A crutch includes a grip and a forearm support that are coupled to an elongated member that extends from the forearm support to the ground. The inner surface of the forearm support can correspond to a digital representation of a forearm of the patient and the outer surface of the hand grip can correspond to a digital representation of a palmar surface of the patient's hand in at least a partially closed position.

In order to provide proper treatment of fractures, injuries and chronic conditions, there is a clinical need to protect the afflicted extremity from weightbearing forces. Current options for treatment of lower extremity pathologies include the use of crutches and instructing the patient not to apply weight bearing on the affected extremity. Frequently treatment is augmented with use of casting, bracing splinting. When range of motion of the extremity is required, a removable cast or splint is required that allows the injured joint to be moved actively or passively.
The Lofstrand crutch is a device that replaces a standard crutch and is different than a standard crutch because it includes a wrist or pistol grip mount and a semicircular forearm support. Lofstrand crutches are generally used by patients who are unable to bear the body weight load on the palms of their hands while using traditional crutches. These patients may need a Lofstrand crutch for various reasons including wrist arthritis, neurologic injury, decreased grip, wrist strength, etc. Crutches are typically manufactured and sold with a generic set of body contact structures and Lofstrand crutches of varied angles are commercially available with generic shapes. Because the forearm support is generic, forearm discomfort and instability of the forearm mounts is a frequent complaint of the devices. What is needed is an improved crutch with a forearm mount that inherently provides a better comfortable and stable fit around the patient's forearm.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Crutch apparatus and method for designing and fabricating


Tantalum powder capable of providing a small-sized tantalum electrolytic capacitor while maintaining capacity is described. Tantalum powder in the present invention can be characterized in that the CV value is from 200,000 to 800,000 μFV/g, when measured by the following measuring method. Pellets are produced by forming tantalum powder such that the density is 4.5 g/cm3, then the pellets are chemically converted in a phosphoric acid aqueous solution of concentration 0.1 vol. % at a voltage of 6V and a current of 90 mA/g, and the chemically converted pellets are used as measuring samples to measure the CV value in a sulfuric acid aqueous solution of concentration 30.5 vol. % at a temperature of 25° C. under a frequency of 120 Hz and a voltage of 1.5V.

The present invention relates to tantalum powder that can be used for a tantalum electrolytic capacitor and methods of manufacturing the same.
The present invention also relates to valve metal powders and electrolytic capacitors using the valve metal powders as well as methods of making the powders and the capacitors. More particularly, the present invention relates to high surface area valve metal powders and capacitors having high capacitance.
Tantalum capacitors, made from tantalum powder, have been a major contributor to the miniaturization of electronic circuits and have made possible the application of such circuits in extreme environments. Tantalum capacitors typically are manufactured by compressing tantalum powder to form a pellet, sintering the pellet in a furnace to form a porous tantalum body (electrode), and then subjecting the porous body to anodization in a suitable electrolyte to form a continuous dielectric oxide film on the sintered body.
Development of powders suitable for making tantalum capacitors has resulted from efforts by both capacitor producers and tantalum processors to delineate the characteristics required for tantalum powder for it to best serve in the production of quality capacitors. Such characteristics include specific surface area, purity, shrinkage, pressability, and the like.
First, the powder should provide an adequate electrode surface area when formed into a porous body and sintered. The μFV/g of tantalum capacitors can be related to the specific surface area of the sintered porous body produced by sintering a tantalum powder pellet. The specific surface area of tantalum powder can be related to the maximum μFV/g attainable in the sintered porous body.
Purity of the powder can also be an important consideration. Metallic and non-metallic contamination tends to degrade the dielectric oxide film in tantalum capacitors. While high sintering temperatures serve to remove some volatile contaminants, high temperatures also tend to shrink the porous body reducing its net specific surface area and thus the capacitance of the resulting capacitor. Minimizing the loss of specific surface area under sintering conditions, i.e., shrinkage, is necessary in order to produce high μFV/g tantalum capacitors.
As discussed above, the μFV/g of a tantalum pellet can be a function of the specific surface area of the sintered powder. Greater net surface area can be achieved, of course, by increasing the quantity (grams) of powder per pellet; but, cost and size considerations have dictated that development be focused on means to increase the specific surface area of tantalum powder.
One proposed method for increasing the specific surface area of tantalum powder is flattening the powder particles into a flake shape. However, efforts to increase specific surface area by making thinner tantalum flakes have been hindered by concomitant loss of processing characteristics, for example, very thin tantalum flake would be expected to have poor pressability and low forming voltages, for example. Also, in processes to making high surface area powders, the milling can take many hours which can be time consuming, expensive, and the long milling times typically result in reaching a point where the powder fractures. Thus, there has been somewhat of a threshold which has prevented high capacitance powders.
A tantalum electrolytic capacitor generally has an anode formed from a tantalum powder compact, an oxide film that is a dielectric substance provided by chemically converting an anode surface, and a cathode provided opposite the oxide film. In recent years, following the downsizing of electronic devices, a small-sized tantalum electrolytic capacitor with low service voltage and high capacity has been in demand. The performance of a tantalum electrolytic capacitor can be influenced by the properties of tantalum powder; for example, the larger the surface area of the tantalum powder, the larger the electrostatic capacity of the capacitor becomes. Therefore, attempts have been made to increase the electrostatic capacity by making the grain size of tantalum powder smaller and enlarging the surface area of the oxide film after chemical conversion, for example, as mentioned in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-162372, incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.

Tantalum powder and methods of manufacturing same


A radiation bag system comprising a major body portion in a generally rectangular configuration including a linear bottom edge and a parallel linear top edge with perpendicular side edges there between. The side edges include a discontinuous side edge and a parallel continuous side edge. A minor handle portion in a generally rectangular configuration includes a linear bottom edge and a parallel linear top edge with perpendicular side edges there between. The body portion and handle portion are fabricated of a flexible sheet material with an upper sheet and a congruent lower sheet coupled along the upper edge of the handle portion and the lower edge of the body portion. The upper sheet and lower sheet are also coupled along the discontinuous edge. The sheets are thus adapted to form a major chamber in the body portion. The sheets are thus also adapted to form a minor chamber in the handle portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation bag system and more particularly pertains to protecting a sensitive radiation detecting device from "contamination" by nuclear fission byproducts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of plastic bags and shields is known in the prior art. More specifically, plastic bags and shields previously devised and utilized for the purpose of shielding users from the contents of plastic bags and containers are known to consist basically of familiar, expected, and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which has been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,479 issued Nov. 15, 1977 to White relates to a filter-lined container for hazardous solids. U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,436 issued May 8, 1990 to Gelbard relates to a plastic bag and method and apparatus of manufacture. U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,887 issued Sep. 1, 1998 to Koyama relates to a oxygen-absorbing container. U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,741 issued Oct. 19, 1999 to Klecina relates to a stacked disposable plastic glove pad. U.S. Pat. No. 6,042,909 issued Mar. 28, 2000 to Dunleavy relates to an encapsulation device. Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,699 issued Nov. 21, 2000 to White relates to a method and apparatus relating to disposable filter modules for filtering air containing hazardous substances.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a radiation bag system that allows protecting a sensitive radiation detecting device from being "contaminated" by nuclear fission byproducts.
In this respect, the radiation bag system according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of protecting a sensitive radiation detecting device from "contamination" by nuclear fission byproducts.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for a new and improved radiation bag system which can be used for protecting a sensitive radiation detecting device from "contamination" by nuclear fission byproducts. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.


A solid electrolyte film including a resin having a repeating unit containing a bis(perfluoroalkanesulfonyl)methide moiety. This solid electrolyte film combines high proton conductivity with low methanol permeability for prevention of methanol crossover and can suitably be used for a direct methanol fuel cell.

