comprised in a diffusion MRI (dMRI) data suffer from various artefacts, which impairs the medical professionals in estimating the PAD. Among them, the artefact of susceptibility-induced distortions is the most notorious since it greatly degrades the performance of dMRI analysis. This artefact is usually corrected retrospectively by measuring or estimating the "field map", which represents how a point in the undistorted space displaces (or distorts in the distortion correction context) to the distorted space. The field map is a 3D scalar field since DWI is usually assumed to distort along the phase-encoding (PE) direction due to low acquisition bandwidth.
The correction method could be roughly divided into three categories. The first is field map-based, this method explicitly measures the field map by acquiring two gradient echo images with exact scanning parameters except for the echo time (TE), then the field map is the phase differences between the two images divided by the differences of the TE values (Jezzard et al., 1998) The second is reverse gradient-based (Andersson et al., 2003; Irfanoglu et al., 2015; Hedouin et al., 2017), where two b0 images (or two complete dMRI datasets) with reverse PE gradients are acquired. The b0 images here refer to the DWI whose b-value=0 s/mm2, i.e., without applying the diffusion-sensitive gradients. The basic idea behind this category is that the two b0 images (or the two dMRI datasets) would have reverse distortions, hence the field map could be estimated by registering them to their "midpoint" image, which is theoretically the undistorted image. The last is anatomical image-based (Huang et al., 2008), in this category, the real b0 image is registered to a pseudo b0 image, which is constructed from the anatomical images, such as T1-weighted (T1w) image or T2-weighted (T2w) image. Since the anatomical images are free of distortions, the estimated displacement map of the registration could be considered as a surrogate of the field map. Technically, both the reverse gradient-based and the anatomical image-based methods greatly involve registration calculations, therefore, some efforts have been made to combine them by regarding the pseudo b0 images as the midpoint images in the reverse gradient-based methods; this approach has been shown to improve the performance of distortion correction (Irfanoglu et al., 2015).
However, the above identified methods suffer from disadvantages that significantly limit the accuracy of the dMRI data.
In particular, the anatomical image-based methods use the anatomical image (T1w or T2w) to construct the pseudo b0 image, which is used as the reference image to drive the correction. Correction methods in this category estimate the field map by non-linearly registering the real b0 image (distorted) to align with the pseudo b0 image (distortion-free). When the images are aligned well, the image discrepancy shall be low. Therefore, the goodness of the alignment is usually measured by similarity metrics such as sum of squared differences (SSD) (Huang et al., 2008), normalized mutual information (NMI) (Bhushan et al., 2015), correlation ratio (CR) (Bhushan et al., 2015), or cross-correlation (CC) (Irfanoglu et al., 2015).
Non-linear registration is an ill-posed problem, so it is easy to fail in nature, particularly when the images have large discrepancy. Two primary sources contribute to the image discrepancy, one is the spatial discrepancy, which is due to the susceptibility-induced distortions, and the other is the contrast discrepancy, which is the intensity biases between the real b0 image and the pseudo b0 image. The conventional correction methods assume that the image discrepancy is entirely caused by the susceptibility-induced distortions and disregard the contribution of the intensity biases. In this manner, the overfitting problem may become significant for regions with large intensity biases, leading to wrong point-by-point correspondence and wrong field map.
One of the solutions is to use the cost functions which are less sensitive to the contrast discrepancy, such as NMI, CR, or CC. However, estimations using these cost functions are easy to be trapped in local minima (or maxima, depends on the cost functions), rendering the spatial discrepancy originated from the susceptibility-induced distortions not corrected very well (Bhushan C et al., 2015). Another solution is to adjust the hyperparameters of the correction method to make the field map smoother, consequently lowering the sensitivity of image discrepancy. Similar to the previous approach, the lower sensitivity would lead the real distortions not corrected very well.
In addition, some of the previous studies use general-purpose 3D registration correction method, such as Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping (LDDMM) (Beg et al., 2005; Miller et al., 2006) and Advanced Normalization Tools (ANTs) (Avants et al., 2008), to conduct the registration. Employing the 3D registration correction method to solve the 1D distortion correction problem has at least two drawbacks. First, the calculated free-form deformations have to be further constrained to along the PE direction (Irfanoglu et al., 2015), leading to unnecessary calculations. The second, which is more serious, is that the convergence of the registration may not always correspond to the convergence of distortion correction because the registration correction method have higher degrees of freedom than the distortion problem per se.
Therefore, a method for correcting and/or reducing artefacts in dMRI data of an individual's brain is necessary for effectively calculating and predicting the dementia progression of a given CDR.

Method of evaluating concomitant clinical dementia rating and its future outcome using predicted age difference and program thereof


A two-stage fluid pressure control valve has five components. An inlet socket with separate fluid flow orifices sealably engages an outlet socket which also has separate fluid flow orifices. A pressure check piston having a fluid flow orifice along its longitudinal central axis slidably engages the inlet socket and the outlet socket. A spring located along the central axis of the outlet socket biases the pressure check piston in an open position, allowing fluid to flow through all orifices. Fluid flow through the control valve may impact the pressure check piston to overcome the spring force, moving the pressure check piston to a closed position, whereby fluid flows only through the orifice in the pressure check piston.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to improvements in fluid flow control, and more particularly pertains to a new and improved fluid flow control valve wherein the output flow of the valve remains constant while fluid pressure may change at the input.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of spa tubs, it is common practice to employ different water pressures to provide different system functions such as for ejecting water out of massage jets at high pressure and circulating for filtration purposes at lower pressure, for example. When it is desired to run a waterfall, fountain or other type of constant flow water feature as part of this multi-stage pressure system, these water features change flow output as the pressure in the system changes. The present invention overcomes that problem.


