An outwardly-opening gas-exchange valve assembly for an internal combustion engine. The valve assembly includes a port in a firing chamber in an engine head, the port having a valve seat on a side opposite from the firing chamber. A piston-shaped poppet valve head slides in a bore in the engine head for mating with the valve seat to occlude passage of gas across the valve seat. Withdrawal of the poppet valve head from the seat opens the firing chamber to communication with an intake or exhaust manifold runner in the engine head. The poppet valve head may be actuated by an overcenter lever arrangement actuated selectively by hydraulic pressure or mechanical actuation. In a preferred embodiment, OO intake and exhaust valves are radially arranged in a hemispherical fire deck and may include an adjustable pitch helical channel to induce swirl to the incoming gas.

It is universally accepted that, for any new internal combustion engine design, the use of an inwardly-opening ("IO") poppet for the engine gas-exchange valves is the only sensible architecture to consider. Inwardly opening in this context is taken from the perspective of the engine, and more specifically from the combustion chamber; that is to say, the valves move into the combustion space as they open, rather than away from it. The reasons for this choice are well known, and include the fact that the cylinder pressure acts to improve the valve seat sealing force in a self-assisting manner so that the higher the pressure to be contained, the better the valve is able to seal. Thus, this type of valve has been the standard for well over 100 years and its associated technology has evolved to a high standard.
The following is a list of some of the advantages enjoyed by the inwardly-opening valve (IOV):                Valve seat sealing force increases in a self-energizing manner with cylinder pressure.        Design, manufacture, and application are well understood within the industry.        The valves and their associated valve train components are readily available commodity items.        It works demonstrably well, and meets its objectives—so well in fact that there is no overwhelming incentive to seek improvement.
This situation notwithstanding, it must be recognized that the inwardly-opening (IO) poppet valve does have some drawbacks, and over the years, alternate designs such as sleeve, rotary, swing, and piston valves have attempted to address these. On every occasion, however, technological improvement to the poppet valve has eventually been able to fight off the challenger, and in so doing, maintain its premier position.
The IOV, however, has some distinct disadvantages, including the following:                The valve head and stem in the port are a restriction to free gas flow. This may be illustrated by noting that steady state flow testing of cylinder heads with the valve in place (at full lift) generally give lower values than those obtained under identical conditions but with the valve removed. Note that the difference between the theoretical flow through a perfect orifice and the actual flow is given as the Coefficient of Discharge (Cd), e.g. a typical Cd=0.7 indicates that the actual flow is 70% of the theoretical flow.        A corollary of the above fact is that for a given gas flow, the valve must be bigger (and therefore heavier) than the ideal. Conversely, an ideal valve, were it possible, would be smaller (taking up less room in the cylinder head) than today's poppet valve.        Since engine power closely correlates with breathing capacity, this encourages the use of the largest possible valves in a cylinder head which often brings the valve very close to the cylinder wall. This can be counter-productive because the proximity of the cylinder wall disturbs the gas flow, resulting in imperfect distribution and a breathing impediment.        In compression ignition (CI, or Diesel) engines, at top dead center (TDC) the piston crown approaches the cylinder head fire-deck as closely as manufacturing tolerances will allow, typically with less than 2 mm clearance. This fact restricts the amount of gas-exchange valve overlap (the duration in crank angle degrees during which both inlet and exhaust valves are simultaneously open) that is possible in a 4-stroke engine if destructive piston-to-valve collision is to be avoided. In the past, for thermal loading reasons this limitation has been a serious impediment to engine durability and power output and may limit the potential for in-cylinder NOx reduction since scavenge flow assists in cooling the cylinder.        An IOV must be designed with a large factor-of-safety associated with it, since intrinsically it is not "fail-safe". In the event that the valve or its retainer should fail mechanically, it will fall into the cylinder, causing serious derangement to that cylinder and possibly to the engine as a whole. This fact implies that the valve is likely to be more rugged and therefore heavier than might otherwise be necessary.        Valve heads typically occupy a large percentage of the area of the combustion chamber fire deck. Since the IOV is cooled only indirectly, hot valve heads can precipitate premature detonation (uncontrolled ignition and burning), particularly in gasoline engines.        For those engines that are adapted for compression braking (typically heavy-duty CI), a particularly robust valve train is required to open the IOV against cylinder compression pressure (approx. 50 bar). This fact has limited the adoption of cam-actuated compression retarders in medium-duty engines or below.
The negative aspects to the IOV notwithstanding, it has nevertheless been seen as a very satisfactory fit-for-purpose technological solution for today's engines. Indeed, the hegemonic position enjoyed by the inward-opening valve for the past century makes it seem impertinent, if not unwise, to suggest that it may not be the right solution for the future too. However, in the effort to meet certain future emission legislation, significant changes are coming to the internal combustion engine. These changes will alter the balance of technological attributes required, and in the process will make the inward-opening valve less suited to its use than has been the case in the past. As technology moves into the controlled auto-ignition regime of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), simply acting as gatekeepers for the inlet and exhaust strokes is no longer sufficient for gas-exchange valves. These valves also need to control effective compression ratio (CReff), and also the quantity of exhaust residuals remaining in the cylinder from the previous exhaust stroke (which may require multiple open/close valve events per cycle). Additionally, practical limits are being encountered with inward-opening valves as engine-specific power ratings increase.
It is beneficial to examine these situations individually in more detail.
Diesel Engine Power Growth:
The desire to increase engine specific-power density (expressed in terms of kW/liter) is pervasive in the industry. In this regard, the gasoline engine has always been dominant and has been the yardstick against which the diesel engine is compared, particularly in the light duty field. Heavy duty engines are typically sold on a "N-dollars per horsepower" basis, where more power within a given engine size category is also desired. It will be apparent that at any given engine speed, if more power is to be produced at the same or similar thermal efficiency, then more fuel must be burned in unit time. Given a similar combustion process, the distribution of the heat energy will be similar for each case considered, with proportionate increases in heat rejection to the exhaust and the cooling systems. Before that heat reaches the cooling system, the heat will be resident in the components most closely associated with the combustion chamber, that is to say, the piston crown and the cylinder head fire deck, including the valve heads. For the cooling system to remove that heat, there must be adequate cooling flow and straightforward heat transfer paths, particularly around the fuel injector and in the exhaust valve bridge region (the narrow section between the two exhaust valves). In the prior art, the desire for more power with its implications of larger valve diameters for better breathing and higher peak firing pressures has now come into conflict with cylinder head low-cycle fatigue (LCF) strength and thermal loading. As a result, to improve head strength and cooling, but to the detriment of breathing, new engines now being designed are obliged to have smaller valve sizes than were previously specified.
A further problem with IOV is that because early in the induction stroke the intake valve is obliged to lag the descending piston, IOVs create negative work for the piston until the valve flow area catches up with the piston rate of displacement. This undesirable throttling effect is discernable and can result in a fuel consumption penalty as great as 2%.
A solution to this dilemma is desired, although it must be pointed out that a smaller valve diameter is not a limitation of itself, since volumetric efficiency can be restored with an increase in inlet port flow capacity (higher coefficient of discharge, or Cd) where possible, or boost pressure, or both. Note however that boost pressure costs energy, and so a solution that does not require higher pressure is preferred.
Controlled Auto-Ignition, or HCCI:
Current engine designs have evolved over the last century in response to customer requirements, fuel availability, metallurgy, and other factors including emission legislation. For example, important driving factors currently are emissions, fuel consumption, durability, and minimized maintenance requirements. Legislation appears to be converging on a zero level of regulated exhaust emissions, and this situation is proving to be problematic for the conventional diesel engine, particularly with respect to nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions, and to a lesser extent with particulate material (PM) emissions. The conventional approach to this problem is to pursue the same path already taken by the gasoline spark ignition (SI) engine, which is to employ a comprehensive suite of exhaust gas aftertreatment (EGA) devices to the engine. The problem with this solution is that it is cumbersome and expensive, and works to put the CI engine at a greater cost disadvantage vs. the SI engine than it already occupies. Thus, another solution is desired.
An alternative solution that appears to be rapidly becoming the industry preference is to adopt one or more of the many advanced combustion concepts that are currently under development in the industry. Broadly, these concepts may be subdivided into those that retain conventional heterogeneous late-injection diffusion combustion (e.g. EPA "Clean Combustion"), and those that employ one or more early injections to enable a controlled auto-ignition (CAI), also known as HCCI. (See: Mello, J P and Linna, J R, "Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition", TIAX LLC, 2003.) Both concepts require high levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) back into the cylinder, but the latter approach is currently limited to about 50% of the brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) of the former since it is obliged to operate in a regime that is lean of the flammable range (>approx. 35:1 air/fuel ratio). HCCI has, however, demonstrated very low engine-out levels of NOx and PM, typically better than the first concept, and thus is an attractive path to pursue, particularly if the limited power potential issue can be overcome.
There are, however, many different "HCCI" strategies at this time and it is not clear which ones are likely to see widespread adoption. Nevertheless, a common feature of the advanced premixed auto-ignition combustion systems is that there is no positive initiation for the combustion event, as there is for the SI engine (the spark), or for the CI engine (the introduction of atomized fuel into hot compressed air). As such, other factors have to be manipulated to control the timing of the detonation which otherwise would occur well before TDC, resulting in undesirable negative work.
Assuming an engine of fairly conventional architecture operating on diesel fuel, the challenge is to postpone the start of combustion until just after TDC. Of the many published strategies to achieve CAI, a high level categorization would be between those that employ early injection(s) to achieve the necessary homogenization for clean combustion, and those that attempt late injection in which all the fuel is delivered during the "delay" period (that very short duration of time between the start of injection and the start of combustion). This latter approach has more in common with current engines, since it requires very high injection pressure in conjunction with a special multi-hole nozzle; however, achieving a homogeneous mixture in the short time available is extremely challenging, requiring a very expensive injection system. At the end of the day, the former approach is likely to win since it should be able to employ a much lower-cost injection system; however, both concepts, and particularly the latter, require start-of-combustion controls.
There are a number of parameters that can be manipulated to postpone combustion (when the engine is warm), or advance it (when the engine is cold), but chief among these are CReff and EGR, as pointed out above. In a warm engine, an increase of cooled EGR in the charge will serve to delay combustion, while in a cold engine the exhaust gas heat will serve to advance combustion. Likewise, a lower numeric compression ratio will delay combustion while a higher ratio will advance it. A means to conveniently effect these changes is therefore required.
Within the engine prior art, it is generally perceived that these changes can be made through the active modulation of valve events, sometimes referred to as variable valve actuation (VVA); however, by far the majority of mechanisms that have been proposed for this purpose are much better suited for SI engines that in general do not have the valve-to-piston interference issues that typical CI engines do. Thus it appears that the current mindset within the industry, and therefore the focus of activity, is to adapt SI VVA systems for the CI engine rather than to approach the problem from first principles.
What is needed in the engine arts is a new valve and valve train mechanism that is better suited to enabling CAI conditions in the diesel engine, and at a cost that will not disadvantage the CI engine vs. its SI counterpart.
Desired Functionality:
The following is a brief review of the ideal functionality that a valve mechanism should possess. Recall that the objective for future engines is to deliver zero exhaust emissions with minimum fuel consumption, without giving up any of the desirable attributes of power and responsiveness that current engines provide. A number of new and little-used older strategies in addition to CAI that are being widely discussed within the industry are expected to be utilized to achieve the objective, and a common theme is that they all require WA. More specifically, the VVA needs to be particularly flexible so that more than just a single strategy can be employed, suggesting that valve "mobility" will be an important attribute in the future. Mobility in this context implies the freedom to open or close any intake or exhaust valve at any time in the cycle without undue difficulty or hindrance. Such freedom is clearly impossible in an IO interference engine.
In the same way that flexibility of injection characteristics provided by common rail fuel injection systems have revolutionized the diesel engine in recent years, so it is thought that flexibility in valve event timing will bring another step change improvement by enabling advanced strategies hitherto thought impossible. Among the strategies being discussed are included:
1. The Atkinson Cycle (Late Exhaust Valve Opening, or EVO, giving high expansion ratio).
2. The Miller Cycle (Early or late Intake Valve Closing, or IVC, to modify CReff in conjunction with external compression).
3. The Air-Hybrid Cycle (Compression regeneration; see U.S. Pat. No. 6,223,846).
4. The Curtil Cycle (Pressure-wave supercharging technique utilizing VVA; see U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,693).
5. Two-stroke, four-stroke, six-stroke, eight-stroke switching.
6. Engine braking (Compression retardation).
Strategies 1, 2, and 3 are primarily aimed at fuel efficiency improvement; strategies 4 and 5 offer performance enhancement particularly in CAI mode; and strategy 6 extends the benefits of compression retardation to engines below the circa 2.0 liter/cylinder, heavy duty category that utilizes it today. An engine of conventional architecture but with a flexible VVA system would be able to adopt the Atkinson, Miller, and Curtil cycles under differing operating conditions, whereas air-hybrid and multiple stroke-switching engines would require additional complexity to function effectively. Note, however, that CAI/HCCI is possible today over a limited operating range with today's engines, but practical implementation is essentially technology-limited; the better and more flexible the technology, the more capable the engine will be.
These requirements suggest that in future CI engine design, thee will be a migration to camless valve trains that offer valve mobility with good refinement; minimal noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH); high reliability; and durability that is at least up to current standards, assuming it is not accompanied by excessive on-cost.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a gas-exchange valve system wherein the entire valve port is open to passage of gas therethrough.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a way wherein camless engines may be confidently enabled.