A fuel cell is known as a power generation device that has a high power generation efficiency and capable of effectively utilizing thermal energy. As the fuel cell generates power by electrochemical reaction, the power generation efficiency of the fuel cell is higher than those of other power generation systems that take out electric power by secondary means such as, for example, rotating a turbine with steam generated by combustion of fuel. In principle, the fuel cell gives water as a reaction product and does not require combustion of fuel so that there arise low emissions of carbon dioxides and no emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide as causes of atmospheric pollution. For this reason, attention has been focused on the fuel cell as a next-generation clean energy source. A polymer electrolyte fuel cell (hereinafter abbreviated as "PEFC") uses a polymer ion exchange film as an electrolyte. Among the PEFC, a direct methanol fuel cell (hereinafter abbreviated as "DMFC") uses methanol in place of hydrogen and generates power by direct reaction of methanol at an electrode thereof. Differently from other fuel cells that dissociate hydrogen into hydrogen ions (protons) and electrons by elimination of the electrons from the hydrogen on the anode side (fuel electrode) under the action of catalysts, the DMFC forms protons, electrons and carbon oxide by direct reaction of methanol with water on the anode electrode under the action of a catalyst. Further, the DMFC can attain a high output density, low temperature operability and size/weight reduction and thus be suitably applied as power sources of a mobile phone, a notebook-size personal computer and the like.
One problem of the DMFC is a crossover phenomenon in which a part of the methanol permeates through the solid electrolyte film from the anode side (fuel electrode) to the cathode side (air electrode). This methanol crossover phenomenon causes not only a fuel loss but also an output deterioration due to consumption of oxygen at the air electrode. The development of a methanol-impermeable solid electrolyte film is a principle issue for performance improvements of the DMFC.
Some types of solid electrolyte films are currently used, one of which is a perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer electrolyte film. This type of electrolyte film is produced or commercially available under the trade name "Nafion" from Du Pont Co., Ltd., "Flemion" from Asahi Glass Co., Ltd., "Aciplex" from Asahi-Kasei Co., Ltd. or "Gore-Select" from Japan Gore-Tex Inc.
In a perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer, a sulfonic acid group has an affinity for water such that water molecules are absorbed onto the sulfonic acid group to form a cluster structure in which the water molecules are clustered together like a bunch of grapes around the sulfonic acid group. It is assumed that the perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer exhibits proton conductivity by migration of protons together with the water molecules in the cluster structure. The rate of permeation of methanol through the perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer is high because methanol is easy to diffuse in the polymer through the clusters. This results in a performance deterioration of the fuel cell using the solid electrolyte film of perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer.
Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose techniques for prevention of such a methanol crossover phenomenon. In the technique of Patent Document 1, for example, the solid electrolyte film of perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer is irradiated with radiation rays so as to increase the cross-linking degree of the polymer. However, the proton conductivity of the solid electrolyte film decreases with increase in the cross-linking degree of the polymer. The solid electrolyte film also increases in cost due to more complicated production process.
The development of a low-cost solid electrolyte film as an alternative to the perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer electrolyte film is being pursued. For example, Patent Document 2 discloses that a pore-filling membrane in which a porous engineering plastic film is filled with a sulfonic acid group-containing resin shows a reduction in methanol permeability. This membrane however has much lower proton conductivity than that of the perfluorocarbonsulfonic acid polymer electrolyte film. Further, it is necessary to fill the high-acidity resin into the film without no gap left therein. It is also necessary to introduce a cross-linking structure to the filling resin. If the cross-linking of the filling resin is not sufficient, there occurs elution of the resin due to use of high-concentration methanol. Furthermore, the production process of the pore-filling membrane is not common and is not suitable for mass production. For example, in the case of producing a membrane-electrode assembly (hereinafter abbreviated as "MEA") on which a methanol oxidation electrode catalyst is supported, the engineering plastic film has poor adhesion to a binder resin of the catalyst layer during hot pressing and becomes separated because of its high glass transition temperature of 200° C. or higher.

Solid electrolyte film, and method for producing same


The present disclosure provides an arch bracket for a diaphragm pressure gauge, comprising a bottom, first windows, ribs, second windows and a top arranged in order, the first windows and the second windows being arranged alternately, taking one of the first windows as an example, two sides of the first window being respectively provided with a first fulcrum and a third fulcrum, and a middle of the first window being provided with a second fulcrum, the first fulcrum and the third fulcrum being used to connect the bottom and the ribs, and the second fulcrum being used to connecting the ribs and the top, and the second fulcrum being located on a vertical line between the first fulcrum and the third fulcrum. By setting the pre-punched notches on the pre-punched part, the first windows and the second windows on the formed part are formed by the pre-punched notches.

A pressure gauge refers to an instrument with an elastic element as a sensitive element which measures and indicates a pressure higher than an ambient pressure. The pressure gauge is widely used in almost all industrial processes and research fields.
A diaphragm pressure gauge often adopts an arch bracket which is a supporting frame for internal members. The arch bracket in the diaphragm pressure gauge in the prior art is made by multi-die pressing and multi-punching, and side debugging windows are all designed with four-hole uniform distribution. The punching process of the bow frame is complicated, and a debugging window allows a tool to extend into a narrow range, which is not conducive to an installation and debugging of the pressure gauge, and leads to a low production efficiency and a high processing cost.

Arch bracket for diaphragm pressure gauge


A convertible sewing machine utilizes plain-seaming and closed-seaming head assemblies to provide both plain-seaming and closed-seaming functions in a single integral package. The convertible sewing machine includes a housing having opposing ends, a plain-seaming head-assembly disposed at one end of the housing, a closed-seaming head-assembly disposed at the other end of the housing, a drive motor and a drive-coupling assembly for mechanically coupling the drive motor and at least one of the plain-seaming and closed-seaming head-assemblies. The drive-coupling assembly is capable of selectively engaging either, or both of, the head-assemblies. A turntable mechanism can also be included for rotating the convertible sewing machine into several positions of operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to sewing machines of the type used in the garment industry. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a convertible sewing machine which is capable of performing plain-seaming as well as closed-seaming functions. Accordingly, the general objects of the present invention are to provide novel and improved methods and apparatus of such character.
2. Description of the Related Art
Sewing machines have been a main-stay of the garment manufacturing industry for many years. In fact, since its invention, the sewing machine has become such an important tool in the garment industry, that many variations thereof have been developed. Nonetheless, most of these garment manufacturing sewing machines can be divided into two general classifications.
The first class of sewing machines may be termed "plain-seaming" sewing machines. Plain-seaming sewing machines are designed to sew two pieces of material to one another. A typical plain-seaming sewing machine is depicted in FIG. 1. As shown therein, the sewing machine primarily includes a housing which has a base plate, a working panel and a front panel. Further, a plain-seaming head-assembly is disposed at one end of the housing, and power and drive gears are disposed within the housing of the sewing machine. As shown in FIG. 1, the driving force for the machine is applied to a bent shaft 6 by a belt connected between an originating power source (not shown) and one end of shaft 6. This driving force will then be transferred through connecting rod 8 to a lower shaft 9 to cause rotation of lower shaft 9. The driving force is also transferred through the connecting rod 16 to the material-feeding shaft 25. Thus, once the initiating drive force is applied to bent shaft 6, the cooperation of the various components will initiate operation of the sewing machine.
A second class of sewing machines may be referred to as "closed-seaming" sewing machines. Closed-seaming sewing machines are used to sew the exposed edge of a piece of cloth to prevent the exposed fibers of the edge from fraying. A typical closed-seaming sewing machine is depicted in FIG. 2. As shown therein, the sewing machine includes a lower shaft 13 which receives a driving force from an initiating power source (not shown) via a drive belt, the belt causing rotation of lower shaft 13. The drive force is then transferred from lower shaft 13 to needle bar shaft 15 through connecting rod 14. This results in rotation of needle bar shaft 15 and reciprocation of needle bar 26. The needle bar 26 and the components associated therewith comprise a closed-seaming head-assembly which will operate upon the application of the initiating driving force to lower shaft 13.
Both closed-seaming and plain-seaming sewing machines are currently being widely used throughout the garment manufacturing industry. However, despite their wide-spread use and importance, the use of these machines is somewhat expensive, inefficient and inconvenient. The primary cause of such deficiencies resides in the closed-seaming and plain-seaming sewing machines taking the form of individually dedicated machines. Thus, the need for garment manufacturers to own and utilize both types of sewing machines has resulted in the reduced efficiencies noted above.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for an improved sewing machine which overcomes the aforementioned deficiencies of the related art by providing a single sewing machine which is capable of performing both plain-seaming and closed-seaming functions.


A radiator including a core part having a plurality of tubes and fins, a tank fluidically connected with the tank, an oil cooler contained in the tank, the oil cooler being provided with a pair of connecting pipes which fluidically communicate an interior of the oil cooler and penetrate a wall portion of the tank. The wall portion is formed with a projecting reinforcement portion which projects therefrom and is formed at least between the connecting pipes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiator which is used for a motor vehicle or the like and is equipped with a tank containing an oil cooler for cooling oil of an automatic transmission or others.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional radiator equipped with a tank containing an oil cooler is disclosed in Japanese patents laying-open publication No. 2005-315514, No. 2005-337529, No. 2005-308303, No. 2005-172270 and No. 2005-3227. In these conventional radiators, parts of the radiators including the oil cooler and the tank are brazed to each other by heat treatment at the same time, in a state where the oil cooler is contained in the tank and two connecting pipes of the oil cooler pass through a wall portion of the tank to be fixed. Incidentally, in other cases, the oil cooler and the tank are brazed to each other before the heat treatment of other parts of the radiators.
These conventional radiators, however, encounter a problem in that an undesirable deformation of the tank are liable to occur due to a thermal expansion difference caused during the heat treatment, especially in an intermediate portion, sandwiched between a pair of connecting pipes of the oil cooler, of the tank.
FIGS. 10A and 10B show how the tank is deformed after the heat treatment.
In order to easily insert the oil cooler 05, with the connecting pipes P01 and P02 projecting outwardly therefrom, into the tank 03, the tank 03 is usually divided into a first tank body 03A fixed with and a second tank body 03A.
The first tank body 03A is formed with a pair of through-holes for passing the connecting pipes P01 and P02, and the second tank body 03B is formed so as to be coupled with the first tank body 03B. This needs brazing of the connecting pipes P01 and P02 and a wall of the first tank body 03A and another brazing of the first tank body 03A and the second tank body 03B. It is preferable to carry out the both brazing at the same time, because its production time and manufacturing costs can be decreased by removing twice-heating, twice taking in-and-out and cooling the first tank body 03A and the oil cooler 05 after they are brazed.
As shown in FIG. 10A, the oil cooler 05 is temporally assembled with the first tank body 03A in a state where its connecting pipes P01 and P02 penetrate through a wall portion of the first tank body 03A to be fixed. Then the first tank body 03 is temporally coupled with the second tank body 03B. The tank 03 containing the oil cooler 05 is temporally assembled with a core part and others, and then they are placed in a heating furnace to be heated.
In this heat treatment of the radiator, heating temperature and heating hours are usually set, allowing for appropriate ones for mainly those of brazing the core part, the first tank body 03A and the second tank body 03B. Wall portions of the first and second tank bodies 03A and 03B are exposed to an ambient atmosphere in the heating furnace and are directly heated, while the oil cooler 05 is kept out of the direct heat of the heating furnace because the wall portions of the first and second tank bodies 03A and 03B prevent the oil cooler 05 from being directly heated. The temperature of the wall portions rises more rapidly than that of the oil cooler 05, which causes the wall portions to expand with heat, more largely than the oil cooler 05. Accordingly, an intermediate portion 03a, sandwiched between the connecting pipes P01 and P02 which penetrate the wall portion of the first tank body 03A, of the wall portion of the first tank body 03A deforms outwardly due to a thermal expansion difference between the first tank body 03A and the oil cooler 05 with the connecting pipes P01 and P02 as shown FIG. 8B. The wall portion is liable to easily deform because of a division into the first and second tank bodies 03A and 03B. The outward deformation of the first tank body 03A may cause a leakage of coolant flowing through the tank 03, deteriorating product quality and reliability of the radiator.
The above-described problem similarly occurs when the oil cooler 05 and the tank 03 are brazed in advance of the heat treatment of the other parts.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a radiator containing an oil cooler which overcomes the foregoing drawbacks and can prevent a wall portion, through which connecting pipes of an oil cooler penetrate, of a tank from being deformed beyond permissible limit when the tank body and the oil cooler contained therein are brazed by a heat treatment, improving product quality and reliability of a radiator.


