A process for the extraction of bitumen from bitumen froth generated from tar sands is presented. In this process bitumen froth, extracted from tar sands using a water process not requiring the use of caustic soda, is treated in a counter-current decantation circuit with a paraffinic solvent to remove precipitated asphaltenes, water, and solids from the bitumen froth. The instant invention produces a dilute bitumen product having final water and solids content of about 0.01 to about 1.00% by weight rendering the dilute bitumen product amenable to direct hydrocracking. This process provides an alternative route to the conventional process utilizing centrifuges to separate bitumen from precipitated asphaltenes, water, and solids thereby avoiding the high capital and operating costs associated with the conventional bitumen froth treatment by centrifugation. Because the invention utilizes bitumen froth produced from a water process that does not require the use of caustic soda, it advantageously avoids the production of tailings sludges through clay dispersion. Furthermore, because the diluted bitumen product can be directly hydrocracked, the instant invention avoids the conventional and capital intensive upgrading steps, such as coking, which are required for treatment of the dilute bitumen product produced in the traditional naphtha dilution and centrifugation bitumen extraction process.

Throughout the world, considerable oil reserves are locked in the form of tar sands, also called bitumen sands. For example, the Athabasca tar sands deposit, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada, is the largest of the four major Alberta deposits and contains oil reserves exceeding 146 billion cubic meters over a total area of 32,000 square kilometers. Another such tar sands deposit exists in the Tar Sand Triangle located in a triangularly shaped area between the Dirty Devil River and the Colorado River in southeastern Utah. The Tar Sand Triangle deposit contains reserves of 12-16 billion barrels of oil in place and covers an area of approximately 518 square kilometers. However, the fact that the oil, in the form of bitumen, is intimately mixed with sand, water, sand silt, complicates its efficient extraction therefrom.
Various methods have been proposed to separate the bitumen product from the tar sands as a single component. In one method, the bitumen separated from the sands is coked to produce coker distillate which may be later refined in accordance with conventional refinery practice. In the alternative, it has been proposed that the raw tar sands be treated in a retort in either a moving or fluid bed to produce a coker distillate in which the coke which deposits on the sand is burned to provide process heat.
However, the foregoing processes have their disadvantages in that during coking, the distillate is cracked. While cracking may be desirable for obtaining economic yields, there is usually some degradation of the distillate quality.
One attempt to overcome these disadvantages is disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,871,180. The method described in this patent for separating crude oil from bituminous sands in a deasphalted oil enriched layer and an asphaltene enriched layer is to provide an aqueous pulp of the sands into a vertical extraction zone. A low molecular weight paraffinic hydrocarbon (propane) is then introduced into the extraction zone at a level below the point of introduction of the aqueous bituminous sand pulp.
Essentially, the low molecular weight paraffinic hydrocarbon flows upwardly through the extraction zone while the heavier aqueous bituminous sand pulp flows downwardly. These opposing upward and downward flows result in the formation of a deasphalted oil and solvent phase (i.e., the product phase), an asphaltenes phase diluted with a lesser portion of the solvent, a water phase, and a substantially oil-free sand phase, said phases having increasing specific gravities in the order presented. The phases are then taken off for further treatment. However, this process presented several economic disadvantages that limited its use and commercial applicability.
Conventionally, the hot water extraction process, which avoids some of the disadvantages presented by the above methods, is utilized in the recovery of bitumen from the sand and other material in which it is bound. After the bitumen is recovered, it is then treated to obtain oil products therefrom. One such example of this process is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,743, which is incorporated herein by reference.
In the prior art water extraction process, tar sands are first conditioned in large conditioning drums or tumblers with the addition of caustic soda (NaOH) and water at a temperature of about 85.degree. C. The tumblers provide means for steam injection and positive physical action to mix the resultant slurry vigorously, causing the bitumen to be separated and aerated to form a bitumen froth.
The slurry from the tumblers is then screened to separate out the larger debris and passed to a separating cell where settling time is provided to allow the slurry to separate. As the slurry settles, the bitumen froth rises to the surface and the sand particles and sediments fall to the bottom. A middle viscous sludge layer, termed middlings, contains dispersed clay particles and some trapped bitumen that is not able to rise due to the viscosity of the sludge. Once the slurry has settled, the froth is skimmed off for froth treatment and the sediment layer is passed to a tailings pond. The middlings is often fed to a secondary flotation stage for further bitumen froth recovery.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,793 discloses a modified prior art water extraction process termed the hydrotransport system. In this system, the tar sands are mixed with water and caustic soda at the mine site and the resultant slurry is transported to the extraction unit in a large pipe. During the hydrotransport, the tar sands are conditioned and the bitumen is aerated to form a froth. This system replaces the manual or mechanical transport of the tar sands to the extraction unit and eliminates the need for tumblers.
The bitumen froth from either process contains bitumen, solids, and trapped water. The solids that are present in the froth are in the form of clays, silt, and some sand and contains about 60% by weight bitumen, which is in itself composed of about 10 to 20% by weight asphaltenes, about 30% by weight water, and about 10% by weight solids. From the separating cell, the froth is passed to a defrothing or deaerating vessel where the froth is heated and broken to remove the air. Typically, naphtha is then added to solvate the bitumen thus reducing the density of the bitumen and facilitating separation of the bitumen from the water by means of a subsequent centrifugation treatment. The centrifuge treatment first involves a gross centrifuge separation followed by a series of high-speed centrifuge separations. The bitumen collected from the centrifuge treatment usually contains about 5 wt % water and solids and can be passed to the refinery for upgrading and subsequent hydrocracking. The water and solids released during the centrifuge treatment are passed to the tailings pond.
The very nature of bitumen renders it difficult to process. This is because bitumen is a complex mixture of various organic species comprising of about 44 wt % white oils, about 22 wt % resins, about 17 wt % dark oils, and about 17 wt % asphaltenes (Bowman, C. W. "Molecular and Interfacial Properties of Athabasca Tar Sands". Proceedings of the 7.sup.th World Petroleum Congress. Vol. 3 Elsevier Publishing Co. 1967).
When bitumen is treated using the conventional naphtha dilution and centrifugation extraction process, considerable problems are encountered. The reason for this is actually two-fold: Firstly, the naphtha diluted bitumen product can contain up to 5 wt % water and solids. Secondly, the naphtha diluent solvates the bitumen as well as the unwanted and dirty asphaltenes contained in the bitumen froth. Because hydrocracking requires a homogeneous feed which is very low in solids and water, the naphtha diluted bitumen product cannot be fed directly to the hydrocracker. In order to utilize the naphtha diluted bitumen product, it must first be coked to drive off the naphtha solvent and drop out the asphaltenes and solids. Unfortunately, this coker upgrading represents an enormous capital outlay and also results in a loss of 10-15% of the bitumen initially available for hydrocracking.
One way to avoid the problems presented by the naphtha dilution of the bitumen is to use a different solvent such as a paraffinic diluent. However, the use of a paraffinic diluent results in the precipitation of a major proportion of asphaltenes from the diluted bitumen. Therefore, when the paraffinically diluted bitumen is fed to the centrifugation system, the precipitated asphaltenes may tend to "plug up" the centrifuges which results in increased maintenance due to the necessity of shutting down and cleaning the fouled centrifuges. The increased centrifuge maintenance therefore results in reduced throughput and unsatisfactory process economics. Furthermore, centrifugation equipment is highly capital and maintenance intensive even during smooth operation.
The tailings produced via the conventional extraction process present further problems. The tailings in the tailings pond are largely a sludge of caustic soda, sand, water, and some bitumen. During the initial years of residence time, some settling takes place in the upper layer of the pond, releasing some of the trapped water. The water released from the ponds can be recycled back into the water tar sands treatment process. However, the major portion of the tailings remains as sludge indefinitely. The sludge contains some bitumen and high percentages of solids, mainly in the form of suspended silt and clay.
The tailings ponds are costly to build and maintain, and the size of the ponds and their characteristic caustic condition creates serious environmental problems. In addition, environmental concerns exist over the large quantity of water which is required for the extraction and which remains locked in the tailings pond after use.
It is known that sludge is formed in the initial conditioning of the tar sands when caustic soda attacks the sand and clay particles. The caustic soda causes the clays, such as montinorillonite clays, to swell and disperse into platelets that are held in suspension and form the gel-like sludge. Since such sludge inhibits the flotation of the bitumen froth in the extraction process, lower grade tar sands containing large amounts of expanding clays cannot be treated satisfactorily using the conventional water caustic soda process.
Therefore, the need exists for an extraction process which would not require the use of caustic soda in the tar sands conditioning process, which would result in a reduction in the production of sludge and therefore an increase in the water available for recycling and a decrease in the sheer volume of tailings present in the tailings ponds. It would also be highly desirable to avoid to use of naphtha based solvents for bitumen extraction and preclude the necessity of coker upgrading of the bitumen product prior to hydrocracking. It would also be desirable to avoid the use of centrifuges with paraffinically diluted bitumen and the inherent asphaltenes plugging of such centrifuges by utilizing a non-capital intensive process which can efficiently treat a diluted bitumen containing precipitated asphaltenes while maintaining a high throughput, low maintenance, and improved process economics.
Processes to utilize alternative conditioning reagents other than caustic soda have been proposed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,120,777 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,743 disclose two such processes. While the former utilizes soluble metal bicarbonates in place of caustic soda, the latter teaches the use of mixtures of sodium and potassium bicarbonates in the presence of calcium and magnesium ion sources. The aim of both of these patents is to avoid the use of caustic soda in the hot water tar sands conditioning process and therefore reduce clay dispersion and subsequent sludge formation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,633 avoids entirely the use of a conditioning reagent in the tar sands conditioning process and instead teaches the use of a suspension of oxidase-synthesizing hydrocarbon metabolizing microorganisms to facilitate the separation or release of bitumen from the sand, clays, and water in the tar sands.
However, such processes have not been adopted by the industry due to the fact that they substantially increase the cost of bitumen extraction from tar sands due to the higher cost of reagents employed. Furthermore, such processes often result is lower tar sands conditioning rates and thus adversely affect product throughput. Finally, although such processes may avoid the production of sludges and their inherent problems, none of the prior art addresses the problem of coker upgrading of naphtha diluted bitumen or the centrifuge plugging resulting from paraffinically diluted bitumen.