A novel on-the-fly data processing technique is useful for extracting signals from the azimuthal variation of the directional measurements acquired by a logging tool within a borehole. The relevant boundary, anisotropy and fracture signals are extracted from the formation response through fitting of the azimuthal variation of the measured voltages to some sinusoidal functions. The orientation of the bedding is also obtained as a result. The extracted directional signals are useful for obtaining boundary distances and making geosteering decisions. Two techniques involving inversion and cross-plotting may be employed, depending on the nature of the boundary. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is part of a system to facilitate flexible definition of inversion objectives, for improving the inversion results, and for visualization of the formation model as well as inversion measurements.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of well logging. More particularly, the invention relates to improved techniques in which instruments equipped with antenna systems having transverse or tilted magnetic dipole representations are used for electromagnetic measurements of subsurface formations and for placing wells with respect to geological boundaries in a reservoir. The invention has general application in the well logging art, but is particularly useful in logging-while-drilling operation.
2. Background of the Related Art
Various well logging techniques are known in the field of hydrocarbon exploration and production. These techniques typically use instruments or tools equipped with sources adapted to emit energy into a subsurface formation that has been penetrated by a borehole. In this description, "instrument" and "tool" will be used interchangeably to indicate, for example, an electromagnetic instrument (or tool), a wire-line tool (or instrument), or a logging-while-drilling tool (or instrument). The emitted energy interacts with the surrounding formation to produce signals that are then detected and measured by one or more sensors. By processing the detected signal data, a profile of the formation properties is obtained.
Electromagnetic (EM) induction and propagation logging are well-known techniques. The logging instruments are disposed within a borehole to measure the electrical conductivity (or its inverse, resistivity) of earth formations surrounding the borehole. In the present description, any reference to conductivity is intended to encompass its inverse, resistivity, or vice versa. A typical electromagnetic resistivity tool comprises a transmitter antenna and one or more (typically a pair) receiver antennas disposed at a distance from the transmitter antenna along the axis of the tool (see FIG. 1).
Induction tools measure the resistivity (or conductivity) of the formation by measuring the voltage induced in the receiver antenna(s) as a result of magnetic flux induced by currents flowing through the emitting (or transmitter) antenna. An EM propagation tool operates in a similar fashion but typically at higher frequencies than do induction tools for comparable antenna spacings (about 106 Hz for propagation tools as compared with about 104 Hz for the induction tools). A typical propagation tool may operate at a frequency range of 1 kHz-2 MHz.
Conventional transmitters and receivers are antennas formed from coils comprised of one or more turns of insulated conductor wire wound around a support. These antennas are typically operable as sources and/or receivers. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the same antenna may be use as a transmitter at one time and as a receiver at another. It will also be appreciated that the transmitter-receiver configurations disclosed herein are interchangeable due to the principle of reciprocity, i.e., the "transmitter" may be used as a "receiver", and vice-versa.
The antennas operate on the principle that a coil carrying a current (e.g., a transmitter coil) generates a magnetic field. The electromagnetic energy from the transmitter antenna is transmitted into the surrounding formation, and this transmission induces eddy currents flowing in the formation around the transmitter (see FIG. 2A). The eddy currents induced in the formation, which are functions of the formation's resistivity, generate a magnetic field that in turn induces an electrical voltage in the receiver antennas. If a pair of spaced-apart receivers is used, the induced voltages in the two receiver antennas will have different phases and amplitudes due to geometric spreading and absorption by the surrounding formation. The phase difference (phase shift, φ and amplitude ratio (attenuation, A) from the two receivers can be used to derive the resistivity of the formation. The detected phase shift (φ) and attenuation (A) depend on not only the spacing between the two receivers and the distances between the transmitter and the receivers, but also the frequency of EM waves generated by the transmitter.
In conventional induction and propagation logging instruments, the transmitter and receiver antennas are mounted with their axes along the longitudinal axis of the instrument. Thus, these tools are implemented with antennas having longitudinal magnetic dipole (LMD) representations. An emerging technique in the field of well logging is the use of instruments including antennas having tilted or transverse coils, i.e., where the coil's axis is not parallel to the longitudinal axis of the tool. These instruments are thus implemented with a transverse or tilted magnetic dipole (TMD) antenna. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various ways are available to tilt or skew an antenna. Logging instruments equipped with TMD antennas are described, e.g., in: U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,163,155; 6,147,496; 5,115,198; 4,319,191; 5,508,616; 5,757,191; 5,781,436; 6,044,325; and 6,147,496.
FIG. 2A presents a simplified representation of eddy currents and electromagnetic (EM) energy flowing from a logging instrument disposed in a borehole portion or segment that penetrates a subsurface formation in a direction perpendicular to the sedimentation layers. This is not, however, an accurate depiction of all the numerous segments that make up a borehole particularly when the borehole has been directionally-drilled as described below. Thus, segments of a borehole often penetrate formation layers at an angle other than 90 degrees, as shown in FIG. 2B. When this happens, the formation plane is said to have a relative dip. A relative dip angle, φ, is defined as the angle between the borehole axis (tool axis) BA and the normal N to the plane P of a formation layer of interest.
Drilling techniques known in the art include drilling boreholes from a selected geographic position at the earth's surface, along a selected trajectory. The trajectory may extend to other selected geographic positions at particular depths within the borehole. These techniques are known collectively as "directional drilling" techniques. One application of directional drilling is the drilling of highly deviated (with respect to vertical), or even horizontal, boreholes within and along relatively thin hydrocarbon-bearing earth formations (called "pay zones") over extended distances. These highly deviated boreholes are intended to greatly increase the hydrocarbon drainage from the pay zone as compared to "conventional" boreholes which "vertically" (substantially perpendicularly to the layering of the formation, as shown in FIG. 2A) penetrate the pay zone.
In highly deviated or horizontal borehole drilling within a pay zone, it is important to maintain the trajectory of the borehole so that it remains within a particular position in the pay zone. Directional drilling systems are well known in the art which use "mud motors" and "bent subs," as well as other means, for controlling the trajectory of a borehole with respect to geographic references, such as magnetic north, the earth's gravity (vertical), and the earth's rotational velocity (with respect to inertial space). Layering of the formations, however, may be such that the pay zone does not lie along a predictable trajectory at geographic positions distant from the surface location of the borehole. Typically the borehole operator uses information (such as LWD logs) obtained during borehole drilling to maintain the trajectory of the borehole within the pay zone, and to further verify that the borehole is, in fact, being drilled within the pay zone.
Techniques known in the art for maintaining trajectory are described for example in Tribe et al., Precise Well Placement using Rotary Steerable Systems and LWD Measurement, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Paper 71396, Sep. 30, 2001. The technique described in this reference is based upon LWD conductivity sensor responses. If, as an example, the conductivity of the pay zone is known prior to penetration by the borehole, and if the conductivities of overlying and underlying zones provide a significant contrast with respect to the pay zone, a measure of formation conductivity made while drilling can be used as a criterion for "steering" the borehole to remain within the pay zone. More specifically, if the measured conductivity deviates significantly from the conductivity of the pay zone, this is an indication that the borehole is approaching, or has even penetrated, the interface of the overlying or underlying earth formation. As an example, the conductivity of an oil-saturated sand may be significantly lower than that of a typical overlying and underlying shale. An indication that the conductivity adjacent the borehole is increasing can be interpreted to mean that the borehole is approaching the overlying or the underlying formation layer (shale in this example). The technique of directional drilling using a formation property measurement as a guide to trajectory adjustment is generally referred to as "geosteering."
In addition to EM measurements, acoustic and radioactive measurements are also used as means for geosteering. Again using the example of an oil-producing zone with overlying and underlying shale, natural gamma radioactivity in the pay zone is generally considerably less than the natural gamma ray activity of the shale formations above and below the pay zone. As a result, an increase in the measured natural gamma ray activity from a LWD gamma ray sensor will indicate that the borehole is deviating from the center of the pay zone and is approaching or even penetrating either the upper or lower shale interface.