An in-vehicle communication system includes: an in-vehicle communication apparatus equipped to a vehicle; a first mobile communication terminal connected in a communicable manner with the in-vehicle communication apparatus; and a second mobile communication terminal connected in a communicable manner with the first mobile communication terminal. The in-vehicle communication apparatus, the first mobile communication terminal, and the second mobile communication terminal each has a cooperative application program for executing multiple contents cooperatively with one another. The first mobile communication terminal forbids operational input and/or screen output of a predetermined content. When a travel determination unit determines that the vehicle is running, the in-vehicle communication apparatus forbids operational input and/or screen output with respect to the predetermined content. The second mobile communication terminal enables operational input and/or screen output with respect to the predetermined content.

Conventionally, an in-vehicle communication system which automatically connects the following in a communicable manner with each other has been devised as disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1: an in-vehicle communication apparatus equipped to a vehicle and a mobile communication terminal carried into the vehicle compartment of the vehicle.
With respect to this type of system, a technology for cooperatively executing contents by an in-vehicle communication apparatus and a mobile communication terminal has been devised. Further, in relation to this cooperation technology, a configuration for carrying out, for example, the following has been devised to prevent a driver from manipulating a mobile communication terminal during vehicle running: the utilization of contents from the mobile communication terminal is forbidden and the contents are utilized from an in-vehicle communication apparatus. In addition, with respect to some contents considered undesirable to utilize during vehicle running, a configuration for carrying out the following has been devised: the utilization of the contents from an in-vehicle communication apparatus is also forbidden. However, with these configurations, not only the driver of a vehicle but also users other than the driver cannot utilize contents. That is, users considered not to affect a driving safety even if they utilize the contents during vehicle running cannot utilize the contents, either.

In-vehicle communication system, in-vehicle communication apparatus, and mobile communication terminal


The present invention is directed toward providing a system and method of reducing RF interference in switching amplifiers without degrading performance. In one embodiment, the sampling rate of coarse high voltage modulated pulsewidths are increased relative to the sampling rate of fine lower voltage modulated pulsewidths. This increase in the sampling rate of coarse high voltage modulated pulsewidths results in a reduction in EMI.

Switching amplifiers enjoy significantly better efficiency than their non-switching predecessors, primarily because transistors used to switch voltages to a load are either turned ON, so that the voltage across the transistor is relatively low, or turned OFF, so that the current through the transistor is relatively low. With either a low voltage across the transistor or a low current through the transistor, the power dissipated by the transistor is relatively low.
Switching amplifiers using a single PWM stream are widely used. However, these switching amplifiers cannot accurately amplify high bandwidth, high accuracy signals at a reasonable cost. A more recent approach has been to use switching amplifiers capable of using modulation techniques that include two or more PWM streams, such as a multi-reference switching amplifier. A multi-reference switching amplifier is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,535,058 Multi-reference, High Accuracy Switching Amplifier, the entire content being incorporated herein by reference. One example of a multi-reference switching amplifier comprising two separate PWM streams where one stream is a coarse high voltage PWM stream and the other stream is a fine low voltage PWM stream.
Switching amplifiers can sometimes generate excessive electromagnetic radio frequency ("RF") interference that can interfere with the operation of the amplifier as well as with other electronic devices in the vicinity of the amplifier. This RF interference can be attenuated to some extent by coupling the load driven by the amplifier to low pass filters formed by inductors and/or capacitors. A low pass filter attenuates a signal beyond a specific frequency, often called the cutoff frequency. The greater the frequency of the RF interference is above the cutoff frequency, the more the RF interference is attenuated. However, decreasing the cutoff frequency to better attenuate the RF interference limits the bandwidth of the switching amplifier. Conversely, increasing the sampling rate to allow the filter to provide better attenuation of the RF interference reduces the available dynamic range of the output signal, such the ratio of the loudest signal to the smallest signal.
Therefore, there is a need to reduce RF interference without degrading the output signal and without compromising output signal dynamic range.

Method and system for increasing sampling frequency for switching amplifiers


A storage switch with bandwidth control function for preventing discarding of packets for bandwidth breach when sending or receiving storage data using an iSCSI protocol on a wide area network having a covenant (guaranteed) bandwidth, when the quantity of storage data traffic sent by the initiator or target was judged a bandwidth breach or violation. The traffic amount is predicted from the Expected Data Transfer Length contained in the read request of the iSCSI command and the Desired Data Transfer Length contained in the R2T command, when that command is sent to the target and the initiator and the bandwidth is regulated by controlling the transmission timing of that command.