Extraction of bitumen from bitumen froth generated from tar sands


One or more test features are extracted from a time domain signal. The test features are represented by discrete data. The discrete data is represented for each of the one or more test features by a corresponding one or more fitting functions, which are defined in terms of finite number of continuous basis functions and a corresponding finite number of expansion coefficients. Each fitting function is compressed through Functional Principal Component Analysis (FPCA) to generate corresponding sets of principal components. Each principal component for a given test feature is uncorrelated to each other principal component for the given test feature. A distance between a set of principal components for the given test feature and a set of principal components for one or more training features with the processing system is calculated. The test feature is classified according to the distance calculated with the processing system.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the field of speaker recognition. Speaker recognition is a process of automatically recognizing who is speaking by characteristics of an individual's voice, also called voice recognition. It has been developed for use in consumer electronic devices, such as mobile telephones, games platforms, personal computers and personal digital assistants. There are two major applications of speaker recognition technologies. Speaker verification involves determining whether a given voice belongs to a certain speaker. It is usually used to control access to restricted services, for example, access to computer networks, websites, online or telephone banking systems, online purchasing or voice mail, and access to secure equipment. Speaker identification involves matching a given voice to one of a set of known voices. No matter for which application, the goal of a speaker recognition system is to extract, characterize and recognize the information in the speech signal conveying speaker identity.
Speaker recognition technologies may be divided into two categories, text-dependent speaker recognition (TDSR) and text-independent speaker recognition (TISR). TDSR requires the speakers to provide utterances of the same text for both training and testing.
This text, known as "pass phrase," can be a piece of information such as a name, birth city, favorite color or a sequence of number. TISR recognizes a speaker without requiring a specific pass phrase. TDSR systems generally provide better recognition performance than TISR systems, especially for short training and testing utterances.
A TDSR system typically includes a computer or other electronic device equipped with a source of sound input, such as a microphone, to collect and interpret human speech. The collected speech waveform is converted into digital data representing signals at the discrete time intervals. The digitized speech data is processed to extract voice features that convey speaker information. For example, information about the speaker's vocal tract shape via the resonances and glottal source via the pitch harmonic may be included in the speech spectrum. The voice features are usually in a form of a sequence of acoustic vectors. In training sessions, the voice features extracted from the speech signal are used to create a model or template stored in a database. In testing sessions, the extracted features from the utterance are then compared to the reference features in the database that are obtained from the previous training sessions to find an optimal match for the given features. As an example, dynamic time warping (DTW) is one of the common modeling techniques to align and measure the similarity between the test phrase and the templates in the database.
Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) is one of the known methods for extraction of the best parametric representation of acoustic signals. It offers a compact representation of the speech spectral envelops or the impact of the vocal tract shape in rendering a particular sound. It however only captures a highly local portion of the significant temporal dynamics and thus cannot reflect some overall statistical characteristics hidden behind the sentence.
Some researches and developments have been focused on Functional Data Analysis (FDA). FDA is about analysis of information on curves or surfaces, or anything else varying over a continuum. It provides both visual and quantitative results. In recent years, it has been proved that FDA shows good performance on the speech feature analysis and pitch re-synthesis.
It is within this context that embodiments of the present invention arise.

Text dependent speaker recognition with long-term feature based on functional data analysis


The present invention is directed to provide a game apparatus and a game program, which are capable of more strategically conducting a battle with an enemy character, deepening interest, winning a battle with a formidable enemy even without any level up, and enjoying a game that is rich in strategic feature. When an enemy character starts to attack a player character (step S11), time counting to set a chink occurrence flag starts. When an attack operation of the player character on the enemy character is received (step S12) and the attack hits the enemy character (step S13), it is determined whether or not a chink occurrence flag remains set on the enemy character (step S14). When the chink occurrence flag remains set (YES in step S14), a special effect is generated (step S15).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game apparatus that causes a game to progress by causing a player character to conduct a virtual battle with an enemy character, a game program and a game progress method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, action games or fighting games in which a game progresses such that a player character operatable by a player conducts a virtual battle with an enemy character have been enjoyed. In the action game or the fighting game, for example, a typical attack having a weapon or a bare hand is combined with a special attack that has offensive power more powerful than a typical attack or generates some sort of certain special effect in order to cause a virtual battle to strategically progress. In addition, in order to provide an action game that is rich in strategic feature, a game program in which when the enemy character receives an attack by the player character, it is determined whether or not a hit point of the enemy character is within a predetermined range, and when the hit point is within the predetermined range, the hit point of the enemy character becomes zero (0) regardless of the magnitude of damage has been disclosed (see JP 2007-54171 A).
Meanwhile, in recent years, action role playing games (RPGs) in which factors of an action game are incorporated into an RPG have been enjoyed by many players. In the action RPG, similarly to a typical action game, the player character conducts a virtual battle with the enemy character while moving the position of the player character in the virtual world by operating the player character or using a hitting attack by a weapon such as a sword or an ax or a bare hand, a magic attack having an effect of flame or thunder, or the like. Here, when the player character wins the virtual battle with the enemy character, the player character acquires an experience value or an item, and the player character grows based on the acquired experience value.
In the action RPG as described above, when a battle with a formidable enemy such as a boss character having a overwhelmingly higher status in offensive power, defensive power, or a hit point than the player character is conducted, it is difficult to defeat the enemy character unless an attack is made many times. For this reason, when it is desired to conduct a battle with a strong enemy character, it is necessary to conduct a battle with weak enemy characters many times and improve a level of a player character in order to defeat the formidable enemy such as the boss character. For this reason, since a so-called "level-up" needs to be obtained by repeatedly conducting battles with enemy characters weaker than the formidable enemy, the progress of a game may become monotonous, and fun may be reduced. In addition, when a battle is conducted without increasing a level, a battle is likely to be conducted by simply striking an attack button repeatedly, leading to a monotonous battle.
For example, in a game program discussed in JP 2007-54171 A, a battle with an enemy character can be strategically conducted such that a battle with an enemy character is conducted to cause a hit point of an enemy character to fall within a predetermined hit point range, and then an attack is made, so that the hit point of the enemy character becomes zero (0). However, in order to cause the hit point of the enemy character to fall within the predetermined range, a battle needs to be conducted in a state in which the player character is close in strength to the enemy character to some extent. Moreover, when there is a big difference in strength between the player character and the enemy character, it is very difficult to reduce the hit point of the enemy character to the predetermined range. For this reason, in the game program discussed in JP 2007-54171 A, the player character needs to repeatedly conduct a battle with relatively weak enemy characters and repeatedly increase a level.


A method for producing chlorine dioxide by activating zeolite crystals (which have been impregnated with metal chlorite such as sodium chlorite, and a water-retaining substance such as magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, or potassium hydroxide, or calcium chloride) with an acid, or activating an aqueous solution of metal chlorite (preferably sodium chlorite) and such a water-retaining substance. Acids useful for performing the activation are acetic acid, phosphoric acid, and citric acid. The activation can be performed by causing fluid to flow through a bed of zeolite crystals impregnated with calcium chloride (or another water-retaining substance) and sodium chlorite, and a bed of zeolite crystals impregnated with the acid. The two beds can be physically mixed together, or the fluid can be caused to flow sequentially through distinct first and second beds (preferably first through the bed containing acid-impregnated zeolite). The activation can also be performed by immersing impregnated zeolite crystals in (or spraying them with) acid. To produce chlorine dioxide using the sodium chlorite-containing aqueous solution of the invention, the solution is mixed (or otherwise combined) with acid. Other embodiments of the invention are impregnated zeolite crystals (or other substances), which are useful for producing chlorine dioxide and are stable until activated with acid. The presence (in a sufficient amount) of calcium chloride (or another water-retaining substance) in the unactivated composition reduces the rate of chlorine dioxide outgassing to no more than a negligible amount at times prior to activation of the composition with acid.