Outward-opening gas-exchange valve system for an internal combustion engine


The present invention provides an injector apparatus suitable for use with an automatic injection device. The injector apparatus includes a cylindrical housing having a deflectable member and a removable guard. The deflectable member releasably holds a syringe tube assembly in the axial direction when the apparatus is in the initial position. Then, after use, the deflectable member provides a tamper evidence means for indicating whether or not the injector apparatus was previously used or tampered with.

The present invention relates to automatic injection devices ("autoinjectors"). In particular, the present invention relates to an autoinjector having an automatically deployable frontal buttress.
Autoinjector mechanisms have commercially been developed to substitute an automated mechanism for the manual action of inserting a hypodermic needle into a recipient's flesh and forcing the medicament out of the syringe, through the hypodermic needle and into the recipient. In some cases, the automated mechanisms are designed to utilize commercially commonplace pre-filled syringes. The pre-filled syringes are typically manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, or in some cases a third party. The manufacturers thereafter assemble the pre-filled syringes into autoinjectors for commercial distribution. Examples of such devices include the EpiPen® manufactured by Meridian Medical Technologies, Inc., of Bristol, Tenn., the Humira® manufactured by Owen Mumford Ltd., of Oxford, United Kingdom, and the SureClick® system marketed by Scandinavian Health Limited, of Florham Park, N.J. Autoinjectors have proven to be beneficial for patients exhibiting psychological paranoia of receiving parenteral injections (e.g., needle phobic individuals and young children) and/or those without the manual dexterity or clear eyesight necessary to self-administer injections using conventional syringes.
Conventional autoinjectors generally provide a compression spring-based mechanism to drive the syringe in the distal direction within a housing (the housing contains the syringe) and some means to initiate the automatic injection process. When triggered, the compressed spring is released from end-to-end confinement. Typically, the spring is confined to abut against an interior surface of the housing about its proximal end such that releasing the compressed spring causes axial extension in the distal direction. The spring, typically acting through one or more surrogate components, impinges upon the syringe, and/or an elastomeric piston element thereof, causing the syringe to translate in the distal direction until the hypodermic needle associated with the syringe extends beyond the distal end of the housing.
The extended length of the needle determines the depth of drug delivery at the injection site. The exposed length of the needle (i.e., that portion of the needle exterior to the autoinjector housing at needle extension) is known as the "needle insertion depth." The correlation between extended length and insertion depth assumes that the distal end of the autoinjector is pressed against the injection site during autoinjector actuation. In most therapeutic applications, it is important that the depth of needle insertion be accurately controlled to assure the drug is delivered into a specific tissue mass, for example the subcutaneous tissue residing between the dermal skin layer and the musculature. Known and repeatable depth of needle insertion is therefore a desirable attribute of autoinjector devices.
Billions of pre-filled syringes of borosilicate glass as described above are manufactured on an annual basis. The proximal end of the glass syringe is formed into a radially disposed, disk-shaped flange. The flange may thereafter be cut on two sides in parallel planes in close proximity to the syringe body to form oblong and opposing finger grips. This glass syringe configuration is know as a cut-flange configuration. Glass syringes, and more particularly cut flange syringes, represent a number of challenges in autoinjector applications because they are fragile and include easily broken components with a relatively high degree of dimensional variability. The high degree of dimensional variability leads to variability in the exposed length of the hypodermic needle beyond the distal end of the glass syringe and the overall length of the syringe. In addition, the cut flanges of such glass syringes have varying degrees of irregularity and asymmetry with respect to a central axis along the center of the syringe barrel and a plane perpendicular to the central axis.
Conventional autoinjectors are configured to stop the forward movement of the syringe at a desired forward position at the end of needle insertion based off of the syringe flange. That is, the syringe flange becomes a de facto point of registration, in other words a datum surface, which dictates the relative axial relationship between the syringe features and the other elements of the auto-injector. Under such configurations, any variability, whether associated with the overall length of the syringe, length of the exposed needle, or variability associated with the syringe flange itself, translates directly into variability in the extended needle length and needle insertion length. In addition, due to the abrupt deceleration of the syringe/carrier assembly at the end of needle insertion, impact loads are imposed on the fragile syringe flanges. In other words, the force applied by the autoinjector in driving the syringe distally creates an opposing force imposed on the syringe flange by its registration point of contact. In addition, a bending moment is borne by the flange as a result of the radial distance between the centerline of the piston and the flange. The bending moment increases the stress applied to the fragile flange increasing the risk of fracture.
Moreover, conventional autoinjectors are typically configured with a fixed stroke length. That is, conventional autoinjectors are designed to drive the plunger of the syringe a fixed distance from some fixed reference point on the autoinjector. Thus, with increased variability in the overall length of the glass syringe used in such autoinjectors, the fixed stroke length results in increased variability of residual medicament volume after injection. Such variability in residual medicament volume translates into significant monetary waste due to the relatively high cost of the drugs used to manufacture the medicaments.
Thus, conventional autoinjectors are deficient in that they cannot accommodate conventional pre-filled glass syringes (i.e., staked-needed syringes) to effectively address the issues associated with fragile and irregular components while assuring accurate needle placement and precise dose delivery due to the dimensional variability of glass syringe manufacturing. As such, there is still a need for an autoinjector that can provide accurate needle insertion depth and precise dose delivery using a pre-filled glass syringe.
In addition, conventional pre-filled glass syringes are typically supplied as an assembly with a needle shield that includes an elastomeric element to provide a means to sealably encapsulate the hypodermic needle. FIG. 2A illustrates a conventional pre-filled glass syringe 46 having a barrel 51. The needle shield 60 serves as a sterility barrier for the needle 61 (FIG. 2B) and its fluid contents as the syringe 46 is pre-sterilized at the factory. Once delivered to the pharmaceutical company, the syringe 46 is filled with medicament within a sterile filling suite. Often, the needle shield 60 is itself encapsulated with a rigid component to provide additional protection against needle damage and to provide a suitable means to manually remove the needle shield 60. Thus, the needle shield 60 is commonly know as a rigid needle shield ("RNS"). In such RNSs, an open end allows access to the elastomeric interior through which the needle 61 is introduced into the elastomeric interior. The RNS is removably attached to the syringe 46 by a circumferential compression fit between the compliant elastomeric element of the RNS and cooperative features present on the distal end of the syringe 46. In addition, such RNSs have an overall outer diameter that is approximately the same as that of the syringe 46.
Such conventional syringes 46 can be used as a stand alone manually operable syringe 46 or in combination with a suitable autoinjector. Such autoinjectors are provided with a means to remove the RNS 60 before administering the injection. This is typically accomplished by a component provided as part of the autoinjector that engages the needle shield 60 during final assembly and provides a graspable handle with which a user can grasp to extract the needle shield 60 in the axial, distal direction. However, the use of such handles to disengage the RNS 60 creates an annular void or open end about the distal end of the autoinjector. Moreover, as the handle to remove the RNS 60 occupies space at the distal end on the autoinjector, this precludes the use of such space for any potential buttress surface upon which the syringe 46 may engage.
Consequently, an autoinjector that is capable of accommodating a glass, cut flange syringe 46 with a RNS 60 attached would present pharmaceutical companies with a significant advantage in being able to provide one primary pre-filled syringe that can be used either in a manual setting or, alternatively, in conjunction with an autoinjector.
The present invention also relates to an injector apparatus that provides a means to resist recapping the injector apparatus or for securely encapsulating a spent injector apparatus with a guard. Such resistance means also provides to a user an indication of whether or not the injector apparatus has been used or tampered with.