A standard known as iSCSI uses TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) for capsuling commands on SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) which is a standard for connecting personal computers and peripheral devices such as storage devices. By utilizing iSCSI, the user can access (RD (read) data, WR (write) data, etc.) peripheral devices (hereafter storage devices, but may be any iSCSI compatible device) such as storage devices compatible with iSCSI on IP networks by using SCSI commands. Here, the device that issues commands is called the initiator and the device that receives and processes those commands is called the target. The IP packet containing the iSCSI command is here referred to as the iSCSI packet.
FIG. 1 for example shows an application where a user 100-i (i=1 through n) is accessing other users on iSCSI through a datacenter 103 by utilizing a wide area network 102 comprised of an IP network or wide area Ethernet (registered trademark) that guarantees the user bandwidth. The datacenter 103 internally contains a storage switch 104 and a storage device 105-i (i=1 through n) that make up the IP-SAN or FC-SAN 106 (hereafter SAN is used as a general name for IP-SAN and FC-SAN) The console 107 makes the storage switch 104 settings. The operation of the wide area network 102 connecting the user 100 and the datacenter 103 is guaranteed by a bandwidth guarantee service so that no discarding of data occurs when the traffic volume is within the contract bandwidth.
A UPC (User Parameter Control) function is generally used in QoS (Quality of Service) control of the wide area network 102. This UPC function utilizes a packet switching system 101 at the entry point to the network to monitor whether or not the user is sending or receiving data within the contract bandwidth. The QoS control is a technology for guaranteeing the communication band set for each user on IP networks mainly using best effort type. When the UPC detects traffic exceeding the contract bandwidth, the packet in violation is discarded on the spot, or a data transfer priority system is used that for example sets a low data transfer priority for discard candidates when traffic congestion has occurred within the wide area network.
FIG. 2 is a concept view showing the case when a user 100 is reading data in the data storage device 105-i within the datacenter 103 using the application of FIG. 1. For purposes of simplification, only one user and one storage device are shown and the others are omitted. The method for loading (reading out) data from the storage device 105-i is described here using FIG. 2. First of all, in order to request data from the storage device 105-i, the user 100 sends a data read request as an iSCSI command. More specifically, this request is an iSCSI packet (hereafter read request packet) set with a 1 in the Rbit, and an operation code of 0x01 for the BHS (Basic Header Segment) of the iSCSI PDU (Protocol Data Unit). The read request packet 200 contains the data size (capacity) of the data requested by the user. More specifically, this data capacity is the Expected Data Transfer Length value (hereafter requested RD length) of the BHS set with 1 in the Rbit and an operation code of 0x01. The storage device 105-i that received the read request packet 200 utilizes the SCSI Data-in (hereafter RD data packet) command 201 with a BHS operation code of 0x25 for the iSCSI PDU) in an iSCSI packet to send the requested read length to the user 100. If the read data exceeds the MTU (Maximum Transfer Unit) then the packet is divided into multiple read (RD) data packets and sent. The above described the process flow during data loading.
One read request packet 200 has a small data capacity of about 100 bytes. The data size of the RD data packet (Data-in PDU) 201 however varies according to the data amount requested by the user and in many cases is several dozen to several hundred kilobytes more. Therefore even if the traffic of the read request packet 200 the user sends to the storage device 105-i is within the contract bandwidth, the traffic quantity of the RD data packet 201 the storage device 105-i sends to the user might be outside (might violate) the user contract bandwidth. An RD data packet 201 that violates the contract bandwidth is unable to arrive at the user 100 due to being a packet discarded at the congestion spot within the wide area network for a bandwidth breach (violation) 202 or a packet discarded by QoS control 203 at the packet switching system 101.
FIG. 3 is a concept view showing the case when a user 100 is writing data in the data storage device 105-i within the datacenter 103 using the application of FIG. 1. For purposes of simplification, only one user and one storage device are shown and the others are omitted. The method for writing data onto the storage device 105-i using iSCSI is described here. First of all, in order to request writing onto the storage device 105-i, the user 100 sends a data write request as an iSCSI command. More specifically, this request is an iSCSI packet (hereafter write request packet) set with a 1 in the Wbit, and an operation code of 0x01 for the BHS (Basic Header Segment) of the iSCSI PDU (Protocol Data Unit). The storage device 105-i that received this write request packet 300 sends an R2T command (more specifically this {R2T packet} Ready to Transfer has an operation code 0x31 for the BHS of the iSCSI PDU) 301 as an iSCSI packet to the user 100. This R2T packet 301 has the task of showing the user 100 that the preparation made by the storage device 105-i for writing the data sent from the user 100 is complete. The R2T packet 301 holds information on how many bytes of data were accepted at one time. More specifically, this information is the Desired Data Transfer Length Value (hereafter requested WR length). The user 100 that received the RT2 packet 301, sends the requested WR length data of R2T packet 301 to the storage device 105-i, utilizing the Data-out command iSCSI packet 302. More specifically, this Data-out command iSCSI packet 302 is an SCSI Data-out {hereafter WR data packet} packet having an operation code of 0x05 of the BHS of the iSCSI PDU. If this write data exceeds the network path MTU then the packet is divided into multiple write (WR) data packets and sent. The above description explained the process flow during data writing (WR).
The same as when reading data (RD), there is a large difference between the WR data packet 302 data size, and the WR request packet 300 data size, and the R2T packet 301 data size. So though the WR request packet 300 sent by the user 100 to the storage device 105-i, and the R2T packet 301 traffic quantity sent to the user 100 by the storage device 105-i will fit within the user contract bandwidth, the traffic quantity of the WR data packet (Data-out PDU) 302 sent by the user to the storage device 105-i might violate the user contract bandwidth. An WR data packet 302 that violates the contract bandwidth is unable to arrive at the storage device 105-i due to being a packet discarded at the congestion spot within the wide area network for a bandwidth breach (violation) 303 or a packet discarded by QoS control 304 at the packet switching system 101.
The iSCSI utilizes TCP/IP for the host protocol. Therefore transmit must be re-performed when data discarding occurs along the path. However, where the discard quantity is large, wasted traffic occurs on the wide area network 102, leading to wasteful resource consumption of the storage switch 104 and the storage device 105-i and causes a deterioration in overall device performance.
The IP network of the related art required a device called a traffic shaper to control the bandwidth at the entry point to the wide area network in order to prevent the transmitted data bandwidth on the wide area network 102 from exceeding the user contract bandwidth. This traffic shaper regulates (shaping) the traffic so that the amount of transmitted data sent by the user to the wide area network does not exceed the contract bandwidth, and prevents discarding of the transmitted data on the wide area network 102. One example of a patent for a bandwidth control device for guaranteeing that data greater than the contract bandwidth is not sent to the wider area network 102 is shown in Patent document 1. The bandwidth control device disclosed in Patent document 1 temporarily stores the packet sent from the user in a buffer within the bandwidth control device. Next, the packets loaded from the buffer are constantly measured. When the packet quantity loaded from the buffer has exceeded the contract bandwidth, the data amount sent from the user to the wide area network is controlled so as not to exceed the contract bandwidth by temporarily stopping the loading (read-out) of packets from the buffer.
[Patent document 1] JP-A No. 349763/2000
Applying the bandwidth control device of Patent document 1 to the network shown in FIG. 1 causes the following three problems. A first problem is that a condition occurs where RD data packets and WR data packets are issued at one time in large quantities (From hereon this conditions is called a burst.). When this burst is input to a bandwidth control device, the buffer overflows and data is discarded at this point. The storage data is characterized in having a large capacity and being burst prone compared to data sent and received conventionally over IP networks. So in order to achieve bandwidth control without discarding the RD data packet 201 and the WR data packet 302, the traffic shaper must have a large capacity from several to several dozen megabytes for each user. Maintaining such a large capacity buffer for each user is extremely difficult and even if actually achieved will have poor expandability.
A second problem is that the storage device 105-i and the user computer terminal impose a greater load than required. The bandwidth control device of Patent document 1 sends a packet just for confirming that the data amount sent over the wide area network is within the contract bandwidth. The RD request packet 200 and the R2T packet 301 contain transmit request data length information. The storage device 105-i and the computer terminal of the user that received these iSCSI packets, transfer data in bursts, regardless of whether the amount of transmitted data is within the contract range. Even if these bursts of data exceeding the contract bandwidth of the network are loaded, this data is delayed by the bandwidth control device or is discarded. Loading of data larger than the contract bandwidth of the wide area network therefore causes wasted storage device 105-i and user computer terminal resources.
A third problem is that the bandwidth of the RD data packet 201 must be controlled on the storage device 105-i side, and the WR data packet 302 bandwidth must be controlled on the user 100 side. A bandwidth control device is therefore needed on both the storage device 105-i side and the user 100 side.
The bandwidth control device of the conventional art for IP networks was therefore incapable of efficiently controlling the storage data bandwidth and incapable of preventing the waste of storage device and user computer terminal resources.

Storage switch with bandwidth control function


A method of creating a copy of a virtualized storage region in a data processing system for virtualizing the storage region. A server manages the correlation between the virtualized storage region and the physical storage region, utilizes the function of the storage unit for those physical storage regions having a function, and the function for those physical storage regions without the function, to efficiently copy the virtualized storage region.

This invention relates to a computer system for handling a virtualized storage region. Computer systems used in banks and stock companies usually make back-up copies of data contained in those computer systems (hereinafter referred to as "backup") to prevent loss of data due to a failure in the system.
Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 132343/2000 discloses a method in which a copy of data is created in a storage unit system of a computer system (the method herein referred to as a "snapshot") to back-up the data based on the copied data. There has further been proposed a method of creating a copy of data not in the storage unit system but between the storage unit systems (hereinafter referred to as "remote copy").
Currently, a tremendous amount of data is processed in computer systems, and the users are bearing increased costs for managing the storage unit systems. A report "Virtualizing the SAN," published Jul. 5, 2000, by Morgan Keegan, a research company, discloses a system in which storage regions offered by a plurality of storage unit systems in a computer system are virtualized to form a theoretical storage region (virtualized volume), and the virtualized volume is offered to the user (host computer) to decrease the user's cost of managing the storage unit.

Computer system with virtualization function


A fishing hook and lure protector includes a hollow body that defines an enclosure. The body has a resilient sidewall with a first circumferential peripheral edge, a second circumferential peripheral edge and a slit that extends for the height of the resilient sidewall from the first circumferential peripheral edge to the second circumferential peripheral edge and defines a first engagement edge and a second engagement edge. A first engagement profile is positioned along the first engagement edge. A second engagement profile is positioned along the second engagement edge. The first engagement profile and the second engagement profile cooperate to attached the body to one of the line guides of the fishing rod.

U.S. Pat. No. 3,722,128 (Tremblay) entitled "Snag Shield and Scent Carrier for Lure Hooks" discloses a flexible shield that is engaged over a shank of a fish hook to shield the barbs of the fish hook from snags. U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,538 (Trefiak) entitled "Fish Hook Protector" discloses a body with a cylindrical sidewall that encases a fishing hook to prevent accidental engagement with the fishing hook. U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,256 (Truax) entitled "Rod-mountable Fishing Tackle Holder" discloses a body that has a hollow cylindrical passage for holding a fishing lure. The body also has resilient clips for attaching to a shaft of a fishing rod. There will now be described an alternative configuration of fishing hook and lure protector.


A shadow mask for a color CRT, by which the electron beams can be focussed to the corresponding fluorescent body coated on the inner surface of a panel, includes: a first layer positioned toward a fluorescent body, and having thermal expansion coefficient between 5.0.times.10.sup.-6 /.degree. C. and 13.times.10.sup.-6 /.degree. C., and a second layer oriented toward electron guns, and having thermal expansion coefficient of below 5.0.times.10.sup.-6 /.degree. C. The second layer is 0.001 to 0.5 times as thick as the first layer.

