An alignment mark mask element protects an underlying alignment mark during subsequent processing of a fabrication substrate. The alignment mark mask element is formed concurrent with formation of a photomask from a dual-tone photoresist that exhibits a pattern reversal upon exposure to an energy level. A portion of the dual-tone photoresist above the alignment mark is exposed to an energy sufficient to reverse a positive tone resist to a negative tone, which remains above the alignment mark after developing. The remainder of the dual-tone photoresist is exposed through a reticle at a lesser energy level and patterned to define aperture locations of a photomask for formation of semiconductor device features. In addition, a photomask for use on a fabrication substrate and an intermediate semiconductor device are disclosed. Methods of forming a photomask and an intermediate semiconductor device structure are also disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to forming an alignment mark mask element over an alignment mark on a semiconductor substrate. More specifically, the present invention relates to using a dual-tone photoresist to form the alignment mark mask element in conjunction with a photomask from the same photoresist material, thereby enabling semiconductor device features to be formed up to a peripheral edge of the alignment mark which is protected by the mask element.
2. State of the Art
To fabricate an integrated circuit on a semiconductor substrate such as a wafer, multiple layers of conductors and insulators are patterned and formed upon one another. In order to preserve circuit continuity, it is critical that each layer is aligned to a previous layer with great precision and accuracy. The alignment of layers is conventionally accomplished using a wafer stepper. The wafer stepper transfers a desired pattern situated on a reticle or mask onto a layer formed on the semiconductor wafer. In a typical alignment operation, the semiconductor wafer is coated with a transparent photosensitive material, such as a photoresist, and loaded into the wafer stepper. The wafer stepper uses an alignment mark on the semiconductor wafer as a reference point to adjust the position of the reticle over the semiconductor wafer to precisely align the reticle to the previous layer on the semiconductor wafer. The alignment mark is also referred to as a "fiducial mark" or a "combi mark."
The wafer stepper uses a laser beam with a fixed wavelength to sense the position of the alignment mark on the semiconductor wafer. Light from the laser beam is reflected off the alignment mark to create a diffraction pattern. The diffraction pattern from the alignment mark is reflected to sensing devices in the wafer stepper and is used as a signal to indicate the exact position of the alignment mark. The signals are analyzed and used to determine the position of the alignment mark. The alignment mark on the semiconductor wafer is then aligned with corresponding marks on other layers, such as a photomask.
Referring to FIG. 1, an alignment mark 5 is formed by etching a semiconductor wafer 10 to create a trench or plurality of trenches or grooves in a surface of the semiconductor wafer 10. The trenches or grooves of the alignment mark 5 are typically formed in known areas of the semiconductor wafer 10 and have a known pattern, orientation and spatial relationship. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the alignment mark 5 is usually formed along a peripheral edge of the semiconductor wafer 10 or near scribe lines that separate locations of semiconductor dice 15 on the semiconductor wafer 10. The trenches or grooves of the alignment mark 5 create a difference in step height in the semiconductor wafer 10, which is detected when the laser beam is reflected off the alignment mark 5 or a layer thereover. Integrated circuits of the semiconductor dice 15 are typically not formed on or near the alignment marks 5, thereby making these portions of the semiconductor wafer 10 wasted space or "real estate" on or immediately adjacent to which semiconductor dice 15 cannot be formed.
After the indicia of the alignment mark 5 have been etched into the semiconductor wafer 10, additional layers of material are deposited to form the desired integrated circuits elsewhere on the substrate, the layers also incidentally being deposited over alignment mark 5. These additional layers are, in turn, patterned and etched to form field isolation regions, polysilicon conductors, or interlayer dielectrics on the semiconductor wafer 10. Depending on the material composition of these additional layers, the alignment mark 5 can become optically invisible when additional layers are deposited over the alignment mark 5. However, since these additional layers are typically deposited conformally, the step height of the alignment mark 5 is transferred into the subsequently deposited layers. Therefore, the transferred alignment mark remains optically visible and may still be used for alignment purposes. In addition, some of the additional layers are optically transparent and, therefore, the alignment mark 5 remains visible through these layers.
Integrity of the alignment mark is commonly adversely affected during subsequent processing steps. For example, the alignment mark or transferred alignment mark is damaged by abrasive polishing techniques such as chemical mechanical polishing ("CMP"). CMP techniques are not tightly controlled at the edges of the semiconductor wafer, where the alignment marks are located, because no integrated circuits are located there. Therefore, it is common to overpolish when using CMP techniques and to remove portions of the semiconductor wafer in which the alignment mark is formed. In addition, CMP techniques may remove the alignment marks or flatten the edges of the alignment marks so that the necessary reflection off the alignment mark by the laser beam is not obtained.
Various solutions to recover or repair damaged alignment marks have been proposed. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,290,631 to Chu et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,261,918 to So, U.S. Pat. No. 6,271,602 to Ackmann et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,972 to Maury et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,350,658 to Miraglia et al. In addition, solutions to protect the alignment marks have been proposed. In both U.S. Pat. No. 6,342,426 to Li et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,326,278 to Komuro, a photoresist layer is formed on an underlying conductive layer, which extends over an alignment mark. The photoresist is patterned for etching of the conductive layer and to leave a protective metal layer portion over the alignment mark.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,417,076 to Holscher et al., assigned to the assignee of the present invention and the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses an approach to protecting alignment marks by depositing a globule of protective material over the alignment marks and, in some instances, at least partially over conductive patterning adjacent an alignment mark to protect same.
It would be desirable to form an alignment mark mask element over the alignment mark in the course of forming a photomask so that the alignment mark is protected from damage by subsequent processing steps. In addition, it would be desirable to reduce the wasted space on the semiconductor wafer and to increase the number of semiconductor dice that is formed per wafer by enabling formation of semiconductor device features, such as integrated circuits, in closer proximity to alignment marks.

Use of a dual-tone resist to form photomasks including alignment mark protection, intermediate semiconductor device structures and bulk semiconductor device substrates


A legless table is provided. The legless table includes a tabletop, a first support, a track, a fastener and a second support whereby the legless table is selectively attachable to an upright protrusion. The tabletop includes an upper surface and a lower surface where the first support is coupled to the lower surface. The track is located on the lower surface of the tabletop and forms a slot. Further, the fastener is positionably retained in the slot and is used to positionably secure the second support to the lower surface of the tabletop.

Tables come in a variety of sizes, shapes and types. Most notable is the traditional table having legs positioned at each corner and used to support an upper surface. The upper surface is used for placing a variety of objects on it or doing tasks thereupon. Tables may be placed or used in many locations including inside or outside, such as in a kitchen, on a back patio, or at a park. A typical requirement in order to use a table is that there needs to be sufficient space and a nearly flat surface in which to place the legs. A traditional table may not adequately work in situations where there is minimal space or an upright protrusion is found upon the surface. Furthermore, a traditional table may not be so conveniently stored because the legs protrude from its surface. In order to overcome these difficulties, proposed solutions in the prior art have included tables with adjustable legs, as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,465, that enable the table to jump the upright protrusion of a car trunk by making multiple adjustments of the various legs, the legs being foldable up to the table surface; a legless table having cantilevered surfaces as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 3,011,847 where the table is cantilevered across a trunk wall and attached to the bottom of a trunk by requiring perforation or modification to the attachment structure; and a legless table as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 6,308,641 pivotally cantilevered to a wall and storable therein to conserve space but is not portable. The aforementioned solutions being suitable to a particular need are not suited to various other situations.
Accordingly, a solution is needed that may provide a table that is mountable in situations where there may be a protrusion within the table location such as a deck rail or trunk wall, or where there is limited space such as on a balcony or between the seats of an airplane. A solution is also needed enhancing the portability and self-storing capabilities of the table.


A liquid crystal display (LCD) device containing a layer of patterned photoluminescent nanoparticles, which can emit highly saturated color lights when excited with backlights, is disclosed in this invention. The patterned photoluminescent nanoparticle layer is disposed between the backlight and the liquid crystal. The display device can improve the light utilization efficiency for 3 times thus saving reduce the backlight power consumption to ⅓ or being 3 times brighter at the same power consumption from conventional LCD displays. The display also can produce an ultra-wide color gamut up to 95% of the CIE 1976 color space or 165% of NTSC color gamut. The display is capable of switching between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional viewing modes without any hardware structures changes applied.