If, as in the prior examples, the conductivity and natural radioactivity of the overlying and underlying shale formations are similar to each other, the previously described geosteering techniques indicate only that the borehole is leaving the pay zone, but do not indicate whether the borehole is diverting out of the pay zone through the top of the zone or through the bottom of the zone. This presents a problem to the drilling operator, who must correct the borehole trajectory to maintain the selected position in the pay zone.
EM induction logging instruments are well suited for geosteering applications because their lateral (radial) depth of investigation into the formations surrounding the borehole is relatively large, especially when compared to nuclear instruments. The deeper radial investigation enables induction instruments to "see" a significant lateral (or radial) distance from axis of the borehole. In geosteering applications, this larger depth of investigation enables the detection of approaching formation layer boundaries at greater lateral distances from the borehole, which provides the drilling operator additional time to make any necessary trajectory corrections. Conventional propagation-type instruments are capable of resolving axial and lateral (radial) variations in conductivity of the formations surrounding the instrument, but the response of these instruments generally cannot resolve azimuthal variations in the conductivity of the formations surrounding the instrument. Furthermore, such instruments are unable to sense anisotropy in vertical wells.
Two important emerging markets make the removal of these shortcomings more urgent. The first emerging field is the increasing need for accurate well placement, which requires directional measurements to make steering decisions to place the borehole optimally in the reservoir. The second is the low resistivity pay in laminated formations where accurate identification and characterization of hydrocarbon reserves is not possible without knowing the resistivity anisotropy. Many recent patents disclose methods and apparatus to make directional measurements and obtain resistivity anisotropy. For logging while drilling applications, U.S. Pat. No. 5,508,616 to Sato et al. discloses an induction-type tool with two coils tilted at different directions not aligned with the tool's longitudinal axis. The directionality of the measurement is illustrated through a simple argument that the sensitivity function of the two tilted coils is concentrated towards the overlapping region of the sensitivity area of each coil. Through rotation of the tool, Sato et al claim that a deep azimuthal resistivity image of the formation can be obtained. However, this patent reference does not provide any details as to how the azimuthal resistivity can be obtained, nor does it describe any further boundary detection/characterization techniques required for quantitative geosteering decision-making.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,181,138 to Hagiwara and Song extends Sato et al's single fixed directional coils into co-located triple orthogonal induction coils at the transmitter and receiver location. No tool rotation is said to be required, since the focusing direction can be tuned to arbitrary orientation through linear combination of the orthogonal coil responses. It is not clear if there is a shield design that will allow the passing of all the required EM components without severe uncontrollable distortion of the wave form for "while drilling" applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,297,639 to Clark et al., assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses methods and apparatus for making directional measurements utilizing various shield designs to provide selected attenuation of EM wave energy for axial, tilted, and transverse antenna coils. This patent reference describes, among other things, general directional induction and propagation measurements with tilted coils and appropriate shields, along with a process for conducting borehole compensation for them which is non-trivial. A one-axial and one-tilted transmitter/receiver coil combination is explicitly described by Clark et al., along with its application for bed boundary direction detection by observing azimuthal variation of the induced signal as the tool rotates. The azimuthal variation of the coupling can be used for steering wells while drilling. More shield patents have since been granted, including U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,127 to Rosthal et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,566,881 to Omeragic et al, both of which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,476,609 to Bittar extends an earlier anisotropy patent describing both transmitters and receivers possibly having a tilt angle, U.S. Pat. No. 6,163,155 also to Bittar, to the area of geosteering application. The bedding response of up/down tilted induction and propagation apparatus is described through the difference or ratio of signals at two different orientations, but no shielding is mentioned. Nor are the effects of anisotropy or dipping considered. Also lacking is a description of how to use these measurements to derive a precise distance to a formation bed boundary. The '609 patent implicitly assumes that bedding orientation is precisely known so as to calculate the up/down response. No technique, however, is disclosed to locate the precise up or down direction prior the calculation of the up-down directional signals.
U.S. patent application Publication No. 2003/0085707 to Minerbo et al, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses tool configurations and symmetrization techniques that simplify the response of the directional measurements to the point that it becomes almost independent to anisotropy or dipping angle. Responses to bed boundary distance with different dip and anisotropy essentially overlap except near the bed boundary. Both two-coil (one transmitter and one receiver: "TR") induction style and three-coil (one transmitter and two receivers: "TRR") propagation-style measurements can be symmetrized to achieve this simplification. The symmetrization is done between two tilted TR pairs of the same spacing, but with the transmitter tilted angle and receiver tilted angle exchanged. Only cases where the magnetic moments of the transmitters and receivers are lying in the same plane is considered. This has a disadvantage of not being able to provide the required signal for geosteering all the time during sliding, which is the case for well placement with a mud motor during the angle build on the trajectory. If the magnetic moment of the tool happens to lie parallel to the bedding during sliding, the up/down directional signal generated will be zero independent of the distance to the boundary. Thus no monitoring of the distance to the boundary is possible.
U.S. patent application Publication No. 2003/0200029 to Omeragic et al, also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses propagation-style directional measurements for anisotropy determination in near-vertical wells with borehole compensation. Inversion techniques are also used to obtain the anisotropic formation property. U.S. patent application Publication No. 2003/0184302 to Omeragic and Esmersoy, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, also discloses techniques for looking-ahead with directional measurements.
U.S. patent application Publications No. 2004/0046560A1 and 2004/0046561A1 to Itzkovicz et al, discloses the use of quadrupole antennas, and transverse dipolequadrupole coupling and induction style measurements with similar directional characteristics to a conventional cross-dipole XZ response. Practical realization on a metallic collar and adequate shielding of such antennas is not clear. Also, the borehole effect of such measurements and its interaction/coupling with the boundary effect may be different from XZ-style measurements.
None of the above patent references discloses the use of detailed azimuthal responses of the measured signal or techniques to extract such responses. These references further fail to teach how to use the directional measurement to arrive at boundary distances for geosteering use. Only the so-called up/down measurement, which is the difference in the measured signal between the tool focusing directly towards and away from the formation bed, is mentioned. The precise bedding dip and azimuth information is usually not known before the drilling, and they also frequently vary in challenging well placement situations where geosteering is required. Using a predefined bedding up/down direction produces at best degraded measurement and at worst can lead to wrong geosteering decisions when the bedding azimuth suddenly changes. In principle, the measurements can be binned azimuthally downhole. This technique has a number of drawbacks including difficulties in aligning the top and bottom bins precisely with the orientation of the formation bedding, and the inability to use (i.e., wasting) the data that are not in the up and down bins. The large memory required to record the azimuthal data with sufficient accuracy is also an issue.
More importantly, the existing art for geosteering using directional measurements works only for steering up and down. There are many cases where the wellbore has to move azimuthally to avoid exiting the pay zone.
A need therefore exists for methods and techniques of extracting and analyzing the azimuthal dependence of directional logging measurements, using measurements taken at all the azimuthal angles, for characterizing the earth formation and for steering wells during drilling with improved accuracy.
A need further exists for providing the bedding azimuth from the directional measurements, and generating measurements that can be used for well placement in up/down or azimuthal steering.
A need further exists for methods of utilizing these directional measurements in real-time to obtain bed boundary distances and to obtain accurate earth models such that a geosteering decisions can be made for well placement.
A need further exists for a method of detecting the presence of resistivity anisotropy in formation layers adjacent near-vertical wells.
A still further need exists for an efficient system that provides such directional measurements, analyzes them downhole, and transmits relevant information to surface to facilitate geosteering up/down or azimuthally during well placement. It would be further advantageous if such a system could provide distance-to-boundary information during the sliding phases of drilling (i.e., no drill string rotation) as well as when the system/tool is rotating.