A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shadow mask for a color cathode ray tube (CRT).
B. Discussion of Related Art
A typical color CRT is illustrated in FIG. 1. On the inner surface of a panel 1 is coated with fluorescent coatings 4 and joined, by applying glass fused at about 450.degree. C., to a funnel 2 whose inner surface is coated with conductive graphite. In a mark section 7 of the funnel 2 is positioned electron guns 3 that generate and direct three separate electron beams 10. A frame 6 supports a shadow mask 5 functioning as three electrodes to perform the sorting out of the three color beams in the panel 1, and a deflection yoke 8 is placed around the neck of the funnel 2 to produce a magnetic field for deflecting the electron beams 10.
When image signals are fed into the color CRT as described above, the cathodes of the electron guns 3 emit the thermal electrons, which are accelerated and converged toward the panel 1 by voltage applied to the electrodes of the electron guns 3.
Each electron is directed by the magnetic field of a magnet 9 settled in the mask part of the panel 1 and brought to focus on the front surface of the panel 1 by the deflection yoke 8. The sorting out of the electron beams 10 is performed by the shadow mask 5 combined to the internal frame of the panel 1. The electrons from the three guns 3 pass through each slot 11 of the shadow mask 5, and thus sorted electron beams strike the respective dots on the fluorescent coatings 4 on the inner surface of the panel 1.
As the electron beams projected from the electron guns 3 are deflected by the deflection yoke 8 and pass through the slots of the shadow mask 5 to make the fluorescent coatings 4 emit lights, the shadow mask 5 permits the fluorescent coatings 4 to produce each of red, green and blue lights from the three electron beams 10 that are controlled by the three color signals.
Only about 20% of electrons can pass through the slots of the shadow mask in a prior art color CRT, and the rest of them hit the shadow mask, causing a "doming effect" by which the shadow mask is heated and swelled up. The doming effect causes a mislanding effect where the electron beams cannot impinge on the intended color dots of the screen, and by this way produces a color blotting and a deterioration in luminance and chrominance. The cause of this mislanding effect may be found in the fact that the frame and spring, functioning as a support of the shadow mask and its peripherals, are made of a metallic material that has a high thermal expansion coefficient, and particularly that the shadow mask of pure iron has such a high expansion coefficient to produce a rapid thermal deformation.

Shadow mask for a color cathode ray tube


There is provided a substantially disposable dental tip incorporated in an ultrasonic scaler and a dental working distal end piece used for the dental tip.. The dental tip in accordance with the present invention includes a transmission medium whose proximal end portion is connected to an ultrasonic vibration source to transmit ultrasonic vibrations generated from the ultrasonic vibration source and the dental working distal end piece of the present invention which is mounted on a distal tip end of the transmission medium and consists of a tip end member having a shape suitable for dental treatment etc. and a connecting portion connected integrally to a proximal end portion of the tip end member.

Dental calculus and dental plaque are main causes for periodontal diseases and dental caries. Therefore, the removal of dental calculus and dental plaque sticking to tooth surfaces and root surfaces as well as artificial repair prosthetic appliances and dental implants is the most important measure for treatment and prevention of dental diseases.
In such dental treatment, the removal of dental calculus and dental plaque on tooth surfaces, the debridement in pockets, and the detoxification of dental root surfaces for smoothening root surfaces, that is, dental plaque control, scaling, and root planing are important basic measures.
Incidentally, scaling means an operation for removing sticking matters such as dental plaque and dental calculus above and below the gingival margin. The root planing means an operation for smoothening dental root surfaces and removing destroyed cementum and dental calculus remaining and embedded in dental root surfaces to detoxify the contaminated dental root surfaces.
The above-mentioned scaling and root planing operations are usually performed by using a hand metallic scaler, especially a hand curette scaler. At present, this method is the most reliable one in the world. However, the scaling and root planing using a hand curette scaler require very high skill and are troublesome.
Also, the scaling and root planing are sometimes done by supplementarily using a treatment appliance such as an engine Roto sonic scaler, turbine air scaler, and ultrasonic scaler besides the method using a hand curette scaler.
Among these treatment appliances, the ultrasonic scaler is designed so that a dental tip of a predetermined shape is connected to an ultrasonic vibration source for generating ultrasonic waves of a predetermined frequency. The dental tip is integral from the proximal end thereof to the distal tip end, and the proximal end can be connected detachably to the aforesaid ultrasonic vibration source.
When the ultrasonic vibration source is operated in the ultrasonic wave zone, the ultrasonic vibrations are transmitted from the proximal end to the distal tip end. By pressing the distal tip end against a portion to be treated on a tooth surface, dental calculus etc. are ground and removed.
On this ultrasonic scaler, therefore, the aforesaid tip functions as a transmission medium for ultrasonic vibrations generated by the ultrasonic vibration source.
Dental treatment includes a variety of items such as the removal of matter sticking to teeth and artificial objects (artificial dental roots, artificial teeth, artificial filling repair prosthetic appliances such as inlay and amalgam, etc.), the removal of pathological portions, the grinding and polishing of surfaces, the cleaning, the treatment of root canals, and the destroying of salivary stones.
For the tip of the aforesaid ultrasonic scaler, therefore, special-purpose tips of a shape suitable for each kind of dental treatment are usually used so that the above listed dental treatments can be provided properly. For example, a tip of a complicated shape along a tooth surface for tooth periphery treatment, a tip for prevention, a tip for the enlargement and cleaning of the interior of a root canal, a tip for filling a root canal, a tip for treatment of an inverted root canal, etc. are available.
These tips are usually manufactured as integral ones using a metallic material with high corrosion resistance and wear resistance such as stainless steel. In particular, a dental tip manufactured of a hard metallic material is a very effective tip for dental treatment because it inhibits tip wear in use and also can efficiently remove the sticking matters such as dental calculus in a short period of time. On the other hand, however, the metallic tip is liable to damage teeth and artificial objects. Once they are damaged, dental calculus, dental plaque, etc. stick to the damaged portion, by which periodontal diseases and dental caries are newly caused.
The metallic tip is generally connected to the ultrasonic vibration source using screw threads in order not only to reliably transmit ultrasonic vibrations to the tip and but also to prevent the tip from coming off during use by securely fixing the tip.
When the mode of dental treatment is changed, it is necessary to do replacement work such that the mounted tip is disconnected from the ultrasonic vibration source by screwing to remove the tip. Thereafter and then another tip of a shape suitable for the dental treatment to be given next is connected to the ultrasonic vibration source by screwing. That is to say, each time the mode of dental treatment is changed, work is necessary for removing the tip having been used and mounting a new tip by screwing.
However, such work requires a special-purpose mounting/demounting tool. Also, from the standpoint of a dentist who actually provides dental treatment, the time required for tip replacement is an ineffective time and the replacement work is troublesome, and also the ultrasonic scaler cannot be used efficiently.
The tip end is formed with a small-diameter water passage extending in the shank from the proximal end to the distal tip end. This passage is actually used for spraying cleaning water or liquid medicine from the water passage when dental treatment is provided. However, since the tip itself is complicated and thin in shape, the work for forming the above-mentioned water passage requires a high level of skill. As a result, it is difficult to mass-produce the tips at a low cost. For this reason, the price of the dental tip is necessarily very high.
On the other hand, in recent years, in order to avoid infections from diseases such as AIDS and serum hepatitis which have a strong infectivity when dental treatment is given, an apparatus used for treatment, especially an apparatus which comes into direct contact with a secretion such as saliva and blood, or an apparatus which comes into direct contact with the secretion and moreover has a small hole, has been desired to be disposable.
However, since the conventional dental tip is very expensive as described above, it cannot be thrown away after each dental treatment.
Further, when a person attempts to remove dental calculus for prevention, or to polish the tooth surfaces by himself, the tip cannot be thrown away all the more because the tip is expensive.

Dental tip jig and dental tip fitted with it


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for maintaining, by a policy enforcement system in a first compute node, a plurality of policies and data associating a plurality of user credentials with the plurality of policies. A request is received from a compute process for data from a file system in the first compute node. The request includes user credentials. The request for data is sent to the file system, and the data is received from the file system. Based on the received user credentials and the data associating the plurality of user credentials with the plurality of policies, one or more policies that correspond to the received user credentials is selected from the plurality of policies. The policy enforcement system filters the data from the file system based on the one or more policies, and sends the filtered data to the compute process.

A framework, e.g., Apache Hadoop, can be deployed to manage distributed storage and distributed processing of large data sets on clusters of many computers, i.e., nodes, which may be physical or virtual. The framework can include multiple components to be run on different nodes in the cluster. Each component can be responsible for a different task. For example, a first component, e.g., Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), can implement a file system, and a second component, e.g., Hive, can implement a database access layer. The components work together to distribute processing of a workload of files among the nodes in the cluster.
A third component, e.g., YARN, of the framework can break up the workload into multiple tasks. In particular, the third component is a resource manager that assigns each task to a respective compute node in the cluster that performs computations of the task. Each compute node can retrieve a portion of data required for the task from the file system before executing a process that uses the portion of data to complete the task.


A lens apparatus is detachable from an image pickup apparatus. The lens apparatus includes a controller configured to communicate with the image pickup apparatus in synchronization with a first signal. A communication contains a plurality of blocks in the same cycle of the first signal. The controller transmits information of a first time period to the image pickup apparatus, and prohibits a communication of an m-th block from starting before the first time period passes after a communication of an n-th block starts or ends where n is an integer equal to or larger than 1 and m is an integer larger than n.

