The present disclosure provides binding proteins, such as antibodies and antigen-binding fragments, which specifically bind to human CD96 receptor protein (hu-CD96) and are capable of decreasing, inhibiting, and/or fully-blocking immune regulatory effects mediated by hu-CD96. The present disclosure also provides methods of using the antibodies (and compositions thereof) to treat diseases and conditions responsive to decreasing, inhibiting and/or blocking immune regulatory function or activity mediated by CD96 binding to CD155, including effects arising from CD96 interactions with CD226 and/or TIGIT.

CD96 (also known as "TACTILE") is a receptor expressed on the surface of T cells and natural killer (NK) cells. (See e.g., Blake S J, et al., (2016) "Molecular Pathways: Targeting CD96 and TIGIT for Cancer Immunotherapy," Clin Cancer Res 22(21): 5183-8.) CD96 is a member of the Ig superfamily and is further categorized as a member of the nectin/NECL family. CD96 has been found to be expressed in humans on the surface of T cells (αβ and γδ), NK cells, a subpopulation of B cells, and in mice on T cells, NK cells and NKT cells. CD96 is known to function in concert with CD155, CD226 (also known as "DNAM"), and TIGIT, and is believed to play an important role in inhibiting immune function. The main ligand for CD96 is CD155 to which it binds with a stronger affinity than CD226 binding to CD155, but weaker than TIGIT binding to CD155. Human CD96 exists as two splice variants that exhibit different binding affinities to CD155. (See e.g., Meyer D, et al., (2009) "CD96 interaction with CD155 via its first Ig-like domain is modulated by alternative splicing or mutations in distal Ig-like domains," J Biol Chem 284: 2235-44.) It has been observed that Cd96 −/− mice exhibit a hypersensitive NK-cell response to stimulation by LPS, IL12, or IL18, as well as strong resistance to experimental lung metastases and MCA-induced fibrosarcomas. (See e.g., Chan C J, et al., (2014) "The receptors CD96 and CD226 oppose each other in regulation of natural killer cell functions," Nat Immunol 15:431-8.) Anti-CD96 mAbs have been shown to reduce the B16F10 and E0771 lung metastases in mouse models. (See e.g., Blake S J, et al., (2016) "Suppression of metastases using a new lymphocyte checkpoint target for cancer immunotherapy," Cancer Discover 6; 446-59.)
WO2015/024042A1 (published Feb. 26, 2015) suggests a method of reducing or relieving immune inhibition in a mammal that includes the step of at least partly inhibiting or reducing CD96 activity in one or more cells of the mammal. The suggested method includes a step of administering to the mammal a CD96 inhibitory agent, such as an anti-CD96 antibody, but no anti-CD96 antibodies are described in the disclosure.
WO2015/024060A1 (published Feb. 26, 2015) also suggests a method of reducing or relieving immune inhibition in a mammal that includes the step of at least partly inhibiting or reducing CD96 activity in one or more cells of the mammal. The disclosure suggests that a commercially available anti-human CD96 antibody "NK92.39" can be effective in increasing IFNγ production in human NK cells, but does not disclose any specific anti-CD96 antibodies that are capable of reducing CD96 activity or tumor growth.

Anti-CD96 antibodies and methods of use thereof


A screw press for separating liquids from solid-liquid mixtures, especially pulp suspensions, which has a casing 2 provided with liquid passages, especially divided into segments 3, 3', as well as having a screw 4 rotating inside the casing, a shaft 5, preferably hollow, and a suspension feed area 6. It is primarily characterized by the suspension feed area 6 extending lengthwise in an axial direction on the screw casing 2 with the length and position of the feed opening being adjustable.

The invention relates to a screw press for separating liquids from solid-liquid mixtures, especially pulp suspensions, which has a casing provided with liquid passages, the casing especially divided into segments, and having a screw mounted on a shaft, which is preferably hollow, rotating inside the casing, and including a suspension feed area.
When dewatering suspensions with low consistencies, it is only possible to achieve good dewatering performance in the inlet area of a screw press at very low pressures. At higher pressure, the stock, particularly a pulp suspension, is pushed onto the openings in the screen from the inside and thus plugging openings and impeding the dewatering action. After the first rise in pressure, the filtrate no longer flows out of all the holes in the screen, but only out of those that have just been cleared by the rotating screw flight moving past. If the pressure rises further, the screw flight cannot clean the screen at all because of the required gap between flight and screen unless there are already drier pulp fibers upstream of the flight which bridge the gap. The clogged screen surface is then lost for dewatering purposes. In the pulp distribution boxes already known and which are located at the beginning of the screw, the screen basket starts to clog as the pressure rises from the beginning of the screw towards its end.

Screw press for separating liquids from solid-liquid mixtures


A skin effect heating system for long pipelines includes a heater cable disposed in a ferromagnetic or other conductive heat tube, the heater cable and heat tube cooperating to produce heat that is applied to the carrier pipe. The heater cable includes a conductor surrounded by an insulating layer, and then a semiconductive outer layer or “jacket.” The semiconductive jacket contacts the inner surface of the heat tube, where the charge density of the return current carried by the heat tube is at its highest. The semiconductive jacket material has a resistivity that is sufficiently low to reduce or eliminate arcing events such as corona discharge by allowing accumulated charge on the heat tube to dissipate. The resistivity is also high enough to prevent the return current from flowing into or through the semiconductive outer layer, so that heat production capacity of the system is maximized.

The field of the invention is high voltage heater cables. More particularly, the invention relates to wire designs for skin effect heat tracing system components.
In the oil and gas industry, pipelines must be heated over distances of many miles. Skin effect electric heat tracing systems are ideally suited for long transfer pipelines up to 12 miles (20 km) per circuit. The system is engineered for the specific application. Applications for this system include material transfer lines, snow melting and de-icing, tank foundation heating, subsea transfer lines and prefabricated, pre-insulated lines. In a skin-effect heating system, heat is generated on the inner surface of a ferromagnetic heat tube that is thermally coupled to the pipe to be heat traced. An electrically insulated, temperature-resistant conductor is installed inside the heat tube and connected to the tube at the far end. An alternating current (AC) is passed through the insulated conductor and returns through the heat tube.
The ferromagnetic heat tube of a skin-effect heating system is prone to the corona effect as a charge difference builds up between the surface of the tube and the surface of the insulated conductor and exceeds the breakdown electric field for air (3×106 V/m). This effect becomes a significant issue for longer pipelines that require a higher voltage potential to drive the current that also results in greater charge build up between the two surfaces. The accumulated static electricity can damage or prematurely age the insulation and other components, and at voltages over about 5 kV can discharge in arcing events.
In a traditional skin effect heating system, the core conductor of the heater cable sits inside an insulation layer. The heater cable is surrounded by air except at the point at which the insulating jacket contacts the inner surface of the heat tube. Partial discharge is caused by the charge differential between the surface of the insulation and the inner surface of the grounded heat tube, which carries the return AC in the opposite direction; the inner surface of the heat tube has the highest charge density, relative to the rest of the heat tube, due to the skin effect. Protracted partial discharge can erode solid insulation and eventually lead to breakdown of insulation at the point of contact. Protracted partial discharge also tends to initiate at defects (voids, imperfections, contaminants) in the heat tube. It can also cause a corona effect, a localized discharge resulting from transient gaseous ionization on an insulation system when the voltage stress exceeds a critical value; inception in air at room temperature occurs at or about 3×106 V/m.
It is desirable to heat pipelines on the order of 36 miles, and to handle voltages larger than 5 kV and up to 10 kV or even 20 kV in order to reach the desirable length. Thus it would be desirable to use a device to eliminate the risk of partial discharge.

Shielded wire for high voltage skin effect trace heating


The invention provides a method of chemically-mechanically polishing a substrate comprising tungsten through use of a composition comprising a tungsten etchant, an inhibitor of tungsten etching, and water, wherein the inhibitor of tungsten polishing is a polymer, copolymer, or polymer blend comprising at least one repeating group comprising at least one nitrogen-containing heterocyclic ring or a tertiary or quaternary nitrogen atom. The invention further provides a chemical-mechanical polishing composition particularly useful in polishing tungsten-containing substrates.