In current color, transmissive LCD technology, the color display is implemented through three major components (FIG. 1) (a) backlight—white light source; (b) subpixel matrix of LC with controlling electrode matrix—white light transmission control (black and white control); and (c) subpixel matrix color filters—to filter lights in each subpixel and produce colors (color control). The subpixels in (b) and (c) are aligned in a one-to-one fashion.
The color gamut of a LCD is majorly decided by two factors: (a) spectral power distribution of color lights in the white backlight; and (b) the color filtering spectral powder distribution of color filters. The backlight itself has always defined the color temperature and the color space available. The ability of the color filters to produce high purity primary colors for individual subpixels determines the actual displayable color gamut of the LCD. Color filters are always not ideal to produce high color purity; thus, the LCD color gamut is always smaller than theoretical color gamut from the backlight. Current average LCD monitors using CCFL backlight can display about 70%-75% of NTSC color gamut (which is 54.2% of CIE 1976 color gamut).
Energy efficiency is another aspect of LCD to be improved yet. The evolution of backlight from CCFL to RGB-LEDs has greatly improved the energy efficiency for the backlight. However, the low energy efficiency, caused by color filters, has not been addressed yet. For color filters, the problem associates with their low light usage efficiency. Color filters absorb about 70%-75% of the lights from the LC layer, thus result to only 25%-30% of light usage efficiency in the color filter layer. This means that there is still plenty room for improving the light usage efficiency and the energy efficiency for LCDs.
The third aspect of LCD which can be further improved is the brightness. Current LCD monitors typically has brightness in about 150-300 cd/m2. For high dynamic range displays, outdoor displays, and larger screen displays, brighter LCDs are needed. This can be improved by increasing the brightness of the backlight. However, considering that the overall light usage efficiency for current LCDs is only 5-10%, meaning that a 3000 cd/m2 backlight can produce LCD with only 150-300 cd/m2 brightness to viewers, that strategy is not efficient in energy. Moreover, much more heat will be produced for the white light as well as in the color filters. Heat dissipation will be an additional hurdle especially for larger screen displays.
Aiming to improve these three important performance specifications for LCDs, alternative approaches, without the use of color filters. In such color-filter-free LCDs, individual primary colors are produced by fluorescence or phosphorescence phenomenon. An emitting layer composed of organic dyes or phosphors can absorb UV or blue lights and emit blue, green, or red lights. When these dyes or phosphors are patterned as subpixels, individual primary colors can be produced for each subpixel. The light exiting is still be controlled by LC modules. These new designs can be referred as PL color LCDs. They can result to a large improvement in light usage efficiency and energy efficiency.
The loss of polarization information in the emitted lights for QDs-based photoluminescent LCDs as disclosed in the above two patents may prevent direct applications of such displays from stereoscopic 3D displays. Stereoscopic display refers to the technique for creating 3D visual perception for viewers by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. The human brain can combine both 2D offset images to give the perception of 3D depth. One way to achieve stereoscopic display is by creating two differently polarized views, which are viewed correctly by left and right eyes when the observe wears a pair of analyzing polarized glasses (FIG. 2). For conventional LCDs, the output light is polarized, and suitable for stereoscopic 3D display. For the two photoluminescent LCDs as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2009/0230412A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 2009/0091689A1, such polarization information is not present in the photoluminescent lights from QDs. This may limit these new photoluminescent LCDs for stereoscopic 3D displays.

Photoluminescent nanocrystals based color liquid crystal display for switchable two dimensional/three dimensional displays with wider color gamut and high energy efficiency


An active energy ray-curable ink composition comprising a colorant, a monomer and a photopolymerization initiator, in which the monomer contains an acrylamide derivative in an amount of 10 to 90% by weight based on the whole weight of the ink composition, and the ink composition has a viscosity of 3 to 35 mPa·s at 25° C. The ink composition has a low viscosity without dilution by a diluent solvent, good storage stability, good pigment dispersibility when a pigment is used as a colorant and also good continuous ejection stability to a printing medium, has a good curing property at a low energy level such as a cumulative amount of light of 150 mJ/cm2 or less, and it can attain good printing quality on nonabsorbable printing medium and achieves good adhesion of printed images to the printing medium.

An ink jet printing system performs printing by ejecting an ink liquid from a nozzle towards a printing medium using a pressure, heat or an electric field as a driving source. Such a printing system has low running cost and achieves high printing quality, and it can use various inks such as aqueous inks, oil-based inks, etc. Therefore, the ink jet printing system extends the market in these years.
Nowadays, an image-forming method by the ink jet printing system has great advantages from an economical standpoint in applications which frequently change printed materials such as large size printed advertisements that require a large printing area, since it can provide the same image quality as silver halide photography at very reasonable cost.
As ink compositions used in the ink jet printing system, ink compositions which are cured by the irradiation of an active energy ray in a specific wavelength range, in particular, UV-curable ink compositions which are cured by the irradiation of ultraviolet (UV) ray are available. The major components of the UV-curable ink compositions include UV-curable monomers, pigments or dyes as colorants, and photopolymerization initiators. If necessary, the ink compositions may optionally contain various additives.
However, the viscosity of the UV-curable ink compositions usually exceeds 35 mPa·s at 25° C. When the UV-curable ink compositions are used in the existing ink jet printing system, their viscosity should be 35 mPa·s or less, preferably 20 mPa·s or less.
To achieve such a low viscosity, a UV-curable ink composition containing a volatile organic solvent such as ethyl lactate, butyl acetate, etc. as a diluent solvent together with a UV-curable monomer, a colorant and a photopolymerization initiator is known. However, when such an ink composition is used, the evaporation of the diluent solvent such as VOC (volatile organic compound) may worsen work environment and natural environment. In addition, the diluent solvent remains in the printed ink after the composition is cured with UV ray, so that the film properties of the printed images may decrease, in particular, the adhesion of the printed images to a substrate of a printing medium may decrease.
A UV-curable ink composition is also proposed, which ink composition comprises a vinyl compound, an alkyl (meth)acrylate, a polyfunctional (poly)alkoxyacrylate, etc. as a UV-curable monomer and contains the decreased amount of a diluent solvent (JP-A-5-214279, JP-A-5-214280 and JP-A-2000-504778).
However, the proposed UV-curable ink compositions usually have low monomer reactivity and thus it cannot have a sufficient curing property, since oxygen interferes with the curing at a low energy level such as a cumulative amount of light of 150 mJ/cm2 or less, and therefore such ink compositions may have limitations in high-speed printing applications.
The curing property increases as the amount of the photopolymerization initiator increases. However, the solubility of the photopolymerization initiator in the monomer is limited, and thus the amount of the photopolymerization initiator compounded in the ink composition is limited and insufficient for attaining the sufficient curing property. In addition, when a large amount of the photopolymerization initiator is compounded, the unreacted photopolymerization initiator remains and tends to have adverse effects on the properties of the cured film.


In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, a terpene-rich sample is prepared for terpene analysis using liquid chromatography via an extraction method that takes little time, uses minimal external equipment, and permits direct injection of extracted terpenes into a liquid chromatography instrument for analysis. An embodiment of the invention involves preparing a terpene-containing sample for analysis by liquid chromatography by liquid extraction; heating the liquid extract in a vial that contains a filter medium or solvent; collecting the terpenes in the medium by the vapor pressure forced through the filter from heating; and eluting the collected terpenes into a vial or directly into a chromatography injector.

Terpenes are volatile hydrocarbons commonly found in the essential oils of plants. This class of chemicals is commonly used in food flavorings, perfumes and other scented products due to their strong and often pleasant odors. Terpenes are a major constituent of hop oil and can significantly affect beer flavor and quality. Similarly, Cannabis sativa contains a wide variety of terpenes, and some research has shown that variations in terpene profile may affect medical outcomes.
Terpenes are all derived from the same chemical building block, isoprene, which is combined in various biochemical processes to create a broad array of molecules. For example, monoterpenes such as limonene (found in citrus fruits) and alpha-pinene (found in conifers) contain two isoprene units. Sesquiterpenes such as alpha-humulene and beta-caryophyllene (both commonly found in hops) contain three isoprene units.
Terpenes are commonly analyzed by gas chromatography. A gas chromatograph volatilizes a sample, which is then injected into a column and carried by an inert gas. The column is treated with specialized chemicals that have differing affinity to the injected sample. The column separates chemicals in the injected mixture so that they can be analyzed separately once they exit the column.
Sample preparation typically involves one of two methods. The most common method is called headspace gas chromatography. In this case, a small amount of a terpene-containing sample is placed in a vial and heated. The heating causes terpenes (and other volatile components) to volatilize, allowing the removal of heavier molecules that may interfere with analysis. Once the sample is volatilized, the vial cap is pierced by a needle and sample is removed for injection into a gas chromatograph.
In a second method, called solid-phase microextraction, a thread or wire that has been treated to exhibit affinity for terpenes is inserted into the vial. The vial is then agitated and/or heated to speed the collection of terpenes on the treated material. Once the terpenes have collected on the thread, the thread is heated or treated to remove the terpenes, which can be injected into a gas chromatograph.
Gas chromatography has some drawbacks when compared to another common analysis tool, liquid chromatography, that uses a process similar to gas chromatography but with the carrier gas replaced by an organic solvent, typically methanol or acetonitrile. Analysis of terpenes via liquid chromatography has several advantages:                1. Many organic compounds must be measured by liquid chromatography, so the equipment is already in widespread use.        2. Liquid chromatography generally has better repeatability when compared to gas chromatography.        3. Gas chromatography requires a volatilized sample for injection, thus heat is used. Terpenes may degrade or change when exposed to injection heat.        4. Liquid chromatography can be faster than gas chromatography.        5. Portable liquid chromatography devices exist, thus opening the possibility of field analysis.
Current techniques for measuring terpenes using liquid chromatography generally suffer from two disadvantages. First, there is often significant interference with other components in liquid-chromatography analysis of terpenes. Any non-volatile chemicals are necessarily included in a typical liquid chromatography analysis. Second, these techniques may use a liquid extraction technique that fails to provide adequate sensitivity for current liquid-chromatography detectors.
There is, accordingly, a need for techniques of preparing terpene-rich samples for liquid chromatography that provide both sensitivity and separation (or avoidance) of non-volatile chemicals from the terpenes to be measured.


Integrated circuit field effect transistors are manufactured by forming a pre-active pattern on a surface of a substrate, while refraining from doping the pre-active pattern with phosphorus. The pre-active pattern includes a series of interchannel layers and channel layers stacked alternately upon each other. Source/drain regions are formed on the substrate, at opposite ends of the pre-active pattern. The interchannel layers are then selectively removed, to form tunnels passing through the pre-active pattern, thereby defining an active channel pattern including the tunnels and channels including the channel layers. The channels are doped with phosphorus after selectively removing the interchannel layers. A gate electrode is then formed in the tunnels and surrounding the channels.

