Disclosed are a method of configurating a CANopen network, a method of operating a slave device of the CANopen network, and a system for controlling a PC device using the CANopen network. The method of operating the slave device connected to the CANopen network includes creating a process data object for transmission, designating identifier information for the process data object, and transmitting the created process data object to a device corresponding to the designated identifier information. The identifier information includes a communication object identifier allowing another slave device or a master device connected to the CANopen network to receive the process data object.

The embodiment relates to a method of configurating a CANopen network, a slave device, and a system for controlling a PLC. In more particular, the embodiment relates to a method of configurating a CANopen network capable of reducing a network load and a transmission delay time, a slave device using the same, and a system for controlling a PLC device.
A control area network (CAN) bus is a two-wire serial communication bus which is an industry standard extensively used for vehicle and industrial control applications, as well as medical equipment, aerial electronic engineering, office automation facilities, consumer products, many other products, and applications. A CAN controller is an independent device configured to interface with a micro-controller. The CAN controller is currently usable in the form of a circuit integrated in a micro-control chip or a module inserted into the micro-controller chip. Since 1986, CAN users (software programmers) have developed a plurality of high-level CAN application layers (CAL) to expand the functions of the CAN while supporting the specification of the CAN with the use of a CAN physical layer and a CAN frame format. A CANopen is one of the CALs, and has been used for network management and monitoring of programmable logic controller (PLC) equipment in various industrial fields while serving as a protocol to support a CAN network.
FIG. 1 shows a CANopen network using a typical CANopen protocol. The CANopen network includes slave devices 11 and 12, and a master device 10 to manage the slave devices 11 and 12.
FIG. 2 is a view to explain the communication procedure between the master device 10 and the first slave device 11, and between the master device 10 and the second slave device 12. FIGS. 3 to 7 are views to explain data transceived in the CANopen network.
As shown in FIG. 2, the master device 10 may be allocated with transmit PDO ports and receive PDO ports to transceive process data objects (POD) based on a CANopen protocol with each slave device. In addition, each of the first slave device 11 and the second slave device 12 may be allocated with transmit PDO ports and receive PDO ports to transceive PDOs with the master device 10.
As shown in FIG. 2, each of the first and second slave devices 11 and 12 receives a PDO from the master device 10 through the receive PDO port thereof, and transmits a PDO to the master device 10 through the transmit PDO port thereof. In this case, each port may be identified through a CANopen object (COB) ID.
FIG. 3 shows a CAN ID serving as a data identifier transceived over a CAN network. The CAN ID contains a 4-bit function code and a 7-bit node ID, and is transceived together with a PDO. The function code may be designated according to data services, and the node ID refers to a number to identify a slave device to which data are transmitted.
FIG. 4 is a view showing the case that the CAN ID is used to identify the PDO. The PDO may be divided into a transmit PDO and a receive PDO. The transmit PDO is transmitted by the slave device, and the receive PDO is received by the slave device. The CAN ID corresponding to each PDO may contain a related function code according to transmission and reception states. The CAN ID for the PDO having a specific function code may contain an intrinsic CAN ID having the form of combination with the node ID.
FIGS. 5 and 6 show the range of indexes and a sub-index allowable for a PDO transceived over the CANopen network. Each index refers to a service (transmission or reception) of a communication protocol for the service of a PDO. Each sub-index may refer to the value of a COB ID serving as an identifier for a destination node or a destination device, to which a PDO is transmitted, and constituting the PDO. FIG. 7 shows the typically defined standard of COB IDs of transmit and receive PDOs
Each of the slave devices 11 and 12 over the CANopen network established according to the COB ID standard receives PDO setting information corresponding to each of the slave devices 11 and 12 before communication is made between the slave devices 11 and 12 and the master device 10. A data frame is transceived between the slave devices 11 and 12, and the master device 10.
However, in the typical CANopen network, each of the slave devices 11 and 12 is set to make communication with only the master device 10. Accordingly, when one slave device 11 must transmit data to another slave device 12, the number of times of frame transmission is significantly required, so that transmission time is significantly spent.