Zeolites are hydrated metal aluminosilicate compounds with well-defined (tetrahedral) crystalline structures. Because zeolite crystals (both natural and synthetic) have a porous structure with connected channels extending through them, they have been employed as molecular sieves for selectively absorbing molecules on the basis of size, shape, and polarity.
Volumes packed with zeolite crystals (for example, small zeolite crystals chosen to have size in the range from 0.2 mm to one quarter inch) have been employed in air (or other gas) and water filtration systems to selectively absorb contaminants from a flowing stream of water or gas.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,567,405, issued Oct. 22, 1996 (based on U.S. application Ser. No. 08/445,025, filed May 19, 1995), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,743, issued Nov. 12, 1996 (based on U.S. application Ser. No. 08/445,076), teach methods for producing zeolite crystals impregnated with one or more of sodium chlorite, acetic acid, phosphoric acid, and citric acid, and methods for producing chlorine dioxide by moving a fluid (e.g., air or water) relative to a bed of zeolite crystals impregnated with sodium chlorite, and moving the fluid relative to another bed of zeolite crystals impregnated with one of the following: phosphoric acid, acetic acid and citric acid. The two beds can be physically mixed together, or the fluid can flow sequentially through distinct first and second beds. These references also teach a method for filtering a fluid by producing chlorine dioxide in the fluid (in the manner described in this paragraph) and then absorbing the chlorine dioxide from the fluid.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/704,086, filed Aug. 28, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,948, teaches a variation on the chlorine dioxide production method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,567,405, which includes the steps of moving a fluid through a first bed of impregnated zeolite crystals (impregnated with at least one of phosphoric acid, acetic acid, and citric acid) and then moving the fluid through a second bed of impregnated zeolite crystals (impregnated with sodium chlorite).
Chlorine dioxide (ClO.sub.2) is useful for killing biological contaminants (such as microorganisms, mold, fungi, yeast and bacteria) and for oxidizing volatile organic chemicals which can contaminate fluid.
It is known to produce chlorine dioxide by: activating a metal chlorite solution by adding an acid thereto, activating a powdered composition (or other dry composition) by adding water thereto, or preparing an activated dry composition which releases chlorine dioxide over time. U.S. Pat. No. 4,547,381 (issued Oct. 15, 1985) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,169 (issued Aug. 25, 1987) mention these three techniques for producing chlorine dioxide, and disclose in some detail one type of such an activated dry composition. They teach that this activated dry composition is a mixture of a "dry inert diluent," a metal chlorite, and a dry agent capable of reacting with the metal chlorite in a dry state to produce chlorine dioxide. The metal chlorite can be sodium chlorite, and the dry agent can be a "dry acid" such as granular citric acid. The inert diluent can be diatomaceous earth, sodium chloride, sodium silicate, disodium sulfate, or magnesium chloride, or a combination of two or more thereof. The mixture releases chlorine dioxide over time until the rate of chlorine dioxide release becomes low, and the patents teach that the mixture can then be agitated for "renewed generation" of chlorine dioxide.
However, an activated composition (such as that described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,547,381 and 4,689,169) is subject to undesirable storage and shipping losses, due to outgassing of chlorine dioxide before the time of intended use of the composition.
Similarly, the inventor has found that sodium chlorite-impregnated zeolite crystals (of the type described in referenced U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,567,405 and 5,573,743) are also subject to undesirable storage and shipping losses, due to outgassing of chlorine dioxide therefrom before the time of their intended use (e.g., before fluid is caused to flow through both a bed of the sodium chlorite-impregnated zeolite crystals and a bed of acid-impregnated zeolite crystals). Also, efforts to activate sodium chlorite-impregnated zeolite crystals (of the type described in referenced U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,567,405 and 5,573,743) with acid at low temperature (below 40 degrees Farenheit) may fail in the sense that they will not result in release of sufficient amounts of chlorine dioxide.
There are also disadvantages to use of conventional metal chlorite solutions (of the type mentioned in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,547,381 and 4,689,169) to produce chlorine dioxide. For example, when such a conventional solution is activated (by adding an acid thereto) to release chlorine dioxide gas, it is difficult or impossible to control the rate of release of the chlorine dioxide gas. Overproduction of chlorine dioxide often results.
There are also disadvantages to use of conventional powdered or dry compositions of the type activated by adding water thereto to release chlorine dioxide (as mentioned, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,547,381 and 4,689,169). Masschelein, in the book Chlorine Dioxide--Chemistry and Environmental Impact of Oxychlorine Compounds (published 1979 by Ann Arbor Science Publishers Inc., Ann Arbor, Mich.) at page 140, describes one such dry mixture comprising sodium chlorite, and a solid organic anhydride containing 2 to 20% of a dessicating product such as calcium chloride. When such a conventional dry composition is activated (by adding water thereto) to release chlorine dioxide gas, it is typically difficult or impossible to control the rate of release of the chlorine dioxide to achieve chlorine dioxide release rates useful for such applications as air or water filtration. Overproduction of chlorine dioxide often results.
Until the present invention, it was not known how to produce a stable, unactivated substance (either in liquid or dry form) which does not release significant amounts of chlorine dioxide until activated by exposure to an acid, and which releases chlorine dioxide at a useful (and controllable) rate when exposed to an acid (even at temperatures below 40 degrees Farenheit). Nor had it been known to use such a stable, unactivated substance to produce controlled release of chlorine dioxide for filtering air or water.

Method for producing chlorine dioxide using calcium chloride impregnated zeolite or aqueous calcium chloride


A touch control device with enhanced ESD protection effect comprises a sensing circuit module; a plurality of signal lines electrically connected with the sensing circuit module; an ESD protection ring disposed on periphery of the sensing circuit module and the signal lines; and an ESD shield ring interposed between the signal lines and the ESD protection ring. A touch on the sensing circuit module induces a sensation signal. While the signal lines transmit the sensation signal, the electrostatic charges generated thereby is drained off by the ESD protection ring. The ESD shield ring can drain off the residual electrostatic charges that the ESD protection ring does not drain off. Therefore, the present invention can exempt the touch control device from ESD interference, guarantee the accuracy of signal transmission, and protect the electronic elements of the touch control device.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) protection technology, particularly to a touch control device with enhanced ESD protection effect.
Description of the Related Art
With advance of display panel technology and popularization of consumer electronic products, more and more touch panels or touchscreens are used as the operating interfaces of electronic products, from the military devices to hi-tech electronic appliances. A touch control device, such as a touch panel or a touchscreen, can detect touches. In the field of touch control, a touch is normally referred to a contact of a finger (or a hand) with the sensing region of a touch control device. However, the sensing region of a touch control device can also sense the contact of other objects, such as a touch control stylus. Touch control devices have many applications, such as operating interfaces of portable electronic devices and tablet computers.
The touch control device has two significant advantages: the user can directly interact with the information displayed on the screen; and no intermediate device, such as the mouse or the keyboard, is required between the user and the electronic product. Touch control devices not only are used in larger computers and mechanical apparatuses but also are applied to smaller electronic products, such as personal digital assistants (PDA), GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation devices, mobile phones, video garners, etc. Because of simple operation and diversified functions, touch control devices are more and more popularized in daily life.
According to the operation principles, the touch control devices may be classified into four types: the resistive type, the capacitive type, the optical type and the ultrasonic type. The resistive touch control device comprises upper and lower ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) conductive layers, spacers and electrodes, wherein two pieces of ITO glass are used as the substrates; ITO films are respectively disposed on the substrates; spacers are interposed between two substrates to prevent from conduction between two substrates; silver electrodes are printed on the edges of the substrates for supplying voltage. The capacitive touch control device comprises a glass insulator coated with a transparent conductor (such as sensing electrodes made of ITO), and a touch sensor IC (Integrated Circuit) electrically connected with sensing electrodes and measuring capacitive variation in the electrodes, wherein the capacitive variation is used as a sensation signal, and the touch sensor IC receives the sensation signal and points out the contact position. The optical touch control device operates according to the blocked light beam and comprises glass substrates, infrared sources and infrared receivers, wherein many infrared sources and infrared receivers are distributed on the device and arranged to form an array; while an infrared light beam is blocked, some infrared receivers cannot receive infrared light; the contact position is worked out according to positions of the infrared receivers unable to receive infrared light. The ultrasonic touch control device comprises transmission transducers, reception transducers, reflector boards and a controller, wherein transmission transducers, reflector boards and reception transducers are arranged on each of the X coordinate and the Y coordinate of a piece of glass.
When the user operates the touch control device, the electrostatic charges carried by the finger are likely to conduct to the screen of the touch control device and induce ESD. The withstanding voltage of the circuits inside the touch control device is normally only tens of volts. ESD may substantially affect or damage the circuits and electronic elements inside the touch control device. For example, ESD may cause screen defects, melt metal conduction lines, vary the resistance of elements, damage or puncture oxide layers, cause malfunctions of the circuits and controllers centering around the processor. Any of the abovementioned events would significantly decrease the service life of the touch control device and affect the reliability of signal transmission.
Refer to FIG. 1 a plan view schematically showing a touch control device using the conventional ESD protection technology. In the conventional touch control device 10 shown in FIG. 1, an ESD protection ring 16 is disposed on the periphery of a sensing region 12 and a plurality of signal lines 14. Once a user touches the touch control device 10, the sensing region 12 generates a sensation signal, and the signal lines 12 transmit the sensation signal to the control unit of the touch control device 10, wherein the signal lines and the control unit transmit signals reciprocally. Electrostatic charges are likely to form during signal transmission and likely to appear in the signal lines 14 and the sensing circuit module. The ESD protection ring 16 is to drain off electrostatic charges, whereby to protect the electronic elements in the sensing circuit module and maintain the correctness and integrality of signal transmission.
Although the conventional technology has installed an ESD protection ring on the periphery of the signal lines and electronic elements of the touch control device, the ESD protection ring cannot drain off all electrostatic charges but can only prevent from a half of electrostatic discharges. Therefore, the conventional touch control device still risks electrostatic discharges, which may shorten the service life of the device and lower reliability of signal transmission.
In order to overcome the conventional problems, the present invention proposes a touch control device with enhanced ESD protection effect, which additionally installs an ESD shield between the signal lines and the ESD protection ring to achieve a full ESD protection effect.