Integrated circuits are made up of millions of active devices formed in or on a substrate, such as a silicon wafer. The active devices are chemically and physically connected into a substrate and are interconnected through the use of multilevel interconnects to form functional circuits. Typical multilevel interconnects comprise a first metal layer, an interlevel dielectric layer, and sometimes a third and subsequent metal layer. Interlevel dielectrics, such as doped and undoped silicon dioxide (SiO2) and/or low-κ dielectrics, are used to electrically isolate the different metal layers. As each layer is formed, typically the layer is planarized to enable subsequent layers to be formed on top of the newly formed layer.
Tungsten is increasing being used as a conductive material to form the interconnections in integrated circuit devices. One way to fabricate planar tungsten circuit traces on a silicon dioxide substrate is referred to as the damascene process. In accordance with this process, the silicon dioxide dielectric surface is patterned by a conventional dry etch process to form holes and trenches for vertical and horizontal interconnects. The patterned surface is coated with an adhesion-promoting layer such as titanium or tantalum and/or a diffusion barrier layer such as titanium nitride or tantalum nitride. The adhesion-promoting layer and/or the diffusion barrier layer are then over-coated with a tungsten layer. Chemical-mechanical polishing is employed to reduce the thickness of the tungsten over-layer, as well as the thickness of any adhesion-promoting layer and/or diffusion barrier layer, until a planar surface that exposes elevated portions of the silicon dioxide surface is obtained. The vias and trenches remain filled with electrically conductive tungsten forming the circuit interconnects.
Typically, chemical-mechanical polishing compositions for polishing tungsten-containing substrates comprise compounds capable of etching tungsten. The compounds capable of etching tungsten, or etchants, serve to convert tungsten into a soft oxidized film that is capable of controlled removal by mechanical abrasion. Abrasion is performed using abrasives suspended in a liquid carrier to form a polishing slurry in conjunction with a polishing pad or with abrasives fixed to a polishing pad, in which movement of the polishing pad relative to the substrate (i.e., a semiconductor wafer) with the polishing slurry therebetween causes mechanical removal of the soft oxidized film. However, the etchants often are capable of converting tungsten metal or its oxide directly into soluble forms of tungsten. In the polishing step, the over-coating layer of tungsten is removed to expose the oxide layer and to achieve planarity of the substrate. After exposure of the oxide layer and before completion of the polishing process, tungsten in the trenches undesirably can be eroded by a combination of static etching and by mechanical action of the abrasives, leading to dishing and erosion. Dishing may compromise circuit integrity and leads to surface non-planarity, which may complicate deposition of metal layers on subsequent levels of the device. Inhibitors of tungsten etching have been added to chemical-mechanical polishing compositions. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,273,786 discloses a chemical-mechanical polishing process comprising a tungsten corrosion inhibitor selected from the group consisting of phosphates, polyphosphates, silicates, and mixtures thereof. U.S. Pat. No. 6,083,419 discloses a chemical-mechanical polishing composition comprising an inhibitor of tungsten etching that is a compound selected from the group consisting of nitrogen-containing heterocycles without nitrogen-hydrogen bonds, sulfides, and oxazolidines.
However, such inhibitors are not always effective at preventing erosion of tungsten within trenches. Additionally, use of high levels of such inhibitors of tungsten etching can reduce the polishing rates of substrates comprising tungsten layers to unacceptably low levels. Erosion is a function not only of tungsten etching, but also of the abrasion process. Thus, there remains a need in the art for compositions and methods for chemical-mechanical planarization of tungsten-containing substrates that will provide for reduced erosion of tungsten and yet maintain useful rates of tungsten removal. The invention provides such a chemical-mechanical polishing composition and method. These and other advantages of the invention, as well as additional inventive features, will be apparent from the description of the invention provided herein.

Method of polishing a tungsten-containing substrate


A method of relocating a workload partition (WPAR) from a departure logical partition (LPAR) to an arrival LPAR determines an amount of a resource allocated to the relocating WPAR on the departure LPAR and allocates to the relocating WPAR on the arrival LPAR an amount of the resource substantially equal to the amount of the resource allocated to the relocating WPAR on the departure LPAR.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of workload partitions (WPARs) and more particularly to a method of allocating resources to a WPAR that is relocated from a departure logical partition (LPAR) to an arrival LPAR such that the relocated WPAR is allocated substantially the same amount of the resource on the arrival LPAR as it was allocated on the departure LPAR.
2. Description of the Related Art
A logical partition (LPAR) is the division of a computer's processors, memory, storage, and input/output into multiple sets of resources so that each set of resources can be operated independently with its own operating system instance and applications. The number of logical partitions that can be created depends on the system's processor model and resources available. Typically, partitions are used for different purposes such as database operations or client/server operations or to separate test and production environments. Each LPAR can communicate with the other LPARs as if the other LPAR is in a separate machine. Logical partitioning allows the computer's resources to be used more efficiently.
Recently, virtualization technology has been expanded with workload partitions (WPARs). WPAR technology allows administrators to virtualize their operating system, which allows for fewer operating system images on a partitioned server. Prior to WPARs, an administrator would need to create a new LPAR for each new isolated environment. Every LPAR requires its own operating system image and a certain number of physical resources.
WPARs are much simpler to manage than LPARs. The greatest shortcoming of LPARs is the need to maintain multiple operating system images, which may lead to over-committing expensive hardware resources. While partitioning helps to consolidate and virtualize hardware within a physical machine, operating system virtualization through WPAR technology goes further and allows for an even more granular approach of resource management.
One of the advantages of using WPARs is that they may be moved or relocated from one LPAR to another easily and transparently. The relocating WPAR is check-pointed on the departure LPAR and then restarted on the arrival LPAR. Each WPAR running on an LPAR is allocated a set of the LPAR's resources, such as processors and memory. Resources may be allocated in either a share basis or a percentage basis. Currently, when a WPAR is relocated, there is no mechanism for ensuring that it is allocated as much of a particular resource on the arrival LPAR as it was allocated on the departure LPAR.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Resource allocation during workload partition relocation

International Business Machines Corporation


A sheet pickup apparatus and image forming apparatus are provided. The sheet pickup apparatus includes a roller support member rotatably disposed in a sheet feeding unit and comprising roller support portions connected by a hinge, a driving shaft rotatably disposed in an end of the roller support member to transmit rotational force to the roller support member, a pickup roller rotatably disposed in another end of the roller support member, a damper member disposed to absorb impact force by limiting rotation of the roller support member, and a power transmitting member disposed in the roller support member to transmit the rotational force to the pickup roller.

1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a sheet pickup apparatus of an image forming apparatus. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a sheet pickup apparatus having a small impact noise when picking up a print medium and an image forming apparatus having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses, such as laser printers, copiers, multifunctional products, facsimile machines, etc. are widely used. Such an image forming apparatus may store a plurality of print media, and performs a job such as printing and copying by picking up the print media, for example, one by one.
For example, when printing, the image forming apparatus may be required to pick up a sheet of print media loaded in a paper cassette, and to move the picked print medium to an image forming unit. For this action, swing type sheet pickup apparatuses may be used.
However, conventional swing type sheet pickup apparatuses are configured so that a pickup roller is not in contact with, but spaced apart from, the print medium before printing, and is brought into contact with the print medium when performing a pickup operation. As the printing starts, the pickup roller rotates and swings by a predetermined distance based on a predetermined point so as to come into contact with the print medium. When the pickup roller moves and is brought into contact with the print medium, the swing motion of the pickup roller is stopped, and impact noise may be generated by kinetic energy of the pickup roller.
To reduce the impact noise, a decrease in a swing speed of the pickup roller and a reduction in a swing motion distance of the pickup roller may be considered.
However, a decrease in a swing speed of the pickup roller slows a speed in which the pickup roller picks up and conveys a print medium, and not suitable for image forming apparatuses that require high speed.
In addition, because a reduction in the swing motion distance of the pickup roller requires a stack height of the print media to be constant, an additional device capable of changing the stack height of the print media is required.
Accordingly, a need to develop a sheet pickup apparatus that can decrease noise without reducing the swing speed or the swing distance is desired.

Sheet pickup apparatus and image forming apparatus having the same


Disclosed herein are effect pigment PVC plastisol, uses thereof, and proceses for producing effect pigment PVC plastisol. In one embodiment, an effect pigment PVC plastisol comprises: (A) at least one finely divided PVC homopolymer having particle sizes of from 0.04 to 40 μm, and which as a dispersion in a plasticizer exhibits dilatancy, (B) at least one finely divided PVC homopolymer having particle sizes of from 1 to 400 μm, and which as a dispersion in a plasticizer exhibits pseudoplasticity, (C) at least one plasticizer, and (D) at least one effect pigment.