Integrated circuit field effect transistors are widely used in logic, memory, processor and other integrated circuit devices. As is well known to those having skill in the art, an integrated circuit field effect transistor includes spaced apart source and drain regions, a channel therebetween and a gate electrode adjacent the channel. Integrated circuit field effect transistors are often referred to as Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) or simply as MOS devices. Moreover, integrated circuit field effect transistors may be provided in two complementary types: N-channel field effect transistors, often referred to as N-MOS devices, and P-channel field effect transistors, often referred to as P-MOS devices. When both types of complementary transistor types are provided in a single integrated circuit, they may be referred to as CMOS devices. Although these terms will be used in the present application, they are used to generally denote integrated circuit field effect transistors and are not limited to field effect transistors having metal gates or oxide gate insulators.
As the integration density of integrated circuit field effect transistors continues to increase, the size of the active region and the channel length may continue to decrease. With the reduction in the channel length of the transistor, the influence of the source/drain upon the electric field or potential in the channel region may become considerable. This is called the "short channel effect". Further, with the scaling down of the active size, the channel width decreases which may increase a threshold voltage. This is called the "narrow width effect".
Various structures have been developed in attempts to improve or maximize the device performance, while reducing the sizes of elements formed on a substrate. For example, there are vertical transistor structures known as a fin structure, a DELTA (fully DEpleted Lean-channel TrAnsistor) structure and GAA (Gate All Around) structure.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,413,802 discloses a FinFET device. As noted in the Abstract of this patent, a FinFET device is fabricated using conventional planar MOSFET technology. The device is fabricated in a silicon layer overlying an insulating layer (e.g., SIMOX) with the device extending from the insulating layer as a fin. Double gates are provided over the sides of the channel to provide enhanced drive current and effectively suppress short channel effects. A plurality of channels can be provided between a source and a drain for increased current capacity. In one embodiment, two transistors can be stacked in a fin to provide a CMOS transistor pair having a shared gate.
An example of a MOS transistor having DELTA structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,996,574. As noted in the Abstract of this patent, a metal-insulator-semiconductor transistor comprises an insulator layer, a semiconductor body provided on the insulator layer and comprising a source region, a drain region and a channel region extending in a first direction between and interconnecting the source region and the drain region, a gate insulator film provided on the semiconductor body so as to cover the channel region except for the part of the channel region in contact with the insulator layer, and a gate electrode of a conductive material provided in contact with the gate insulator film so as to cover the channel region underneath the gate insulator film except for the part of the channel region in contact with the insulator layer. The channel region has a width substantially smaller than twice the maximum extension of the depletion region formed in the channel region.
An example of a thin film transistor having the GAA structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,362. In typical MOS transistors of GAA structure, the SOI layer serves as an active pattern and a gate electrode is formed surrounding a channel region of the active pattern of which the surface is covered with a gate-insulating layer.
A field effect transistor having multiple stacked channels, and fabrication methods thereof, is described in application Ser. No. 10/610,607, filed Jul. 1, 2003, entitled Field Effect Transistors Having Multiple Stacked Channels, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety as if set forth fully herein. Integrated circuit field effect transistors are manufactured, according to some embodiments of application Ser. No. 10/610,607, by forming a pre-active pattern on a surface of a substrate. The pre-active pattern comprises a series of interchannel layers and channel layers stacked alternately upon each other. Source/drain regions are formed on the substrate at opposite ends of the pre-active pattern. The plurality of interchannel layers are selectively removed to form a plurality of tunnels passing through the pre-active pattern, to thereby define an active channel pattern comprising the tunnels and a plurality of channels comprising the channel layers. A gate electrode is formed in the tunnels and surrounding the channels.

Phosphorous doping methods of manufacturing field effect transistors having multiple stacked channels


The present invention relates to a cosmetic composition carrier in which one or more foams having a number of pores in the range of 10 ppi to 130 ppi are impregnated with a cosmetic composition having a viscosity of 1,000 to 5,000 cps and 15,000 to 100,000 cps so as to enable a user to carry a compact type liquid cosmetic composition.

A liquid cosmetic composition is commonly provided as stored in a vacuum container, a pump container or a glass container. However, these containers are inconvenient to carry. Recently, as the necessity of putting on or adjusting makeup outdoors increases, there is a need of a liquid cosmetic composition that can be carried conveniently.
A compact-type container may be considered as a container capable of conveniently carrying a liquid cosmetic composition. In order to hold a liquid cosmetic composition in the compact-type container, it should be considered whether container is compatible with the cosmetic composition, whether the cosmetic composition can be effectively filled in the carrier, whether the carrier can impregnate the cosmetic composition stably for a long time, and whether an adequate amount of the cosmetic composition can be ejected from the carrier.
The inventors of the present disclosure have found out that a cosmetic composition carrier comprising one or more foam has superior filling ability, impregnating ability and discharging ability.

Cosmetic composition carrier comprising foams


Disclosed is a microwave plasma processing apparatus including: a processing container configured to define a processing space a microwave generator configured to generate microwaves for generating plasma of a processing gas introduced into the processing space, a distributor configured to distribute the microwaves to a plurality of waveguides using a variable distribution ratio, an antenna installed in the processing container to seal the processing space and configured to radiate the microwaves distributed to each of the plurality of waveguides by the distributor to the processing space, a monitor unit configured to monitor a power of the microwaves distributed to each of the plurality of waveguides by the distributor, and a distribution ratio control unit configured to correct the distribution ratio used for distribution of the microwaves by the distributor based on a difference between a ratio of the power of the microwaves monitored by the monitor unit and a previously designated distribution ratio.

There is a microwave plasma processing apparatus which uses high density plasma excited by a microwave electric field. The microwave plasma processing apparatus includes, for example, a processing container for use in performing a plasma processing on a substrate to be processed, a microwave generator configured to generate microwaves which convert a processing gas into plasma within the processing container, and a waveguide configured to guide the microwaves generated by the microwave generator into the processing container. Further, the microwave plasma processing apparatus includes a planar antenna provided with a plurality of slots which transmit the microwaves guided by the waveguide. In the microwave plasma processing apparatus, the microwaves are radiated from a slot antenna into the processing container to ionize the processing gas within the processing container, thereby exciting the plasma.
However, in the microwave plasma processing apparatus, in order to uniformly perform the plasma processing on the entire surface of an object to be processed, it is requested that the plasma excited by the microwaves be uniformly distributed in the processing space within the processing container. In this regard, a technology is known in which a distributor is installed at a rear end side of a microwave generator to distribute the microwaves supplied from the microwave generator to a plurality of waveguides using a prescribed distribution ratio by the distributor and the distributed microwaves are radiated from an antenna to a central side and a peripheral side of the processing space. See, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Nos. H09-63793, H03-191074, 2007-213994, and 2011-014542.

Microwave plasma processing apparatus and microwave supply method


A medical image diagnosis apparatus and an image data processing apparatus that diagnoses vascular invasion status of a tumor and decides the most appropriate therapy method for the tumor by extracting tumor candidate regions and vascular regions based on extensive volume data derived from covering a therapy target organ, and specifying an adjacent vascular region existing within a prescribed scope from a gravity center of a tumor. The tumor candidate regions and vascular regions are generated as 3D image data or MPR image data for submitting a recommended therapy method for the tumor by adding branch data of the adjacent vascular.

A. Field of the Invention
Embodiments consistent with the present invention relate to a medical image diagnosis apparatus and an image data processing apparatus that can generate and display efficacious therapy assist data for a tumor (cancer) therapy.
B. Background of the Invention
Recently, with developments of a living body data detection unit and an operation process units operating at high speeds and with high level functions, medical image diagnosis using such as an X-ray computer tomography (CT) apparatus or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus can acquire 3 dimensional data (volume data) in a short time. Consequently, such a medical diagnosis can perform early recognition of malignant tumors, such as a liver cancer. Generally, therapy methods for malignant tumors by using such medical image diagnosis are decided based on tumor numbers, tumor sizes and existence or non-existence of vessel invasions into blood vessels and lymph vessels adjacent to the tumor (hereinafter, referred to as "adjacent vascular") and a progress level of the vascular invasion.
Thus, the differential diagnosis for a tumor is performed based on the tumor numbers, tumor sizes and vessel invasions. For instance, since the vessel invasion is a prognostic factor for a liver cancer, the pre-treatment diagnosis for a vessel invasion, in particular, a portal invasion is extremely important for deciding the therapy policy.
Further, an accuracy of the recent differential diagnosis for a tumor has largely improved by observing image data acquired through a patient who is dosed with an contrast enhance agent. For instance, a contrast enhance agent for the ultrasound wave imaging, such as Sonazoid and a contrast enhance agent for the MR imaging, such as GD-EOB-DTPA have been developed for displaying a liver cancer with enhanced contrast. Further, it has been proposed to differentiate an extent of the tumor and a grade of the tumor malignancy by extracting 3D image data of the tumor that is enhanced by the contrast enhance agent. For instance, a differential diagnosis supporting method for a tumor has been proposed by performing automatic analysis of brightness variation of image patterns that appear in the tumor regions due to the inflow of the contrast enhance agent (for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication 2010-5263).
However, the proposed differential diagnosis for a tumor by using the contrast enhance agent has mainly observed the extent of the tumor and the grade of malignancy based on blood flowing status in the tumor itself. Thus, the proposed differential diagnosis for a tumor cannot obtain the prognostic factor of vascular invasion data adjacent the tumor. Consequently, it has been very difficult to decide the most appropriate therapy for the tumor.