Touch control device with enhanced ESD protection effect

Interface Optoelectronics (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.


A process for the decomposition of trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) to form chlorides, carbonates and formates is disclosed. The process comprises treating TCAA with 6 or more equivalents of a metal hydroxide at a temperature above 60.degree. C.

Trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) is used in high concentration for the isolation and purification of protein, such as recombinant alpha-interferon, from fermentation mixtures during commercial production. Consequently, large quantities of TCAA are generated in the waste stream. TCAA is corrosive, is not biodegradable and requires disposal in an environmentally acceptable manner.
The Merck Index, 11th Ed., (1989) p. 1515, discloses the decomposition products of TCAA as being chloroform, HCl, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Methods for the chemical decomposition of TCAA are known. For example, Verhock, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 56, (1934) 571, describes a process for decomposing TCAA comprising heating various salts of TCAA at 70.degree. C., to form chloroform, carbon dioxide and small amounts of HCl. This process is unsuitable for the commercial destruction of TCAA because the chloroform produced is a suspect carcinogen creating new handling and disposal problems.

Method for the decomposition of trichloroacetic acid


The invention provides polyurethane and polyisocyanurate foams and methods for the preparation thereof. More particularly, the invention relates to closed-celled, polyurethane and polyisocyanurate foams and methods for their preparation. The foams are characterized by a fine uniform cell structure and little or no foam collapse. The foams are produced with a polyol premix composition which comprises a combination of a hydrohaloolefin blowing agent, a polyol, a silicone surfactant, and a non-amine catalyst used alone or in combination with an amine catalyst.

Low density, rigid to semi-rigid polyurethane or polyisocyanurate foams have utility in a wide variety of insulation applications including roofing systems, building panels, building envelope insulation, spray applied foams, one and two component froth foams, insulation for refrigerators and freezers, and so called integral skin for application such as steering wheels and other automotive or aerospace cabin parts, shoe soles, and amusement park restraints. Critical to the large-scale commercial acceptance of rigid polyurethane foams is their ability to provide a good balance of properties. For example, rigid polyurethane and polyisocyanurate foams are known to provide outstanding thermal insulation, excellent fire resistance properties, and superior structural properties at reasonably low densities. Integral skin foams are known to produce a tough durable outer skin and a cellular, cushioning core.
It is known in the art to produce rigid or semi-rigid polyurethane and polyisocyanurate foams by reacting a polyisocyanate with one or more polyols in the presence of one or more blowing agents, one or more catalysts, one or more surfactants and optionally other ingredients. Blowing agents include hydrocarbons, fluorocarbons, chlorocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons, ethers, esters, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, organic acid or gas, most often CO2, generating materials. Heat is generated when the polyisocyanate reacts with the polyol, and volatilizes the blowing agent contained in the liquid mixture, thereby forming bubbles therein. In the case of gas generating materials, gaseous species are generated by thermal decomposition or reaction with one or more of the ingredients used to produce the polyurethane or polyisocyanurate foam. As the polymerization reaction proceeds, the liquid mixture becomes a cellular solid, entrapping the blowing agent in the foam's cells. If a surfactant is not used in the foaming composition, the bubbles simply pass through the liquid mixture without forming a foam or forming a foam with large, irregular cells rendering it not useful.
The foam industry has historically used liquid fluorocarbon blowing agents because of their ease of use and ability to produce foams with superior mechanical and thermal insulation properties. Fluorocarbons not only act as blowing agents by virtue of their volatility, but also are encapsulated or entrained in the closed cell structure of the rigid foam and are the major contributor to the low thermal conductivity properties of the rigid urethane foams. Fluorocarbon-based blowing agents also produce a foam having a favorable k-factor. The k-factor is the rate of transfer of heat energy by conduction through one square foot of one-inch thick homogenous material in one hour where there is a difference of one degree Fahrenheit perpendicularly across the two surfaces of the material. Since the utility of closed-cell polyurethane-type foams is based, in part, on their thermal insulation properties, it would be advantageous to identify materials that produce lower k-factor foams.
Preferred blowing agents also have low global warming potential. Among these are hydrohaloolefins including hydrofluoroolefins of which trans-1,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene (1234ze(E)) and 1,1,1,4,4,4hexafluorobut-2-ene (1336mzzm(Z)) are of particular interest and hydrochlorofluoroolefins of which trans-1-chloro-3,3,3-trifluoropropene (1233zd(E)) is of particular interest. Processes for the manufacture of trans-1,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,230,146 and 7,189,884. Processes for the manufacture of trans-1-chloro-3,3,3-trifluoropropene are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,844,475 and 6,403,847.
It is convenient in many applications to provide the components for polyurethane or polyisocyanurate foams in pre-blended formulations. Most typically, the foam formulation is pre-blended into two components. The polyisocyanate and optionally isocyanate compatible raw materials, including but not limited to certain blowing agents and non-reactive surfactants, comprise the first component, commonly referred to as the "A" component. A polyol or mixture of polyols, one or more surfactant, one or more catalyst, one or more blowing agent, and other optional components including but not limited to flame retardants, colorants, compatibilizers, and solubilizers comprise the second component, commonly referred to as the "B" component. Accordingly, polyurethane or polyisocyanurate foams are readily prepared by bringing together the A and B side components either by hand mix for small preparations and, preferably, machine mix techniques to form blocks, slabs, laminates, pour-in-place panels and other items, spray applied foams, froths, and the like. Optionally, other ingredients such as fire retardants, colorants, auxiliary blowing agents, and other polyols can be added to the mixing head or reaction site. Most conveniently, however, they are all incorporated into one B component.
Applicants have come to appreciate that a shortcoming of two-component systems, especially those using certain hydrohaloolefins, including 1234ze(E), 1336(Z), and 1233zd(E), is the shelf-life of the B-side composition. Normally when a foam is produced by bringing together the A and B side components, a good foam is obtained. However, applicants have found that if the polyol premix composition containing a halogenated olefin blowing agent and a typical amine-containing catalyst is aged, prior to treatment with the polyisocyanate, deleterious effects can occur. For example, applicants have found that such formulations can produce a foamable composition which has an undesirable increase in reactivity time and/or a subsequent cell coalescence. The resulting foams are of lower quality and/or may even collapse during the formation of the foam.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Catalysts for polyurethane foam polyol premixes containing halogenated olefin blowing agents


In an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS), the essential parts, namely the ion gate, the drift chamber, and the ion collector, consist of pieces that are slice or wafer shaped, and are either anisotropically etchable or can be machined using micromechanical methods. The parts are held together by clamps, adhesives, or other known assembly methods. The drift chamber consists of two sliced pieces with a through groove being etched or milled in one of them. The groove is covered by the other smooth piece so that a drift channel is produced. The drift channel is closed at one end by a grid-shaped ion gate, which is similarly made from a sliced piece by etching or milling while the opposite end of the drift channel is closed by the ion collector, which is likewise made from a sliced piece that is electrically conducting on the inside.

This application claims the priority of German patent document 196 50 612.3, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to an ion mobility spectrometer with an ion gate, a drift chamber, and an ion collector.
An ion mobility spectrometer of this generic type is described for example in European patent document EP 0 046 699 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,390,784. It is essentially based on the fact that ions migrate to the ion collector in the drift chamber under the influence of an electrostatic field. The drift time is different for different ions and is determined by their mobility. The known ion mobility spectrometer has a drift chamber cross section of several square centimeters and drift distances up to 40 cm. The dimensions and high price of such devices limit the type and number of applications that lend themselves to this measurement method.
Attempts therefore have been made to miniaturize ion mobility spectrometers (International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry, 1993, Volume 52, pages 189-193). Implementation of the concept described therein however has proven to be difficult or impossible, since the requirements for the individual components can be met only with difficulty if at all. No mention is made in the above article of the technical implementation of a miniaturized ion gate.
Hence, the object of the present invention is to provide an ion mobility spectrometer that can be miniaturized, and which can be manufactured using conventional methods, especially those known from semiconductor manufacturing.
Another object of the invention is to provide an ion mobility spectrometer which is small and less expensive to manufacture than known prior art devices.
These and other objects and advantages are achieved by an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) according to the invention, in which the essential parts, namely the ion gate, the drift chamber, and the ion collector, consist of pieces that are essentially slice or wafer shaped, which are either anisotropically etchable or can be machined using micromechanical methods, and are held together by clamps, adhesives, or other assembly methods that are known of themselves. In the simplest form, the drift chamber consists of two sliced pieces with a through groove being etched or milled in one of them. The groove is covered by the other smooth piece so that a drift channel is produced. The drift channel is closed at one end by a grid-shaped ion gate, which is similarly made from a sliced piece by etching or milling, while the opposite end of the drift channel is closed by the ion collector, which is likewise made from a sliced piece that is electrically conducting on the inside.
In this manner, an IMS can be produced with a drift chamber cross section of less than 1 cm and a length of approximately 4 cm; in other words dimensions that correspond to about 1/10 of the previously conventional device measurements. The ionization chamber, which directly abuts the ion gate, can also be made in the same fashion.
Because of the small dimensions of the drift chamber, the measurement pulses are nearly delta-shaped with proper control of the ion gate, so that a detection limit for specific ions in the ppm range can be set. The power draw of the device can therefore be kept below 2 watts.
Because of its miniaturization, its low energy demand, and its low cost, the IMS can be used for drug or dangerous substance detection in the field, and can also be used for example as a monitoring device on high-voltage switches, which are filled with a protective gas (sulfur hexafluoride), whose concentration must be constantly monitored. Thus, frequent changing of the protective gas can therefore be eliminated.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.