The present invention relates to novel PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments. The present invention also relates to a new process for preparing PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments. The present invention further relates to the use of the novel PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments and of the PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments prepared by the novel process in coil coating for producing effect coatings and also color and effect coatings.
PVC plastisols are colloidal dispersions of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) prepared by emulsion or microemulsion polymerization in plasticizers. When the PVC plastisols are heated the plasticizers diffuse into the dispersed polymer particles, where they lodge between the macromolecules and hence produce plasticization of the PVC plastisols. After cooling, highly elastic, abrasion-resistant, and dimensionally stable coatings are obtained.
In automotive OEM finishing PVC plastisols further comprising pigments, fillers, and heat stabilizers are used as additional coatings to counter mechanical damage and corrosion in areas of particular risk of stone chipping (underbody, wheel arches) and for sealing weld seams (seam sealing). Application is normally manual or via special spraying techniques. The temperatures of curing (gelling) are generally situated between 140 and 180° C.
(Cf. Römpp Online, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, N.Y. 2003, "PVC plastisols").
PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments, such as platelet-shaped aluminum effect pigments or interference pigments, are known per se. They normally comprise a standard PVC paste resin and a PVC extender resin. The known PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments are suitable for coil coating.
Coil coating is a special form of the roll coating (Römpp Lexikon Lacke und Druckfarben, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, N.Y., 1998, page 617, "roll coating") and, occasionally, of the spray coating and flow coating of metal strips ("coils") with liquid coating materials. It is a continuous process: all worksteps, such as cleaning, pretreatment, coating, and curing, etc., are carried out in one operation on one line. Schematically, coil coating embraces the following steps: cleaning and degreasing of the coil are followed by a multistage chemical pretreatment with subsequent passivation, rinsing and drying. The coils used are in particular of steel, such as galvanized steel, or aluminum. Cooling of the coils is followed by application of the liquid coating material to one or both sides using two or three rolls, usually by the reverse roller-coating method. After a very short evaporation time the film applied is cured thermally at temperatures from 180 to 260° C. for 20 to 60 s. Where a multicoat paint system is being produced, application and cure are repeated. The speeds of coil coating of lines are up to 250 m/min (Römpp Lexikon Lacke und Druckfarben, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, N.Y., 1998, page 55, "coil coating").
Since the processing of the metal does not take place until after the coating operation, the resultant coatings need to have extremely high mechanical integrity. The coated coils are used customarily in the architectural sector for producing ceiling and wall elements, doors, pipe insulation, roller shutters or window profiles, in the vehicle sector for producing paneling for caravans or truck bodies, and in the household sector for producing profile elements for washing machines, dishwashers, freezers, ice boxes or ranges (cf. Römpp Lexikon Lacke und Druckfarben, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, N.Y., 1998, "coil coating", page 55, and "coil coating materials", page 116).
In the coatings produced from the known PVC plastisols comprising platelet-shaped effect pigments, however, the platelet-shaped effect pigments are not oriented predominantly or exclusively parallel to the surface of the coatings, with the consequence that the desired optical effect of the platelet-shaped effect pigments does not come about in the coatings, or not to the required extent. Thus with platelet-shaped aluminum effect pigments, for example, only coatings with glitter effects can be produced, but not coatings exhibiting a strong color flop or light/dark flop, such as is characteristic of high-grade metallic paint systems.
The use of PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments and of the inherently advantageous coil coating process for producing high-grade effect coatings, or color and effect coatings, for automotive OEM finishing has therefore been unsuccessful to date essentially owing to the fact that the existing coatings comprising effect pigments even prior to deformation do not have the required automobile quality. In particular it is not possible to reproduce the shades and optical effects the automobile industry requires, or the required gloss and overall appearance.

PVC plastisols comprising effect pigments, their preparation and use in coil coating


Oriented microfibers and processes for making them are disclosed, together with blends of such microfibers with other fibers such as crimped staple fibers and non-oriented microfibers.

During the over twenty-year period that melt-blown fibers have come into wide commercial use, for uses such as filtration, battery electrode separation and insulation, there has been a recognized need for fibers of extremely small diameters and webs of good tensile strength. However, there has always been a recognition that the tensile strength of melt-blown fibers was low, e.g., lower than that of fibers prepared in conventional melt-spinning processes (see the article "Melt-Blowing--A One-Step Web Process For New Nonwoven Products," by Robert R. Buntin and Dwight D. Lohkcamp, Volume 56, No. 4, April 1973, Tappi, Page 75, paragraph bridging columns 2 and 3). At least as late as 1981, the art generally doubted "that melt-blown webs, per se, will ever possess the strengths associated with conventional nonwoven webs produced by melt spinning in which fiber attenuation occurs below the polymer melting point bringing about crystalline orientation with resultant high fiber strength" (see the paper "Technical Developments In The Melt-Blowing Process And Its Applications In Absorbent Products" by Dr. W. John McCulloch and Dr. Robert A. VanBrederode presented at Insight '81, copyright Marketing/TechnoLogy Service, Inc., of Kalamazoo, Mich., page 18, under the heading "Strength").
The low strength of melt-blown fibers limited the utility of the fibers, and as a result there have been various attempts to combat this low strength. One such effort is taught in Prentice, U.S. Pat. No. 3,704,198, where a melt-blown web is "fuse-bonded," as by calendering or point-bonding, at least a portion of the web. Although web strength can be improved somewhat by calendering, fiber strength is left unaffected, and overall strength is still less than desired.
Other prior workers have suggested blending high-strength bicomponent fibers into melt-blown fibers prior to collection of the web, or lamination of the melt-blown web to a high strength substrate such as a spunbond web (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,041,203, 4,302,495 and 4,196,245). Such steps add costs and dilute the microfiber nature of the web, and are not satisfactory for many purposes.
With regard to fiber diameter, there is a recognized need for fibers of uniformly small diameters and extremely high aspect ratios, as discussed, for example in Hauser U.S. Pat. No. 4,118,531 (col. 5) and Kubik et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,682 (cols. 5 and 6). However, as recognized by Hauser, despite the ability to get melt-blown fibers with very small average fiber diameters, the fiber size distribution is quite large, with fibers in the 6 to 8 micrometer range present for use with fibers of an average fiber diameter of 1 to 2 micrometers (Examples 5-7). Problems are also present in eliminating larger diameter "shot", discussed in the above Buntin et al. article, page 74, first paragraph of col. 2. Shot is formed when the fibers break in the turbulence from the impinging air of the melt-blown process. Buntin indicates that shot is unavoidable and of a diameter greater than that of the fibers.
McAmish et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,622,259, is directed to melt-blown fibrous webs especially suitable for use as medical fabrics and said to have improved strength. These webs are prepared by introducing secondary air at high velocity at a point near where fiber-forming material is extruded from the melt-blowing die. As seen best in FIG. 2 of the patent, the secondary air is introduced from each side of the stream of melt-blown fibers that leaves the melt-blowing die, the secondary air being introduced on paths generally perpendicular to the stream of fibers. The secondary air merges with the primary air that impacted on the fiber-forming material and formed the fibers, and the secondary air is turned to travel more in a direction parallel to the path of the fibers. The merged primary and secondary air then carries the fibers to a collector. The patent states that, by the use of such secondary air, fibers are formed that are longer than those formed by a conventional melt-blowing process and which exhibit less autogeneous bonding upon fiber collection; with the latter property, the patent states it has been noted that the individual fiber strength is higher. Strength is indicated to be dependent on the degree of molecular orientation, and it is stated (column 9, lines 21-27) that the high velocity secondary air employed in the present process is instrumental in increasing the time and distance over which the fibers are attenuated. The cooling effect of the secondary air enhances the probability that the molecular orientation of the fibers is not excessively relaxed on the deceleration of the fibers as they are collected on the screen. Fabrics are formed from the collected web by embossing the webs or adding a chemical binder to the web, and the fabrics are reported to have higher strengths, e.g., a minimum grab tensile strength-to-weight ratio greater than 0.8 N per gram per square meter, and a minimum Elmendorf tear strength-to-weight ratio greater than 0.04 N per gram per square meter. The fibers are also reported to have a diameter of 7 micrometers or less. However, there is no indication that the process yields fibers of a narrow fiber diameter distribution or fibers with average diameters of less than 2.0 micrometers, substantially continuous fibers or fiber webs substantially free of shot.

Oriented melt-blown fibers, processes for making such fibers and webs made from such fibers


The present invention provides polypeptides involved in cryptophycin biosynthesis and the nucleic acid molecules that encode such polypeptides. The nucleic acid molecules and polypeptides of the invention or variants thereof can be used in the methods of the invention to produce cryptophycins.

Cryptophycins are novel macrolides first isolated from blue-green algae (Nostoc sp. GSV22 and Nostoc sp. ATCC 53789) and are potent tumor selective cytotoxins in vivo. Many syntheses of the major natural products, cryptophycins 1-4, and a wide range of analogs have been published. For example, cryptophycins have been synthesized by a convergent method in which four components, Unit A, Unit B, Unit C, and Unit D (Golakati et al., 1995, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 117(49):12031), are coupled together to form the final product (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,013,626). In other methods, novel semi-synthetic compounds are generated, for example, by converting the epoxide of a natural cryptophycin to a carbon-carbon double bond (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,845,085 and 4,845,086). Stereo-selective addition of functional groups is often problematic during chemical synthesis of cryptophycins, however. Therefore, few of the methodologies for cryptophycin syntheses are considered viable or practical on a commercial scale.

Nucleic acids and polypeptides involved in the production of cryptophycin


Described is a grating plate for a sliding grating for a burned-material cooling unit, the grating plate having, in the surface which holds the materials, a recess (13) in which cooling-air outlets (10) are located and, below the recess, a cooling-air feed space (17). The depth of the recess (13) increases from back to front. The cross-section of the cooling-air feed space (17) decreases correspondingly from back to front in accordance with the change in the cooling-air flow through the space.