Medical image diagnosis apparatus and image data processing apparatus


A motor vehicle includes a first and a second set of two separate hydraulic braking circuits. Each of the two braking circuits of each of the first and second set includes a valve assembly for modulating a braking pressure in the two separate hydraulic braking circuits. A valve unit is arranged downstream of a brake booster and is switchable in response to a malfunction of one or both of the two braking circuits of the first set from a first position in which it connects the valve assembly of the two separate hydraulic braking circuits of the first set to the brake booster, into a second position in which it connects the valve assembly of the two separate hydraulic braking circuits of the second set to the brake booster.

The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
For a long time motor vehicles have been provided with two separate hydraulic braking circuits via which the individual wheel brakes, usually disc brakes, can be separately actuated. When the first braking circuit fails the second braking circuit can provide a brake function with reduced deceleration (fail safe).
Modern motor vehicles also have a valve assembly integrated in the first and second braking circuit with an assigned control device. This valve assembly serves for modulating the brake pressure, in order to individually hydraulically control the individual brakes, i.e., to individually vary the respective braking pressure applied to a brake. In this way it is possible to provide a number of assistance functions, which generally render the drive safer or support the driver in certain driving situations. As a result, the brakes and with this also the wheels can be separately controlled or decelerated, for example in order to realize a slip control, to form an anti-locking system, or to generate a steering effect for example by actuating the brakes stronger on one side than on the other sides by correspondingly modulating the braking pressure to thereby generate a certain yaw moment and to a certain degree transversely guide the vehicle. Such a system, i.e., valve assembly with assigned control device, is usually referred to as ESC (electronic stability control) and describes the driving dynamics control or an electronically controlled driver assist system.
The variation of the braking pressure in the first and second braking circuits via the valve assembly with its control unit is accomplished by controlling the flow of hydraulics fluid to the individual brakes via a motor with assigned pump provided on the side of the valve assembly, and by correspondingly controlling the electromagnetic valves via the control device, thereby correspondingly varying the hydraulic pressure. In this way it is possible to very rapidly generate pressure variations and with this cause reactions in the individual brakes or wheels.
When a malfunction occurs in the first braking circuit, for example because a brake tube bursts, at least one corresponding brake function is available in the second braking circuit. Because the driver is fully involved in the guiding of the vehicle he can continue to safely guide the vehicle by only using the second braking circuit and thus safely decelerate and stop the vehicle. This fallback function is usually also referred to as fail-safe.
Modern motor vehicles already enable a partially autonomous driving, i.e., a driving in which the driver is at least to some degree no longer involved in the guiding of the vehicle. There is an increasing trend toward relieving the driver as much as possible and toward a piloted or mostly autonomous driving. This means that the vehicle or the corresponding control is autonomously capable to longitudinally or transversely guide the vehicle without the driver being involved, allowing the driver to turn his attention to other things. However, the increasing degree of piloted driving also increases the demands on the safety-relevant vehicle systems which then, instead of being configured "fail safe", have to be configured "fail operational" because they have to be capable to autonomously guide the vehicle at least for a certain transitional period, i.e., until the driver is actively involved again in the driving operation, even when a malfunction is present. This means that the "fail operational" control has to be configured as if the driver was still fully actively involved. However, braking system designs known to date do not provide such a fail operational behavior.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved braking system of simple construction which is "fail operational".


A voltage regulator including a comparing circuit, a first circuit, a transistor, a voltage reference circuit, and a latching circuit. The comparing circuit compares a first and second voltage references and generates an output based on the comparison. The first circuit amplifies the output of the comparing circuit. The transistor includes: a gate configured to receive a first output of the first circuit; a first terminal connected to a voltage supply terminal; and a second terminal. A regulated output voltage of the voltage regulator is based on a voltage at the second terminal. The voltage reference circuit generates the second voltage reference based on the voltage at the second terminal. The latching circuit, based on a second output of the first circuit: adjusts the second voltage reference; and switches between forcing the second output of the first circuit to be in a first state to be in a second state.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Voltage regulators receive an input voltage reference and supply an output voltage reference to another circuit such as a chip core or output drivers. While the input voltage reference may vary, the voltage regulator attempts to regulate the output voltage reference. For example, fluctuation of the output voltage reference may need to be regulated within a predetermined range of a predetermined voltage level.
The voltage regulator may be implemented by an integrated circuit (IC) along with the chip core and/or the output drivers. To perform voltage regulation, the voltage regulator usually requires a relatively large capacitor that is either attached externally to a pin of the IC or integrated in the IC.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for providing a regulated output voltage via a voltage regulator based on multiple voltage references


An apparatus (1) for removing a film layer on a glass plate includes: a movable base (5) which is movable in an X direction and a Y direction along a glass-plate placing surface (3); a moving means (6) for moving the movable base (5) in the X direction and the Y direction along the glass-plate placing surface (3); a movable base (7) provided on the movable base (5) in such a manner to be movable in a Z direction so as to be capable of moving toward or away from the glass-plate placing surface (3); a moving means (8) for moving the movable base (7) in the Z direction so as to cause the movable base (7) to move toward or away from the glass-plate placing surface (3); a grinding wheel (9) provided on the movable base (7) in such a manner as to be capable of being lifted or lowered with respect to the movable base (7); a resiliently pressing means (15) for resiliently pressing the grinding wheel (9) against a film layer (14); and a detecting means (17) for detecting the lifted or lowered position of the grinding wheel (9) with respect to the movable base (7).

Laminated glass having the function of shielding heat rays, ultraviolet rays, or the like is formed such that film layers for shielding heat rays, ultraviolet rays, or the like are respectively formed on respective one surface of two glass plates by sputtering (metallic deposition) and are inwardly opposed to each other, and pressure, heat, and the like are applied to the two glass plates with a polyvinyl butyral sheet placed therebetween, thereby bonding the film layers and the polyvinyl butyral sheet. However, since the film layers and the polyvinyl butyral sheet are difficult to bond to each other, the state of their bonding is likely to become incomplete, and moisture, air, and the like can possibly enter peripheral portions of the laminated glass where the state of bonding is incomplete. Consequently, the polyvinyl butyral sheet becomes oxidized and undergoes color development and change. Accordingly, the film layers at the peripheral portions are removed, and the glass plates and the polyvinyl butyral sheet, which are easily bonded to each other, are bonded to each other.
Meanwhile, double glazing having the function of shielding heat rays, ultraviolet rays, or the like is formed such that film layers are respectively formed on respective one surface of two glass plates and are inwardly opposed to each other, and in order to obtain a hermetically sealed state between them, spacers are inserted between and bonded to the two glass plates at their peripheral portions by means of a pressure-sensitive adhesive elastic material (hereafter referred to as butyl rubber) formed of butyl and Thiokol. However, since the film layers and the butyl rubber are difficult to bond to each other, the state of their bonding is likely to become incomplete, and moisture and the like can possibly enter those portions where the state of bonding is incomplete, making it impossible to maintain the hermetically sealed state. Consequently, the heat insulating effect deteriorates appreciably, and water droplets and the like can occur on the film layers. Therefore, the film layers at the peripheral portions are removed, and the glass plates and the butyl rubber, which are easily bonded to each other, are bonded to each other.
Incidentally, in a case where the film layer is ground and removed by bringing a grinding wheel into contact with the film layer at the peripheral portions of the glass plate by means of resiliency and by rotating this grinding wheel and moving the grinding wheel itself, if an attempt is made to remove the film layer reliably up to an edge portion of the glass plate, it is inevitable to move the grinding wheel up until it has passed the edge portion of the glass plate. However, if the grinding wheel passes the edge portion of the glass plate, the grinding wheel is lowered by the resiliency with which the grinding wheel is resiliently urged, and the grinding wheel is brought into contact with a glass-plate placing surface on which the glass plate is placed. Hence, there is a possibility that the placing surface is undesirably ground unnecessarily.
Such a drawback occurs not only in the apparatus for removing a film layer on a glass plate for removing a film layer formed on one surface of the glass plate, but also in the apparatus for forming a cut line on a glass plate for forming a cut line for bend-breaking on one surface of the glass plate. For example, in the cut-line forming apparatus, a cutter wheel for forming a cut line is brought into contact with the glass-plate placing surface on which the glass plate is placed, and there is a possibility that a cut line is undesirably formed unnecessarily on the glass-plate placing surface.
In addition, the grinding wheel becomes gradually worn due to the grinding of the film layer with respect to the glass plate, and its diameter becomes small. However, if the diameter of the grinding wheel becomes small, the pressing force of the grinding wheel against the glass plate on the basis of the resiliency becomes small, with the result that there is a possibility that the removal of the film layer by the grinding wheel fails to be effected as desired. Therefore, there is a drawback in that the grinding wheel must be replaced at an early stage.
The present invention has been devised in view of the above-described various aspects, and its object is to provide a glass-plate working apparatus which is capable of removing the film layer or forming the cut line reliably up to an edge portion of the glass plate without unnecessarily grinding or cutting the glass-plate placing surface.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a glass-plate working apparatus which makes it possible to set the pressing force of the grinding wheel against the glass plate to a desired value even if the diameter of the grinding wheel becomes small due to its wear, thereby making it possible to avoid a decline in the manufacturing efficiency which is ascribable to the operation of replacing the grinding wheel.