Provided is a semiconductor device manufacturing method which can suppress the occurrence of positional deviation or inclination of a semiconductor element when the semiconductor element is fixed so as to be sandwiched-between two insulating substrates. The semiconductor device manufacturing method includes: obtaining a laminated body in which a semiconductor element is temporarily adhered on a first electrode formed on a first insulating substrate with a first pre-sintering layer sandwiched therebetween; temporarily adhering the semiconductor element on a second electrode formed on a second insulating substrate with a second pre-sintering layer sandwiched therebetween, the second pre-sintering layer being provided on a side opposite to the first pre-sintering layer, to obtain a semiconductor device precursor; and simultaneously heating the first pre-sintering layer and the second pre-sintering layer, to bond the semiconductor element to the first electrode and the second electrode.

Conventionally, a thermoelectric conversion module has a configuration in which a plurality of P-type thermoelectric elements and N-type thermoelectric elements are alternately arranged, and fixed so as to be sandwiched between two insulating substrates (see, for example, Patent Document 1). On each of the insulating substrates, electrodes are formed at positions corresponding to the thermoelectric elements, and the P-type thermoelectric elements and the N-type thermoelectric elements are electrically connected in series in order.
Patent Document 1 discloses a method of manufacturing a thermoelectric conversion module in which a highly-adhesive flux is applied to at least one of an insulating substrate and solder plating attached to a thermoelectric element to temporarily fix the thermoelectric element to the insulating substrate, followed by soldering using solder plating while applying heat.
In Patent Document 1, one surface of the thermoelectric element is temporarily fixed to an electrode of one of the insulating substrates, followed by heating to bond the thermoelectric element to the electrode. Then, an electrode of the other insulating substrate is bonded to the other surface of the thermoelectric element.

Semiconductor device manufacturing method


A pulse step modulator (PSM) is disclosed herein and having particular use in AM radio broadcasting. This modulator includes a plurality of series connected unit step voltage modules each including a DC voltage source and an associated actuatable switch for, when actuated, turning on the associated module to provide a unit step voltage of a given magnitude. An output circuit is connected to the modules for providing an output voltage to a load wherein the magnitude of the output voltage is a multiple of a unit step voltage in dependence upon the number of modules that are turned on. Each module exhibits the characteristic of dissipating heat when the module is turned on with the amount of heat dissipated being a function of the time duration that the module is turned on. Thermal loading of the modules is equalized by thermally coupling selected ones of the modules together as a group with the modules of each group being selected such that the average amount of heat being dissipated by each group is essentially equalized.

In AM radio broadcasting in the medium-wave and short-wave bands, a high-power vacuum tube is conventionally used in the final radio frequency amplifier stage of the transmitter. For maximum power-amplification efficiency, this tube is not operated as a linear amplifier, but rather as a class C or class D biased circuit, producing an RF envelope which follows that of the B+ DC supply voltage provided to the tube anode. Thus, modulation of the RF signal is achieved through varying the B+ DC supply to the plate anode of the tube. The high-powered audio amplification circuitry required to vary this voltage is referred to in the art as the modulator.
Recently, a modulator to achieve the foregoing has been employed in the art and is known as a pulse step modulator (PSM). Such a pulse step modulator is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,197. Briefly, a pulse step modulator (PSM) as disclosed in that patent includes a plurality of series connected unit step modules each of which includes an isolated DC voltage source, a remotely controlled switch and a series diode. The switch in each module may be remotely controlled to turn the module on or off. As each module is turned on, it provides a step voltage. As the various modules are turned on in a stepwise fashion, the output voltage will increase in steps from 0 volts to a maximum voltage with the maximum equalling the sum of all of the module DC voltage sources. A lowpass filter at the output may be employed for removing switching noise. An encoder or the like monitors a time varying input signal, such as an audio signal, and turns on one of the unit step modules for each incremental increase in the value of the audio signal. As the audio signal continues to increase in value, the modules are turned on one at a time in a given order. Similarly, as the audio signal decreases in value, the modules are sequentially turned off in the reverse order.
As noted above, when a pulse step modulator is employed in an AM transmitter, the number of modules that are turned on varies with modulation, i.e., the magnitude of the audio signal. Some modules are on almost all of the time. They only turn off at the negative peak of modulation. Some modules are off most of the time, as they only turn on at the positive peak of modulation. Therefore, there is a large difference in the average dissipation at the various modules that are required for such a pulse step modulator. That is, if such a pulse step modulator has 46 unit step modules, then unit step module 1 will have the largest amount of heat dissipation because it is turned on most of the time, whereas unit step module 46 will have very little heat dissipation because the module is turned on very seldom. This causes a large difference between these two modules. Thus, the heat dissipated by the various modules is unequal.
In an attempt to equalize the loading of the various modules in such a pulse step modulator, the prior art has included a first on-first off system employing a monitor which monitors the operation of the various modules. As the input signal increases in magnitude, the module that has been turned off the longest will be the first to be turned on. Conversely, as the input signal decreases, the module that has been turned on the longest will be the first to be turned off. Such a system is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. to A. Furrer 4,560,944. This first on-first off system requires a monitoring circuit for monitoring the operation of various modules and, hence, this may add to the cost of such a system.


Prior to plasma etching, a wafer is placed on conductive support pins which extend through an electrostatic chuck. The electrostatic chuck is disposed on a susceptor incorporating a cooling jacket. A potential for electrostatic attraction is applied to the electrostatic chuck. The support pins are lowered while they are grounded, thus placing the wafer on the electrostatic chuck. Subsequently, the support pins are retracted into the electrostatic chuck to release contact between the wafer and themselves. A heat medium gas is then supplied between the wafer and the electrostatic chuck to improve the heat transfer rate therebetween. A plasma is then generated in a process chamber, and the wafer is etched by using the plasma. Since the heat transfer rate between the wafer and the electrostatic chuck is improved before the generation of the plasma, damage to the wafer due to heat can be prevented, and the starting time required to start an etching process is shortened.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of processing a substrate to be processed, e.g., a semiconductor wafer, by using a plasma.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor device manufacturing process, various kinds of plasma processes such as plasma etching are performed with respect to a semiconductor wafer in a process chamber in a vacuum atmosphere. An electrostatic chuck having a first electrode interposed between two insulating layers is disposed on the wafer table in the process chamber in order to fix the wafer on the table. A second electrode is formed apart from the first electrode.
In a plasma etching apparatus, while the process chamber as the second electrode is grounded, RF power is supplied to the wafer table to generate a plasma around the wafer placed on the electrostatic chuck. The wafer is grounded through the plasma. When a high voltage is applied to the first electrode of the electrostatic chuck, positive and negative charges are respectively produced in the wafer and the first electrode, so that the wafer is attracted/held to/on the wafer table by the Coulomb force acting between the wafer and the first electrode. Etching is performed in this state. When the etching is completed, the supply of the RF power to the wafer table and the application of the high voltage to the first electrode are stopped. Subsequently, the processed wafer is unloaded, and the next wafer is loaded.
It is empirically known that the attractive force of the electrostatic chuck is reduced as a plasma process is repeated by the above-described method. This phenomenon is especially conspicuous when the insulating layers of the electrostatic chuck are made of polyimide. Although an exact cause for this phenomenon is not identified yet, a likely cause is that residual charges are accumulated on the support surface of the electrostatic chuck, and the Coulomb force acting between a wafer and the first electrode is decreased by the residual charges.
Furthermore, in the plasma etching apparatus, a temperature adjusting portion such as a cooling portion is arranged in the wafer table to adjust the temperature of a wafer. In addition, the space between the wafer and the electrostatic chuck is filled with a gas serving as a heat transfer medium, e.g., He, in order to improve the heat transfer rate between the wafer and the electrostatic chuck. Filling of the heat transfer gas must be performed after the wafer is fixed by the electrostatic chuck. For this reason, in a conventional method, filling of a heat transfer gas is performed after the following sequence of steps: placing a wafer on the electrostatic chuck; and applying a voltage to the electrostatic chuck to generate a plasma, thereby causing the wafer to be grounded through the plasma and fixed on the table. In this conventional sequence, however, an increase in the temperature of the wafer upon generation of the plasma cannot be adjusted until filling of the heat transfer gas is completed. Therefore, the wafer may be adversely affected by such an increase in temperature. In addition, the starting time required to start an etching process is prolonged.

Plasma process method using an electrostatic chuck


An electrically-driven device includes a handle and a head, wherein the head includes a head base coupled to the handle and movable in at least two dimensions relative to the handle and a first head attachment and a second head attachment, wherein each one of the first and second head attachments are releasably engageable, one at a time, with the head base, each one of the first and second head attachments includes a skin treatment implement constructed to treat skin or a cutting unit constructed to cut hair, and the first head attachment is different from the second head attachment.