An automatic selector device for actuating a frictional selector device, i.e. a clutch or brake, combines a selector actuator, a selector valve for the working pressure of the selector actuator, a change control valve dependent on the steady-state condition of the selector device and a switch-over control valve which can be triggered by an electronic control unit. In the case of failure of the control unit or the voltage supply, the selector device remains actuated in its instantaneous steady-state condition.

The present invention concerns an automatic selector device, and more particularly, an automatic selector device for a change-speed gearbox of the epicyclic type, having frictional selector apparatus configured to be engaged by a selector actuator of axial piston type between plural gearbox elements rotatable relative to one another, comprising a selector valve for application of working pressure to the selector actuator and an electromagnet switch-over control valve configured to be electronically triggered to switch over the selector valve, both the selector valve and the switch-over control valve are arranged to be respectively switched over between a rest position selectable by spring force and a working position. The selector actuator is connected to a pressure-relieved zero connection in the rest position of the selector valve and is connected to a system pressure conduit carrying a controlled system pressure in the working position, while a control connection of the selector valve used for switching over into the rest position is connected to a pressure-relieved zero connection in the rest position of the switch-over control valve and connected to a control pressure supply conduit carrying a control pressure in the working position of the switch-over control valve.
A selector device is described in ATZ Automobiltechnische Zeitschrift 88 (1986) 12, p. 681. The known selector device consists of an electronic part and a hydraulic part. Whereas the hydraulics are responsible, among other things, for applying pressure to the currently actuated selector actuators, the electronics control the gear change and also, to some extent, regulate the level of the hydraulic pressure. The connection between the electronics and the hydraulics is usually achieved by electromagnetic 3/2-way switch-over control valves. These are designed in such a way that when they are excited, i.e. when an electric current flows through their coil, the associated selector actuator is subjected to hydraulic pressure.
In the known selector device, interruption of the electric current to the switch-over control valves, whether due to a defect in the electronic control or due to the failure of the voltage supply, leads to interruption of the force path. This can produce dangerous driving situations because either, in overrun, the engine brake (and possibly a retarder located in front of the gearbox) becomes ineffective or, when the engine is in traction, the engine torque is no longer available on a gradient.
In order to avoid the problem described, it has been considered to use so-called locking solenoid valves equipped with a permanent magnet which ensures that, in the absence of an electrical supply, the solenoid valve remains in one position once it has been reached. Switching over into the respective other position takes place by way of a short selection pulse whose sign defines the switching position.
In addition to the more complicated design of the electromagnetic valve and the necessary triggering by a reversible current direction, the foregoing proposal has the disadvantage that the switching position of the valve is not unambiguous when there is no current flowing through the coil. It could happen, for example, that a valve previously in the activated position could move unintentionally into the deactivated position due to vibrations, external magnetic fields and the like, so that the relevant selector actuator again becomes unpressurized.
Even more serious is the problem of defined deactivation. Should the electrical connection to a solenoid valve have been interrupted, the solenoid valve and, therefore, the associated selector actuator can no longer be deactivated so that, for example, it is more difficult to tow the vehicle, or the gearbox could even be jammed if a different selector actuator were activated.
An object on which the present invention is based consists essentially in ensuring that the selector actuator which has just been actuated remains subjected to working pressure even in the case of a failure of the electrical voltage supply. When the engine is switched off, the selector device takes up such a position that when the engine is restarted, the selector actuators remain unpressurized.
The foregoing object has been achieved in an advantageous manner according to the present invention by providing that the selector valve is configured to be additionally moved into the rest position by the control pressure of the switch-over control valve and additionally into the working position by a control pressure dependent on the working pressure of the selector actuator and includes the respective control connections, the switch-over control valve is configured to be brought only into the working position in phases and is in the rest position in the steady-state condition, consisting of one of the completely engaged condition and completely disengaged condition of the selector apparatus, and a change control valve has a valve connection for a control pressure conduit leading to the control connection of the selector valve for movement thereof into the working position, a valve connection for a control pressure conduit leading to the control connection of the selector valve for movement thereof into the rest position, a valve connection for a control pressure conduit leading to the switch-over control valve and a valve connection for pressure relief and can be switched over between a rest position in which the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for pressure relief to move the selector valve into its rest position and the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for the control pressure conduit leading to the switch-over control valve to move the selector valve into its working position, and a working position in which the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for the control pressure conduit leading to the switch-over control valve to move the selector valve into the rest position and the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for pressure relief to move the selector valve into the working position, and the change control valve is switched over, as a function of the condition of the selector apparatus, such that the valve connection of the change control valve for the control pressure conduit leading to the switch-over control valve is necessarily connected in the one steady-state condition of the selector apparatus to the respective valve connection for the control pressure conduit to switch over the selector valve into one of the rest and working positions bringing the selector apparatus into the other steady-state condition.
In the selector device according to the present invention, the switch-over control valve is always in its rest position in the steady-state condition of the selector device so that an electronic or voltage failure does not change anything relative to the selector condition. The selector valve is held in its rest position by spring force in the disengaged condition of the selector device and is held in its working position in the engaged condition by the self-retention effect of the relevant control pressure dependent on the working pressure. The change control valve is always moved in advance, as a function in each instance of the instantaneous steady-state condition of the selector device, into the position in which, on excitation of the switch-over control valve, the selector valve is switched over into the position for the respective other selector condition, i.e. not the instantaneous steady-state selector condition. When the engine is switched off, the pressure supply is also switched off so that the selector valve and the change control valve are also moved by spring force into the respective rest position. As a result, the selector actuators remain unpressurized when the engine is restarted.
The control, according to the present invention, of the change control valve as a function of the steady-state condition of the selector device can be implemented in several ways. One advantageous embodiment for achieving this control provides that the change control valve can be the change control valve is configured to be moved into each of the rest and working positions by a position control pressure and has respective control connections, and a position control valve has a valve connection for a control pressure conduit leading to the control connection of the change control valve to move it into the rest position, a valve connection for a control pressure conduit leading to the control connection of the change control valve to move it into the working position, a valve connection for a control pressure supply conduit is arranged to carry a control pressure and a valve connection for pressure relief and is configured to be switched over between a rest position, in which the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for the control pressure supply conduit to move the change control valve into its rest position and the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for pressure relief to move the change control valve into its working position, and a working position, in which the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for pressure relief to move the change control valve into its rest position and the valve connection for the control pressure conduit is connected to the valve connection for the control pressure supply conduit to move the change control valve into its working position, and the position control valve is configured to be moved by spring force into its rest position and moved into its working position by a control pressure dependent on the working pressure of the selector actuator.
The arrangement of the present invention can be applied to avoid premature switching over during the transient condition, i.e. during the engagement or disengagement of the selector apparatus, when the above-mentioned embodiment of the control of the change control valve is used. It is assumed that the switch-over control valve is in its rest position only in the steady-state condition of the selector.
In order to simplify the structural control complexity a multiway double valve, e.g. a 7/2-way double valve, in which the selector valve and position control valves are structurally combined can be effectively utilized.
An arrangement for disengaging a first frictional selector having a first selector device and for simultaneously engaging a second frictional selector having a second selector can be used to ensure, in gear changes with positive overlap of the variation in the working pressures for the disengagement of one selector by the first selector device according to the invention and the simultaneous engagement of a selector by the second selector device according to the invention, that in the case of an electrical defect, the activating or deactivating selector actuator whose working pressure is sufficient to transmit the necessary torque is the one which always remains actuated. This overlap control also prevents the two selectors involved from ever being engaged simultaneously which would otherwise cause the gearbox to jam.
In the case of a failure of the electrical system during the filling procedure at the selector actuator of the selector to be engaged, the filling procedure is interrupted and the selector actuator is emptied, whereas the selector actuator of the selector engaged, whose associated switch-over control valve is not excited in any event, remains activated.
The self-retention effect at the selector valve of the selector to be engaged is sufficiently high for the latter, or the new gear, to remain engaged only in the case where the working pressure of the selector actuator of the selector to be engaged is so high that the selector valve of the selector to be disengaged is moved into the rest position.
In the case of overlap control, the structural control complexity in the selector device according to the invention can again be kept low by a further multiway double valve.