Directional electromagnetic wave resistivity apparatus and method


An apparatus for bending metallic and nonmetallic laminations in general and sliding covers for computer diskettes in particular, which has the particularity that it comprises a forming die provided with a lower base and a movable upper part. The lower base constitutes the forming punch and centering elements for positioning the lamination to be bent, while the movable upper part supports a presser adapted to engage the forming punch in order to retain the lamination in position and at least one bending roller which can engage the surface of the lamination without relative sliding in order to perform bending in abutment against the punch.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for bending metallic and nonmetallic laminations in general and sliding covers for computer diskettes in particular.
Bending machines provided by means of bending blades or oscillating bending tables are normally used to bend metallic laminations; their common characteristic is that they produce a relative sliding between the lamination being bent and the bending element, so that damage or surface scoring can occur on the lamination.
This limitation is particularly felt for example in the production of sliding covers for computer diskettes. When the sliding cover is supplied to the diskette manufacturer, it must be already bent in its U-shaped configuration, entailing consequent considerable bulks and useless space occupation during shipping, since the sliding covers are shipped already bent, with a consequent limited utilization of space.

Apparatus for bending laminations in general and computer diskette sliding covers in particular


An affiliation manager provides each of typically hundreds of users with a calendar of appointments and a task list each including icons for capturing time and expenses accrued by the user when attending a particular appointment or performing a particular task. A subset of collected captured time and expenses may be transferred to each requesting client for use by independent accounting systems. Management of appointments and tasks from a central database promotes collaboration among users, simplifies sharing of schedule information among users, and provides context for data entry. Each user may create any number of affiliations, each affiliation describing affiliations of the user in numerous projects, organizations, employments, and activities. Each user may admit other users to share his or her affiliations, thereby promoting collaboration of many users for jointly attending meetings and jointly performing tasks. Context permits automatic intuitive association of email, chat messages, notes, and documents to records for persons, locations, resources, appointments, tasks, and projects for integrated affiliation management services. Requests for queries and forms are interpreted according to the context in which the user issued the request. Requests are made via a common set of icons and links on each item of a list provided by a prior query.