A method, apparatus and program storage device for allowing continuous availability of data during volume set failures in a mirrored environment. Continuous servicing of input/output request for a volume set having failed on a primary array using either portions of the failed volume set or a mirrored volume set is provided. A determination is made whether the failed volume set can service the input/output request and continuous data availability is provided by using the failed volume set to process the input/output request when the failed volume set can service the input/output request, else using a remote mirrored volume set to process the input/output request.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to data storage systems that use redundant data backup, and more particularly to a method, apparatus and program storage device for allowing continuous availability of data during volume set failures in a mirrored environment.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to advances in computer technology, there has been an ever-increasing need for data storage in data processing networks. In a typical data processing network, there has been an increase in the number of volumes of data storage and an increase in the number of hosts needing access to the volumes.
Fortunately for computer users, the cost of data storage has continued to decrease at a rate approximating the increase in need for storage. For example, economical and reliable data storage in a data network can be provided by a storage subsystem. However, as people's reliance upon machine readable data increases, they are more vulnerable to damage caused by data loss. Large institutional users of data processing systems which maintain large volumes of data such as banks, insurance companies, and stock market traders must and do take tremendous steps to insure back up data availability in case of a major disaster. These institutions recently have developed a heightened awareness of the importance of data recovery and back-up in view of world events. Consequently, data backup systems have never been more important.
Generally, data backup systems copy a designated group of source data, such as a file, volume, storage device, partition, etc. If the source data is lost, applications can use the backup copy instead of the original, source data. The similarity between the backup copy and the source data may vary, depending upon how often the backup copy is updated to match the source data.
Currently, data processing system users often maintaining copies of their valuable data on site on either removable storage media, or in a secondary "mirrored" storage device located on or within the same physical confines of the main storage device. If the backup copy is updated in step with the source data, tile copy is said to be a "mirror" of the source data, and is always "consistent" with the source data. Should a disaster such as fire, flood, or inaccessibility to a building occur, however, both the primary as well as the secondary or backed up data will be unavailable to the user. Accordingly, more data processing system users are requiring tile remote storage of back up data.
Some competing concerns in data backup systems are cost, speed, and data consistency. Systems that guarantee data consistency often cost more, and operate more slowly. On the other hand, many faster backup systems typically cost less while sacrificing absolute consistency. One conventional technique for recovering backup data involves the maintenance of data in "duplex pairs." In a duplex pair configuration, each time data is written on a disk or some other storage media, a duplicate copy is written on a backup disk as well.
One example of a data backup system is the Extended Remote Copy ("XRC") system, sold by International Business Machines Corp ("IBM"). In addition to the usual primary and secondary storage devices, the XRC system uses a "data mover" machine coupled between primary and secondary devices. The data mover performs backup operations by copying data from the primary devices to the secondary devices. Storage operation in the XRC system are "asynchronous," since primary storage operations are committed to primary storage without regard for whether the corresponding data has been stored in secondary storage.
The secondary devices are guaranteed to be consistent with the state of the primary devices at some specific time in the past. This is because the XRC system time stamps data updates stored in the primary devices, enabling the secondary devices to implement the updates in the same order. Time stamping in the XRC system is done with a tinter that is shared among all hosts coupled to primary storage. Since the secondary devices are always consistent with a past state of the primary devices, a limited amount of data is lost if the primary devices fail.
A different data backup system is IBM's Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy ("PPRC") system. The PPRC approach does not use a data mover machine. Instead, storage controllers of primary storage devices are coupled to controllers of counterpart secondary devices by suitable communications links, such as fiber optic cables. The primary storage devices send updates to their corresponding secondary controllers. With PPRC, a data storage operation does not succeed until updates to both primary and secondary devices complete. In contrast to the asynchronous XRC system, PPRC performs "synchronous" backups.
In many backup systems, recovery involves a common sequence of operations. First, backup data is used to restore user data to a known state, as of a known date and time. Next, "updates" to the primary storage subsystem that have not been transferred to the secondary storage subsystem are copied from the "log" where they are stored at the primary storage subsystem, and applied to the restored data. The logged updates represent data received after the last backup was made to the secondary storage subsystem, and are usually stored in the same chronological order according to when they were received by the primary storage subsystem. After applying the logged updates, the data is considered to be restored, and the user's application program is permitted to access the restored data.
Although many of the foregoing technologies constitute significant advances, and may even enjoy significant commercial success today, engineers are continually seeking to improve the performance and efficiency of today's data backup systems. One area of possible focus concerns remote mirroring. Remote mirroring provides a large amount of additional data protection above and beyond what is available in a standard RAID configuration. This includes remote copies of a user's data that can be used at a later point to recover from certain types of failures, including complete loss of a controller pair. The problem with these recovery scenarios is that the user does not have access to their data at the site that is being recovered until the recovery is complete. This can be a large period of time during which the operations are running at the remote site.
One of the more common failures in an array is the loss of a physical drive due to some sort of drive failure. Once a single drive has been lost, it then opens up the array to potential data loss in the event of a second drive failure This window of time for a potential data loss continues to grow as drives increase in size. Currently, in the event of a failure, the user must fail the host systems over to start using the hosts attached to the remote mirror controllers. However, this is a disruption of the data center and may have performance and other unintended consequences. Thus, all of the data must be restored to the failed volume set before any access is allowed to those volume sets by the hosts.
It can be seen then that there a need for a method, apparatus and program storage device that allows the primary array to continue to service host I/O requests even while the volume set of the primary array has been marked OFFLINE.
It can also be seen that there is a need for a method, apparatus and program storage device for allowing continuous availability of data during volume set failures in a mirrored environment.

Method, apparatus and program storage device for allowing continuous availability of data during volume set failures in a mirrored environment

International Business Machines Corporation


Provided is a liquid ejecting method, comprising ejecting a liquid from a liquid ejecting head, wherein: the viscosity of the liquid is in a range from 6 mPa·s to 15 mPa·s, the liquid ejecting head includes: nozzles which eject the liquid; a pressure chamber which applies a pressure variation to the liquid in order to eject the liquid from the nozzles; and a supply unit which communicates with the pressure chamber and supplies the liquid to the pressure chamber, the cross-sectional area of the supply unit is in a range from ⅓ of the cross-sectional area of the pressure chamber to the cross-sectional area of the pressure chamber, and the channel length of the pressure chamber is equal to or more than the channel length of the supply unit and is equal to or less than twice of the channel length of the supply unit.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting method, a liquid ejecting head, and a liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet printer includes a liquid ejecting head including nozzles for ejecting a liquid, a pressure chamber for providing a pressure variation to the liquid such that the liquid is ejected from the nozzles, and a supply unit for supplying the liquid stored in a reservoir to the pressure chamber. In this liquid ejecting head, the size of a liquid channel in the head is determined on the basis of a liquid having viscosity close to that of water (See JP-A-2005-34998).
Recently, a liquid having viscosity higher than that of a general ink attempts to be ejected using an ink jet technology. In addition, if the liquid having the high viscosity is ejected by a head having the existing shape, the ejection of the liquid becomes unstable. For example, flight deflection of the liquid occurs or shortage of the ejection amount of the liquid occurs.

Liquid ejecting method, liquid ejecting head, and liquid ejecting apparatus


A system and method of storing and reading digital data, including providing a nanopore polymer memory (NPM) device having at least one memory cell comprising at least two addition chambers each arranged to add a unique chemical construct (or codes) to a polymer (or DNA) string when the polymer enters the respective addition chamber, the data comprising a series of codes; successively steering the polymer from deblock chambers through the nanopore into the addition chambers to add codes to the polymer to create the digital data pattern on the polymer; and accurately controlling the bit rate of the polymer using a servo controller. The device may have loading chamber(s) to load (or remove) the polymer into/from the deblock chambers through at least one “micro-hole”. The cell may be part of a memory system that stores and retrieves “raw” data and allows for remote retrieval and conversion. The cell may store multi-bit data having a plurality of states for the codes.

There is a continuing demand to store ever more data on or in physical media, with storage devices getting ever smaller as their capacity gets bigger. The amount of data stored is reportedly doubling in size every two years. Moreover, existing data storage media such as hard drives, optical media, and magnetic tapes, are relatively unstable and become corrupted after prolonged storage.
There is an urgent need for alternative approaches to storing large volumes of data for extended periods, e.g., decades or centuries.

Systems and methods for writing and reading data stored in a polymer


The present invention deals with the proteolytic enzyme thermolysin which tends to be unstable in aqueous solution. The invention provides methods and compositions to enhance the stability of dissolved thermolysin in aqueous solution. Thermolysin, crude thermolysin or a lyophilisate containing thermolysin and one or more salts, is contacted with an aqueous buffer with a low salt concentration and a first solution is formed. Subsequently, a further salt in solid form is added and dissociated, thereby forming a second solution comprising thermolysin in a stabilized form.