Hydraulic control of epicyclic-type change-speed gearbox


According to an aspect of the present description a method for determining selected parameters of a noise characterization equation which describes a noise performance of a device as a function of a controllable variable of the device is provided. The method includes selecting a number of different values of the controllable variable of the device, the number of different values being equal to or larger than the number of parameters that are to be determined; measuring the noise performance of the device for the different values; utilizing the noise characterization equation to set up a number of independent relations which relate the parameters with the measurement results, the number of independent relations being equal to the number of parameters that are to be determined; and determining the parameters from the relations.

In the field of wireless communications there is a demand for a continuous improvement of the sensitivity of the devices. The sensitivity of a device is typically described with the help of noise parameters. For example noise figure parameter (NF-parameters) and noise figure circles (NF-circles) are usually used for an optimum matching of a low noise amplifier (LNA).
It is therefore a need for an economical method for determining the desired parameters.


A wireless engine monitoring system (WEMS) includes an engine monitoring module that is mounted directly on an aircraft engine and records, stores, encrypts and transmits full flight engine data. The system preferably interfaces to the Full Authority Digital Engine Controller/Engine Control Unit (FADEC/ECU) and can record hundreds of engine parameters with a preferred sampling frequency of about one second. The engine monitoring module is preferably formed as a miniaturized module directly mounted on the aircraft engine within its cowling and has a conformal antenna. The engine monitoring module can also upload data for onboard processing.

The Federal Aviation Administration and other international aviation regulatory agencies require commercial airlines to monitor the health and status of aircraft engines. Any health and status information is used to determine the current performance for an aircraft engine and determine if maintenance is required. Prior art techniques have been limited because of data latency and the limited amount of collected data restricted analysis. Typically, gross indicators were measured using prior art monitoring systems. Any resultant maintenance actions were reactive. For example, some prior art systems took a "snapshot" of only basic engine parameters, for example, when the aircraft had lifted to 1,000 feet after initial take-off. This data was limited to one time slot during flight and was not real time. This data never gave analysts a complete picture of an engine performance during flight. As a result, advanced prognostics and diagnostic techniques have not been used by prior art engine analysis systems.
Many jet engine original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), jet engine service providers that are contractually bound under engine maintenance cost per hour (MCPH) agreements, airline transport companies and military and commercial aviation companies have desired a system and method to monitor performance of an aircraft engine in real time and archive that data. Up to now, prior art systems were limited in their analysis to the prior art data "snapshots" and did not go beyond gross indicators and reactive maintenance techniques. In some prior art techniques, airlines have complied with regulatory requirements using several different monitoring systems. In one monitoring system, limited engine parameters (e.g., N1, N2, EGT and Wf) have been logged by pilots in aircraft log books. As noted before, automated engine data also was recorded at take-off/cruise at 1,000 feet as a "snapshot" that is recorded either "on board" or downloaded via ACARS using a VHF communication data link. This engine data resulted in a limited engine analysis because only one "snapshot" of the engine performance had been used and the "snapshot" never gave a true indication of engine performance during flight of the aircraft.
Harris Corporation of Melbourne, Fla. has designed a system and method of recording performance of an aircraft engine using a ground data link unit that interfaces with numerous components of the aircraft, including the DFDAU, the aircraft digital flight data recorder DFDR, and the data multiplexing system commonly referred to as the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) for larger jet turbine engines or Engine Control Unit (ECU) as sometimes referred with smaller jet turbine engines used on smaller aircraft, including turboprops or other engines generating less than 15,000 pounds of thrust. Hereinafter, the term "FADEC/ECU" will be used corresponding to either the term "FADEC" or "ECU" as used by the industry.
An example of the Harris Corporation ground data link unit is disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,165, and an engine monitoring system using the ground data link unit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,148,179 and 6,353,734, the disclosures which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
In the incorporated by reference '179 and '734 patents, the system and method as disclosed can provide a record of the performance of an aircraft engine by collecting engine data during engine operation, for example, in the ground data link unit, and downloading the collected engine data over a wideband spread spectrum communications signal to a ground based spread spectrum receiver. The signal is demodulated within a ground based spread spectrum receiver to obtain the engine data for further processing. It is also possible to upload data to the ground data link unit, such as algorithms, flight management files, video and entertainment files and other data files. Although the ground data link unit as disclosed in these incorporated by reference patents is a major improvement over prior art solutions for engine monitoring, the disclosed ground data link unit is typically a large unit and interfaces with many airborne systems as described before. It would be advantageous to monitor engines in real time without resorting to the larger ground data link unit that interfaces with many systems, or by a smaller unit when the disclosed ground data link unit is not available.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A space saving clothes washing and drying system features an appliance housing having a cavity located therein. The appliance housing features a clothes aperture having a door pivotally located thereon. The system features a perforated cylindrical drum located within an outer drum located in the cavity. An open semi-cylindrical scoop is located on a drum exterior surface on each perforation for aiding airflow. The system features a drying power system. The outer drum is fluidly connected to an intake vent close to an appliance housing bottom end via ducting. The outer drum is fluidly connected to an exhaust vent close to an appliance housing top end via ducting. The system features a washing power system. The outer drum is fluidly connected to hot and cold water supply piping. The outer drum is fluidly connected to a water drain.

The need to wash and dry clothing has existed as long as clothing has been used by mankind. Early washing machines were messy and required a great deal of effort to operate, while drying was accomplished by hanging the clothing in the air. Washing machines and dryers have evolved significantly over the past couple of hundred years to the point of being efficient modern appliances, however, in nearly all cases, both a washer and a dryer are needed thereby taking up significant space in a house The present invention features a space saving clothes washing and drying system.
Any feature or combination of features described herein are included within the scope of the present invention provided that the features included in any such combination are not mutually inconsistent as will be apparent from the context, this specification, and the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art. Additional advantages and aspects of the present invention are apparent in the following detailed description and claims


A method for interactive foraging for documents within a corpus of documents includes forming a working set of documents which are a subset of the corpus of documents. A visual representation of the working set and a portion of the corpus other than the working set are generated, and a visual representation of a retrieval boundary, between the working set and the portion of the corpus other than the working set, is presented. A further embodiment provides a system for interactive foraging of documents within a corpus of documents which includes, a visualization foraging subsystem, and an analytical repository containing a plurality of documents. The documents have been analyzed and are provided with associated dimensional data. A search mechanism of the visualization foraging subsystem is configured to form a working set of documents from the corpus of documents. A display device displays the working set and a portion of the corpus other than the working set, and a retrieval boundary is displayed on the display distinguishing between documents in the working set and the displayed documents of the corpus other than the working set.