Many individuals use their limited time and financial resources to participate in several activities including employments, family life, charitable functions, sports, and social events. When more than one person is involved in the same activity, collaboration may be used to advantage to achieve a commonly desired goal. However, collaboration may be hindered by differences between the individual's intentions and commitments of time and financial resources. For example, individuals may not be able to meet together because prior time commitments by one or more of the individuals leave no open common time for a meeting.
Conventional systems include computer programs that present a personal appointment calendar. In some conventional systems, a user can divide appointments into groups and view a separate calendar presentation for each group of appointments. For example, one group of appointments may relate to the user's membership in a bridge club; while another group of appointments may relate to a program of personal physical fitness. These systems may include a calendar presentation of all appointments from all groups to enable the user to plan an activity in an uncommitted time period.
Use of conventional systems leaves unsolved problems. It remains difficult for many individuals to share information sufficient to effectively and economically collaborate, each one collaborating with different individuals in different spheres of their lives. Further, the costs of collaboration cannot be easily monitored. Conventional systems require time and expenses to be captured on systems separate from the system that presents and maintains each personal calendar. In particular, conventional systems for personal appointment calendars lack the capability to uniformly capture time and expense information from all individuals involved in collaborative activities and to enable separate accounting systems to prepare bills for payment of the associated fees and expenses.
Systems and methods of the present invention reduce the cost of collaboration. By making collaboration easier to manage for each individual, emotional and physical stresses on collaborating individuals are also reduced.

Systems and methods for managing affiliations


An exercise device for exercising the lower legs of airline passengers. The device includes a support structure, and a foot platform that is movably mounted to the support structure. A motor is interconnected with the foot platform by a crank arrangement to provide powered reciprocation of the foot platform. The exercise device has a low profile, enabling the exercise device to fit under an airline seat. Elastic straps or other suitable restraints are provided on the moving foot platform to hold a passenger's feet in place. The ankle motion resulting from the reciprocation of the foot support stretches and/or relaxes the lower leg muscles to alleviate blood stasis of the lower leg.

During airline travel, passengers may be required to sit in a seat for extended periods of time, particularly on long-haul flights. Due to the limited space available, passengers are often restricted unable to move their legs, such that blood circulation in the lower legs may be quite low. This may result in blood clots in the legs, leading to deep vein thrombosis (DVT).


The present invention relates to a method for determining a position of a terminal device (110) in a wireless communication system (100). According to the method, a first message (130-133) is broadcasted by the terminal device (110). The first message (130-133) comprises a positioning request and a terminal identifier identifying the terminal device (110). The first message (130-133) is received at a group of neighboring devices (120-123). Each neighboring device of the group of neighboring devices (120-123) is located within a wireless radio communication range of the terminal device (110). From one or more neighboring devices (120, 121) of the group of neighboring devices (120-123) a corresponding second message (140, 141) is transmitted to location server (103) of the wireless communication system (100). The second message (140, 141) comprises the terminal identifier and an indication that the terminal device (110) requested a positioning. For each neighboring device (120, 121) of the one or more neighboring devices a corresponding position information is determined. The position of the terminal device (110) is determined at the location server (103) based on the position of the one or more neighboring devices (120, 121).

Positioning of a device, i.e. determining a geographical position of the device, is becoming important in connection with mobile devices, for example mobile telephones, digital cameras, mobile computers, and the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). Positioning of a device may be necessary to offer tailored services for the current location, tracking services, emergency dispatching and so on. Various technologies for determining a position of a device are available for different types of devices, for example GNSS (global navigation satellite system), A-GNSS (assisted global navigation satellite system), OTDOA (observed time difference of arrival), E-CID (enhanced cell identification), UTDOA (uplink time difference of arrival), as well as other 3GPP RAT (third generation partnership program, radio access technology), independent indoor positioning methods which may be specified, for example for Wi-Fi environments based on RSSI (received signal strength indicator) and FTM (field test mode), BT (Bluetooth) based positioning, barometric pressure sensor positioning and terrestrial beacon systems (TBS).
For simple IoT devices a 3GPP standard is evolving that uses low-cost WAN (wide area network) technology, named NB-IoT (narrow band Internet of Things). The narrowband radio access technology is focusing on making the implementation simple to reduce the cost of the IoT devices, and at the same time aims on extending the battery life. From cost perspective, it may not be appropriate to implement dedicated positioning technologies like GPS (global positioning system) or other wireless local area radio technologies (Wi-Fi). Some proposals (3GPP work items RP-160199 and RP-160244) are focusing on enhancing the stand-alone positioning with the help of better positioning measurements using new types of reference signals that better fit and narrowband system for circumventing high accuracy positioning estimation problems of narrowband signals. However, these proposals require the IoT devices to perform extra power consuming tasks for measuring downlink reference signals or sending uplink signals to a base station eNB (evolved Node B), and potentially higher complexity of the device.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and devices which address the above-described problems. In particular, there is a need in the art for determining the position of a device which does not involve additional cost to the device and which requires a low amount of electrical energy.

Determining a position of the terminal device in a wireless communication system


A method and apparatus for cooling window foils for extracting electron beams from a scanning type electron beam accelerator, the accelerator includes a primary window foil of double window type and a secondary window foil, the method and the apparatus are characterized by blowing cooling gasses against an electron beam scanning surface from both sides thereof to cool the primary window foil then reversing the flow of the cooling gasses at the center of the primary window foil, and circulating the cooling gasses by sucking the cooling gasses from both sides of the electron beam scanning surface to thereby simultaneously cool the secondary window foil.