A contrast type autofocus (referred to as a "TVAF" hereinafter) has been conventionally known and configured to move a focus lens so that the sharpness (focus signal) of a signal obtained from an image sensor can become maximum. A lens interchangeable type camera system has also been known in which an image pickup apparatus (camera body), such as a digital still camera and a digital camera, generates a focus signal, and a focus lens is driven in an interchangeable lens that is attached to and detachable from the camera body. It is necessary for the TVAF control in this lens interchangeable type camera system to manage the generating timing of the focus signal and the driving timing of the focus lens.
Patent Literature ("PLT") 1 discloses a method of setting the driving timing of the focus lens in the TVAF control in this lens interchangeable type camera system. PLT 2 proposes a method of transmitting a busy signal from an interchangeable lens to a camera body when the interchangeable lens cannot communicate or cannot execute a command from the camera body.

Image pickup apparatus, lens apparatus, and image pickup system


To provide a content distribution system which can prevent use of content which has been temporarily stored after the valid period.

Recently, systems called "content distribution systems" have been developed. Each of the "content distribution systems" makes it possible to distribute digital content (simply referred to as "content" hereinafter) such as music, video, games, or the like from a server device to a terminal device through communication such as the Internet and digital broadcast, and use the content in the terminal device. In a general content distribution system, a digital rights management technique is used in order to protect the copyright of the content and prevent a malicious user from using the content in an unauthorized manner. More specifically, this "digital rights management technique" is a technique for securely controlling the use of the content by using an encryption technique or the like.
For example, paid broadcasting employs a scramble control method according to which a video signal and an audio signal are scrambled and transmitted, and only the terminals having a viewing right descramble the video and audio signals to enable viewing of the content.
Details of the above-mentioned conventional scramble control method are disclosed in Non-patent Reference 1 and Non-patent Reference 2.
The conventional scramble control method utilizes two types of information items called individual information and program information (referred to as "content-related information" hereinafter in the present invention). The individual information is information indicating a subscription contract made for each of receivers, and includes a work key which is required to decrypt the details of the contract, the valid periods of the contracts, and content-related information items to be transmitted later on. The content-related information is information to be transmitted in parallel with the scrambled video and audio signals and the like, and includes a scramble key which is required to descramble these signals, the current time indicating the moment, and the details of the program.
The terminal device which receives the content receives the individual information addressed to the terminal itself and holds the details as the contract information prior to the reception of the content-related information. In the viewing of the program, the terminal device receives content-related information together with the video and audio signals, checks the current time and the valid period of the contract which are included in the content-related information, and checks whether or not the contract has expired. In the case where the content has expired, the terminal device judges to be "No viewing right". In the case where the content has not expired, the terminal device checks the presence/absence of a viewing right by checking the program information and the contract information. Here, only when the judgment shows that "viewing right exists", the terminal device extracts the scramble key and descrambles the video and audio signals and the like.
In this way, the conventional scramble control method makes a judgment on the valid period of a contract based on the current time which is transmitted together with the content.
[Non-patent Reference 1]
    Request No. 17 for recommendation of Telecommunications Technology Council, Showa 63 (1988), Eisei housou ni yoru television housou ni okeru yuryo housiki ni kansuru gijutsu teki joken (Technical conditions for paid scheme in satellite television broadcasting)[Non-patent Reference 2]    Request No. 74 for partial recommendation of Telecommunications Technology Council, Heisei 7 (1995), Digital housou houshiki ni kakaru gijutsu teki joken (Technical conditions for digital broadcasting scheme)

Terminal device, server device, and content distribution system

Abstract: A content distribution system (1) including a license server (101) which issues a license, a content server (102) which transmits the content, a terminal device (103) which controls use of the content based on the issued license. The terminal device (103) does not allow the use of the received encrypted content when it is judged that the encrypted content received from the content server (102) is not the content received in real time.


The frequency deviation of a first signal having a short cycle time contained in a received signal is detected and the frequency deviation of a second signal having a long cycle time contained in the received signal is also detected. Then, the frequency deviation of the received signal is determined on the basis of the detected frequency deviation of the first signal and the second signal. Subsequently, the frequency of the received signal is adjusted.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a frequency adjustment method and a frequency adjustment device which can suitably be used for a communication system, such as a wireless LAN which requires high speed frequency synchronization.
2. Description of the Related Art
For communication systems adapted to transmit information by modulating the carrier wave, the transmitter and the receiver are required to make their respective carrier wave frequencies coincide with each other. Generally, however, it is difficult for the transmitter and the receiver to keep their carrier wave frequencies accurately agreeing with each other. For this reason, a carrier wave adjustment operation is conducted at the receiver before it starts for an operation of communication.
Recently, wireless LANs have been put to practical use to allow personal computers to wirelessly communicate with each other and free them from positional restrictions imposed on them for operation. The wireless LAN typically uses a modulation method which is referred to as OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), which requires high speed frequency synchronization. With OFDM, a receiver which receives a signal from a transmitter needs to synchronize its carrier wave frequency with which of the received signal at high speed. Generally, a method of coarsely adjusting the reception frequency of the receiver and then finely adjusting it is used for the purpose of frequency synchronization (see, Japanese Patent laid open (KOKAI) No. 2001-177436).
The above-described method of coarsely adjusting the reception frequency and then finely adjusting it in order to make it coincide with the target frequency is advantageous from the viewpoint of range and accuracy of adjustment. On the other hand, the method requires a relatively long period of time for frequency adjustment because the deviation of the reception frequency has to be gauged after the completion of the coarse adjustment operation and a fine adjustment operation has to be performed on the basis of the gauged deviation. The system such as wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11a) needs to complete automatic frequency control (AFC) for a short time. Thus, the time which AFC requires needs to be made as short as possible.
In order to quickly complete both the coarse adjustment operation and the fine adjustment operation, it is necessary to start the former operation immediately after the signal reception. However, the signals arranged at the top of a packet in a region referred to as preamble which is to be transmitted before transmitting data signals are apt to be subjected to frequency fluctuations due to noise and therefore it has been difficult to accurately detect the amount of the gap between the frequency of the received signal and which of the corresponding frequency of the receiver. Thus, there is a demand for a method and a device for frequency adjustment which can effectively suppress the influence of noise and precisely and reliably carry out a frequency adjustment operation.

Method and device for frequency adjustment


A method of forming images in a silver halide photographic material having on a support at least one silver halide emulsion layer is described, which comprises a step of irradiating the photographic material with light in the process of image formation after development-processing. A silver halide photographic material comprising at least one compound having formula (I) is also described.

Incorporation of spectral sensitizing dyes or photographic dyes into silver halide photographic materials has prevailed in the field of silver halide photographic materials. In some cases, such dyes are observed as undesirable residual color because they still remain in silver halide photographic materials after the photographic materials are finished with image formation. Therefore, it is desirable that spectral sensitizing dyes or photographic dyes be completely removed from silver halide photographic materials or light absorption characteristics in the visible region will be lost after achievement of their purposes. As a means to remove such dyes or make the colors of such dyes disappear, the method of decolorizing a silver halide photographic material through elution of those dyes therefrom during the processing for image formation or the method of inducing the disappearance of colors in those dyes by the chemical reaction with a processing solution has so far been prevailingly employed. In recent years, however, the processing speed for image formation has been increased and the replenishment rates of processing solutions have been lowered; as a result, the means as mentioned above, which rely on the processing solutions used therein, sometimes have failed to completely remove the residual color ascribed to spectral sensitizing dyes or photographic dyes. Thus, measures to solve this problem have been sought.
There are known organic compounds of the kind which undergo reversible changes in their absorption wavelengths when the compound absorbs light of a particular wavelength. In general, these changes caused by light are referred to as photochromic reactions. Examples of an organic compound which is known to undergo a photochromic reaction include pyrenethioindigo, benzylviologen derivatives, benzospiropyran, spiroindolinonaphthoxazine, azobenzene and fulgide. These organic compounds generally exhibit reversible photochromic characteristics, and have a common feature that, even after they have undergone changes in their absorption wavelengths by irradiation with light, the absorption wavelengths thereof revert again to their original ones by exposure to heat or light. In cases where compounds of such a kind are added to silver halide photographic materials for the foregoing purpose, it is desirable that they undergo no or very slow recoloring reaction after the wavelength region in which they absorb light has once been shifted to a region other than the visible region, such as the ultraviolet or infrared region, by irradiation with light. If the irreversible decoloration of spectral sensitizing dyes or photographic dyes is achievable by irradiation with light during the image-forming processing, this irradiation means is very useful from the viewpoints of an increase in processing speed and a reduction in replenishment rate.
As examples of an organic compound which can undergo decoloration by applying thereto an energy such as heat, the cyanine dyes having alkoxy groups substituted on their nitrogen atoms have been proposed in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,009. However, those compounds have problems of stability and easiness in production, and the fact is that organic compounds having properties suitable for spectral sensitizing dyes or photographic dyes incorporated in silver halide photographic materials have not been obtained yet. Under these circumstances, it is strongly desired to find organic compounds which are stable upon storage, can rapidly cause irreversible decoloration or irreversible change in wavelengths at which they show absorption maxima by the absorption of light at particular wavelengths and, what is more, can be produced with ease, and silver halide photographic materials comprising those compounds as well.

Silver halide photographic material and method of forming images in said material


The invention relates to a power train for a hybrid vehicle, comprising two hydraulic machines (20, 22) including variable displacement, both of which are connected to a hydraulic pressure accumulator (24) which stores energy, a first hydraulic machine (20) being permanently connected to an internai combustion traction engine (2), and a second hydraulic machine (22) being connected, also permanently, to drive wheels (8) of the vehicle, characterized in that the two hydraulic machines (20, 22) are also interconnected by a linking means (10) that can be engaged or disengaged.