The present application is directed to information retrieval, and more particularly to interactive systems for foraging and retrieval of documents and information.
The term retrieval used in association with information and/or document retrieval is commonly understood to be related to a system for locating or making accessible or known, information, documents, or citation data for documents.
The term foraging when used in association with information and/or document foraging is intended to emphasize the process by which a person interacts with an information system—searching, browsing, sampling, reading, and so on—when working to identify and acquire information.
These terms have overlapping concepts, and effective information systems should support both foraging and retrieval. Although retrieval is more concerned with the actual obtaining of documents or information, and foraging is more concerned with the process by which the searching for the documents or information occurs, since they do contain overlapping concepts, at times in the following discussion these terms are used to refer to related activities.
Many types of information retrieval systems are in existence. Often they take the form of search engines configured to search across numerous document systems and/or databases connected together via an electronic data communication network such as the internet, or local and/or privately controlled networks.
Existing information retrieval systems (e.g. search engines) commonly undertake the document retrieval task via what may be expressed by a linguist as a "bag of words" approach. Under this analogy, a document or web page is broken into individual words, and these words are then placed into a bag for purposes of generating matches. A user specifies a search request as a query made up of search terms. These search terms typically include several individual words. The search engine will undertake a search of the document database and will identify all of the documents whose "bags" contain these search terms. The search engine then returns a collection of text snippets from the matching documents, and ranks the documents in accordance with a relevancy determination. Individual search engines may identify or rank sources of information in accordance with differing standards, influencing the returned documents and their ranking. For example, a search engine may be designed to give precedence to those snippets whose documents include all of the search terms. Other designs may give presence to the most popular or authoritative documents based on an analysis of how frequently the documents are cited by the links to other documents. As a refinement a search engine may permit the selected search terms to be connected via boolean-type operators, a distance and/or order between the words.
The retrieval of information is commonly considered to involve two distinct fields.
The first field is information retrieval, which addresses the case where the information is organized in terms of documents. Examples include searches within the World Wide Web and/or digital libraries. In this field, there is an assumption that interesting information is stored as content of documents and is represented in terms of language, graphics or pictures. Automated natural language processing or human reading is used to classify documents or to extract information from the documents. In this field, documents are retrieved in several ways, such as by key word matching of contents, browsing and selection from manually constructed hierarchies, or matching of meta-data such as authors and publication dates. Thus, retrieval of documents in this field of pursuit, focuses on identifying and retrieving relevant documents.
The second field is related to database management, and addresses a situation where the information is organized in terms of tables or databases. A well-known approach to organizing information in databases is through the use of relational database structures. This field assumes interesting information is stored in databases, and is represented formally and consistently in terms of numbers and symbols in fields of records organized typically in tables. Information may be retrieved by specifying values for some of the fields of records and then returning the records whose fields match. Retrieval in this area, therefore, focuses on fetching and combining data from the records.
One particular approach of document retrieval, is the Scatter/Gather approach, Peter Pirolli, Patricia Schank, Marti Hearst and Christine Diehl, 1996, Scatter/Gather Browsing Communicates the Topic Structure of a Very Large Text Collection, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 96), 213-220, New York: ACM Press., which uses document clustering to automatically scatter a document collection into a smaller number of coherent document groups. It then presents short summaries to the user. Using the summaries, the user selects one or more of the groups for further study. The system then gathers these groups together, by a union operation, to form a sub-collection. The clustering operation is again used to scatter the sub-collection into a new set of document groups, which are then presented to the user. The groups become smaller with each iteration.
A variant of Scatter/Gather is Multi-Modal Scatter/Gather (MMSG), Francine Chen, Ullas Gargi, Les Niles, and Hinrich Sch tze, 1999, Multi-Modal Browsing of Images in Web Documents, Proceedings of the SPIE Conference on Document Recognition and Retrieval. This process has primarily been used for browsing of images. MMSG extends Scatter/Gather in its use of features in different spaces, that is, different modalities. In MMSG, users browse a collection based on iteratively specifying a feature, which is then used for clustering to form partitions. An expand operation may add images or clusters to a current set, based on similarity in one feature dimension.
A further approach is known as a SenseMaker system, Michelle Q. Wang Baldonado and Terry Winograd, 1997, SenseMaker: An Information-Exploration Interface Supporting the Contextual Evolution of a User's Interests, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 97), 11-18, New York: ACM Press, which supports users in information exploration and interactively organizing document collections around contextual dimensions. SenseMaker provides a single interface for viewing heterogeneous collections for multiple sources. It enables users to view a collection from a variety of perspectives, such as according to author or topical units. It provides two hybrid strategies for assisting the information seeker: structure-based searching and structure-based filtering. In structure-based searching, SenseMaker users extend document collections by formulating queries that characterize their content and then add documents from the additional sources that match those queries. Structure-based filtering allows a user to limit a collection to sets that a user has selected according to certain properties.
Yet another example of document retrieval is known as the Presto system Paul Dourish, W. Keith Edwards, Anthony LaMarca and Michael Salisbury, 1999, Presto: An Experimental Architecture for Fluid Interactive Document Spaces, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 6(2). Presto is intended to provide an alternative to hierarchies of folders (or directories) for organizing collections of documents. It is implemented for e-mail collections and document collections. A concept of this system is that documents could be assigned properties and retrieved according to property values. For example, author could be a property, and Joe Smith would be a value for the author property. The values associated with the properties are computed by document services. Presto also provides a means for assigning properties to collections. The Presto process further provides a means for specifying documents to be included in a collection according to three components: a query, an inclusion list and an exclusion list. The query defines which documents are wanted according to values of properties. In other words, all documents matching the query at any given moment are members of the collection. The inclusion and exclusion list then serve to modify the query. In the user interface, documents are added to the inclusion list by dragging them to the collection, and are removed by dragging them out of the collection.
A further system is called a Dynamic Query system Ben Shneiderman, 1994, Dynamic Queries for Visual Information Seeking, IEEE Software, 111(6), pp. 70-77, which is directed to manipulation of interfaces to databases. Typically, there is a single display of data and a set of controls, such as sliders, which function as query controls that can be manipulated to determine the selection of data to be retrieved. A goal of a Dynamic Query system is defined as, giving a visual presentation of a query's components, provide a visual presentation of results, provide rapid, incremental and reversible control of a query, select information of interest by pointing rather than typing and provide immediate and continuous feedback to a user about the results of changes to the query.
It is considered each of the mentioned and other existing processes and/or systems do not describe a system and/or device which permits sufficient robust conversational capability within the exploratory information retrieval process.

System and method for multi-dimensional foraging and retrieval of documents


A CMC splint (10) supporting the thumb (T) and index finger (I) of a person""s hand in a spread apart, separated position. A sleeve (12) having an open end (14) is sized to fit over the person""s arm (A) and extend up the person""s arm a distance between their wrist and elbow. The other end (16) of the sleeve is closed, but has openings (18) therein through which the thumb and fingers of the person""s hand extend. A stiffening member (20) contained in the sleeve at its closed end keeps the person""s thumb and index finger spread apart from each other in a spaced relationship to protect the CMC joint of the hand and allow the joint to heal. The stiffening member comprises a curved pad extending from the base of the index finger, about a curved web portion of the hand separating the index finger and the thumb, and along an inside surface of the thumb a distance above the base of the thumb.

This invention relates to orthopedic devices; and more to particularly, to a joint splint for use by those suffering from carpometacarpal (CMC) joint pain.
As a person ages, they sometimes begin to suffer from osteoarthritis which is a degenerative condition. This can result in a painful condition in which it becomes difficult for the person to move their thumb without experiencing an excruciating pain. While this condition can be surgically treated, a more conservative, non-invasive approach is to restrict movement of the thumb. One way of achieving this is to have the patient wear an orthotic device or appliance which effectively immobilizes the thumb, while preferably not unduly effecting the person""s use of the rest of their hand.
CMC splints are known in the arts. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,856. There are a number of problems with conventional splints. First, they are not comfortable to wear. Often, the material from which they are made is too thick or too bulky. A thick material causes sweating, and the bulkiness of the material makes it difficult for the splint to be worn underneath a shirt or blouse. If the splint rides up and down on the wearer""s wrist, it will cause scratching and irritate the wearer. If the material creases or folds, it makes it harder for the wearer to use his or her hand in performing an activity. Many current CMC type splints also employ straps or bands used to secure the splint to the wearer""s wrist or to adjust the splint. Besides increasing the bulkiness of the splint, if worn at night, while sleeping, the wearer can unknowingly scratch his or her face, or other parts of their body, by unconsciously rubbing their hand over it. The straps or bands can also snag on clothing causing pulls and rips.
There is currently a need for a CMC splint which is easy and comfortable to wear, is readily put on and taken off, supports use of the hand and thumb for rehabilitation purposes so to provide an orthopedic function, while allowing the hand to be used for a range of other, norm al functions. The splint has a cosmetically pleasing appearance, can be cleaned between wearings, does not snag on the wearer""s clothing, and will not scratch the person""s skin if they rub the splint against other portions o f their body.
In accordance with the invention, a CMC splint includes a sleeve open at one end to fit over the wearer""s hand and extend some distance up their arm. The other end of the sleeve has spaced openings allowing the fingers of the hand to be inserted through this end of the sleeve. A curved pad or stiffening member fits in the glove between the wearer""s thumb and index finger. The pad is sufficiently rigid to keep the thumb and index finger spread apart from each other, while still allowing use of the hand for rehabilitation purposes and other normal activities the wearer performs. The sleeve is of a relatively thin, lightweight, skin colored material that is easy to put on and remove, and is washable. No straps are required to hold the splint in place, and the splint fits underneath the sleeve or a shirt or coat. When worn, the splint will not snag the person""s clothing. Importantly, use of the splint aids healing of a CMC joint condition.