Separate hair grooming (e.g., cutting, trimming, shaving, and/or stubbing hair from the head, face, and/or body) devices and separate skin treatment devices (e.g., skin exfoliating) are known in the prior art. There are a large number of different hair grooming devices that are designed according to different principles of operation.
Known electrically-driven devices, such as shavers and/or depilators shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,162,801 and EP 3037223A1. Other examples of known electrically-driven devices are Braun Series 5 razors; typically include a single multi-functional head having several parts. For example, the functional head may include a cartridge having cutting units (e.g., foil-type cutting units and center-trimmers). The known electronically-driven devices are constructed to receive a single, specific functional head having specific type of cutting units. For example, one electronically-driven device may be constructed to have a cutting unit for specifically shaving, another electronically-driven device may be constructed to have a cutting unit for beard trimming, while another electronically-driven device may be constructed to have a cutting unit for body grooming, while another electrically-driven device may be constructed to have a brush for exfoliating the skin, and so on. As a further example, electrical shavers are typically designed to deliver the benefit of a "clean shave." In these conventional shavers, the mechanical requirements to operate a "clean shave" functional head are very specific and different to the mechanical requirements to operate, for example, a long hair trimmer, a beard trimmer, a beard stubble trimmer, an exfoliation brush, or other skin treatment implements. Attempts to adapt prior art electrically-driven devices for multiple functions have many disadvantages in terms of usability, performance, or convenience because this flexibility had not been designed into the device from the beginning, nor has the device been optimized for the multiple hair grooming and/or skin treatment functions. Thus, users of such prior art devices experience a drop off in performance when using such device to perform one or more of the hair grooming and/or skin treatment functions. For example, in performing some functions, the functional head of the electrically-driven device may need to be fixed relative to the handle in order to achieve maximum performance. In others, the functional head may need to tilt only (relative to the handle) to achieve maximum performance, and yet, in others, the functional head may need to tilt and swivel relative the handle to achieve maximum performance.
Thus, a user is required to possess multiple electrically-driven devices for each specific hair grooming and/or skin treatment purpose. Requiring multiple electrically-driven devices for each hair grooming and/or skin treatment adds additional expenses to the consumer, creates inconvenience to the consumer, and requires additional space for storage and charging of each of these individual electrically-driven devices.
What is desired is a single electrically-driven device that is able to interchange and receive multiple types of head attachments (i.e., cartridges), each head attachment may be constructed to perform a different duty or duties (e.g., long hair trimming, beard trimming, body grooming, facial hair stubble trimming to create razor stubble appearance, skin treatment (e.g., brushing, foliating), etc.). What is also desired is having fewer electronically-driven devices for performing multiple skin and hair grooming functions. What is also desired is an electrically-driven device that can translate rotary motion of the motor to linear, reciprocating motion in the head, even without the additional parts, such as, for example, an oscillating bridge.

Electrically-driven device constructed to receive a plurality of attachments


A system for providing stable tape-travel in a recording and/or reproducing apparatus includes a tape travel-direction switching mechanism and a tape tension regulating mechanism. The tape travel-direction switching mechanism forces a pendulum gear to engage one of a supply or take-up reel table when the traveling direction of tape is switched between forward and reverse directions while a capstan motor is turned off and a pinch roller presses the tape against the capstan so as to prevent the occurrence of slack in the tape. The tape tension regulating mechanism takes up the slack in the tape before a capstan axle causes the tape to travel in the reverse direction, so as to prevent the tape from being loosened when the traveling direction of the tape is switched from the forward direction to the reverse direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for providing stable tape-travel in recording and/or reproducing apparatus, such as video tape recorders (VTR). More specifically, the invention relates to a system which can prevent the occurrence of slack in tape which travels in a recording and/or reproducing apparatus when the tape traveling direction is switched between forward and reverse.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, some recording and/or reproducing apparatus, such as video tape recorders, use a common motor which drives a capstan axle as well as two reel tables in order to make the apparatus more compact.
In such recording and/or reproducing apparatus, the motor causes the capstan axle to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise for causing magnetic tape to travel along a tape traveling path in a forward or reverse direction. The magnetic tape is urged toward the capstan axle by means of a pinch roller so as to travel depending upon the rotation of the capstan axle. The motor also causes two reel tables, i.e. a supply reel table and a take-up reel table to selectively rotate clockwise or counterclockwise via a pendulum gear which is movable between the supply and take-up reel tables. The pendulum gear is engageable with respective reel tables via idler gears. With this construction, for example, in order to cause the magnetic tape to travel in the forward direction, the capstan motor rotates counterclockwise, so that the magnetic tape is fed toward the take-up reel table depending upon the rotation of the capstan axle. At this time, the pendulum gear engages the take-up reel table via an idler gear so that the take-up reel table rotates clockwise for winding magnetic tape thereon. On the other hand, in order to cause the magnetic tape to travel in the rearward direction, the capstan motor rotates clockwise, so that the magnetic tape is fed toward the supply reel table depending upon the rotation of the capstan axle. At this time, the pendulum gear engages the supply reel table via its idler gear so that the supply reel table rotates counterclockwise for winding the magnetic tape thereon.
On the other hand, in recent years, some video tape recorders have a so-called JOG/SHUTTLE function which may suitably perform reproduction in forward or reverse directions at a slow-speed, a usual-speed or a high-speed. In such video tape recorders, for example, when the operation mode is switched from a forward reproduction mode in which the magnetic tape travels in the forward direction while the reproduction of picture signals is performed, to a reverse reproduction mode in which the magnetic tape travels in the reverse direction while the reproduction of picture signals is performed, there is a disadvantage in that tape drop-out, jitter, picture noise and so forth are produced at the switching time.
That is, when the operation mode is switched from the forward reproduction mode to the reverse reproduction mode, the supply and take-up reel tables do not rotate to take up the magnetic tape thereon while the pendulum gear is moving between the reel tables, although the capstan axle continues to rotate, feeding magnetic tape toward the supply reel table. As a result, slack in the tape traveling path is produced, so that the magnetic tape can not suitably come into proper contact with a rotary head drum thus, tape drop-out, jitter, picture noise and so forth are caused.
In order to prevent the aforementioned disadvantage, the tape may be prevented from being fed by releasing the pinch roller from contact with the capstan axle while the pendulum gear is moving between the supply and take-up reel tables. However, when the tape pinch roller is released from tight contact against the capstan axle, the position of the magnetic tape tends to shift relative to the rotary head drum. In addition, switching operations between forward and reverse reproduction modes cannot be rapidly performed. Therefore, the above solution cannot be used for video tape recorders having a JOG/SHUTTLE function.
In addition, in recent years, some video tape recorders have a tape tension regulating mechanism which applies a constant tension to the magnetic tape for maintaining suitable contact conditions between the magnetic tape and the rotary head drum. Such conventional tension regulating mechanisms are designed to apply tension to the magnetic tape when the operation mode is the forward reproduction mode, and to release tension from being applied to the magnetic tape when the operation mode is switched from the forward reproduction mode to the reverse reproduction mode. As a result, when the operation mode is switched from forward to reverse, a disadvantage occurs in that slack in the tape traveling path is produced, so that the position of the magnetic tape may shift from a suitable position on the rotary head drum, causing occurrence of tape drop-out, jitter, picture noise and so forth.

Recording and/or reproducing apparatus having tape travel direction control arrangement which prevents tape slippage and slack generation


The present invention is to solve the problems described above and to provide the plasma torch nozzle of graphite material coupled to the front electrode of the plasma torch by bolts.

Thermal plasma is generally used for disposal of wastes, development of new material, elimination of noxious gases, etc.
The core technology in thermal plasma relates to plasma torch generating ultra high temperature of plasma. Among the plasma torches, DC (direct current) arc plasma torch of hollow type is most widely used.
The plasma torch of hollow type has electrode generating DC arc inside. The electrode has a particularly designed inner space of which the front side and the rear side have a front electrode 2 and a rear electrode 3, respectively, to confine ultra high temperature of plasma that is conductive fluid and to give necessary properties. The inner space is connected to the electric discharge electrode of the torch nozzle and serves as guide to finally discharge the plasma focused on a fluid arc spot to the outside.
Particularly, the electrode and electrode nozzle of the plasma torch are made of OPC (oxygen free copper) material for easy arc ignition.
However, since the front electrode and electrode nozzle of OPC material are places on which DC arc spot is focused, they are fast eroded due to high temperature of arc heat.
Still in the case of torch of reverse polarity type, the erosion in the cathode spot is larger than in the anode spot.
And in a melting furnace system using the plasma torch, the torch electric discharge electrode of OPC material is inserted into the melting furnace for operation and thus is exposed to high temperature of plasma atmosphere.
Therefore water cooling is necessarily required to lower the rate of erosion in the front part of the torch and this deteriorates heat efficiency of the plasma torch.
Also a behavior of plasma in the melting furnace is less reproducible and always has large uncertainty. The torch nozzle exposed to this situation is easily damaged in the cooling channel even by small side arcing.
In this case, the operation is stopped and the nozzle must be replaced with new one. This will lower the efficiency of operation.
Further, since the price of OPC is expensive and the nozzle is also very expensive because of difficult processing process of it, it is generally uneconomical.
The electrode nozzle of OPC material in conventional plasma torch is very expensive in its price and causes side arcing. Thus it has problems of short life cycle, low operating efficiency and economical infeasibility.