1. Field of the Art
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for cooling window foils in an electron beam accelerator, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for cooling window foils in a scanning type electron beam accelerator containing double windows used to treat a boiler exhaust gas and the like.
2. Prior Arts
Electron beam accelerators are widely used in various industrial fields. Among them, in electron beam accelerators used for treating a subject to be irradiated in the atmosphere such as a boiler exhaust gas, electron beams accelerated to a high speed in vacuum of the accelerator must be extracted into the atmosphere. For this purpose, a window formed of a pure titanium or titanium alloy foil 30 to 50 microns thick is utilized. Further, when the density of an electron current is increased to enhance the irradiation effect, an accelerator with an electron current of several hundreds of milliamperes must be used.
In this kind of accelerator, part of the energy is absorbed when electron beams pass through a window foil whereby heating results and the foil may be damaged. To prevent this, a window for extracting the electron beam is formed in a rectangular shape and the electron beam is scanned along a long axis of the rectangular shaped window to prevent the electron beam from being concentrated in one position on the foil. At the same time, a nitrogen gas or the like is blown against the window foil to cool it and prevent unwarranted temperature rise.
Further, when the electron beam has a current value as large as several hundred milliamperes, the electron beam is further scanned along the short axis of the rectangular shaped window to increase the travelling distance thereof thereby increasing the cross sectional area of the rectangular shaped window. However, when the cross sectional area of the window portion is increased, since the foil is used to isolate a vacuum in which the electron beam is accelerated from the atmosphere, a force acting on the foil increases, thereby causing the foil to be pulled into the vacuum side excessively. To prevent this, a support is provided at the center of the window foil to hold the foil. Consequently, the window portion is divided into two regions. Such a structure is known as a double window.
Further, double foils including a primary foil and a secondary foil are used in the window to protect the window foil in processes such as treating a boiler exhaust gas in which sulfuric acid and nitric acid could be produced.
FIG. 3 shows the arrangement of the conventional electron beam accelerator, FIG. 4 shows the structure of the double windows and FIG. 5 shows a conventional window foil cooling mechanism (a view in a short axis direction of the window). In the figures, the reference numeral 1 denotes a high voltage power supply, 2 a high voltage cable, 3 an accelerating tube, 4 a scanning coil, 5 a scanning tube, 6 a window foil mounting flange, 7 an exhaust gas duct, 8 an electron beam, 9 an exhaust gas flow, 10 a first window of primary window foil, 11 a second window of primary window foil and 12 a locus of scanned electron beam. In the conventional electron beam accelerator using the double windows or the double window foils, the primary foil 14, 15 and the secondary foil 16 are cooled by blowing gasses from respective sides of the rectangular window along the long axis direction thereof confronting with each other. In this case, since both the double windows of the primary foil must be simultaneously cooled, a central support 13 is retracted from the end surface of a window mounting flange 25 to the vacuum side so as to cause cooling gasses 19, 20 to impinge on both the first window 14 and the second window 15 of the primary window foil.
The cooling gasses 19, 20 are supplied from corresponding blowing out slits 17, 18 for cooling the primary window and the secondary window, respectively.
When the distance of the window foil is increased in the short axis direction or width thereof to increase the scanning distance of the electron beam in the conventional cooling method, the second window 15 of the primary window foil may be excessively heated and damaged because the cooling gasses do not sufficiently reach the second window of the primary window foil. An increase in the amount of the cooling gasses to prevent this problem requires a blower having a large capacity and is economically unrealistic.
Further, in a conventional both-side-blowing-out cooling method wherein a gas reversing mechanism 29 is mounted to the central support 13 disposed in a vacuum side from the atmospheric side as shown in FIG. 6, since a window foil is sandwiched between the central support 13 and reversing mechanism 29, the reversing mechanism cannot be directly mounted on the central support at the portion of the window foil. Thus, since the reversing mechanism 29 is long (e.g. 1-3M) and is separately mounted on the central support at the short axis portion of the window, a reversing mechanism 29 is heated and expanded resulting in deformation by a dispersed electron beam impinging thereon while an accelerator is in operation, so that a gap is formed between the central support and the reversing mechanism. As a result, the gap may allow gas to leak, and cooling gasses may not be able to be reversed smoothly, the gap may clog with dust, the flow is disturbed and the foil may be damaged in some cases. In addition, the cooling mechanism shown in FIG. 6 is not used in the application in which a secondary window foil is used.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for cooling window foils which are capable of sufficiently cooling window foils even if the length of a window portion is increased in the short axis direction thereof to increase the travelling distance of electron beams.
Another object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for cooling window foils as described above and which is further capable of avoiding deformation of the reversing mechanism caused by impingement of the dispersed electron beam and thereby maintains smooth reversal of the flow of the cooling gasses.
Further object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for cooling window foils as described above and which is further capable of cooling both the primary window foil and the secondary window foil simultaneously without the need for large equipment.

Method and apparatus for cooling window foils of electron beam accelerator


A method and system may manage the driver's attention while driving. The driver may be driving using an autonomous driving system or limited-ability autonomous driving system. A method may detect, by a sensor, characteristics of a driver; determine, based on the detected characteristics of the driver, whether the driver exercises sufficient supervisory control of the vehicle; and provide a series of one or more prompts, wherein each prompt's intrusiveness is related to the determination of whether the driver exercises sufficient supervisory control of the vehicle.

Vehicles may be equipped with limited-ability autonomous and/or semi-autonomous driving systems, embodiments, and/or features. Autonomous and semi-autonomous driving systems may provide automated driving controls that reduce the driver interaction required for operating the vehicle. Automated lane following systems for example, may be activated by the driver while the vehicle is in motion, and may maintain the vehicle position in a lane. LAAD systems may reduce driver fatigue and increase safety by maintaining the vehicle position with respect to the road, and other conditions relevant to driving, with reduced driver input, compared to manual driving.
Safety considerations may be taken into account when designing LAAD systems. In order to conform to safety requirements, LAAD systems may be overridden by the driver at any time. When the driver overrides the vehicle lane following system, for example, the system relinquishes full steering control of the vehicle to the driver. However, while a LAAD system is controlling the vehicle, the driver may forget or not realize that the LAAD lacks the ability to handle certain driving situations. Some systems employ driver monitoring systems and may also inform the driver of their attentiveness to the vehicle through a display or indicator. However, these displays may distract the driver and lower the driver's attentiveness to the driving task. Other systems similar to forward collision warning systems may attempt to attract attract a distracted driver's attention to the road, but may activate based only on external event triggers such as another fast approaching vehicle. A system may be needed that both avoids distracting the driver and increases the driver's attentiveness and control of the vehicle—a system that can operate constantly without regard to external triggering events, and activates only as necessary to maintain a minimum level of driver attention.