Known sliding gratings such as those which are used for cooling cement clinker and other, pourable burnt material comprise a plurality of rows, running transversely with respect to the longitudinal and advancement direction of the cooling unit, of grating plates which are alternately stationary and moved back and forth in the conveying direction, the grating plates arranged one behind the other overlapping one another in an imbricated manner. The bed of material which is to be cooled moves over the upper side of the plates and has a wearing effect on the same. It is known (EP-C 337383; EP-A 537523; U.S. Pat. No. 5,174,747), for the upper side of the plates to be provided, in the material-receiving surface over which the bed of material slides, with depressions, in which material particles are held and in which cooling-air-outlet openings open out. This arrangement has the advantage that the cooled material held in the depressions protects the grating-plate region located therebeneath against the thermal and wearing action of the bed of material sliding over it, and that the cooling air is well distributed by the material located in the depressions. Since the front plate section is at particular risk of wear, it is provided, essentially over its entire width, with one or more such depressions. In contrast, the rear section is subjected to thermal action to a lesser degree because it is overlapped to a periodically alternating extent by the grating plate arranged behind. In order that this plate which is arranged behind can slide over the plate in front without being spaced apart therefrom to a pronounced extent, the surface of said rear section is usually designed to be more or less smooth and parallel to the direction of relative movement. It is referred to as the sliding surface hereinbelow.
The known plates provided, in the front section, with depressions on top have a cooling-air-supply space which is connected to the cooling-air-outlet openings and has a cooling-air-supply opening which is connected to the associated grating-plate carrier. The latter is a hollow carrier which is assigned to each row, the cavity of which is used for cooling-air supply, and on which the grating plates are mounted with their rear region projecting forwards.
In order to be able to hold some of the material better, the depressions in the material-receiving surface are designed with steep delimiting surfaces and to be as deep as possible in comparison with the plate height provided. This means that there is only a small cross-section remaining for the cooling-air-supply space located therebeneath, as a result of which the supply of cooling air to those cooling-air-outlet openings which are arranged further towards the front in the plate and for which the cooling requirement is particularly high is poorer than for those openings which are arranged further towards the rear. Although the cross-section of the cooling-air-supply space could be increased by selecting a larger plate height, this increases the material requirement, which determines costs. Moreover, the higher plates then no longer match the hitherto conventional, lower plates.

Sliding grate for a burnt-material-cooling unit, and grating plate therefor

Babcock Materials Handling Division GmbH


The disclosure is directed to a photomultiplier tube with extended dynamic range. According to various embodiments, a repulsive electric field is introduced between a photocathode and a plurality of dynodes in order to repel or block low-energy electrons from reaching and being multiplied by the dynodes. As a result, time intervals between current peaks and drops may be decreased because the photomultiplier current will be primarily affected by high-energy electrons emitted by the photocathode in response to incident illumination versus low-energy electrons, some of which may result from dangling bonds or slow surface states after illumination no longer impinges the photocathode. Dynamic range and optical responsiveness of the photomultiplier tube are increased accordingly.

Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are photo-detectors capable of detecting low intensity illumination. As such, PMTs are used in many low intensity applications including, but not limited to, cell imaging, biodiagnostic instrumentation, semiconductor wafer inspection, particle counting, nuclear medicine, radiation detection, quantum cryptography, and low light imaging (e.g. security cameras or light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems). PMTs have been used to detect low-energy photons with wavelengths from infrared (IR) range to the ultraviolet (UV) range as well as high-energy photons such as X-rays or gamma rays.
A PMT generally includes a photocathode, a plurality of dynodes (making up an electron multiplier), and an anode. When illumination impinges upon an entrance window of a PMT, photons from the incident illumination strike a surface of the photocathode and are converted into photoelectrons, which are then accelerated by a high electric field through a path delineated by the plurality of dynodes. The photoelectrons are multiplied by secondary electron emissions from the dynodes before being collected by the anode. The electrons received by the anode produce a current associated with the intensity of the incident illumination.
Depending on the configuration of a PMT and the voltages applied to the electrodes, the PMT can serve as a detector operable in a single-photon counting mode as well as in an analog or proportional mode. In addition, PMTs generally have a large sensing area, are highly responsive, and may have high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In some applications, PMTs are used to detect incident illumination ranging from a single photon (less than an attowatt) up to billions of photons (picowatts to nanowatts) per second.
However, existing PMTs do not meet dynamic range requirements demanded by some state of the art and emerging applications. The dynamic range is limited by the slow decay of persisting current that results from an intensity peak (i.e. the sudden rise in current due to incident illumination). As a result, existing PMTs also have inadequate sensitivity (i.e. optical responsiveness) to incident illumination that is very quickly and dynamically changing. For example, it may be difficult to detect a low intensity peak following a very high intensity peak without enough time separation for persisting current from the first (very high intensity) peak to sufficiently decay.

Photomultiplier tube with extended dynamic range


A bi-directional overrunning clutch is disclosed for controlling torque transmission between a secondary drive shaft and secondary driven shafts. The overrunning clutch includes a pinion input shaft in a differential housing that engages with a clutch housing rotatably disposed within the differential housing. At least one race is located adjacent to the clutch housing and is engaged with an output shaft. A cage is located between the race and the clutch housing. The cage is movable with respect to the clutch housing. A first coil is mounted within the differential housing adjacent to the cage and is adapted to produce an electromagnetic field when energized which causes the cage to drag with respect to the clutch housing. The dragging of the cage with respect to the clutch housing positions the cage to engage the clutch housing with the race when wheels on a primary drive shaft lose traction. A second coil is mounted within the differential housing adjacent adjacent to the cage. The second coil is adapted to produce an electromagnetic field when energized which advances cage with respect to the clutch housing causing the clutch housing to engage with the races. When the second coil is activated, the output shaft drives the pinion input shaft producing engine braking. An electronic control system is utilized to control the energizing of the coils.

The increased demand in recent years for off-road and all terrain vehicles has led to tremendous developments in those types of vehicles. Many of the developments have centered around making the vehicle more adaptable to changing road conditions, e.g., dirt roads, pavement and gravel. As the road terrain changes, it is desirable to vary the driving capabilities of the vehicle to more efficiently navigate the new terrain. Prior four-wheel drive and all terrain vehicles were cumbersome since they required the operator to manually engage and disengage the secondary drive shaft, e.g., by stopping the vehicle to physically lock/unlock the wheel hubs. Improvements in vehicle drive trains, such as the development of automated systems for engaging and disengaging a driven axle, eliminated many of the problems of the prior designs. These automated drive systems are sometimes referred to as "on-the-fly" four wheel drive. These systems, however, require the vehicle to be in either 2-wheel or 4-wheel drive at all times.
Generally, all four-wheel drive vehicles include a differential for transferring torque from a drive shaft to the driven shafts that are attached to the wheels. Typically, the driven shafts (or half shafts) are independent of one another allowing differential action to occur when one wheel attempts to rotate at a different speed than the other, for example when the vehicle turns. The differential action also eliminates tire scrubbing, reduces transmission loads and reduces understeering during cornering (the tendency to go straight in a corner). There are four main types of conventional differentials: open, limited slip, locking, and center differentials. An open differential allows differential action between the half shafts but, when one wheel loses traction, all available torque is transferred to the wheel without traction resulting in the vehicle stopping.
A limited slip differential overcomes the problems with the open differential by transferring all torque to the wheel that is not slipping. Some of the more expensive limited slip differentials use sensors and hydraulic pressure to actuate the clutch packs locking the two half shafts together. The benefits of these hydraulic (or viscous) units are often overshadowed by their cost, since they require expensive fluids and complex pumping systems. The heat generated in these systems, especially when used for prolonged periods of time may also require the addition of an auxiliary fluid cooling source.
The third type of differential is a locking differential that uses clutches to lock the two half shafts together or incorporates a mechanical link connecting the two shafts. In these types of differentials, both wheels can transmit torque regardless of traction. The primary drawback to these types of differentials is that the two half shafts are no longer independent of each other. As such, the half shafts are either locked or unlocked to one another. This can result in problems during turning where the outside wheel tries to rotate faster than the inside wheel. Since the half shafts are locked together, one wheel must scrub. Another problem that occurs in locking differentials is twichiness when cornering due to the inability of the two shafts to turn at different speeds.
The final type of differential is a center differential. These types of differentials are used in the transfer case of a four wheel drive vehicle to develop a torque split between the front and rear drive shafts.
Many differentials on the market today use some form of an overrunning clutch to transmit torque when needed to a driven shaft. One successful use of an overrunning clutch in an all terrain vehicle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,939. In that patent, the vehicle incorporates overrunning clutches directly into the wheel hubs, thus allowing each wheel to independently disengage when required.


An apparatus to treat a patient comprises a laser beam, a measurement module, a scanner and a curved patient interface lens. The curved patient interface is measured with a pattern so as to determine a plurality of distances of the curved surface at a plurality of measurement locations. The measurement pattern may comprise the plurality of measurement locations distributed about a central measurement axis corresponding to the laser treatment axis. The plurality of measurement locations of the curved surface may correspond to a portion of a planned treatment profile, such that the measured distances correspond to alignment of the planned treatment. The plurality of distances can be used to determine an apex of the curved surface of the patient interface and to align the laser treatment axis with the apex of the curved surface.