Abstract: To achieve the object of the invention, the plasma torch nozzle according to this invention is characterized by that the torch nozzle is fixedly coupled to the front electrode of the plasma torch by one or more bolts.


Structural cement panel for resisting transverse and shear loads equal to transverse and shear loads provided by plywood and oriented strain board, when fastened to framing for use in shear walls, flooring and roofing systems. The panels provide reduced thermal transmission compared to other structural cement panels. The panels employ one or more layers of a continuous phase resulting from curing an aqueous mixture of calcium sulfate alpha hemihydrate, hydraulic cement, coated expanded perlite particles filler, optional additional fillers, active pozzolan and lime. The coated perlite has a particle size of 1-500 microns, a median diameter of 20-150 microns, and an effective particle density (specific gravity) of less than 0.50 g/cc. The panels are reinforced with fibers, for example alkali-resistant glass fibers. The preferred panel contains no intentionally added entrained air. A method of improving fire resistance in a building is also disclosed.

This invention relates generally to panels applied to framing in residential and other types of light construction. More particularly, the invention relates to panels able to resist lateral forces imposed by high wind and earthquake loads in regions where they are required by building codes. Such panels, commonly known as shear walls or diaphragms, must demonstrate shear resistance as shown in recognized tests, such as ASTM E72-05 (effective 2005).
The sheathing panels are measured to determine the load which the panel can resist within the allowed deflection without failure. The shear rating is generally based on testing of three identical 8×8 ft (2.44×2.44 m) assemblies, i.e., panels fastened to framing. One edge is fixed in place while a lateral force is applied to a free end of the assembly until the load is no longer carried and the assembly fails.
The measured shear strength will vary, depending upon the thickness of the panel and the size and spacing of the nails used in the assembly. For example, a typical assembly, e.g., a nominal ½ inch (12.7 mm) thick plywood fastened with 8d nails (see the nail description below) to nominal 2×4 inch (50.8×101.6 mm) wood studs spaced 16 inches (406.4 mm) apart (on centers), the nails being spaced 6 inches (152.4 mm) apart on the perimeter and 12 inches (304.8 mm) apart within the perimeter, would be expected to show a shear strength of 720 lbs/ft (1072 kg/m) before failure occurs. (Note the measured strength will vary as the nail size and spacing is changed, as the ASTM E72 test provides.) This ultimate strength will be reduced by a safety factor, e.g., a factor of three, to set the design shear strength for the panel.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,620,487 to Tonyan et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses a reinforced, lightweight, dimensionally stable structural cement panel (SCP) capable of resisting shear loads when fastened to framing equal to or exceeding shear loads provided by plywood or oriented strand board panels. The panels employ a core of a continuous phase resulting from the curing of an aqueous mixture of calcium sulfate alpha hemihydrate, hydraulic cement, an active pozzolan and lime, the continuous phase being reinforced with alkali-resistant glass fibers and containing ceramic microspheres, or a blend of ceramic and polymer microspheres, or being formed from an aqueous mixture having a weight ratio of water-to-reactive powder of 0.6/1 to 0.7/1 or a combination thereof. At least one outer surface of the panels may include a cured continuous phase reinforced with glass fibers and containing sufficient polymer spheres to improve nailability or made with a water-to-reactive powders ratio to provide an effect similar to polymer spheres, or a combination thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,815 to Bonen, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, also discloses formulations useful for SCP panels.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,445,738 to Dubey, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a multi-layer process for producing structural cementitious panels (SCP's or SCP panels), and SCP's produced by such a process. After one of an initial deposition of loosely distributed, chopped fibers or a layer of slurry upon a moving web, fibers are deposited upon the slurry layer. An embedment device mixes the recently deposited fibers into the slurry, after which additional layers of slurry, and then chopped fibers are added, followed by more embedment. The process is repeated for each layer of the board, as desired.
US Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0011207 A1 to Dubey, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a fast setting lightweight cementitious composition for construction of panels or boards. The cementitious composition includes 35-60 wt. % cementitious reactive powder (also termed Portland cement-based binder), 2-10 wt. % expanded and chemically coated perlite filler, 20-40 wt. % water, entrained air, for example 10-50 vol. %, on a wet basis, entrained air, and optional additives such as water reducing agents, chemical set-accelerators, and chemical set-retarders. The lightweight cementitious compositions may also optionally contain 0-25 wt. % secondary fillers, for example 10-25 wt. % secondary fillers. Typical filler include one or more of expanded clay, shale aggregate, and pumice. The cementitious reactive powder used is typically composed of either pure Portland cement or a mixture of Portland cement and a suitable pozzolanic material such as fly ash or blast furnace slag. The cementitious reactive powder may also optionally contain one or more of gypsum (land plaster) and high alumina cement (HAC) added in small dosages to influence setting and hydration characteristics of the binder.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,704 to Billings discloses thermal insulating material containing silicone treated perlite and an admixture with gypsum and cement.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,601,919 to Symons discloses a building component having a core formed from one or more sheets of natural fiber impregnated with a liquid composition including a thermoplastic resin and a catalyst for setting the resin and an encapsulating layer encapsulating the core which can contains a hydraulic binder and water wherein the binder is selected from Portland cement or calcium sulphate hemihydrate at 15-65 parts by weight and a filler which can be expanded vermiculite or perlite. The expanded perlite is of 0.05 mm to 3 mm particle size which is treated with silicone to make it hydrophobic.
There remains a need for improved panels which can meet the shear rating required in certain locations and which exceed the capability of the currently-used wood-based panels as well as current gypsum-cement based structural cement panels by providing a non-combustible panel with the same shear strength at lower panel weight which also has improved water durability and thermal resistance.

High performance non-combustible gypsum-cement compositions with enhanced water durability and thermal stability for reinforced cementitious lightweight structural cement panels


The invention relates to, in particular, a fuel injection valve and to a method for injecting fuel into a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine. According to the invention, a mechanical positive-control valve gear is provided for a nozzle needle of the fuel injection valve in order to carry out an injection of fuel.

Fuel injection valves are known in the prior art in different embodiments. Modern fuel injection valves are frequently used in conjunction with storage injection systems which have a pressure accumulator for storing fuel under high pressure. The injectors assigned to the individual combustion chambers of the internal combustion engine are supplied with fuel from this pressure accumulator. The fuel supply is fed to the pressure accumulator by a high-pressure pump. In order to comply with all the requirements regarding their exhaust-gas threshold values, their fuel consumption and their noise levels, etc. today's internal combustion engines need at each engine characteristic point a precisely defined curve of injection quantity over injection time. In the known fuel injection valves, the volume flow through the nozzle orifices at a certain pressure, and consequently the quantity of fuel injected per unit time, is determined by the cross-section which the nozzle needle releases depending on its respective needle lift. At a specified pressure there is therefore for each required flow rate a correspondingly associated, precisely defined nozzle needle lift. Consequently, in order to set a certain volume flow, the nozzle needle would have to be set to a certain lift value. In order to execute a certain shaped injection curve, the nozzle needle would have to be raised within an injection cycle to several precisely defined positions and possibly even lowered again. In today's known fuel injection valves, however, there are only two precisely defined needle positions, namely zero (valve closed) and full lift (valve fully open). Therefore, only two precisely defined flow rates are also possible, namely zero flow rate and maximum flow rate.
Each flow-rate value which lies between these two extremes can always be achieved only approximately, since in the known injection valves the appropriate needle lift can be set only very imprecisely through modulation of the pressure. As this is done, the nozzle needle "rides" on a hydraulic cushion and is thus also subject to the pressure waves and fluctuations present in the nozzle. As a result, however, instead of the necessary, precisely defined needle lift stop for accurately controlling the injection quantity, only an approximate ballistic stopping point of the nozzle needle is produced. This results in approximate, highly scattered and very poorly reproducible injection quantities, which leads to a below-optimum combustion sequence with associated poor results in terms of emissions, noise and fuel consumption.
In the currently known methods for controlling the flow of fuel into the combustion chamber, this flow is always controlled only indirectly, i.e., the control of the nozzle needle is carried out only indirectly via a hydraulic servo-circuit. Here, however, the temporal and quantitative metering of fuel into the combustion chamber depends on very many influencing factors of this servohydraulic system and fluctuates correspondingly widely, which in turn impacts negatively on the quality of combustion in the engine. In particular, digital switching of the servo-valve (open/closed) cannot carry out any precise shaping of the injection characteristics. In particular, in the lower partial-load range, in which the nozzle needle finds itself while injecting between these two extreme positions, the undefined position of the nozzle needle leads to widely varying and non-reproducible injection quantities. The same problem is exhibited by the pump-nozzle systems also known today, since these also open or close the nozzle needle only indirectly by modulating pressure at the shutoff valve.