Method for configurating canopen network, method for operating slave device of canopen network and system for controlling PLC device using canopen network


The present invention provides a system for delivering electrical impulses of suitable magnitude and frequency to the inner lining of the gastrointestinal tract. The system senses the motor activity of the intestinal tract, thus providing feedback as to the body's response to the imposed electrical stimulation. Further, the system monitors critical parameters of gastrointestinal luminal contents, such as pH. Moreover, the system may include a delivery port for administration of fluids or materials to the gastrointestinal tract, and/or for removing fluids or materials from the gastrointestinal tract. Preferably, the system penetrates the skin surface and the inner lining of the gastrointestinal tract, in the stomach, intestine, or colon. The invention provides embodiments which can be adapted for easy removal for placement on a short-term basis, as well as embodiments having a longer-lasting design for placement on a relatively permanent basis.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to pacemakers and monitoring systems. More specifically, the invention relates to a gastrointestinal pacemaker stimulatory system that is able to sense and variably pace motor activity of the intestinal tract, having an optional delivery/removal port for administration or removal of fluids or recording systems, suitable for use in humans and in animals.
2. Related Art
The gastrointestinal tract is responsible for an essential step in the digestive process, the reception of nutrition in the human body. Nutrition is received by absorbing mucosa in the gastrointestinal tract, using a very complex mechanism. An important element of the digestive process is intestinal peristalsis, the coordinated and self-regulated motor activity of the intestinal tract. Peristalsis is accomplished through a coordinated combination of electrical, chemical, and hormonal mediation, possibly in addition to other unknown mechanisms.
It is known that many diseases and maladies can affect the motor activity of the gastrointestinal tract, causing malfunction of the digestive process. Such diseases include diabetesmellitus, scleroderma, intestinalpseudo-obstruction, ileus, and idiopathic gastroparesis. Other maladies such as tachygastria or bradiagastria can also hinder coordinated muscular motor activity of the bowel.
The undesired effect of these conditions is a reduced ability or complete failure to efficiently propel intestinal contents down the digestive tract. This results in malassimilation of liquid or food by the absorbing mucosa of the intestinal tract. If this condition is not corrected, malnutrition or even starvation may occur. Whereas some of these disease states can be corrected by medication or by simple surgery, in most cases treatment with drugs is not adequately effective, and surgery often has intolerable physiologic effects on the body.
It is known that motor activity can be recorded as electrical activity of the muscle. Traditionally, motor activity has been measured using recording electrodes placed directly on the muscle of the intestinal tract, or on the skin external to the intestinal tract. For example, electrocardiograms measure the electrical activity of the heart in this manner.
Presently, however, there is no known endoscopically or surgically placed device to stimulate, record, or intelligently alter the muscular contractions of the intestinal muscles from the intraluminal mucosa of the intestinal tract for the purpose of interventional electrical medical therapy, thereby efficaciously altering movement of nutrients through the intestinal tract. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method to properly pace intestinal motor activity for correcting ineffective or absent propulsive electrical muscular activity of the gastrointestinal tract.
3. Medical Background
Normal Gastric Pacemaker Activity. The normal contractile activities of the stomach are coordinated and controlled by myoelectrical activities, termed electrical control activity or pacesetter potentials [Ref. 1]. The normal gastric pacemaker rhythm in man is approximately 3 cpm (cycles per minute) , with the normal range generally considered to be from 2.5-3.6 cpm [Refs. 2-4]. The underlying mechanisms which control and modulate the pacesetter potential [Ref. 1] will not be discussed here.
Abnormal Gastric Pacemaker Activity. Abnormal gastric pacemaker activities have been detected in numerous clinical conditions: diabetic and idiopathic gastroparesis [Refs. 5,6], dyspepsia [Ref. 7], intestinal pseudo-obstruction [Ref. 8], eating disorders [Ref. 9], nausea and gastric ulceration [Ref. 10], nausea of pregnancy [Ref. 11], and motion sickness [Ref. 12]. Most of these conditions are associated with gastric disorders and symptoms of nausea, indigestion, vague epigastric distress, anorexia and vomiting.