The present disclosure is generally directed to methods and apparatus to treat an eye with a laser beam, including aligning a laser treatment with the eye. Although specific reference is made to centration of a surgical pattern on the apex of a curved patient interface, the methods and apparatus as described herein can be used in many applications in which a laser is used to treat material.
The eye is used for vision and has several tissues that allow a person to see. The cornea and lens of the eye form an image on the retina where the image is sensed. The refractive properties of the eye can be such that the image formed on the retina is less than ideal. For example, the eye may have less than ideal vision resulting from one or more refractive causes such as nearsightedness, far sightedness, and astigmatism.
Although many prior technologies have been proposed and used to correct vision of the eye, many of these prior technologies may provide less than ideal results in at least some instances. For example, with spectacles and contact lenses, a corrective lens is placed in front of the eye or on the cornea to improve the image formed on the retina. However, not all patients tolerate spectacles and contact lenses and these corrective lenses are only effective when worn by the patient. Also, spectacles and contact lenses may provide less than ideal correction of higher order aberrations of the eye such as spherical aberration and coma. Surgical treatments have been proposed and developed such as radial keratotomy (hereinafter "RK"), photorefractive keratectomy (hereinafter "PRK") and laser assisted in situ keratomileusis (hereinafter "LASIK"). With RK, cuts may be made deep into the cornea, and although these cuts can provide an initial correction of vision, long term stability of RK treated eyes may be less than ideal in at least some instances. With PRK, healing of a layer of epithelium, which is removed for treatment, can take longer than would be ideal and may result in discomfort to the patient while the epithelium regenerates. Although LASIK can provide faster healing of the eye than PRK, in at least some instances cutting of the LASIK flap can be less than ideal, and applanation of the eye with a microkeratome may result in a temporary increase in intra-ocular pressure.
Laser surgery with ultra-short pulse lasers such as femtosecond lasers have been used to treat the eye. These pulsed lasers can make very accurate incisions of the eye and can be used in many ways to treat the eye. For example, short pulse lasers can be used to incise corneal tissue to make flaps with Femto-LASIK. Additional types of incisions that can be performed with the short pulse lasers include incisions for paracentesis, limbal relaxing incisions, and refractive incisions to shape the cornea, for example. The surgical incisions formed with ultra-short pulsed lasers can be quite accurate, and in at least some instances it can be helpful to hold the eye in position with a patient interface that couples the laser to the incised tissue of the eye such as the cornea. The patient interface can hold the eye in place so that an incision can be formed at the correct depth in the cornea. Prior patient interfaces have included a flat surface to contact the cornea. Although effective in facilitating cutting tissue at the intended depth, the flat patient interface may deflect the cornea more than would be ideal and provide less than ideal coupling to the cornea in at least some instances.
Although a patient interface with a curved surface to contact the cornea has been proposed, the prior methods and apparatus can provide less than ideal results in at least some instances. At least some of the prior treatments may result in an incision that is too deep, not deep enough, or both, in at least some instances. Curved patient interfaces can be difficult to align with the laser treatment and difficult to manufacture to within the tolerances of laser eye surgery. The alignment tolerances of the prior laser eye surgery systems may be less than ideally suited for use with a curved patient interface. In at least some instances, one or more components of the prior laser system can drift or move after alignment which can affect the accuracy of the placement of the cut profile, and the central treatment axis of the prior laser eye surgery systems may be difficult to define to within the tolerances appropriate for use with a curved patient interface.
In light of the above, it would be helpful to provide improved methods and apparatus to treat tissue. Ideally such methods and apparatus would overcome at least some of the above mentioned deficiencies of the prior methods and apparatus, for example by providing more accurate cutting of tissue without substantial deflection of corneal tissue and in a manner that can be used to treat many patients.

Automatic centration of a surgical pattern on the apex of a curved patient interface


A class of molecularly imprinted polymers that specifically recognizes and binds to TSNAs are useful, for example, in analysis and separation of TSNAs from biological fluids. Such polymers are also useful in methods of treating and manufacturing tobacco products and materials. Also disclosed are selectively adsorbent non-molecularly imprinted polymer of a non-acidic monomer and a cross-linker having polar functionality, one of which is hydrophilic, the other of which is hydrophobic, and the use of such polymers in the treatment of materials containing nicotine and nitrosamine.

In the fields of medical, dietary, environmental and chemical sciences there is an increasing need for the selective separation of specific substances from complex mixtures of related substances. The aim can be the quantitative extraction of a certain compound or compounds, the measurement of their concentration or the selective removal of a target compound from a multi-component mixture.
Stricter health controls have increased the demand for methods allowing sensitive and selective quantification of hazardous products and metabolites from certain everyday substances in widespread use. Of particular concern are chemical compounds related to use of tobacco-based products, which compounds are either originally present in the raw tobacco leaf itself or generated during the smoking process. Nitroso-containing compounds, such as nitrosamines, are regarded as being of special significance in this regard.
With the aim of reducing the occurrence of hazards related to smoking, certain pharmaceutical products have been produced containing only the neuroactive substance, nicotine, the chemical claimed to be responsible for the dependence aspects of smokable material.
Among the nicotine formulations for smoking cessation therapy, nicotine chewing gum has found the most widespread use. The quality control required during production includes monitoring of nicotine levels as well as monitoring of the primary nicotine oxidation products cotinine, myosmine, nicotine-cis-N-oxide, nicotine-trans-N-oxide and beta-nicotyrine. Quantitation of nornicotine, anatabine and anabasine is also desirable, if not required. Improved methods and materials for such monitoring and quantitation are needed in the art. Use of such cigarette substitutes can cause nitrosamine nicotine metabolites to be produced in vivo by natural metabolic processes during the residence of the nicotine within body tissues. The levels of these metabolites remain below the concentrations at which most analytical procedures can perform quantitatively. So in addition to methods and materials for use during product manufacture, there remains a need for improved ways to monitor the low levels of nicotine metabolites in vivo.
Along with the needs felt in relation to newer products, traditional tobacco products also require methods and materials for quantifying, reducing or removing components from tobacco or tobacco smoke. Such components include tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) and their alkaloid precursors:

To properly quantify the amount of such compounds present in human biological fluids, methods are being developed to analyse the alkaloids, especially the nitrosylated decomposition products and metabolites in tobacco. Existing chromatographic separation or extraction methods used for this analysis lack the robustness, sensitivity and speed required in order to handle the large number of samples generated when screening the general population. With existing methods, the low concentration of nitrosamines, typically present in picograms per milliliter, demands extensive sample preparation with multi-step extractions and often chemical derivatization (for example deuteration prior to mass spectrometry) of the analyte prior to analysis. One reason for this complexity is that existing separation materials are not selective as, for example, an antibody or biological receptor might be for the metabolites in question but rather rely on physico-chemical properties like charge or hydrophobicity of the metabolites for the separation behaviour. These physico-chemical properties may be shared by many other irrelevant molecules in the sample. A quick and simple method for the analysis of TSNAs is therefore a significant unmet medical analytical need.
During recent years numerous reports of selective recognition of small molecules with materials prepared by molecular imprinting (molecularly imprinted polymers or MIPs) have appeared. MIPs are polymers having reactive sites adapted to bind selectively with targeted compounds. Non-covalently prepared molecularly imprinted materials have been used for chiral recognition of a variety of small molecules including therapeutic drugs, sugars, nucleotide bases, and pesticides as well as steroid and peptide hormones. The high affinity and selectivity for the target analyte exhibited by some of the imprinted materials have justified a comparison with the corresponding immuno-affinity (IA) phases. In contrast to the latter phases however, the MIP materials are straightforward to prepare, stable in most media and reusable over long periods of time. Applications of the MIP materials in chromatography, separation (continuous or batch), chemical sensing or in specific assays are therefore under investigation.
Another application is solid-phase extraction (SPE) of analytes present in low concentrations in biological samples, or in complex matrices. SPE may lead to selective enrichment and clean-up of an analyte to levels not achievable with existing methods. Molecularly imprinted solid phase extractions (MISPE) have been used in bioanalysis, food analysis and environmental analysis. In these examples selective enrichment and clean-up of the analyte is obtained resulting in higher accuracy and a lowering of the detection limit (LOD) in the subsequent chromatographic (eg HPLC) or mass spectrometric quantification.
In view of their high selectivity combined with good affinity for the target molecule or a group of target molecules, MIPs have attracted considerable interest from the food industry as a tool to improve food quality. This requires the use of a MIP for selective removal of undesirable components from the food matrix. Since these components are often present in low concentrations, the saturation capacity of the MIP is typically not a limiting factor.
According to WO 05/112670, which is specifically incorporated by reference herein, it can be preferred to have MIP material capable of selectively absorbing the most common nitrosylated nicotine derivatives from complex matrices such as urine, giving quantitative recovery and thereby leading to low errors in the estimation of chemical concentrations. The examples of WO 05/112670 are limited to MIPs prepared using acidic or highly acidic template monomers such as methacrylic acid (MAA), trifluoromethacrylic acid (TFMAA), 4-vinylbenzoic acid, and 4-vinyl benzene sulphonic acid.
In addition to quantification it is also well known to attempt to reduce the harmful effects of consuming material containing tobacco, tobacco substitutes or mixtures thereof by reducing the levels of targeted compounds. Such reductions can be made in the material itself or in a derivative thereof such as an extract of the material. Reduction can also be effected in the thermal decomposition products of the material, i.e. mainstream and sidestream smoke obtained by combustion, or the aerosols produced by heating the material to a temperature below its combustion temperature. One well known method for this sort of reduction is to contact the thermal decomposition products of the material with a filter that adsorbs undesired components therefrom. An alternative method involves solvent extraction of the material, for example as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,601,097. According to that specification, the protein content of tobacco material is reduced by treating the tobacco with a solution containing a surfactant to extract polypeptides, separating the solution, removing the surfactant and the polypeptides from the solution, and recombining the solution with the tobacco material. International patent specification WO 01/65954 discloses a process in which tobacco is contacted with a supercritical extraction fluid such as supercritical carbon dioxide to selectively reduce or eliminate nitrosamines.
These processes are equally applicable to both tobacco itself and to tobacco substitutes, i.e., natural or synthetic materials having similar characteristics to natural tobacco that enable them to be consumed in a similar way to tobacco, whether by smoking, chewing, inhaling or otherwise. There has been an attempt to remove nicotine from tobacco smoke using MIPS, as reported in Liu, Y., et al., Molecularly imprinted Solid-Phase Extraction Sorbent for Removal of Nicotine from Tobacco Smoke, Analytical Letters, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp 1631-1645 (2003). The MIP described in the article was designed to bind nicotine and not the more toxic nicotine metabolites such as nitrosamines. It is unclear if the MIP was in fact selective for nicotine as the scientific method producing the data was lacking in key control-checking elements. As described in WO 05/112670, MIPs selective for TSNAs can be used to treat tobacco products and thereby reduce the levels of one or more nitroso-containing compounds from the tobacco product. Such MIPs further find use in the analysis and quantification of TSNAs in vivo, commonly in relation to consumption of tobacco products, and in the preparation and evaluation of non-tobacco products. So despite advances there remains a need in the art for novel MIPs and methods of employing the same in the field of nicotine and nicotine metabolites.