Systems, devices and methods for clothing organization include a first member, including a first hanger positioning portion, connectable to a second member. The two members may be movable between a first relative position and a second relative position, such as for loading/unloading and storage of conventional hangers. Additionally, a first suspension mechanism is attachable to the first member and, in one embodiment, a second suspension mechanism is attachable to the second member. The first suspension mechanism and the second suspension mechanism respectively support the first member and the second member in the first relative position and the second relative position. Associated methods of assembly of such hanger systems, and methods of clothing organization, are also disclosed.

The described embodiments relate to a hanger, and more particularly, to systems, devices and methods of clothing organization.
Most clothing organization systems poorly utilize all available space, such as the space available in a closet. The typical "bar and hanger" system requires hangers to be spaced horizontally, requiring sufficient space between each hanger to accommodate clothing. This arrangement typically does not allow for the effective use of the vertical and horizontal space within the closet or other storage space. In addition, most clothing organization systems do not allow for the "compression" of clothing.
More advanced clothing organization systems typically cause a user difficulty in storing and retrieving the clothing items. Typically, the clothing items must be rearranged in some manner to facilitate storage and retrieval of some or all items.
Further, clothing storage systems are not generally designed so that entire "outfits" of clothing can be stored together. This causes the user to have to search through multiple hangers to retrieve all clothing to complete their "outfit."
Thus, it appears that there is a need for a system, device and/or method of clothing organization that improves upon and/or avoids at least one of the disadvantages of presently available systems.


This invention provides a polishing medium for CMP, comprising an oxidizing agent, a metal-oxide-dissolving agent, a protective-film-forming agent, a water-soluble polymer, and water, and a polishing method making use of this polishing medium. Also, it is preferable that the water-soluble polymer has a weight-average molecular weight of 500 or more and the polishing medium has a coefficient of kinetic friction of 0.25 or more, a Ubbelode's viscosity of from 0.95 mPa·s (0.95 cP) to 1.5 mPa·s (1.5 cP) and a point-of-inflection pressure of 5 kPa (50 gf/cm2).

In recent years, as semiconductor integrated circuits (hereinafter "LSI") are made high-integration and high-performance, new techniques for fine processing have been developed. Chemical-mechanical polishing (hereinafter "CMP") is also one of them. The CMP is often used in LSI fabrication steps, in particular, in making interlaminar insulating films flat in the step of forming multilayer wirings, in forming metallic plugs and in forming buried wirings. This technique is disclosed in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,836.
Recently, in order to make LSIs high-performance, it is also attempted to utilize copper alloys as wiring materials. It, however, is difficult for the copper alloys to be finely processed by dry etching often used in forming conventional aluminum alloy wirings. Accordingly, what is called the damascene method is chiefly employed, in which a copper alloy thin film is deposited on an insulating film with grooves formed previously and is buried therein, and the copper alloy thin film at the part except the grooves is removed by CMP to form buried wirings. This technique is disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2-278822.
In a common method of polishing metals by the CMP, a polishing pad is fastened onto a circular polishing roller (platen), and the surface of the polishing pad is soaked with a polishing medium for chemical-mechanical polishing, where a substrate with a metal film formed thereon is pressed against the pad on the former's metal film side and a stated pressure (hereinafter "polishing pressure") is applied thereto on the back thereof, in the state of which the polishing platen is turned to remove the metal film at the part of its hills by mechanical friction acting between the polishing medium and the metal film.
The polishing medium used in such CMP is commonly comprised of an oxidizing agent and solid abrasive grains, to which a metal-oxide-dissolving agent and/or a protective-film-forming agent are optionally added. The basic mechanism of CMP making use of this polishing medium for CMP is considered to be that the metal film surface is oxidized with the oxidizing agent and the resultant oxide layer is scraped with the solid abrasive grains. The metal surface oxide layer at the part of dales does not come into contact with the polishing pad so much and the effect of scraping attributable to the solid abrasive grains does not extend thereto. Hence, with progress of the CMP, the metal layer becomes removed at its hills and the substrate (with film) surface become flat. Details on this matter are disclosed in Journal of Electrochemical Society, Vol. 138, No. 11 (published 1991), pages 3460-3464.
In order to make higher the rate of polishing by CMP, it is considered effective to add the metal-oxide-dissolving agent. It can be explained that this is because the effect of scraping attributable to the solid abrasive grains comes higher where grains of metal oxide scraped off by the solid abrasive grains are made to dissolve in the polishing medium. However, the addition of the metal-oxide-dissolving agent makes the metal film surface oxide layer dissolve (hereinafter "etching") also at the part of dales, and the metal film surface becomes uncovered, so that the metal film surface is further oxidized by the oxidizing agent. With repetition of this, the etching of the metal film may proceed at the part of dales, resulting in a damage of the effect of flattening.
In order to prevent this, the protective-film-forming agent is further added to the metal-polishing medium for CMP. Thus, adding the metal-oxide-dissolving agent and protective-film-forming agent adds the effect of chemical reaction, and this brings about the effect that the CMP rate (the rate of polishing by CMP) is improved and also any injury (damage) of the metal layer surface to be polished by CMP may less occur.
In order to obtain a flat polished surface, it is important to balance the effect attributable to the metal-oxide-dissolving agent and protective-film-forming agent used in the polishing medium for CMP. In the CMP, it is preferable to use a polishing medium which does not etch the metal film surface oxide layer so much at the part of dales, dissolves in a good efficiency the particles of the oxide layer scraped off, and has a high rate of polishing.
However, the formation of buried wirings by CMP using a conventional polishing medium for chemical-mechanical polishing which contain solid abrasive grains involves the problems such that;
(1) it may cause a phenomenon that the surface of the metal wiring having been buried is isotropically corroded at the middle thereof to become hollow like a dish (hereinafter "dishing");
(2) it may cause polishing mars (scratches) arising from solid abrasive grains;
(3) the wash processing to remove solid abrasive grains remaining on the substrate surface after polishing is troublesome; and
(4) a cost increase may arise because of the prime cost of solid abrasive grains themselves and the disposal of waste liquor.
Accordingly, in order to keep the dishing from occurring or the copper alloy from corroding during the polishing, to form highly reliable LSI wirings, a polishing method making use of a polishing medium for CMP which contains a metal-oxide-dissolving agent comprised of amino acetic acid (e.g., glycine) or amidosulfuric acid and contains BTA (benzotriazole) is proposed. This technique is disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-83780.
However, the BTA has a very high protective-film-forming effect, and hence it may greatly lower not only the rate of etching but also the rate of polishing. Accordingly, it is sought to provide a polishing medium for CMP which lowers the etching rate sufficiently but does not lower the CMP rate.

Polishing compound for chemimechanical polishing and polishing method


A system and method for accessing a business logic module is provided. The system comprises a client that calls an interface to send a stateful message. The system also comprises a stateless session bean which receives the stateful message from the interface and calls the business logic module to perform a function.

An enterprise computing environment may contain one or more business logic modules (BLM). A BLM is a piece of software that performs a specific task or function. For example, a BLM is operable to promote the exchange of data, such as by retrieving data from a database and returning that data to the calling application. A BLM is typically written only when the need to retrieve such data and/or perform that task or function arises. Over time, hundreds or even thousands of BLMs may be written to perform various tasks.
In this type of architecture, internal applications may natively call a given BLM via a message queue. However, if an external non-native application wants access to a BLM, a web services wrapper ("wrapper") may need to be written for that BLM, so that the BLM is accessible to external applications.
Writing a web services wrapper for each BLM may be undesirable for several reasons. First, writing a wrapper for each BLM means that if, for example, an external application that needs access to three hundred BLMs, would require that three hundred web services wrappers would need to be written. Second, because a BLM typically performs a very basic task or function, writing the code for the wrapper may involve more coding than the code written for the BLM. Third, the computing overhead for a call to a BLM is increased because each time an external party calls a BLM, that BLM's wrapper is also executed.