System and method for closed-loop driver attention management


A tooling system including a workstation assembly and a toolkit, is for performing an operation on a valve assembly. The workstation assembly includes a base platform; upright members extending generally vertically therefrom; an adjustable valve seat assembly coupled thereto for adjusting the height and alignment of the valve assembly being worked on; a stabilizing assembly for further aligning and securing the valve assembly; and a clamping assembly for engaging and securing the valve assembly once it is aligned, in order to permit the operation to be quickly and easily performed on the aligned, secured valve assembly. A method of use is also disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to valve assemblies and, more particularly, to a tooling system for performing operations on valve assemblies. The invention also relates to a method of employing a valve tooling system.
2. Background Information
Valve assemblies (e.g., without limitation, fossil steam turbine inlet valves; non-nuclear throttle valves; governor valves; interceptor valves; pilot valves; reheat stop valves) used, for example, in power generation stations, are frequently subject to routine maintenance and inspection. This requires operations such as, for example, disassembly and reassembly to be performed on the valve assembly. New valves, which will be employed within the power generation system, require initial assembly of the valve assembly. Valve assemblies, particularly those used in power generation applications, can be large and awkward to handle, making such maintenance, assembly and disassembly, and inspection operations difficult and even dangerous.
Conventionally, large valve assemblies have been assembled, disassembled and maintained using a variety of arbitrary manual techniques. One such technique involves the use of various instruments commonly referred to as kluges, which have been developed in an attempt to facilitate, for example, manual valve disassembly operations. Such kluges are often limited to use with a particular type of valve and frequently require several workers to try and hold the valve assembly and kluge stable while performing the operation on the valve (i.e., while applying torque to the valve nut in order to loosen it for assembly.) However, the valve assembly remains relatively insecure and may move, slip or fall causing damage to the valve or injury to a worker. Additionally, the unstable nature of the valve assembly and the arbitrary application of various kluges and manual techniques makes it extremely difficult to accurately and predictably apply a calibrated force to the valve. This may lead to further valve damage. Such manual, random operations are also time consuming, extending the time required to perform the operation on the valve and thus, for example, adding to the duration of the power station downtime.
In any valve assembly, it is highly desirable to apply forces (i.e., without limitation, torque; compression; static load; dynamic load) accurately, in order to avoid damage to the valve.
There is a need, therefore, for an apparatus and method which will permit operations to quickly be performed on a wide variety of valve assemblies in an accurate, predictable and safe manner.
Accordingly, there is room for improvement in valve tooling and in methods of employing tools to perform operations on valve assemblies.


The present invention relates to the use of MRI monitoring of ventricular enlargement rate as an objective measure for the purpose of assessing disease progression in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease and for the purpose of determining therapeutic effectiveness of a treatment regimen for Alzheimer's patients. Methods for treating Alzheimer's Disease and monitoring therapeutic effectiveness are provided.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia afflicting as many as 5.3 million Americans. The disease is generally believed to be caused by the accumulation of β-amyloid plaques in the brain, resulting in nerve cell death and concomitant reduction in neurotransmitters levels. Impairment in memory, cognition, reasoning, and judgment results along with the decrease in emotional stability and development of behavioral problems. The disease is progressive leading to profound mental deterioration and ultimately death.
There is no known cure for the Alzheimer's disease. Patient care primarily focuses on the management of symptoms of this disease. Disease progression in Alzheimer's patients can be monitored in terms of reduction in brain tissue volume, or enlargement of ventricular volume, over time. Afforded by technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), these image-based monitoring techniques are advantageous in their ease to administer and to quantify any changes in the brain condition. The recent discovery that antibodies against β-amyloid are present in human immunoglobulin preparations (e.g., intravenous immunoglobulin or IVIG) and can inhibit the neurotoxic effects of β-amyloid lead to clinical trials in Alzheimer's patients. Disease stabilization and modest improvement in cognitive ability were noted.
In 2006, there were 26.6 million Alzheimer's disease sufferers worldwide. By 2050, a predicted 1 in every 85 people will be diagnosed globally. Given the dire nature of this disease, the large patient population, and the tremendous burden on care givers, a pressing need exists for new and more effective therapeutic agents and methods. The present invention provides improvements to fulfill this and other related needs.

Use of ventricular enlargement rate in intravenous immunoglobulin treatment of Alzheimer's disease