The present invention relates to a powertrain for a hybrid vehicle using hydraulic power as an energy storage device, and a hybrid vehicle equipped with such a powertrain.
A conventional hybrid vehicle uses an internal combustion engine as the main motorization, and a hydraulic machine connected to the combustion engine, which can function as a motor or a pump to either charge hydraulic pressure accumulators, or to supply mechanical power to drive wheels of the vehicle by drawing energy from the accumulators.
In this way, the hydraulic machine can be used as a pump during the braking phases to recharge the pressure accumulators, thereby recovering the kinetic energy of the vehicle. During the acceleration phases, the hydraulic machine can also be used as a motor by drawing pressurized fluid from the accumulator to supply mechanical power in addition to the power supplied by the combustion engine.
The use of the energy storage device optimizes the operation of the combustion engine and reduces its consumption and polluting emissions.
A known refinement of these hybrid vehicles, in particular disclosed in document US-A1-20090036248, includes a first hydraulic machine connected to the combustion engine, and a second hydraulic machine connected to one element of a planetary gear system, while one of the two other elements of the planetary gear system is connected to the drive wheels of the vehicle and the other element to the combustion engine.
In this arrangement, the two hydraulic machines can be used in parallel operating mode, whereby the hydraulic machines and the combustion engine can simultaneously drive the drive wheels of the vehicle through a mechanical power transmission.
However, this arrangement is not conducive to serial operating mode because the two hydraulic machines are permanently mechanically coupled to each other. On the one hand, this allows recharging of the pressure accumulators by the combustion engine through a first hydraulic machine. On the other hand, this allows use of the stored energy in independent manner to provide traction to the vehicle through the second hydraulic machine at suitable rotational speeds for each machine, which can be regulated independently to optimize the operating points.


An apparatus includes circuits, a field line configured to generate a magnetic field based on an input, a sensing module configured to determine a parameter of each circuit, and a magnetic field direction determination module configured to determine an angular orientation of the apparatus relative to an external magnetic field based on the parameter. Each circuit includes multiple magnetic tunnel junctions. Each magnetic tunnel junction includes a storage layer having a storage magnetization direction and a sense layer having a sense magnetization direction configured based on the magnetic field. Each magnetic tunnel junction is configured such that the sense magnetization direction and a resistance of the magnetic tunnel junction vary based on the external magnetic field. The parameter varies based on the resistances of the multiple magnetic tunnel junctions. The magnetic field direction determination module is implemented in at least one of a memory or a processing device.

The Earth's magnetic field is relatively small, with an average value on the order of 0.5 Oersted (Oe). In some devices, detecting the direction of the Earth's magnetic field is performed by first amplifying received magnetic fields using a magnetic field amplifier, locating the Earth's magnetic field, and determining the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. This amplification of the Earth's magnetic field can be costly. In addition, the magnetic field amplifier and other associated magnetics may be relatively large, which can result in compasses and/or magnetometers including these magnetics being implemented as multi-chip solutions.
It is against this background that a need arose to develop the magnetic logic units configured to measure magnetic field direction and related methods described herein.

Magnetic logic units configured to measure magnetic field direction


A data erase method of a three dimensional (3D) memory device comprising the following steps. First, in a first phase of an erase operation, a first voltage is applied to a first semiconductor channel of the semiconductor channels to erase data stored in the memory cells defined on the first semiconductor channel and a second voltage is applied to a second semiconductor channel of the semiconductor channels, wherein the second semiconductor channel is adjacent to the first semiconductor channel. Then, in a second phase of the erase operation, the second voltage is applied to the first semiconductor channel and the first voltage is applied to the second semiconductor channel.

With advances in the integrated circuit manufacturing technology, 3D memory devices with multiple planes of memory cells are provided to achieve greater storage capacity. Conventionally, when performing data erasing on a memory device, electron holes must be generated via gated-induce drain leakage (GIDL) currents at the string select line (SSL) or the ground select line (GSL) gate edge. However, minority carrier is generally slow and very sensitive to junction engineering and thus decreasing the data erase time.
Therefore, there is a need for a technology for improving the data erasing speed of 3D memory devices.

Three dimensional memory device and data erase method thereof


An electronic apparatus of the present invention includes a radiation rubber. The radiation rubber is brought into firm contact with both a frame of an air-cooling fan unit and a housing of the electronic apparatus such as a notebook personal computer. The heat of a fan unit is transferred to the housing through the radiation rubber, and the housing is utilized as a radiator.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus such as a notebook personal computer, and a cooling component used in the electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various electronic apparatus, such as the notebook personal computer, are provided with circuit components, and heat generation is associated with operation in some of the circuit components. Therefore, some electronic apparatus have a configuration in which air cooling is performed by providing a fan unit therein.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-238984 discloses a configuration including an electronic apparatus having a main body and an external device on which the electronic apparatus is mounted. In the configuration, the heat of the main body is transferred to the external device, and the heat is radiated on the external device side.
The heat is also generated by rotation of the fan unit in itself, and a temperature rise of the fan unit contributes to the temperature rise in the electronic apparatus. Therefore, there is a problem that the temperature rise of the fan unit needs to be suppressed.

Electronic apparatus and cooling component


Known organic solderability preservatives (OSP) contain an azole compound and are applied on a copper surface from an acidic solution. The OSPs are not visible to the naked eye when applied. A number of dyes compatible with the OSP solution and not interfering with solderability has been identified. The composition containing such a dye can produce a layer which is visible to the naked eye when applied even in a thin layer. The suitable dyes contain a cationic imine group having the general formula ##STR1## where X.sup.- is an anion such as chloride, iodide, sulphate, etc., or an organically bonded anionic group such as sulphonate.

In the printed circuit board manufacturing process, there can be a significant interval between the production of the board substrate and the soldering of the various components to its surfaces. In fact, these two operations often take place at different sites. During the period of shipment and storage of the substrates, the external copper circuitry must be protected against oxidation in order to avoid problems with the subsequent soldering. The traditional way of doing this is to apply a coat of tin-lead solder to the copper, usually in a process known as hot air solder levelling (HASL). However, because of the environmental hazards associated with lead, and the fact that tin-lead coatings do not provide the flat, planar surfaces required for surface mount assembly, there is a rapidly growing trend towards the replacement of tin-lead by organic solderability preservative (OSP) coatings. Azole-type compounds have been found to be particularly effective for this purpose, and there exist numerous patents covering various derivatives of benzotriazole, imidazole, benzimidazole, etc. U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,531 to Sawa et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,656 to Parker Jr. et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,173,130 to Kinoshita et al. describe such exemplary coatings. OSP coatings are usually applied from a weak acid solution (referred to hereinafter as an OSP solution) through formation of a complex between the azole and the copper surface. They are much thinner than tin-lead coatings. A typical thickness is 0.3 to 0.5 .mu.m, although some are applied at only 2 to 5 nm (see, I. Artaki et al, Circuit World, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 40-45, 1993).
Unlike tin-lead coatings, OSP coatings are invisible to the naked eye. This is a major disadvantage because it is impossible to know if a board has been treated, not treated or not completely treated, without resorting to destructive analysis (for example, dissolution of the coating and analysis by ultraviolet spectroscopy) or sophisticated instrumentation (for example, grazing angle infrared spectroscopy). One way of overcoming this problem is to colour the OSP coating when it is deposited. However, colour additives or dyes compatible with known OSP coatings are not readily available. To be effective, the dye must meet several criteria, namely:
(1) It must be soluble in the acidic solutions used to deposit the azole compounds. PA1 (2) It must be absorbed from the solution and deposited on the copper surface along with the azole. PA1 (3) During the subsequent soldering of surface components, it must not interfere with the soldering process and should preferably be removed by the solder flux. PA1 an azole compound suitable to provide a solderability protective layer on a metal surface, and PA1 a dye containing a cationic imine group having the general formula ##STR2## where X is an anion or an anionic group, the anion or anionic group selected such as to afford solubility of the dye in the azole compound, the deposition of the azole compound on the metal surface,.and solderability of the substrate.
It will certainly be appreciated that it is not practical to test thousands of various dyes, pigments and generally colouring substances to find one or more that meets the above criteria, without guidance or the benefit of hindsight.
It is an object of the present invention to provide compositions which are suitable as solderability preservative coatings for copper surfaces and are visible to the naked eye when applied on such surfaces.
It is another object of the invention to provide compositions meeting at least the above criteria (1-3).

Organic solderability preservative compositions


An integrated circuit device includes a semiconductor device having an integrated circuit. A gas-phase deposited insulation layer is disposed on the semiconductor device, and a conducting line is disposed over the gas-phase deposited insulation layer.

Semiconductor devices, such as integrated circuit (IC) packages, typically include one or more semiconductor devices arranged on a lead frame or carrier. The semiconductor device is attached to the lead frame, typically by an adhesive die attach material or by soldering, and bond wires are attached to bond pads on the semiconductor devices and to lead fingers on the carrier to provide electrical interconnections between the various semiconductor devices and/or between a semiconductor device and the carrier. The device is then encapsulated in a plastic housing, for instance, to provide protection and form a housing from which the leads extend.
With such semiconductor packages, especially power semiconductor components, it is desirable to provide high current load-carrying capacity. To this end, some solutions for providing the desired connection density or current capacity require an insulation layer to avoid electrical contact between the conductive connections and the semiconductor device/carrier.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.