Web services enterprise integration with service oriented architecture


In accordance with the present disclosure, a battery back-up unit (BBU) element for providing uninterruptable direct current (DC) power in a rack-level power infrastructure is describe. The BBU element may include a rack-mountable chassis with a battery drawer. A battery may be disposed within the battery drawer, and at least one power module may be coupled to the battery. The BBU element may also include a power module controller that causes the battery to charge from or discharge to a busbar coupled to the BBU element. The power module controller may also communicate power management information to a power infrastructure controller.

As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to these users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may vary with respect to the type of information handled; the methods for handling the information; the methods for processing, storing or communicating the information; the amount of information processed, stored, or communicated; and the speed and efficiency with which the information is processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include or comprise a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems. Information handling systems may comprise server systems that are deployed in racks. Some server systems require an uninterruptible power source. Alternating current (AC) power from a public grid is generally not interruptible, meaning the AC input power must be made uninterruptible at the data center before the power can be used to power servers at the data center. Typically, the AC input power source for the entire data center is made uninterruptible using a room full of large, expensive batteries, along with direct current (DC)/AC inverters. When AC power is lost, the batteries may discharge into the DC/AC inverters which then power the servers. Unfortunately, the batteries and equipment required to make the AC input power uninterruptible are bulky, expensive, and difficult to maintain, service, and cool. The AC uninterruptable power system (UPS) also adds a transfer switch either alone or in combination with additional power stages, AC/DC rectifiers, and DC/AC inverters to the power distribution path and introduces additional power losses.

Systems and methods for providing scalable uninterruptable DC power to a rack-level power infrastructure


Deer are attracted by playing the sound of a deer feeder distributing feed.

This invention relates generally to an electronic call for deer, especially North American whitetail deer, although it is expected that other types of animals, such as hogs, will also respond to the call.
Prior art deer calls relied on mimicking deer sounds, mostly bleats and grunts. Others have noted that deer, being curious, will sometimes investigate calls which mimic the sounds of other species, such as of a shrieking rabbit.
However, such calls usually do not attract deer and it is possible that deer become educated over time and do not respond to calls that they have heard before and investigated. For example, wise old bucks, which are the most sought after, may have investigated a call earlier in life and avoided harvest, and have learned not to respond to the call when they hear it later.
A new call would be very desirable.
I have noted that deer are drawn to the sound of a deer feeder in operation. I have found that deer are also attracted by a playback of a recording of such sound. My invention is a method for attracting deer by electronically mimicking a sound generated by flowing particles of feed from a deer feeder.


A coloring liquid can form an image showing a high color developability and a high vividness as well as an excellent water fastness when used as recording material with a recording technique such as ink-jet printing. An ink tank, a recording unit, a recording apparatus and a recording method are adapted to use such a coloring liquid. Such a coloring liquid contains at least one colorant compound having a structure represented by the general formula (1) below and an ink tank, a recording unit, a recording apparatus and a recording method are adapted to use such a coloring liquid.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a coloring liquid containing a novel colorant compound, an ink tank using such a coloring liquid, a recording unit, a recording apparatus and a recording method.
2. Related Background Art
The widespread use of personal computers in ordinary households and the technological developments in the field of digital cameras are closely related to each other and have given rise to a synergetic effect of rapid popularization of hard copy techniques such as ink-jet recording for outputting electronic data to recording mediums.
While ink-jet recording can now provide high quality images that are comparable with images produced by silver halide photography due to the advancement of the ink-jet recording technology in recent years, various additional requirements have been posed to ink-jet recording including environmental stability of recorded images. Images printed on plain paper by means of inks prepared for ink-jet recording are accompanied by such problems that the image can become easily blurred and distorted by water, which problem by turn gives high priority to the requirement of water fastness. Thus, inks to be used for ink-jet recording are required to form images that are excellent in terms of both image quantity and water fastness. A high quality image refers to an image showing an enhanced degree of saturation and colorability.
Known techniques for providing high quality recorded images with cyan color by ink-jet recording includes one that uses as coloring agent a colorant compound having a triphenylmethane skeleton that shows a cyanic color tone. Generally, triphenylmethane compounds show a high molar absorption coefficient and ink that contains the colorant compound operates excellently in terms of color developability, vividness and colorability. It is known that the water fastness of printed products is improved by using inks containing a water-insoluble colorant. Either a pigment or an oil-soluble dye may be used as water-insoluble colorant.
For example, an ink composition containing a dye that has a triphenylmethane skeleton and shows a cyanic color tone has been proposed. (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Application No. H08-333517). While the technique disclosed in the patent document can provide high quality recorded images, the colorant compound used in the ink composition is soluble in alcohol type solvents but poorly soluble in organic solvents to make its water fastness. insufficient.
The use of aqueous inks containing a pigment and a dye has been proposed to satisfy both the requirement of a high image quality and that of water fastness of images recorded by ink-jet recording (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Application No. 2004-143336). The proposed technique is intended to meet the above requirements by using pigments that are characterized by high durability and high color density and dyes that show an enhanced degree of saturation. However, while an image printed by means of aqueous inks containing a pigment and a dye shows a high degree of water fastness, the saturation (color vividness) of the image is not satisfactory in terms of cyanic color tone as indicated by the L*a*b* colorimetric system. In other words, there is a demand for inks containing a colorant compound that are excellent in terms of cyanic color tone in order to improve the quality of images printed by ink-jet recording.

Coloring liquid, ink tank, recording unit, recording apparatus and recording method


A pigment system of different capsule-luminescent pigments have different emission spectra, preferably different color impressions of the luminescence emission, and possess substantially the same chemical stabilities. The capsule-luminescent pigments are based on organic or metalorganic luminescent substances.

The invention relates to a pigment system, a luminescence ink system and a value document, e.g. a bank note.
The invention relates in particular to a luminescence ink system which is based on organic capsule-luminescent pigments.
The pigment system according to the invention is characterized in that the different luminescent pigments which establish the luminescence ink system respectively have comparable chemical and physical stabilities. This prevents a non-uniform change of the luminescence color impression by chemical or physical factors (e.g. migration, environmental influences, organic solvents, acids and bases, UV irradiation, daylight). The luminescence ink system is employed in particular for manufacturing value documents, e.g. by printing on suitable substrates.
Various absorption ink systems for normal printing inks are known in the prior art, e.g. on the basis of CMYK inks. There also exist special absorption ink systems for the employment as security inks in value documents in the prior art. For example, EP 1308485 A1 describes a 4-color-printing ink system with adjusted IR absorptions.
These "normal" absorption inks generate a color impression by the absorption of certain wavelength portions of the backscattered light, hence, in the case of CYMK systems etc. one speaks of subtractive color mixture.
Luminescence ink systems can be structured analogously, except that here the color impression of a luminescence emission (e.g. during the UV excitation) is used. Luminescent inks hence are mostly RGB color systems because the optically perceptible color impression is generated here by an additive color mixture of the different emission colors.
For achieving different-colored color impressions of the luminescence in a colored luminescence picture, often luminescent substances of different structure and different stability are employed. For example, a red color of a flag in the luminescence picture is generated with a first luminescent substance and an adjacent green color of a flag in the luminescence picture is generated with a second luminescent substance. As different luminescent substances are used, these behave differently against physical and chemical influences, which in the course of time or of physical and/or chemical influences leads to a change of the luminescence picture. Such an effect is also known for normal absorption ink systems and leads, besides the fading of the picture, also to strong, undesirable color shifts. A further disadvantage of a such structured luminescence picture is that the color-giving luminescent substances on account of their different properties are not freely mixable or segregate in the printing process. This makes it difficult or impossible to set the desired luminescence picture colors (color management).
It is hence desirable to provide a luminescence ink system which can be manufactured in a stable fashion and with which useful references can be created.
Furthermore, in the prior art so-called true-color luminescence pictures are utilized. These are more complex, multicolor luminescence pictures which, e.g., can also show color gradations. These are often combined with a (absorption-ink-based) picture, so that one sees, e.g., a single-color portrait on a bank note, which under UV illumination luminesces in multicolor fashion, in colors similar to a photograph, so to speak.
On account of the need to utilize several different luminescent substances here, which have to be printed at the same time or with each other, the above-mentioned disadvantages are even more intensified (as no uniform ink formulation system is present and no uniform stability is given for the different luminescent substances). This prevents the practicable employment of true-color fluorescence pictures as a security element and design element.
The luminescence ink systems according to the invention do not have these disadvantages, hence complex true-color luminescence pictures with only one ink formulation system and similar stabilities of all (mixed) inks are possible here.
In the prior art there is also known the use of inorganic luminescent pigments. Although these mostly possess excellent stabilities, they have in comparison to the typically used organic luminescent substances significantly lower luminescence intensities, however. Furthermore, inorganic illuminants further have, on account of their different densities, surface charges, grain sizes, particle forms etc., the disadvantage that various ink formulations are necessary or that different pigments behave differently upon printing. Hence, they are no suitable substitute for the luminescence ink system according to the invention.
The print EP 2602119 A1 describes a luminescence ink system with two inks which upon irradiation with different excitation wavelengths generate different fluorescence emissions. Specifically, a system is described, in which the inks upon single excitation with UV-A or UV-C radiation have the respectively contrary emission colors (e.g. color 1: red/green; color 2: green/red), and hence upon combined irradiation with both wavelengths show the same mixed color (color 1=color 2=yellow). However, neither the temporal and chemical stability of the color impressions, nor the possible difficulties when printing these patterns are discussed.
The print WO 2005/062692 A2 describes a color-coded latent image, including UV-excitable latent images from a RGB luminescence ink system. As, however, no capsule-luminescent pigments adjusted to stability are used, but different luminescent dyes, no uniform (high) chemical stability and light stability or uniform print properties are given. Hence, the described systems are thus inferior to the systems of the invention made from adjusted luminescent pigments with uniform properties. For example, the latent images introduced in WO 2005/062692 A2 significantly change their color upon a treatment with organic solvents like acetone or after a long UV irradiation, while analogous latent images made of a luminescence ink system according to the present invention do not do this.
The print U.S. Pat. No. 7,821,675 B2 describes an additive color system with luminescent ink jet inks. It can also be used for safeguarding value documents. The representation of motifs in true-color luminescence made of mixtures of the three inks is also described. The approximation of the different chemical and physical stabilities of the organic and inorganic luminescent substances used is not mentioned.
EP 1346839 A2 describes systems of at least two fluorescence substances with (radiant) energy transfer, in which a luminescent substance passes on the absorbed energy to a further luminescent substance and thus excites the latter to emission. These systems are not stability-adjusted.
The present invention is based on the object of providing a luminescence ink system improved compared to the prior art.
This object is achieved by the feature combinations defined in the independent claims. Developments of the invention are the subject matter of the subclaims.