Fuel injection valve having a mechanical positive-control valve gear


In a transmitter of the present invention, a modulated signal is separated into an amplitude component and a phase component which are inputted to a radio-frequency modulated signal input terminal and a supply voltage terminal of a radio-frequency power amplifier. A voltage adjustment circuit is provided between an output terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier and an amplitude amplification circuit having a feedback circuit. The voltage adjustment circuit changes the amount of isolation in accordance with the voltage level of the amplitude component. By this, the amplitude component of the radio-frequency modulated wave attenuates the level inputted to the feedback circuit of the amplitude amplification circuit through the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radio transmitter used for communication methods using subcarriers such as the OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplex).
2. Prior Art
Generally, for modulated signals involving amplitude modulation, in particular, modulated signals involving multilevel modulation such as QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), a linear operation is required of the radio-frequency power amplifier for transmitting power to the antenna. For this reason, as the operation class of the radio-frequency power amplifier, Class A and Class AB have been used.
However, with the migration to broadband communications, communication methods using subcarriers such as the OFDM have come to be used, and high efficiency cannot be expected of the conventional Class-A and Class-AB radio-frequency power amplifiers. That is, in the OFDM, high power is instantaneously generated in a completely random fashion by superimposing subcarriers on one another. That is, the ratio between the average power and the instantaneous peak power, PAPR (peak to average power ratio), is high. For this reason, it is necessary to always hold high DC power so that the instantaneous peak power can also be linearly amplified. In the Class-A operation, the power supply efficiency is only 50% at the most; in particular, in the case of the OFDM, the power supply efficiency is as low as approximately 10% since the PAPR is high.
Consequently, for example, in portable radios using batteries as the power source, the continuous usable time is short, which is inadequate for practical use.
To solve such a problem, a conventional EER (envelope elimination and restoration) method known as Khan's method has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the EER method in outline. In FIG. 8, a modulated signal, for example a QAM signal, outputted from an OFDM signal generation circuit 100 as modulated signal generating means is divided into two branches. On one branch, the modulated signal is upconverted by a quadrature modulation circuit 111, and inputted as a radio-frequency modulated wave to a radio-frequency modulated signal input terminal of a radio-frequency power amplifier 112 comprising a saturated amplifier. On the other branch, the modulated signal is converted to an amplitude component by an amplitude extraction circuit 101, amplified to a desired amplitude component voltage level by an operational amplifier 103, and inputted to an emitter follower 106 as voltage converting means. The emitter follower 106 supplies the current required by the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 to the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 together with the amplitude component. In FIG. 8, reference numeral 102 represents an amplitude amplification circuit as amplitude amplifying means, reference numeral 104 represent a feedback circuit, and reference numeral 105 represents a supply voltage portion.
When a radio-frequency modulated wave which is an input signal is amplified by the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 comprising a saturated amplifier, the amplitude component of the radio-frequency modulated wave is temporarily lost in the process. However, when the supply voltage of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 is controlled in proportion to the amplitude component of the radio-frequency modulated wave which is the input signal, the amplitude component of the radio-frequency modulated wave is inputted from the supply voltage portion 105 to the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112. As a result, a radio-frequency modulated wave containing the original amplitude component which radio-frequency modulated wave is restored at the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 is outputted.
The provision of this structure enables the radio-frequency power amplifier to operate in a highly efficient saturated condition even when the amplitude component of the modulated signal is changed, so that the efficiency of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 can be enhanced.
Here, when the radio-frequency power amplifier comprises, for example, a field-effect transistor, the saturated amplifier refers to a Class-F amplifier where harmonic control is performed so that the drain voltage waveform is rectangular, or a Class-E or a Class-D amplifier where the load condition is optimized so that the drain voltage waveform and the drain current waveform do not overlap each other. In this saturated amplifier, since the period during which the drain current and the drain voltage are simultaneously generated is minimized as a characteristic thereof, power consumption can be suppressed.
For example, when a supply current and a supply voltage of 200 mA and 3V are supplied, the DC power is 600 mW. However, in the saturated amplifier as the radio-frequency power amplifier 112, no current flows when the field-effect transistor is off, and only the supply voltage is applied. Consequently, the DC power consumption is 0. On the other hand, although a current of 200 mA flows when the field-effect transistor is on, since the field-effect transistor is completely conducting, it can be assumed that the drain-source voltage VDS is a saturated voltage, that is, 0.3 V at the most. In this case, a DC power of 0.3 V×0.2 A=0.06 W, that is, 60 mW is consumed in the field-effect transistor. The power supply efficiency reaches as high as (600−60)/600=90%. This effect is significant because the power supply efficiency reaches only 50% at the most in the Class-A amplifier.
Generally, in transmitters using the EER method, unless the amplitude component and the phase component obtained from the output terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier are precise reproductions of the phase component and the amplitude component of the original modulated signal, the original modulated signal (precisely, radio-frequency modulated wave since the original modulated signal is frequency-converted) cannot be reproduced. That is, the errors of the amplitude component and the phase component appear as a spectral distortion of the outputted radio-frequency modulated wave and degradation in modulation accuracy.
For this reason, in the EER method, it is necessary to output, from the modulated signal generator 100, a modulated signal having undergone an inverse correction processing to previously obtain the error function of the amplitude component and the phase component and multiply the amplitude component and the phase component by the inverse function of the error function.
Moreover, it is necessary for the transmission path of the amplitude component to have a closed loop structure having a feedback circuit so that the error component reaching the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier is reduced.
When the saturated amplifier is used in a completely saturated region, the amount of fluctuations in the phase change with respect to the change in the amplitude component inputted to the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier is increased, so that the arithmetic throughput of the inverse correction processing is increased. In addition, for example, when the characteristic of the radio-frequency power amplifier is changed due to fluctuations in temperature or power, since the amount of fluctuations in the error function is increased, a spectral distortion or degradation in modulation accuracy occurs in the radio-frequency modulated wave as a result.
For this reason, as the saturated amplifier characteristic to be used, a region that is not completely saturated, that is, a region close to the saturated region, for example, the 1-dB gain compression point is used.
Patent Document 1: U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,330A1
However, as the modulated signal, in a modulated signal with a high PAPR and high instantaneous peak power like that of the IEEE 802.11a/g standard which is a wireless LAN standard, there are cases where by the transmitter characteristic fluctuating, a time delay occurs between a first amplitude component outputted from the amplitude extraction circuit 101 and a second amplitude component of a radio-frequency modulated wave inputted to the radio-frequency modulated signal input terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112, amplified and occurring at the output terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112.
In this case, the following problem arises: When the occurring time delay is the allowable level of the inverse function of the amplitude component and the phase component, the distortion of the radio-frequency modulated wave never occurs. However, when the second amplitude component leaks to the feedback circuit 104 as shown in FIG. 8, the leakage component and the first amplitude component are superimposed on each other in the feedback circuit 104. This causes ringing due to a transient response, so that the amplitude component outputted from the amplitude amplification circuit 102 constituting the closed loop oscillates without converging. Consequently, the modulated waveform cannot be reproduced and a distortion occurs at the output terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112, that is, the saturated amplifier.
Generally, as the modulated signal, in a modulated wave where the PAPR is high and the difference between the average power and the instantaneous peak power is large like that of the IEEE 802.11a/g standard which is a wireless LAN standard, in a linear amplifier where no amplitude component is required of the supply voltage of the radio-frequency power amplifier, a large capacitance can be set in the vicinity of the supply voltage terminal in order to suppress the modulated wave characteristic degradation due to supply voltage fluctuations.
However, in the EER method, it is necessary for the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier to linearly transmit an amplitude component having a frequency component of, for example, approximately 40 MHz. For this reason, a capacitance having a high capacitance value cannot be set at the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier. That is, the capacitance value of the capacitance stays at a value where at least a signal of 40 MHz can pass. Therefore, the error of the amplitude component is inputted to the supply voltage terminal of the radio-frequency power amplifier 112 without attenuated. In that case, a linear distortion such as a ripple occurs. This appears as a spectral distortion of the modulated wave and degradation in modulation accuracy as a result.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A method and apparatus to form an audio bridge session are described.

An audio bridge session may be a telephone communication session between multiple parties. Each party may communicate with other parties participating in the session similar to a conference call. Audio bridge sessions may be particularly advantageous when parties are geographical remote from one another thereby making face-to-face meetings difficult to attend. As with many technologies, there may be significant advantages in reducing the amount of work needed to arrange or participate in an audio bridge session. Consequently, there may be a need for improved audio bridge technology to provide such advantages.

Method and apparatus for an audio bridge


Sulfonium salt photoinitiator compositions, precursors useful in the preparation of such photoinitiators and the use of these photoinitiators in, e.g., UV curable adhesives, UV curable sealants, UV curable coating compositions, such as printing inks and varnishes, and UV curable encapsulants.

The primary function of a photoinitiator is to initiate polymerization when the photoinitiator is irradiated with e.g., ultraviolet (UV) radiation. There are two main types of photoinitiators that can be used to initiate polymerization in the monomer or prepolymer upon irradiation—radical photoinitiators and cationic photoinitiators.
The most frequently used cationic photoinitiators are either organic iodonium or sulfonium salts. The mechanism by which a cationic photoinitiator acts, when irradiated, is that it forms an excited state which then breaks down to release a radical cation. This radical cation reacts with the solvent, or another hydrogen atom donor, eventually generating a protonic acid. The active species that initiates the polymerization is the protonic acid.
There continues to be a need in the art for cationic polymerization photoinitiators, including novel sulfonium salts, that can advantageously be used in UV curable compositions. The present invention addresses this need.

Sulfonium salt photinitiators and use thereof

National Starch and Chemical Investment Holding Corporation