Polymers selective for tobacco specific nitrosamines and methods of using the same

British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited


A method of operating a coil transfer apparatus and a coil transfer apparatus with a coiling station having a coiling roller each at an entry side and an exit side and with a uncoiling station with an uncoiling roller each on an entry side and an exit side. The method includes coiling a strip in a coiling station into a coil or placing a coil onto the coiling rollers, supporting the coil by the coiling rollers during coiling or after placement of the coil on the coiling rollers, and transferring the coil for uncoiling to the uncoiling station and supporting the coil after the transfer during uncoiling by the uncoiling rollers. The method further includes the steps of moving the coiling and uncoiling stations toward each other and raising the coiling roller on the entry side of the coiling station.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of operating a coil transfer apparatus with a coiling station having a coiling roller each at an entry side of the coiling station and an exit side of the coiling station and with a uncoiling station with an uncoiling roller each on an entry side of the uncoiling station and an exit side of the uncoiling station. The method includes coiling a strip in a coiling station into a coil or placing a coil onto the coiling rollers, supporting the coil by the coiling rollers during coiling or after placement of the coil on the coiling rollers, and transferring the coil for uncoiling to the uncoiling station and supporting the coil after the transfer during uncoiling by the uncoiling rollers.
The present invention also relates to a corresponding coil transfer apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Slabs are either continuously cast in thin slab casting machines to dimensions which are close to the final dimensions or they are rolled after continuous casting in a roughing train before they are further processed in a finishing train. The strip leaves the roughing train approximately at three times the speed at which it is later to enter into the finishing train. Therefore, in order to maintain the temperature of the slab, the prior art provides that, for example, as disclosed in Stahl und Eisen 103 (1983) No. 7, pages 31 to 36, that the slab is coiled into a coil in a coiling station of a coil transfer apparatus, wherein the coil is supported by coiling rollers during coiling. Subsequently a mandrel is moved into the eye of the coil and the coil is transferred from the coiling station to the uncoiling station.
Uncoiling of the strip is started already when the mandrel is moved into the eye and the coil is transferred. Coiling of the next strip into a coil can start as soon as the already coiled coil has reached the uncoiling station.
Because the mandrel is moved into the eye of the coil, the inner windings are cooled to a greater extent than the outer windings; this has a negative influence on the rolling process in the finishing train and the quality of the finish-rolled strip.
Methods of operating coil transfer apparatuses and corresponding coil transfer apparatuses, in which the transfer of the coil occurs without a mandrel, are already known in the art. However, all of these methods and apparatuses are complicated and expensive. Also, the apparatuses are not easily accessible for maintenance and repair work.

Method of operating a coil transfer apparatus and a corresponding coil transfer apparatus


By pulsing transmission radio waves of continuous wave radar, clutter components included in a reception signal are suppressed.

To avoid collision while driving, a vehicle cruise control system or a driver assistant system has been studied to put into commercial use. In such systems to avoid collision, automotive radar technologies play an important role that detects relative velocity of and distance to obstacles. In automotive radars, it is demanded that they can easily be mounted at low cost, and is also demanded that they apply systems capable of detecting, with sufficient resolution, distance to and velocity of obstacles.
As for automotive radar systems, such as pulse radar, pulse-compression radar (spread spectrum radar), frequency-modulated continuous wave radar (also referred as FMCW radar), and 2-frequency CW radar (CW: continuous wave), have been known. The pulse radar system transmits short pulses by which sufficient distance resolution can be obtained. The pulse-compression radar transmits a broadband signal with a broad pulse-width by spectral spread and obtains a specific distance resolution by compression (inverse spread spectrum). The pulse radar and the pulse-compression radar need a band of 150 MHz in order to obtain a distance resolution of 1 m and also need high-speed signal processing because of heavy correlational computation load, therefore those systems are disadvantageous to automotive radars that are required to be easily mounted at low cost.
Meanwhile, the FMCW radar system and the 2-frequency CW radar system can achieve a distance resolution of some 1 m with a receiver band of several dozen kHz, therefore they are expected to be widely applied hereafter to automotive radars. However, because continuous waves are used in those systems, reception signals include waves that have been reflected from moving objects and stationary ones at any distance away. Consequently, when a lot of heavy clutter is included, those systems have a problem in that they easily fail to estimate distance to and velocity of target objects.
In order to solve the problems above, a technology has been proposed, in which a beat signal during a frequency-ascending period and a frequency-descending period is spectrally analyzed in the FMCW radar systems, and when the frequency difference between a pair of spectrum peaks becomes a predetermined value, these spectrum peaks are determined as the waves reflected from stationary objects (clutter), so as to be removed (as described in Patent Document 1).
Also, as for a method of detecting distance to stationary objects and moving objects in the 2-frequency CW systems, a technology has been proposed, in which a slope period during which two frequencies vary is provided in a portion where the two frequencies alternate with each other (as described in Patent Document 2).
Patent Documentation 1                Japanese Patent No. 3102224
Patent Documentation 2                Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-071793

Apparatus and method for suppression of unnecessary signals in a radar system

Abstract: In a radar system that emits into space pulsed transmission radio waves being generated based on a frequency-modulated reference continuous waveform, acquires a reception signal by receiving the pulsed transmission radio waves reflected from an external object, and computes distance thereto and velocity thereof from the frequency of a beat signal obtained by mixing the acquired reception signal with the reference continuous waveform, the radar system includes a frequency-band selector 19 for classifying, on the basis of a spectral spread corresponding to the pulse width of the pulsed transmission radio waves, frequency components of the beat signal, and a distance/velocity calculator 20 for computing, on the basis of the classified results from the frequency-band selector 19, relative distance to and velocity of a moving object, or relative distance to a stationary object.


A system for sealing an air duct by coating the interior of the duct with a material similar to the coating used for spray-on truck bed liners. A spray device applies the liner material to the interior surface of the ducts and the spray device is held in the center of the duct by retractable sets of wheels. The spray device is removably attached to a supply hose that provides liner material to the spray device from a storage tank via a supply pump. The supply hose is first fed through the duct, the spray head is attached to the supply hose and the liner material is sprayed onto the duct as the spray head is retracted through the duct. The system can be either computer or manually controlled and can optionally employ an electrostatic unit to put opposite electrical charges on the duct and the liner material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for sealing air handling ducts, particularly those air ducts that are located in a cement slab floor or under a slab floor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Slab floor buildings normally have the heating and air conditioning air ducts located in the cement slab floor of the building. If the building experiences structural problems, such as a cracked foundation, or has moisture and rust in the ducts, the most common remedy for these problems is to abandon the existing duct system and install a new duct system and new equipment in the ceiling of the building. Then the old abandoned duct system is normally closed off by pouring cement into the duct openings.
The problems associated with this solution are that installation of a new duct system is time consuming, expensive, and can be extremely difficult, particularly if the building is more than one story high.
Instead of replacing the duct system, a more cost effective and less disruptive solution would be to provide some type of liner for the existing duct system that would have structural integrity, i.e. be air and water tight, and would fill in any gaps or holes in the existing duct system caused by movement in the surrounding cement slab. Also, such a sleeve should be easy to install at normal atmospheric temperatures, be inert so that it provides a clean, flame-resistant, sanitary, and stable surface for carrying air throughout the building.
The present invention answers this need in that it is a relatively fast, easy, and inexpensive method of repairing an existing air duct by providing a lining on the interior surfaces of the existing air duct system. The liner is installed according to the present invention at normal atmospheric temperatures and quickly cures to a tough, smooth, and inert surface that is air and water tight. The present liner is effective in filling in gaps or holes that may be present in the duct system due to movement in the surrounding concrete slab and completely covering and sealing rust, mold, or mildew resulting from the presence of moisture in the ducts.


Apparatus and methods for policing flows of data units (15) along a path in a data network in dependence on congestion indications associated with said data units indicating whether or not said data units have experienced, or are expected to experience, congestion on the path, said apparatus and methods allowing for a high but not unlimited short-term burst rate (wST) of data units having congestion indications associated therewith, the short-term burst rate being high when compared with a long-term average rate (wLT) at which data units having congestion indications associated therewith may be forwarded without the data units being subjected to a policing action such as dropping, delaying or marking for possible sanction.