Thermolysin [EC 220.127.116.11; CAS registry number 9073-78-3] is a thermostable neutral metalloproteinase (also referred to herein as "neutral protease") produced in the culture broth of Bacillus thermoproteolyticus (Endo, S., J., Ferment. Technol. 40 (1962) 346-353; Matsubara, H., Feder, J., in: 3rd ed., Boyer, P., D., (Ed.), The Enzymes, vol. 3, Academic Press, New York, 1971, pp. 721-795). It requires one zinc ion for enzyme activity and four calcium ions for structural stability (Latt, S., A., et al. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 37 (1969) 333-339; Feder, J., et al. Biochemistry 10 (1971) 4552-4556; Tajima, M., et al. Eur. J. Biochem. 64 (1976) 243-247) and catalyzes specifically the hydrolysis of peptide bonds containing hydrophobic amino acid residues (Morihara, K., Tsuzuki, H., Eur. J. Biochem. (1970) 374-380; Inouye, K., et al. Biochem. J. 315 (1996) 133-138). Thermolysin is widely used for the peptide bond formation through reverse reaction of hydrolysis (Oyama, K., et al., J. Chem. Soc. Perkin II (1981) 356-360; Nakanishi, K., et al., Ann N.Y. Acad. Sci. 613 (1990) 652-655; Trusek-Holownia, A., J. Biotechnol. 102 (2003) 153-163). The npr gene that encodes thermolysin was isolated from B. thermoproteolyticus (O'Donohue, M., J., et al., Biochem. J. 300 (1994) 599-603). Sequence analysis reveals that thermolysin is synthesized as a pre-proprotein consisting a signal peptide (28 residues), a prosequence (204 residues), and a mature sequence (316 residues) (O'Donohue, M., J., et al., supra). The prosequence acts as an intramolecular chaperone leading to an autocatalytic cleavage of the peptide bond linking the pro and mature sequences (O'Donohue, M., J., et al., J. Biol. Chem. 271 (1996) 26477-26481; Marie-Claire, C., et al., J. Biol. Chem. 273 (1998) 5697-5701; Marie-Claire, C., et al., J. Mol. Biol. 285 (1999) 1911-1915).
The theoretical extinction at 280 nm of intact thermolysin in water can be calculated using the "ProtParam tool" which is publicly available via the internet. ProtParam is a tool which allows the computation of various physical and chemical parameters for a given protein stored in Swiss-Prot or TrEMBL or for a user entered sequence. The computed parameters include the molecular weight, theoretical pI, amino acid composition, atomic composition, extinction coefficient, estimated half-life, instability index, aliphatic index and grand average of hydropathicity. Accordingly, the theoretical absorbance value in water of A (1 mg/ml), at 280 nm of 1.696 can be calculated.
The manufacturer of thermolysin (Daiwa Kasei K.K., Japan) referring to Ohta, Y et al. (J. Biol. Chem. 241 (1966) 5919-5925) indicates an absorbance of A (1 mg/ml), of 1.765 at 280 nm in 50 mM TrisHCl buffer, pH 7.
Inouye, K., et al. (J. Biochem. 123 (1998) 847-852) discloses an absorbance value A (1 mg/ml) of 1.83, determined at 277 nm and 25° C. for thermolysin Lot T8BA51 (Daiwa Kasei K.K., Osaka, Japan) in 10 mM CaCl2, 40 mM TrisHCl, pH 7.5.
Thermolysin can be obtained as a lyophilisate from commercial suppliers. Daiwa Kasei K.K. (Japan) distributes a thermolysin with a molecular weight of 34,600 Da (Daltons), a pH optimum at pH 8.0, and a temperature optimum in the range of 65° C. and 70° C. According to the manufacturer, the enzyme is stable in a pH range of pH 5.0 and pH 8.5. A solubility of 0.02% in dilute buffer solution is indicated. Twice crystallized thermolysin can be purchased as a freeze-dried amorphous powder, wherein the enzyme protein in the dried matter is 60% [w/w] or higher. The dried matter additionally contains anhydrous calcium acetate (about 20% [w/w]) and anhydrous sodium acetate (about 10% [w/w]). For further crystallization the manufacturer describes a method comprising the steps of suspending the lyophilisate at a concentration in the range of 1% [w/v] and 5% [w/v] in an aqueous solution of 0.01 M Calcium-acetate. The suspended material is dissolved by adding drop wise enough 0.2 N sodium hydroxide under agitation to bring the pH of the aqueous solution to a value in the range of pH 11.0 and pH 11.4. After removal of any undissolved residue, the pH of the solution is adjusted to pH 6.0 with 0.2 N acetic acid. The crystallization is usually complete in approximately 2 days. The whole process is performed at a temperature in the range of about 0° and 2° C.
Preparations of thermolysin are also available from Daiwa Kasei K.K. (Japan) under the trade name THERMOASE.
EP 0 640 687 discloses an aqueous solution of 7 mM CaCl2 and 1.75 M NaCl in which THERMOASE was dissolved to result in a concentration of about 36 mg/ml. The purity of thermolysin in the dry THERMOASE powder was about 20%. Taking purity into account, the concentration of thermolysin in the aqueous solution was about 7 mg/ml.
Inouye, K., et al. (J. Biochem. 123 (1998) 847-852) reported that thermolysin is a sparingly soluble protein. It was suggested that the surface of the protein is hydrophobic to a large extent and the fact that thermolysin can be purified efficiently by way of hydrophobic interaction chromatography supports this notion (Inouye, K., et al., Protein Expression and Purification 46 (2006) 248-255). As a consequence of its low solubility, the enzyme has a strong tendency to precipitate within hours from freshly prepared solutions.
Inouye, K. et al. (J Biochem. supra) further demonstrated that the solubility of thermolysin in an aqueous solvent can be increased if certain neutral salts are dissolved in the solvent when it is contacted with a lyophilized preparation of thermolysin. The effect was shown to be dependent on (1) temperature, (2) the particular neutral salt present in the solvent, and (3) the concentration of the respective neutral salt. In the document of Inouye, K. et al. (J Biochem. supra) FIG. 2 discloses the results of a series of experiments in which an excessive amount of thermolysin lyophilized powder (three-times-crystallized-and-lyophilized preparation of thermolysin (Daiwa Kasei K.K., Osaka, Japan; Lot T8BA51; used without further purification) was mixed with a "standard buffer" (10 mM CaCl2, 40 mM TrisHCl, pH 7.5) which additionally contained a salt at a predetermined concentration (in the range of 0.5 M and 5 M). The concentration of dissolved protein was determined spectrophotometrically using an absorbance value, A (1 mg/ml), at 277 nm of 1.83 and a molecular mass of 34.6 kDa.
Tables 1-4 reproduce the approximate numerical values indicating the concentrations of dissolved protein as graphically depicted in FIG. 2 of Inouye, K. et al. (J Biochem. supra), at two different temperatures (0° C. and 37° C.). The protein concentrations tabulated are in mg/ml. In each table the salts dissolved in the standard buffer are indicated as well as their respective concentrations.
TABLE 1Concentrations of protein (in [mg/ml]) soluble at 0° C.in standard buffer containing saltconcentration of salt in standard buffer0.5M1.0M1.5M2.0M2.5MsaltNaCl~6.4~8.9~10.3~12.2~11.6KCl~4.5~6.3~7.5~6.5~5.3LiCl~1.9~3.3~4.5~5.3~6.6NaBr~4.4~6.6~15.6~25.3~38.4NaI~5.5~7.8~20.3~29.2~32.5
TABLE 2Concentrations of protein (in [mg/ml]) soluble at 0° C. in standard buffercontaining saltconcentration of salt in standard buffer3.0M3.5M4.0M4.5M5.0MsaltNaCl~9.5~8.1~6.9~5.3~3.8KCl~5.2~4.4~4.1~3.4~2.5LiCl~8.0~11.1~14.7~21.6~26.3NaBr~40~36.6~30~27.8~25.3NaI~34.4~37.5~38.6~42.3§§ out of detection range
TABLE 3Concentrations of protein (in [mg/ml]) soluble at 37° C.in standard buffer containing saltconcentration of salt in standard buffer0.5M1.0M1.5M2.0M2.5MsaltNaCl~2.7~3.8~5.5~7.5~8.8KCl~1.6~3.1~3.2~4.2~3.4LiCl~0.9~2.2~2.5~3.1~4.5NaBr~3.4~5.0~9.7~13.3~18NaI~3.4~6.2~18~24.5~34.4
TABLE 4Concentrations of protein (in [mg/ml]) soluble at 37° C. in standard buffercontaining saltconcentration of salt in standard buffer3.0M3.5M4.0M4.5M5.0MsaltNaCl~7.4~5.5~3.1~2.3~1.0KCl~3.1~2.8~2.2~1.9~0.6LiCl~7.0~8.8~11.3~18~22.3NaBr~22.2~24.4~26.3~29~33.1NaI~36.7~38.1~35.3~38.6~38.0
Accordingly, for selected salts the highest concentrations of soluble protein were each about
 8.8 mg/mlat 37° C.in the presence of2.5M NaCl,12.2 mg/ml at 0° C.in the presence of2MNaCl, 4.2 mg/mlat 37° C.in the presence of2MKCl, 7.5 mg/ml at 0° C.in the presence of1.5M KCl,22.3 mg/mlat 37° C.in the presence of5MLiCl,26.3 mg/ml at 0° C.in the presence of5MLiCl,33.1 mg/mlat 37° C.in the presence of5MNaBr, 40 mg/ml at 0° C.in the presence of3MNaBr,38.6 mg/mlat 37° C.in the presence of4.5M NaI, and >45 mg/ml at 0° C.in the presence of5MNaI.
Thermolysin is an aggressive protease which in solution undergoes autoproteolytic attack. Thus, both crystallized and freeze-dried preparations of thermolysin as well as solutions of such preparations contain amounts of different autoproteolytic fragments of thermolysin.
In order to limit autoproteolytic attack, low temperatures are applied to solutions containing thermolysin. However, enzymatic activity is only reduced (i.e. some proteolytic activity is still present) under such conditions, and not brought to a complete halt. In this regard it is noted that Inouye, K. et al. (J Biochem. supra) determines protein content of solutions without any purification step. The protein concentrations detected therefore correspond to mixtures of intact thermolysin and degradation fragments thereof.
In view of the state of the art it is an object of the present invention to provide methods and compositions with a stabilized form of thermolysin in an aqueous solution. By providing a stabilized form, the tendency of thermolysin to precipitate is reduced, and solutions of the enzyme remain in a homogeneous state for a prolonged time.
The inventors have unexpectedly found that by dissolving thermolysin first in a buffer with a low ion concentration and then adding a salt and dissolving the salt in the solution which already contains thermolysin surprisingly allows to form a solution with a high concentration of thermolysin. At the same time, under such conditions according to the invention dissociated thermolysin is stabilized in the solution, i.e. the solution remains clear for an increased amount of time during which no precipitate is formed.
The invention provides significant benefit when amounts of thermolysin have to be kept in solution for dispensing aliquots thereof, or for making blends with preparations of other enzymes, such as collagenase enzymes. Such blends of proteolytic enzymes are of particular use in the dissociation of organ tissue for the separation of subsets of cells from the tissue.