Pigment system, luminescent dye system, and value document

GIESECKE+DEVRIENT CURRENCY TECHNOLOGY GMBH


A cold cathode ionization gauge (CCIG) includes an extended anode, a cathode surrounding the anode along a length of the anode, and a feedthrough insulator supporting the anode. The cathode forms a discharge space around the anode to enable formation of a plasma between the anode and the cathode and a resultant ion current flow into the cathode. The CCIG further includes a magnet applying a magnetic field through the discharge space to lengthen free electron paths to sustain the plasma. A shield is electrically isolated from the insulator and shields the insulator from electrons of the plasma. The shield may be mounted to the cathode and surrounds and is spaced from the anode. An electric controller applies voltage between the anode and the cathode to create ionization with plasma discharge between the anode and the cathode, the controller determining pressure based on measured ion current flow to the cathode.

Cold cathode ionization vacuum gauges are well known. Three commonly known cold cathode ionization vacuum gauges include normal (noninverted) magnetron type gauges, inverted magnetron type gauges, and Philips (or Penning) gauges. All of these types of gauges have a pair of electrodes (i.e., an anode and a cathode) in an evacuated non-magnetic envelope which is connected to the vacuum to be measured. A high voltage DC potential difference is applied between the anode electrode and the cathode electrode to cause an electric field between the electrodes. A magnetic field is applied along the axis of the electrodes perpendicular to the electric field in order to increase free electron pathlengths to sustain a free electron plasma in which the electrons collide with neutral molecules and atoms to create ions. The positive ions move to the cathode electrode to maintain the discharge current at an equilibrium value which is a function of pressure.
A cold cathode ionization gauge (CCIG) provides an indirect measurement of vacuum system total pressure by first ionizing gas molecules and atoms inside its vacuum gauge envelope and then measuring the resulting ion current. The measured ion current is directly related to the gas density and gas total pressure inside the gauge envelope, i.e., as the pressure inside the vacuum system decreases, the measured ion current decreases. Gas specific calibration curves provide the ability to calculate total pressures based on ion current measurements.
The CCIG described herein relies on the inverted magnetron principle. The gauge is of cylindrical symmetry. A large voltage potential difference (i.e., radial electric field) between the anode pin (located at the axis) and the cathode cylindrical envelope provides energy to the electrons for the ionization events to occur. A crossed axial magnetic field provides the electron trajectory path length required to maintain a discharge inside the envelope. The discharge current is the measured quantity that is proportional to the pressure in the system.
The discharge is established through an avalanche ionization process that generally starts with a single electron being released into the ionization volume of the gauge. The process responsible for releasing an electron can include a field emission event or a cosmic ray ionization process. The avalanche process relies on the long path length for the electron trajectories that leads to many ionization processes per electron. Each ionization process releases a positive ion as well as an additional electron that is added into the discharge. As the ions collide with the cathode internal walls, additional electrons are also ejected into the discharge, thereby contributing to the total charge. The electrical discharge consisting of a free electron plasma and positive ions produces an ion current which is monotonically increasing with increasing pressure in the system, and likewise for decreasing variables.

Anode electrode shield for inverted magnetron cold cathode ionization gauge


A p-type ZnO semiconductor film comprised mainly of Zn and O elements is disclosed. The film is characterized as containing an alkali metal and nitrogen. Preferably, the alkali metal is contained such that its concentration is distributed to increase toward an end or toward both ends in the thickness direction of the film. More preferably, the alkali metal is contained in the concentration range of 1×1018-5×1021 cm−3 and the nitrogen in the concentration range of 2×1017-5×1020 cm−3.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a p-type ZnO semiconductor film and a process for preparation thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to realize the new generation of electronic devices, e.g., transparent electronic circuits and ultraviolet light-emitting diodes, using oxide semiconductors, it is essential to develop p-type oxide semiconductors. Zinc oxide (ZnO), because of its high potential, has been recently noted as a promising material for such p-type oxide semiconductors and the associated research and development have been actively conducted.
However, it is extremely difficult to prepare p-type ZnO and only a very few successful examples are reported. As a representative of such successful examples, a codoping method is known which involves simultaneous doping of an acceptor impurity and a donor impurity (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2001-48698 and PCT Int. Publication No. WO 00/22202).
It is however reported that the follow-up attempts of the reported codoping method by researchers resulted in the failure to obtain the p-type ZnO (K. Nakahara et al., Journal of Crystal Growth, 237-239 (2002), pp. 503-508; M. Sumiya et al., Applied Surface Science, 223 (2004), pp. 206-209; and others). As such, a highly reproducible process to obtain the p-type ZnO has not been established to date.

P-type zinc oxide semiconductor film and process for preparation thereof


The invention provides for the inhibition of the activity of TFPI to prevent TFPI from countering the procoagulant activities associated with many tumors. Inhibition of TFPI activity by the method of the invention facilitates the propensity toward thrombosis in malignancies and therefore promotes tumor cell death. The method of the invention also includes, in addition to the administration of an inhibitor of TFPI, co-administration of an agent capable of inducing or augmenting in the targeted tumor the release or induction of factors that initiate or enhance clotting, such as TF and Factors VIIa and Xa.

Antibody to Protein C has been found to act in conjunction with tumor necrosis factor ("TNF") to cause tumor cell death, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,638. In contrast, treatment with TNF alone or antibody to Protein C alone is markedly less effective in the treatment of cancer. A possible explanation for the increased efficacy of combined antibody to Protein C and TNF may be that TNF induces or augments the expression of tissue factor ("TF") by tumor cells or non-tumor cells such as infiltrating white blood cells or endothelial cells associated with the tumor vasculature, or induces necrosis of the tumor cells and, thus, the release of TF from the dying cells. The TF expressed or released then may initiate clotting within the tumor associated vasculature.
Protein C is an endogenous plasma protein that normally acts as a systemic anticoagulant by cleaving clotting factors, such as Factor VIII:C and Factor V. Treatment with antibody to Protein C inhibits the anti-coagulant activity of Protein C. Thus, in conjunction with agents that induce or augment tumor TF expression or release, anti-Protein C antibody may initiate or facilitate clotting within the tumor associated vasculature, compromising the blood supply to the tumor, leading ultimately to tumor cell death. Administration of antibodies to Protein C, however, may be problematic because of the likelihood of systemic thrombosis as a serious side effect. TFPI is an endogenous, systemically circulating plasma protein which functions as a physiological anticoagulant by inhibiting TF/Factor VIIa complexes and preventing them from activating the extrinsic pathway of coagulation. Cellular TF expression occurs generally only under pathological conditions, including but not limited to, for example, vasculature disruption, wounds, malignancy, sepsis, and other conditions. Regulation of TFPI, therefore, may be an important mechanism for regulating the amount of TF-mediated coagulation in these pathological conditions.
TFPI also acts to inhibit what is known in the art as "the common pathway of coagulation" by inhibiting Factor Xa. TFPI is therefore also probably important in regulating the amount of Xa-mediated coagulation in situations in which Xa formation might occur independently of TF/Factor VIIa activation, for example, as in the case of certain mucinous adenocarcinomas that possess proteins capable of directly activating Factor X to Factor Xa.
With regard to a treatment for cancer, therefore, it would be desirable if thrombosis can be induced locally or can be targeted to a particular region, for example, specifically to tumor tissues so as to avoid generalized thrombosis.

Use of TFPI inhibitor for treatment of cancer