Level shift circuits are disclosed for level shifting an input signal corresponding to a first voltage domain, to generate a pair of complementary output signals corresponding to a second, higher-voltage domain. Snap-back sensitive devices in a discharge circuit for a high voltage output node are protected, irrespective of the loading on the output node, and without requiring precise transistor sizing as a function of the output loading. The snap-back sensitive devices are protected by a voltage shifter circuit in series with the sensitive devices, to limit the voltage across the sensitive devices, even for a high capacitance output node at its highest output voltage. The voltage shifter circuit is then bypassed to provide for an output low level that fully reaches the lower power supply rail.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to level shifting circuits for generating a high voltage domain output signal responsive to a low voltage domain input signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Level shifting circuits are commonly used to convert a signal from a low voltage domain to a high voltage domain. For example, a logic signal may be generated by circuitry which is powered by a low-voltage power supply voltage, such as VDD (e.g., 1.5 volts), and thus have output levels generally corresponding to VDD and ground. However many circuits, such as programmable memory devices, utilize higher voltages for internal signals in programming and erase modes than in a read mode. Frequently such devices use an internal power supply voltage from 3-10 volts or higher, which may be known as VPP. Consequently, it is useful to generate level shifted "versions" of these low-level logic signals, which level shifted signals have output levels of VPP and ground, to provide appropriate voltages on various switched circuit nodes, especially during programming and erase modes of operation.
As semiconductor devices have become smaller, the voltage which may be safely applied across various devices has decreased. For example, the maximum voltage that may be safely applied from drain to source terminals of a non-conducting N-channel MOSFET transistor (i.e., an "off" NMOS transistor) is frequently known as a breakdown voltage. However, when such a transistor is conducting, the maximum voltage that may be safely applied from drain to source terminals is frequently a lower voltage than the breakdown voltage. Such a voltage is known as the "snap back" voltage, which is named for the visual appearance of the transistor's I-V curve when subjected to such conditions.
Snap back concerns frequently limit the operating voltage achievable in a level shifting circuit, and may pose significant reliability concerns in such level shifting circuits. Snap back problems are more problematic in NMOS devices than in PMOS devices, because of the greater susceptibility of electrons being trapped in oxides and surface traps than the susceptibility for holes being trapped. Snap back can cause catastrophic failure of a device, and hence the failure of a circuit incorporating such a device. Consequently, snap back problems are more likely to arise in sub-circuits used to discharge a high voltage node, such as an output node of a level shifter circuit.
Referring now to FIG. 1, a snapback protected level shifter 100 is shown. A logic signal DIN is conveyed on node 102, and is the input signal for this level shifter 100. This input signal need not correspond to a "data" signal, but can be any logic signal, such as an address signal, a decoded or pre-decoded address signal, a control signal, or any other logic signal generally having one of two logic states for a low-voltage domain as its signal levels. The inverters 103, 105, 107, 108, and 109 all belong to this low-voltage domain, being powered by VDD (node 143) and ground (node 140), and thus the signals generated on nodes 104, 106 128, and 129 are each "VDD-level" signals (i.e., having a "high" level of VDD, and a "low" level of ground). These low-voltage inverters 103, 105, 107, 108, and 109 are implemented with low-voltage transistors having a typical threshold voltage (VT) of 300-600 mV, and which devices are not suitable to connection to high voltage nodes.
A second power supply VPP is conveyed on node 145. Such a power supply may be provided from an external source, or may be generated internally within the overall circuit (e.g., a FLASH memory device or other programmable memory device). Moreover, the voltage conveyed on the VPP node 145 may vary depending upon the mode of operation. For example, the magnitude of the VPP voltage in a read mode may be much lower (e.g., 3 volts) than in a write, programming, or erase mode. For the description that follows, we shall assume the VPP voltage to be a high voltage (e.g., 10 volts, such as for a programming mode) well above the snap back voltage for typical NMOS transistors.
The complementary XQ, Q output nodes 114, 115 are coupled to VPP by cross-coupled PMOS transistors 120, 121, and are coupled to ground by matching discharge circuits. The XQ output node 114 is discharged by native transistors 122, 130, 132, and the output pull down transistor within inverter 103, all as described below. Similarly, the Q output node 115 is discharged by native transistors 123, 131, 133, and the output pull down transistor within inverter 105. Such native transistors usually have a threshold voltage near zero volts.
High voltage NMOS devices may be available in some semiconductor processes. However, a suitable high voltage device for 10 volt operation likely requires a threshold voltage high enough (e.g., VT=600-1200 mV) that a VDD level signal on its gate (e.g., as low as 1.2 volts) would barely turn on such a device, if at all.
To understand the operation of this circuit, assume initially that the DIN signal is high (i.e., VDD), and that consequently the Q output node 115 is also high (i.e., VPP) and that the XQ output node 114 is low (i.e., ground). Next assume that the DIN node transitions from a high to a low level (i.e., from VDD to ground). Clearly the intended operation is to bring the voltage of the Q output node 115 to ground, and to bring the voltage of the XQ output node 114 to VPP. With DIN at ground, node 128 is brought to ground, transistor 130 is turned off, and the XQ output node 114 is free to be driven high by PMOS transistor 120 when turned on by the decreasing voltage on the Q output node 115 that is coupled to the gate of transistor 120 (described in detail below).
With DIN at ground, node 106 is also driven to ground, and node 129 is driven high (i.e., VDD) by inverter 109. However, since transistor 131 is very sensitive to snap back, the rise time of node 129 is intentionally slowed so that the gate-to-source voltage of transistor 131 develops very slowly, and thus transistor 131 turns on very slowly, to thereby discharge node 127 (i.e., reducing the drain-to-source voltage on transistor 131) before the gate-to-source voltage of transistor 131 reaches a voltage that would cause a snap back condition. Such intentional slowing may be accomplished by using transistors in inverter 109 that have a longer electrical length than the usual "minimum length" transistors for a given semiconductor process. The level shift diode 123 is provided to decrease the voltage on node 127 to a lesser value than the voltage of the Q output node 115, to reduce the voltage otherwise impressed across transistor 131. As the voltage of node 129 continues to rise, and as the voltage of node 127 continues to fall, transistor 133 will eventually turn on, bypassing the level shift diode 123, and providing a discharge path from the Q output node 115, through transistor 133, transistor 131, and the inverter 105 pull down transistor, to ground. This discharge path is suitable to drive the Q output node 115 fully to ground, without resulting in a low level that "rides" above ground by a diode drop.
As the Q output 115 is being discharged, the PMOS pull-up transistor 121 initially remains fully turned on until the voltage of the Q output node 115 is reduced by at least a PMOS threshold voltage (VT) so that PMOS transistor 120 turns on, charging up the complementary XQ output node 114, and turning off PMOS transistor 121 to thereby allow the discharge path to completely discharge the Q output node 115, and to achieve a quiescent state with no standby power dissipation. Such intentionally weakened pull down paths require that the corresponding pull up paths must also be weakened. In other words, if the discharge path is weakened, the pull-up path must also be weakened if the voltage on the output node is able to be reduced by at least a PMOS threshold voltage.
The weakened drive strength in both the charging (i.e., pull-up) path and the discharging (i.e., pull-down) path increases the delay through such a level shifter circuit, and thus reduces circuit performance. Moreover, the various transistors in the level shifter circuit must be sized for a given output load. As a result, no standard-sized level shifter circuit may be used with varying output capacitive loading without risking the reliability of the level shifter circuit.
Considerable efforts have been applied in the art to design around such snap back concerns, which sometimes results in circuits having unusually high complexity to accomplish what might seem like a simple logic structure. Nonetheless, improvements in such level shifter circuits are always beneficial.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Level shifter circuit incorporating transistor snap-back protection