Integrated circuit device having a gas-phase deposited insulation layer


In the adaptive connection admission control method of the present invention, a corresponding ingress edge node performs connection admission control for a new connection within the amount of bandwidth initially allocated to each of paths between the ingress and egress edge nodes. The amount of remaining bandwidth allocated to a specific path Pr is compared with an amount of bandwidth required for a call requesting new connection setup input to the corresponding ingress edge node. The amount of additional bandwidth to be requested from the bandwidth broker is predicted when the amount of the remaining bandwidth does not satisfy the amount of bandwidth required for the connection setup requesting call. The ingress edge node requests additional bandwidth from the bandwidth broker on the basis of the predicted amount of the additional bandwidth, changing bandwidth information of the corresponding path Pr, and performing connection admission control.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a method of performing connection admission control in a differentiated services network and, more particularly, to a method of performing adaptive connection admission control in consideration of the states of input calls in the differentiated services network, which, when an ingress edge node exhausts bandwidth allocated thereto, allows the ingress edge node to predict the amount of additional bandwidth required in consideration of the states of calls input to a corresponding path, to request the amount of additional bandwidth from a bandwidth broker, and to perform connection admission control using the bandwidth additionally allocated to the corresponding path in the differentiated services network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, the Internet is trending toward wide bandwidth due to the development of transmission technology, such as xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and Metro Ethernet. Further, with the development of various Internet multimedia contents, new application services requiring Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee, such as Internet broadcasting, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Virtual Private Network (VPN), have appeared. Therefore, Internet service users require differentiated services so as to be provided with high quality guaranteed services. Accordingly, technology related to QoS guarantee in the Internet has been introduced as an important research subject. As a result, the QoS guaranteeing technology capable of not only ensuring bandwidth but also satisfying transmission reliability, real-time service, etc. should be proposed so as to deviate from best effort services and support service applications having various requirements in the Internet.
For the QoS guaranteeing technology in the Internet, various functions, such as connection admission control, congestion control, traffic shaping, metering, marking and scheduling, have been proposed. Of the functions, the connection admission control has been primarily required. The object of the connection admission control is to allocate network resources so that a network provides reliable paths capable of guaranteeing a packet loss probability or delay requirement requested by a user.
Of connection admission control schemes, parameter-based admission control mainly used in a telephone network or packet network is disadvantageous in that, since all nodes on a path must manage the parameters and states of connections required to be established by respective ingress edge nodes in the network, serious problems may occur in terms of scalability or complexity in Internet core networks becoming large-sized if the parameter-based admission control scheme is applied to the Internet. Further, measurement-based admission control is problematic in that input traffic should be predicted on the basis of the steady-state average arrival rate at the time of traffic prediction, but there is a high probability that inaccurate connection admission control may be performed.
Further, a static provisioning scheme using a bandwidth broker is disadvantageous in that it is impossible to adapt to network conditions, such as dynamically varying Internet traffic or routing, and the change of the allocation of network resources is performed in certain periods, so that the network resources cannot be efficiently used, and the variously changing states of the network cannot be taken into consideration, thus decreasing the efficiency of resource utilization. A dynamic provisioning scheme being researched to solve the disadvantages is advantageous in that it can dynamically take the states of the network into consideration. However, it is disadvantageous in that a bandwidth broker should be informed of even link-level bandwidths within the network from all nodes and manage the bandwidths, and communications between the respective nodes and the bandwidth broker are frequently performed, so that scalability cannot be provided and then complexity is increased.
Further, a connection admission control scheme using a bandwidth broker is problematic in that the bandwidth broker must perform connection admission control on all connection requests, so that responses to the connection admission are not immediately made and the load of connection admission control is concentrated on the bandwidth broker.
In the meantime, a connection admission control scheme for guaranteeing QoS in the Internet is disclosed in PCT Application No. WO 00/30295 entitled "Providing admission control and network quality of service with a distributed bandwidth broker". In the scheme of the above patent, respective nodes within a network perform connection admission control using a control message so as to avoid the complexity of the bandwidth broker. Further, a method of initially allocating bandwidth to each path in quotas to perform connection admission control, examining whether quotas can be allocated to all links on the path when the allocated quota is exhausted, and then allocating new quotas to perform connection admission control is disclosed in a reference thesis entitled "On scalable design of bandwidth broker" by Zhi-Li Zhang in IEICE Trans. Commun., Vol. E84-B, No. 8, pp.2011 - 2025, 2001. 8. However, the conventional method disclosed in the thesis is disadvantageous in that the size of a quota must be determined and the bandwidths of all links on the path must be examined so as to allocate new quotas when the quota allocated to the path is exhausted.

Method of performing adaptive connection admission control in consideration of input call states in differentiated service network

Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute


A compact cylindrical vaporizer for simultaneous reduction of a reformate stream temperature and generation of a process stream is disclosed. The vaporizer utilizes counter flowing nested tubular portions that spiral between an outer section of the vaporizer and a central section of the vaporizer. The return spiral has a larger cross-sectional area than the inward spiral to accommodate a higher volumetric flow rate of the water flowing there through as it vaporizes while keeping the fluid velocity below erosion design constraints. The counter spiraling flow provides a substantially uniform spatial temperature profile of a reformate stream flowing on the exterior of the tubular portions. The vaporizer can be sized to be substantially the same as that of an upstream reactor to minimize velocity losses and pressure drops in the reformate stream flowing there through. A plurality of fins are positioned between the opposing tubular portion to enhance the heat transfer.

Fuel cells are a leading alternate fuel power plant candidates for both portable and stationary electrical power generation. A fuel cell is an electrical chemical energy converter consisting of two electrodes which sandwich an electrolyte. In one form, an ion-conducting polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) is disposed between two electrode layers to form a membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The MEA is typically porous and electrically conductive to promote the desired electrochemical reaction from two reactants. One reactant, oxygen or air, passes over one electrode and hydrogen, the other reactant, passes over the other electrode to produce electricity, water and heat. Typical PEM fuel cells with membrane electrode assembly (MEA) are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,272,017 and 5,316,871, issued respectively Dec. 21, 1993 and May 31, 1994 and assigned to the General Motors Corporation.
The hydrogen that is consumed by the fuel cell can be produced by a fuel processor that converts a hydrocarbon fuel, such as gasoline, methanol, or natural gas, into a hydrogen-containing reformate stream that can be used to make electricity in the fuel cell stack. The typical fuel processor uses three steps to produce such a conversion. In a first step, the primary reactor (usually an auto thermal reactor (ATR) or steam reformer (SR)) converts the hydrocarbon fuel to the hydrogen-containing reformate. However, during the first step significant levels of carbon monoxide (CO) may be present (6%-10%). Thus, in a second step, also known as a CO-reduction step, a water gas shift reactor (WGS) is typically used to reduce the CO content to about 0.3% to 1% and increase the hydrogen content of the hydrogen-containing reformate stream. In a third or final step, also known as a CO-polishing step, the CO content is further reduced to about 2 to 50 ppm depending on the fuel cell stack used. This final step is accomplished typically with either a preferential oxidation (PrOx) reactor or a pressure-swing absorption (PSA) device.
The hydrogen-containing reformate stream produced in the primary reactor exits the primary reactor at an elevated temperature. The reformate stream is typically cooled with either a fuel cell stack coolant or ambient air to reduce the temperature prior to entering the CO-reduction or CO-polishing stages. The heat extracted from the reformate stream is lost thermal energy. In some fuel processor systems, to maximize the fuel processor efficiency the heat extracted from cooling the reformate stream is integrated back into the system as heat required to generate and superheat steam used in the primary reactor and elsewhere in the system.
Previous attempts to recover heat from the cooled reformate have relied upon the use of an intermediate heat transfer fluid, such as oil or the like. The use of an intermediate heat transfer fluid, however, can increase the size of the fuel processor system along with increasing the complexity. Increasing the size and/or complexity of the fuel processor system may be undesirable, particularly in a portable application wherein space may be at a premium. Thus, it is desirable to provide a means of integrating the heat from cooling the reformate stream back into a fuel processor system utilizing a compact heat exchanger. Further, it would be advantageous if such can be performed while minimizing the complexity of such a system.
Each of the stages on the fuel processor system run at different reactor temperatures. The operation of these different reactors can be improved by supplying a reformate stream that has a generally uniform temperature profile. That is, the efficiency of the fuel processor system can be improved by proving a reformate stream that has a generally uniform temperature profile so that the downstream reactors can be designed to operate in a narrower range that conforms to the temperature profile of the reformate stream. Thus, it would be advantageous to produce a reformate stream having a generally uniform temperature profile while extracting heat from the reformate stream.
Furthermore, the use of a heat exchanger to remove heat from the reformate stream can result in a pressure drop and/or a change in a velocity profile of the reformate stream. The pressure drop and velocity changes represent lost energy that, if minimized, can increase the efficiency of the fuel processor system. Thus, it would be advantageous to extract heat from the reformate stream while providing a minimal pressure drop and/or providing a generally uniform velocity profile of the reformate stream.

Compact water vaporizer for dynamic steam generation and uniform temperature control