The Internet is a shared communication medium, whose resources every user has the opportunity to use. Its value chain now involves a strong diversity of stakeholders, some of whom can have conflicting interests in the way the shared resources are managed. This state of affairs has been exacerbated by the network neutrality debate over the past few years. At the technical level, the debate boils down to assessing which control mechanisms are adequate for network operators to employ to mitigate the impact of some customers' heavy usage so that usage doesn't cause a deterioration in the network service every other customer can get from the connectivity product they have subscribed to. Insomuch as it is possible, it is important that such policing mechanisms should deal with the physical impact of a customer's traffic on the network, rather than its nature.
At the moment most network operators have defined "fair usage" policies which specify the traffic limits to which customers will be subjected, based on the product they have subscribed to. This can include a specific upper limit for the amount of peer-to-peer traffic that can be generated at peak hours: peer-to-peer traffic can indeed very easily take over disproportionate amounts of access bandwidth because of the way peer-to-peer applications have been designed.
However that approach is of limited efficiency: it assumes that all traffic using a known protocol (which on average causes congestion in the network) is responsible for increases in congestion, and that only that traffic is responsible for that congestion. If a new peer-to-peer application was designed that only uses uncongested network path links to operate, it would be penalised as much as any other peer-to-peer traffic application. On the other hand, heavy, live multimedia exchanges across congested links might hardly be affected by traditional policing techniques but could still contribute disproportionately to network congestion.
Based on the economics of networks, it has been shown (see [Kelly98] for example) that controlling the congestion a customer creates is a much better way to ensure the efficient usage of a shared resource than controlling the raw amount of traffic the customer generates. Congestion pricing is a way to ensure users are held accountable for the amount of congestion they create. However, users are wary of being exposed to such dynamic variation of prices as could occur with prices based on network congestion.
It has been advocated (see [Briscoe07]) that using congestion capping would present substantially similar advantages to using congestion pricing, while avoiding exposing users directly to dynamic congestion prices.
Re-Feedback
The re-feedback framework has been developed to allow for customers' usage to be accounted for based on the congestion externality they cause to other users. It will be understood that one of the functions of the Internet Protocol (IP) header is to carry path information from a sender to a receiver. This path information allows downstream nodes (nodes nearer the receiver) to learn about the upstream state of the path. Mechanisms exist which allow the receiver to feed this information back to the sender. The re-feedback proposal (see [Briscoe05c] for example) provides a mechanism whereby path information that a receiver feeds back to a sender can be re-inserted into the forward data path, thus allowing nodes along the path to learn information relating to the downstream state or the path as well as information about the upstream state of the path.
International patent applications WO 2005/096566 and WO 2005/096567 relate to data networks, and to nodes making up parts of data networks, arranged to derive information relating to the characterisation of paths taken by data travelling between nodes in the networks according to the re-feedback proposal.
Congestion Signalling and Responses Thereto
It will be understood that data traversing the Internet follows a path between a series of routers, controlled by various routing protocols. Each router seeks to move packets closer to their final destination. If too much traffic traverses the same router in the network, the router can become congested and packets start to experience excessive delays whilst using that network path. If sources persist in sending traffic through that router it could become seriously overloaded (congested) and even drop traffic (when its buffers overflow). If sources still persist in sending traffic around this bottleneck it could force more routers to become congested, and if the phenomenon keeps spreading, that can lead to a congestion collapse for the whole Internet—which occurred regularly in the mid-eighties.
A solution to that problem has been to ensure that sources take responsibility for the rate at which they send data over the Internet by implementing congestion control mechanisms. According to these mechanisms, sources are required to monitor path characterisation metrics to detect when the path their data is following is getting congested, in which case they react by reducing their throughput. In the absence of such congestion indications, they may slowly increase their throughput. The congestion level is one of the parameters controlling the rate adaptation of a source sending data over a congested path.
The congestion level can be signalled either implicitly (through congested routers dropping packets when their buffers overflow or to protect themselves) or explicitly (through mechanisms such as explicit congestion notification—see next subsection). Currently the most common option is implicit signalling. Historically, routers would drop packets when they got completely saturated (which happens when a traffic burst cannot be accommodated in the buffer of the router)—this policy is called "Droptail". Random Early Detection (RED) (see [RED]) is an improvement where routers monitor the average queue length in their buffer and when the average queue is higher than a given threshold, the router starts to drop packets with a probability which increases with the excess length of the queue over the threshold. It is widely used in today's Internet because it allows sources to react more promptly to incipient congestion. Sources using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) are able to detect losses, because a packet loss causes a gap in the sequence; whenever a TCP source detects a loss, it is meant to halve its data transmission rate, which should alleviate the congestion on the router at the bottleneck.
Explicit Congestion Notification
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) (see [ECN]) further improves on RED by using a two-bit ECN field in the IP header to signal congestion. It runs the same algorithm as RED, but instead of dropping a packet, it sets its ECN field to the Congestion Experienced (CE) codepoint. The ECN standard requires a sender to echo any congestion mark signalled in the data; for instance, a TCP receiver sets the Echo Congestion Experienced (ECE) flag in the TCP header, which the TCP source interprets as if a packet has been dropped for the purpose of its rate control. In turn the source then reacts to the congestion by halving its transmission rate and notifies the receiver of this using the Congestion Window Reduced (CWR) codepoint.
The four values of the two-bit ECN field in the IP header are:                Non ECT, which signifies that the packet belongs to a flow that doesn't support ECN.        ECT(0) and ECT(1), which signify that the packet belongs to a flow that supports ECN but that upstream routers haven't had to mark the packet.        Congestion Experienced (CE), which signals that a packet has experienced incipient congestion.
It will be understood that allowing a sender to initially assign either of two different codepoints (i.e. "ECT(0)" and "ECT(1)") to a packet enables the sender to detect if network elements are fraudulently erasing CE codepoints. If a packet which has experienced congestion and therefore has been marked with a "CE" codepoint subsequently has that CE codepoint removed in an attempt to hide the indication that the packet has experienced congestion, this will be detectable by the sender unless the CE codepoint has been changed back to the correct one of the two possible initial codepoints. This is discussed further in [RFC3540].
Congestion Policing
International patent application WO 2006/082443, which is further discussed in [Jacquet08], and related European patent application EP 1,758,313 (from which WO 2006/082443 claims priority) relate to methods and apparatus for policing the congestion responsiveness of individual flows (rather than that of a customer). They disclose methods and apparatus for policing flow in a data network by determining a measure of greediness of a flow through a node, comparing said measure of greediness with a measure indicative of acceptable greediness dependent on the expected greediness of a compliant flow experiencing substantially similar path conditions, and designating the flow for possible sanction in the event that the greediness is not in accordance with said acceptable greediness.
Mechanisms have since been proposed which use concepts based on the re-feedback proposal, and promote the use of congestion cap with connectivity products.
Re-ECN (see [Briscoe09a]) is an example of a system that utilises the re-feedback concept, whereby path information that a receiver feeds back to a sender can be "re-inserted" into the forward data path, in order to provide upstream and downstream congestion information throughout the network. With re-ECN, the information "re-inserted" is based on ECN marks in previously transmitted packets. It is similar to ECN but uses an extra bit in the packet header. This bit enables a number of new codepoints to be used. A simple way to understand the re-ECN protocol is to think of each packet as having a different colour flag (corresponding to a codepoint). At the start of a flow, a green flag (FNE or "feedback not established") is used to indicate that a sender doesn't have existing knowledge of the path. Green flags are also used when the sender is unsure about the current state of the path. By default packets are marked with grey flags. If they encounter congestion during their progress through the network they are marked with a red flag. The destination will send back a count of the number of red flags it has seen. For every red flag it is informed of, the sender should send a packet with a black flag (re-echo). These black flags cannot be modified once they are set by the sender, so signal to a node at any point on the path what the total end-to-end congestion is expected to be (based on the fact that the number of black flags signals the total end-to-end congestion level actually experienced by the immediate predecessors of the current packets). At any intermediate node the upstream congestion is given by the number of red flags seen, and the downstream congestion may therefore be derived by the difference between the number of red flags and the number of black flags.
Mechanisms based on the concept referred to as "re-ECN" are discussed in [Briscoe09a]. A related Internet Draft, referred to as [Briscoe09b], discusses the motivation for deploying such mechanisms. It provides examples of mechanisms that can use the re-ECN protocol to ensure that data sources respond correctly to congestion, and examples of mechanisms that are able to ensure that the dominant selfish strategy of both network domains and end-points will be to use the protocol honestly.
One such mechanism proposed in [Briscoe09a], which will be explained with reference to FIG. 1, consists of using a basic token bucket which is operated based on the amount of congestion a user creates on the network, rather than the volume of traffic it generates. Such a mechanism is therefore referred to as a "Congestion Policer", rather than a "Rate Policer".
As illustrated in FIG. 1, the token bucket 11 is filled at a constant rate, and emptied in proportion to the contribution of the user's traffic to network congestion. First, when a packet 15 arrives at the policing node, the token reserve r is updated (step s110). This updating involves two factors: the token reserve r is updated by adding tokens in proportion to a predetermined congestion allowance wLT of the user (step s110a). The token reserve r is also updated by removing tokens (step s110b) according to a function g( ) whose value depends on information retrieved from the packet header, in particular the size si and the re-ECN field (which reflects a congestion level pi). The function g( ) could be defined as:
g(packet) = siif the re-ECN codepoint signals a markg(packet) = 0otherwise
Subsequently, the packet is sanctioned (step s120) according to the relevant policy 12 with a probability f(r) where the sanction curve f( ) is null so long as the value of the token reserve r remains positive.
Such a mechanism puts an upper bound on the amount of congestion a user can cause in the long term. However one of the limitations of the mechanism is that it allows a user to create bursts of congestion. If the user has remained inactive for a long period of time, tokens will accumulate in the token bucket during such a period. If the user then becomes active again, it can consume the token reserve at a very quick pace, which could push congestion levels at bottlenecks to critical levels for at least a short period of time. This effect is illustrated in FIG. 2: even if the token reserve a user can accumulate is limited to a maximum level b (symbolised by the area shown as "surface b" on the graph, which can be regarded as indicating an agreed maximum amount of the user's "congestion allowance" that the user can hold in reserve in order to enable its future traffic that has already contributed to congestion still to be forwarded in the normal manner), if the user consumes that token reserve over a short period of time Tburst, then it can cause a spike of congestion kpeak in proportion to b/Tburst.
Protection against this is possible by setting a tight limit to the depth of the bucket b, thus limiting the potential amount of congestion of a future burst, however this would be very restrictive for users who only use their network congestion sporadically.
Other Known Techniques
Mechanisms to police data rates over two time-scales have been proposed. For instance the Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED) proposal (see [WRED]) proposes a dual token bucket to limit the throughput of a user to a Committed Information Rate (CIR) in the long-term, and a Peak Information Rate (PIR) bucket in the short-term, which allows for manageable bursts of traffic. It will be noted, however, that this mechanism deals only with traffic throughput.