Stabilization of thermolysin in aqueous solution


An apparatus includes a phase locked loop (PLL). The phase locked loop (PLL) has coarse tuning (CT), fine tuning-integer (FT-i), fine tuning fractional (FT-f), frequency modulator tuning-fractional (FMT-f), and narrowband (NB) modes of operation.

Conventional phase locked loop (PLL) circuits fall generally into two categories: analog and digital. Both PLL categories suffer from drawbacks.
Fully analog PLLs typically include a phase frequency detector (PFD), a charge pump (CP), a divider, and an analog loop filter for settling a control voltage that is supplied to, and controls, a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO). When used for frequency synthesis, analog techniques suffer from the following drawbacks: large area of the passive components of the loop filter, and conflict between noise performance (requiring narrow band circuits) and settling time (requiring wide band circuits). When used for phase or frequency modulation, analog techniques also have shortcomings. As one example, analog techniques do not allow direct modulation of the VCO because of the large variations of the VCO gain over process, temperature and frequency.
In an effort to overcome the drawbacks of the fully analog PLLs, fully digital PLLs have been proposed. Typically, digital PLLs include digital filters, time to digital converters (TDC), and high order rate sigma/delta (SD) converters. In addition to relatively high cost, fully digital PLLs suffer from slow acquisition and settling time, higher noise levels, limited frequency resolution, and high complexity.

Apparatus and methods for mixed analog-digital frequency synthesizing and modulation


A method and device for preventing a roaming user terminal from re-authentication are provided. The method includes: when Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) of a roaming user terminal changes, change information of the roaming user terminal is reported to a Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) via an Access Controller (AC) and the BRAS reports modified information of the roaming user terminal to an Authentication, Authorization, Accounting server (AAA server).

Computing devices are becoming more mobile and more connected. When a wireless computing device migrates from a first access point to a second access point within a wireless network, re-authentication may be triggered. The re-authentication can disrupt the wireless service to the computing device and may disrupt the user's experience.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.

Preventing roaming user terminal re-authentication


An imaging apparatus includes: a base; an image sensor; and a correction mechanism that prevents an image blur, the correction mechanism including: a movable frame that holds the image sensor; a device for moving in an X-direction; a device for moving in a Y-direction; and an attracting and holding device including: an iron plate provided on one of the movable frame and the base; a magnet plate provided on the other one; and an iron ball provided between the iron plate and the magnet plate, the attracting and holding device attracting and holding the movable frame to the base by attracting the iron plate to the magnet plate via the iron ball, and wherein a guide device moves the movable frame to a side of the base when the movable frame is moved by the devices for moving in the X- and Y-directions in a predetermined direction.

Conventionally, a correction mechanism mounted in a digital still camera that performs an image blur correction is known (see Japanese Patent Application Publication number 2010-231168).
The correction mechanism has a movable frame that holds an image sensor and is mounted in a base of a camera body so as to be movable to the right and left (in an X-direction), and up and down (in a Y-direction), X and Y coils that are provided in the movable frame in order to move the movable frame in the X- and Y-directions, and so on.
The movable frame is attracted to the base by magnetism, and is movable in the X- and Y-directions so as not to shift in an optical axis (a Z-axis) direction due to camera shake, that is, so as not to separate from the base.
In the movable frame, a magnetic plate is provided. In a position on the base facing the magnetic plate, a ball-receiving plate of a non-magnetic body is provided. On a reverse surface of the ball-receiving plate, a magnet is mounted, and an iron ball is provided between the ball-receiving plate and the magnetic plate. The magnetic plate is attracted to the magnet via the ball-receiving plate and the iron ball, thereby attracting and holding the movable frame to the base, and the movable frame is moved by the iron ball in the X- and Y-directions.
When increasing the magnetism of the magnet and increasing an attracting force, movements in the X- and Y-directions of the movable frame are not performed smoothly, a camera shake correction operation is interrupted, and therefore the attracting force of the magnet is set to small.


Disclosed is an animal training transmitter according to an embodiment which communicates with an animal training receiver by wireless communication, the animal training receiver worn on an animal to deliver stimulation to the animal, the animal training transmitter including a finger inputter which is worn on a user's finger and including a button, and a transmitter body including a receiving portion and a button, the finger inputter being attachable to and detachable from the receiving portion, wherein the transmitter body is worn on the user's body, the finger inputter is connected to the transmitter body with a cable when detached from the receiving part, and the transmitter body transmits a stimulation delivery signal to the animal training receiver by wireless communication in response to the button of the finger inputter being pressed while connected with the cable.

In the field of animal training, owners or trainers (hereinafter referred to as 'users') have employed various electric and electronic technologies in correcting animal's behavior since the late 1960s. For example, Patent Literature 1 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,535) discloses an animal training system including a collar type animal training receiver and a hand-held animal training transmitter possessed by a user that conducts radio-frequency wireless communications with the collar type animal training receiver, in which the user takes control to deliver stimulation such as electrical stimulation to the collar type animal training receiver through the animal training transmitter, for example, when a dog does a behavior needed to correct, such as, barking, going beyond a preset boundary or attacking a human.
Using such electronic animal training systems, animals (typically dogs, but animals may be other pets such as cats or livestocks) are trained to do good behaviors. Also, electronic animal training systems have advanced by employing electronic and communication technologies that are developing day by day, and are gaining excellent effects in training hunting dogs or pets.
Meanwhile, when a user trains an animal using the animal training system, it is general that the user holds the hand-held animal training transmitter in one hand, and manipulates, for example, presses buttons for delivering stimulation to the animal using the other hand's fingers. However, when the user holds the animal training transmitter in one hand and something (for example, a handgun for hunting) in the other hand or the user has impaired finger(s) or arm, the user has difficulty in using the general animal training system such as the above.
In this circumstance, Patent Literature 1 (US 2013/0239904) proposes an animal training transmitter including a transmitter body mounted around the back of the hand, and a control element that has only some buttons and is worn on a finger. When the user presses the button on the control element, the control element is configured to transmit a stimulation delivery signal corresponding to the button pressed by the user to a collar type animal training receiver worn on an animal through communication with the transmitter body by a wireless communication method such as Bluetooth.
However, because the control element disclosed by Patent Literature 1 communicates with the transmitter body by a wireless communication method, stimulation may not be delivered to the animal due to communication disconnect in a situation requiring urgent stimulation delivery to the animal. Furthermore, because the control element disclosed by Patent Literature 1 is a component that performs a fixed function, the transmitter body still has many buttons, and thus is large in size.

Animal training transmitter comprising detachable finger button


A continuous strip of sheet metal is progressively sheared with longitudinally spaced and laterally extending slits to form opposing U-shaped tabs having corresponding edge portions and successively connected by corresponding center portions of the strip. In one embodiment, the sheared strip is fed between first and second overlapping sets of power driven pinch rollers which progressively grip the edge and center portions, respectively, and the second set of pinch wheels is longitudinally offset and driven at a higher peripheral speed to produce precisely uniform expansion of the strip by deforming the U-shaped tabs into V-shaped tabs. A hot melt adhesively impregnated flexible filament is progressively attached to the expanded center portions of the strip while the strip is heated to form a continuous center connection. In another embodiment, the strip of opposing U-shaped tabs is expanded into opposing V-shaped tabs by coining or thinning a connecting center portion of the strip. The expanded strip is progressively formed into a channel which is fed into an extrusion head for reinforcing a rubber-like weatherstrip.

In the production of rubber or rubber-like weatherstrips of the type commonly used on motor vehicles around the doors, windows and trunk covers, it is common to reinforce each weatherstrip with a formed metal element which is continuously fed through an extruder head having a die for forming the weatherstrip with the desired cross-sectional configuration. One type of continuous reinforcing strip which has been used is in the form of a serpentine-shaped continuous wire to which is stitched longitudinally extending thread-like filaments.
Another form of metal reinforcing strip is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,290,842 wherein a flat strip of sheet metal is fed between a pair of driven cutting and forming rolls 26 and 27 (FIG. 5) which slit the strip, as shown in FIGS. 2 or 7. The slit strip is then fed around a higher speed drum 39 against which the strip is held by a pressure roll 40. The higher peripheral speed of the drum 39 is used to stretch the slit strip to an expanded strip, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 8. The edge portions of the expanded strip are then rolled around longitudinally extending wires 3, which limit further stretching of the strip. The strip is bent along the fold lines 10 and 11 to form either of the channel-shaped expanded metal reinforcing strips shown in FIGS. 1 and 6.
Other forms of expanded metal reinforcing strips are produced by slitting a metal strip with laterally extending slits and then coining or thinning a longitudinally extending portion or portions of the strip. This method is used to form a ladder-like expanded metal strip, such as disclosed in British Patent Application No. 2,067,105 or Japanese Patent Application No. 60-156766, or a fishbone-type expanded metal strip. In the latter strip, parallel spaced pics or wings project laterally outwardly from opposite sides of a center spline portion which is coined or reduced in thickness to produce the space between the wings.
It has been determined that the cutting and expanding apparatus disclosed in FIG. 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 2,290,842 does not produce uniform and precision expansion of the cut sheet metal strip. It has also been found undesirable to feed a non-uniformly expanded strip into an extrusion head, and a rubber-like weatherstrip with a non-uniform reinforcing insert is undesirable. Furthermore, the operation of attaching the wires 3 is relatively slow and expensive. Problems are also encountered with the fishbone-type expanded strip in that the laterally projecting and longitudinally spaced wings are easily bent in a longitudinal direction when the strip is being fed through a rubber extruder head. This results in an undesirable or unacceptable weatherstrip product which is not uniformally reinforced along its length.