A differential amplifier circuit includes a differential amplification unit suitable for amplifying difference between signals of an input terminal and a complementary input terminal, receiving the same voltage level through the input terminal and the complementary input terminal at a measurement period, and receiving an input signal and a complementary input signal through the input terminal and the complementary input terminal, respectively, at an operation period, an offset control unit suitable for generating offset information using an output of the differential amplification unit at the measurement period, and an offset compensation unit suitable for compensating for an offset of the differential amplification unit in response to the offset information.

1. Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a differential amplifier circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
A differential amplifier circuit is a circuit to amplify a voltage difference between two signals which are inputted in a differential manner, and is used in almost all kinds of integrated circuit chips so as to receive a signal from outside a chip or amplify an internal signal of the chip. For example, a memory may include several hundred to thousand differential amplifier circuits.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a conventional differential amplifier circuit.
Referring to FIG. 1, the differential amplifier circuit 100 serves to receive a pair of differential input signals including an input signal IN and a complementary input signal INB and amplify a voltage difference between the input signals IN and INB to output an output signal OUT and a complementary output signal OUTB. When the voltage of the input signal IN is higher than the voltage of the complementary input signal INB, the differential amplifier circuit 100 outputs the output signal OUT at a high level and outputs the complementary output signal OUTB at a low level. When the voltage of the complementary input signal INB is higher than the voltage of the input signal IN, the differential amplifier circuit 100 outputs the output signal OUT at a low level and outputs the complementary output signal OUTB at a high level. The differential amplifier circuit 100 may receive a clock CLK and perform an operation synchronized with the clock CLK or may operate in an asynchronous manner without receiving the clock CLK.
In an ideal case, the differential amplifier circuit 100 may amplify the output signal OUT to a high level and amplify the complementary output signal OUTB to a low level, even though the input signal IN is slightly higher than the complementary input signal INB. Furthermore, the differential amplifier circuit 100 may amplify the output signal OUT to a low level and amplify the complementary output signal OUTB to a high level even though the complementary input signal INB is slightly higher than the input signal IN. However, an ideal differential amplifier circuit does not exist, and the real differential amplifier circuit 100 may not perform a normal amplification operation when a voltage level difference between the input signal IN and the complementary input signal INB is not equal to or more than a predetermined offset value. For example, when the voltage level of the input signal IN is higher than the voltage level of the complementary input signal INB but the voltage level difference is insufficient, the differential amplifier circuit 100 may perform an abnormal amplification operation. For example, the differential amplifier circuit 100 may output the output signal OUT at a low level and output the complementary output signal OUTB at a high level, i.e., an opposite operation to the normal differential amplification operation.
A variety of schemes have been proposed to cancel an offset of the differential amplifier circuit. However, the schemes necessarily require a large and complex circuit. Thus, the schemes may be applied to a system having a small number of differential amplifier circuits, but may not be applied to a system having a large number of differential amplifier circuits.


A prefilter is trained as follows. The frequency response B of a conditioned channel is determined without reference to the prefilter, and the frequency response W of the prefilter is computed from the frequency response B of the conditioned channel.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the training of prefilters used to process signals received over a communications channel and, more particularly, to the training of prefilters in the frequency domain.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is an ever-increasing demand for higher communications data rates, including in wireless systems such as cellular systems and wireless local area networks. However, inter-symbol interference (ISI) is one effect that can significantly limit the performance of communications systems. In wireless systems, ISI typically is the result of "multipath delay spread," which occurs due to the existence of multiple propagation paths with different delays between the transmitter and the receiver. In a communications channel with multipath delay spread, a single impulse transmitted from the transmitter does not arrive at the receiver as a single impulse. Rather, it arrives as a series of impulses with different attenuations and delays, with each impulse corresponding to a different propagation path. The resulting received signal impulse can be significantly longer than that of the original transmitted signal. If the communications channel is characterized by an impulse response h, an h with a longer delay spread typically causes more ISI. Effects other than multipath can also increase the delay spread of h relative to the ideal situation. For example, the presence of transmit filters (e.g., for spectral shaping) and/or receive filtering (e.g., anti-alias/channel select filtering) can also increase the delay spread. Whatever the cause, longer h can limit the performance of the receiver.
For example, the maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) is known to be the optimum (in some sense) sequence estimator for a communications channel with ISI. However, the complexity of the MLSE, as measured by the number of states in the MLSE trellis, grows exponentially with the length of the delay spread. Specifically, the number of states in the MLSE is given by MK where M is the size of the modulation alphabets and K is the delay spread of h measured in symbol durations. For communications channels that have a long delay spread, the complexity quickly grows to make the MLSE an impractical alternative. For example, the increased complexity can adversely impact the overall power budget, which is a concern for mobile applications, and/or the price, which is a concern for consumer devices.
One alternative to the MLSE is non-trellis based equalizers, such as the decision feedback equalizer (DFE). These types of equalizers typically do not suffer from the complexity of an MLSE and can produce near-optimum performance for uncoded transmission. However, one drawback of DFEs and other types of non-trellis based equalizers is that they typically generate a hard output, i.e., a final decision that the transmitted bit is either a 0 or a 1. They typically cannot generate a confidence level or probability measure that the transmitted bit is either a 0 or a 1. The latter typed output is sometimes referred to as a soft decision. In systems that use forward error correction (FEC) or other types of encoding, the equalizer or sequence estimator is followed by a decoder. Better decoding performance is achieved when soft decisions are provided to the decoder. Trellis based sequence estimators are believed to be the only known methods for generating reliable soft decisions for decoding. As a result, the use of non-trellis based equalizers with decoders is less than optimal and the problem of reducing MLSE complexity remains an important one.
Prefiltering can reduce the complexity of the MLSE. In this approach, the communications channel is followed by a prefilter in the receiver. Thus, the "effective" communications channel seen by the rest of the receiver is a combination of the communications channel with the prefilter. This combination shall be referred to as the conditioned channel. The prefilter is designed to re-shape or condition the communications channel so that the impulse response of the conditioned channel has a delay spread that is shorter than that of the original communications channel. Since the sequence estimator operates over the conditioned channel rather than over the original communications channel, the complexity of the sequence estimator is reduced accordingly.
The problem of designing (or training) a prefilter typically is based on the equationw*h≈b  (1)where h is the impulse response of the communications channel, w is the impulse response of the prefilter, b is the ideal impulse response of the conditioned channel, and * denotes linear convolution. Training a prefilter based on Eqn. 1 can be divided into two tasks. The first task is to determine the criterion for the desired conditioned channel b. The second task is to actually solve Eqn. 1 with low complexity for b and w. Low complexity is especially important since for many applications, the communications channel varies over time and the prefilter is trained on an on-going basis to account for varying conditions. For example, in mobile applications where data is transmitted in packets, quick adaptation is desired to compensate for changes due to changing position and packet-to-packet variations in the communications channel.
In one approach, constraints are imposed on the nature of w and b, and then w and b are jointly optimized in the context of Eqn. 1. However, this approach is generally complex since Eqn. 1 is based on a convolution and w typically is long in order to achieve good performance. For example, gradient-based approaches typically converge too slowly to be useful. Other methods for prefilter training rely on efficient algorithms for solving linear equations, such as the RLS algorithm or Cholesky factorization. However, these methods still require on the order of L2 or L3 computations, where L is the length of b plus the length of w. For the long prefilter lengths that are typically necessary to obtain good performance, these methods are also usually too complex.
Thus, there is a need for improved prefiltering methods with low training complexity, particularly approaches that can provide good performance over communications channels with ISI.

Frequency domain training of prefilters for receivers