Expanded metal strip for reinforcing a resilient product


A sulfide solid electrolyte material having a high Li ion conductivity is provided. A sulfide solid electrolyte material includes Li, P, I and S, having peaks at 2θ=20.2° and 23.6°, not having peaks at 2θ=21.0° and 28.0° in an X-ray diffraction measurement using a CuKα ray, and having a half width of the peak at 2θ=20.2° of 0.51° or less.

In accordance with a rapid spread of information related devices and communication devices such as a personal computer, a video camera and a cellular phone in recent years, the development of a battery to be utilized as a power source thereof has been emphasized. The development of a high-output and high-capacity battery for an electric automobile or a hybrid automobile has been under progress also in an automobile industry. Among various kinds of batteries, a lithium battery has been presently noticed from the viewpoint of having a high energy density.
Liquid electrolyte containing a flammable organic solvent is used for a presently commercialized lithium battery, so that the installation of a safety device for restraining temperature increase during a short circuit or the improvement in structure and material for preventing the short circuit is necessary therefor. To the contrary, a lithium battery all-solidified by replacing the liquid electrolyte with a solid electrolyte layer has a simplified safety device and it is considered to be excellent in terms of production cost and productivity for the reason that the flammable organic solvent is not used in the battery. Furthermore, as a solid electrolyte material used for a solid electrolyte layer, a sulfide solid electrolyte material is known.
As the sulfide solid electrolyte material has a high Li ion conductivity, it is useful for obtaining high output of a battery. Thus, various studies have been conventionally made. For example, in Patent Literature 1, it is disclosed that glass ceramics can be obtained by heat treatment of LiI—Li2S—P2S5-based sulfide glass. Further, in Patent Literature 2, it is disclosed that the Li ion conductivity can be improved by adding LiI, LiCl, LiBr, or the like to Li2S—P2S5-based sulfide solid electrolyte. Further, in Patent Literature 3, Li2S—P2S5—LiX—Li2CO3-based solid electrolyte is disclosed. Incidentally, X represents I, Cl, or Br. Still further, in Patent Literature 4, adding a plurality of LiI, LiCl, LiBr, or the like to Li3PO4—Li2S—P2S5-based solid electrolyte is disclosed.

Sulfide solid electrolyte material, sulfide glass, solid state lithium battery, and method for producing sulfide solid electrolyte material


A detection apparatus is discloses comprising an emitter for emitting a plurality of optical pulses; a detector for receiving the optical pulses from the emitter; and a controller connected to the emitter and the detector, the controller comparing a difference between at least one pulse received at the detector and at least one other pulse received at the detector with a threshold to detect the presence of an object between the emitter and detector. Also discloses is an object processing system, which automatically detects the presence of objects at at least one predetermined location during object processing, comprising an object processing subsystem; and an object detection subsystem communicatively connected to the object processing subsystem. The object detector is particularly useful in medical/pharmaceutical dispensing systems, automated manufacturing and production systems, food processing systems, commercial and industrial food service systems, packaging systems, and a variety of other commercial, industrial, municipal and residential systems, for sensing the presence, absence or flow of various objects or material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, generally, to electronic systems and methods. Particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus and method of detecting an object or the lack of the presence of an object. More particularly, the invention relates to a device and method of high speed detection of the presence or lack of an object via pulse amplitude differential measurement. The invention is particularly useful in medical/pharmaceutical dispensing systems, automated manufacturing and production systems, food processing systems, commercial and industrial food service systems, packaging systems, and a variety of other commercial, industrial, municipal and residential systems, for sensing the presence, absence or flow of objects or material.
2. Background Information
The state of the art includes various systems that utilize one or more optical or other sensors in their operations for detecting objects.
Methods or apparatus which attempt to reject, limit or otherwise avoid noise in optical sensor systems are disclosed, in general, in the following United States patents: Skell et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,793; Skell et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,369; Skell et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,333; Grozinger et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,801; Schiller, U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,177; Kim, U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,834; Hatten et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,282,430; Hösel, U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,102; Fukuyama et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,147; Devale, U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,499; and Upton, U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,387. Known portion control apparatus and methods for dispensing systems are shown in the following United States patents: Upton, U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,387 and Skell et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,793.
This technology is believed to have limitations and shortcomings, including vulnerability to noise or error caused by dirty, scaled or otherwise fully or partially blocked transmitters or sensors, weak transmitters or sensors, fluctuations in temperature, resistance or capacitance, or ambient sunlight or interior lighting. For this and other reasons, a need exists for the present invention.
The invention provides a system, apparatus and method which are believed to fulfil the need and to constitute an improvement over the background technology.
Applicants' assignee is the owner of the following US patents and US patent applications: Olson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,902,998 entitled Apparatus and Method for Detecting an Object Using Digitally Encoded Optical Signals, issued May 11, 1999; Olson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,265,709 B1 entitled Apparatus and Method for Detecting an Object Using Digitally Encoded Optical Data, issued Jul. 24, 2001, Olson et al., application Ser. No. 09/419,547 entitled Detection Apparatus and Method Using Digitally Encoded Serial Data, filed Oct. 18, 1999; and Berghoff et al., application Ser. No. 09/691,366 entitled Automatic Portion Control Using Strain Gauge Technology, filed Oct. 18, 2000.
All US patents and patent applications, and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated by reference in their entirety.


An apparatus for viewing images of a gemstone is described. The apparatus comprises a support structure for supporting the gemstone at an observation position. An illumination structure comprises a plurality of directional light sources directed towards the observation position so as to illuminate the gemstone. The support structure and illumination structure are relatively rotatable relative to one another about a rotation axis. An imaging device is arranged to obtain images of the gemstone at the observation position at a variety of relative rotational positions between the illumination structure and support structure: the imaging device has an imaging axis passing through the observation position. The support structure is arranged so that the gemstone can be placed at the observation position in such a way that the normal to a selected facet of the gemstone is within a range of tilt angles from the rotation axis. The arrangement of directional light sources is such that, for any tilt angle within the range, at least one of the directional light sources will be specularly reflected from the selected facet into the imaging device for at least one rotational position of the support structure.

The beauty or attractiveness of gemstones, and in particular diamonds, is considered to be directly related to how the stones interact with light. This interaction is known as the "play of light" and incorporates properties such as brilliance, fire and scintillation displayed by the stone. Brilliance relates to the intensity and contrast of light returned by the stone to the observer, fire relates to the amount of dispersed light returned by the stone and scintillation relates to the incidence of light flashes visible to the observer as the stone is moved relative to a light source.
Recently the practice of marking gemstones with brand marks, identification numbers, and/or marks conveying other information regarding the gemstone has become more widespread. Marks may be applied to stones using a variety of methods, such as for example those described in WO 98/52774. The marks can be applied in such a way as to be invisible to the eye using a ×10 loupe so that they do not detract from the value or appearance of the gemstone. This means that the marks can be applied to facets such as the table of the stone. Such marks are typically inscribed to a depth of up to about 0.05 μm into the stone.
In the retail environment it would be advantageous to provide a quick, practical and effective viewer that would allow a retailer to display to a customer both the play of light in a gemstone and the inscribed mark.
There are a number of viewers currently available that can be used to view play of light in gemstones. One example of such a viewer is provided in WO 2001/14854. Further viewers can also be used to view marks inscribed in stones, and such a device is described in WO 99/34197 which provides means to view a magnified image of the gemstone and the mark, but does not provide a means of viewing the play of light in the stone. A further viewer is described in EP 1319942 which enables the display of both play of light and a mark. However, due to the difficulty in providing the correct lighting conditions to display the play of light and the mark, the gemstone must be moved from one part of the viewer to another to view these different attributes.
It is known that, in order to display the properties of brilliance, fire and scintillation, varied lighting conditions are required. For example, the level of dispersed light may be hidden by the high level of reflected white light of a very brilliant gemstone under some lighting conditions. Varied lighting conditions may be provided by movable annular lighting such as that employed in the BrillianceScope™ Analyzer that measures the light that is returned through the crown of a diamond when it is illuminated from 6 different angles in a controlled lighting environment. It has also been shown to be advantageous to use multiple directional light sources, such as that produced by a number of LEDs, particularly when displaying the fire and scintillation of a gemstone. EP 1319942 describes an apparatus for determining play of light of a gemstone using a highly symmetrical lighting pattern that can be rotated and whose intensity can be controlled to vary the lighting. This symmetrical lighting system emphasises the symmetry of the stone. However, it is also known that, although highly symmetrically cut stones provide a good predictability for good play of light, stones with a lesser degree of symmetry can give equally good play of light.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,356 provides an apparatus for imaging the fire of a gemstone where the varied lighting is provided by a symmetrical lighting pattern. It has been found that using a highly symmetrical lighting pattern does not provide adequate means for visual appreciation of the play of light for the majority of stones.
The present invention aims to overcome or at least alleviate one or more of the difficulties associated with the prior art.