Tachygastrias are abnormally fast gastric dysrhythmias ranging from 3.6-9.9 cpm [Refs. 11, 12]. Bradygastrias are abnormally slow gastric dysrhythmias ranging from 1-2.5 cpm [Ref. 13]. Arrhythmias are flatline signals in which no discernible waves are detected [Ref. 11]. These gastric dysrhythmias have been detected non-invasively with cutaneous electrodes as well as with invasive methods using mucosal or serosal electrodes [Refs. 4, 14, 15].
TABLE 1 (below) lists clinical entities in which gastric dysrhythmias have been detected. Many of these entities are chronic ailments which are poorly understood. The gastropareses in particular are thought to be neuromuscular diseases of the stomach which result in delayed gastric emptying and the typical symptoms of nausea, anorexia and vomiting. These entities often respond poorly to drug therapy.
However, in certain individuals with chronic symptoms and gastric dysrhythmias, pharmacological therapy has resulted in eradication of the gastric dysrhythmias and re-establishment of the normal 3 cpm gastric pacemaker rhythm [Ref. 5]. In diabetic patients with gastroparesis, the re-establishment of 3 cpm pacemaker rhythms was associated with the reduction in symptoms, but gastric emptying was not improved. The concept has been proposed that the presence of a normal 3 cpm gastric rhythm is more important to improvement in symptoms than the rate of gastric emptying per se [Ref. 5].
Applicant infers from recent reports [Ref. 4] that pacing the human stomach is feasible. Pacing has been considered with respect to symptoms and gastric emptying in several patients with post-operative distention or gastroparesis [Refs. 16, 17]. However, the stimulus parameters for gastric pacing are not worked out.
In review of the medical and surgical literature, the only known way pacing of the human stomach has involved placement of cardiac pacing wires into the muscle layers of the stomach at the time of laparotomy. The laparotomies were performed primarily for cholecystectomy or for placement of a feeding tube in the jejunum.
There is apparently no known method for convenient placement of pacemaker wires or electrodes for recording gastric myoelectrical activity from the gastric mucosa. A system for the percutaneous and endoscopic placement of such a system would thus be a novel advance for pacing the stomach's electrical activity or for recording myoelectrical activity from the stomach. The present invention offers these possibilities in a safe, quick and convenient package.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ GASTRIC DYSRHYTHMIAS ASSOCIATED WITH CLINICAL CONDITIONS ______________________________________ Tachygastrias (4-9.9 cpm myoelectrical pattern) 1. Gastroparesis (Diabetic, Idiopathic, Ischemic) 2. Intestinal pseudo-obstruction 3. Nausea of pregnancy 4. Functional dyspepsia -dysmotility type with normal gastric emptying* 5. Gastric ulcers (acute) with nausea 6. Postoperative Acute post-op with ileus Post-cholecystectomy (Roux-en-Y reconstructions 10-13 cpm small bowel frequencies) 7. Eating disorders - anorexia nervosa 8. Premature infants 9. Drug-induced (Glucagon, Epinephrine, Morphine sulfate) 10. Functional (idiopathic) dyspepsia - dysmotility type Tachyarrhythmias (mix of tachygastrias and bradygastrias) 1. Motion sickness 2. Idiopathic gastroparesis Bradygastrias (1-2 cpm myoelectrical pattern) 1. Gastroparesis (Diabetic, Idiopathic, Ischemic, Post- operative (gastric resection)) 2. Intestinal pseudo-obstruction 3. Nausea of pregnancy 4. Functional dyspepsia - dysmotility type with normal gastric emptying* 5. Eating disorders - bulimia nervosa 6. Drug-induced Epinephrine Arrhythmias (flatline EGG pattern) 1. Nausea of pregnancy 2. Hyperemesis gravidarum 3. Drug-induced - epinephrine 4. Bilroth I or II with gastroparesis 5. Bilroth I or II with no symptoms (normal 3 cpm EGG pattern) ______________________________________ *Normal 3 cpm EGG pattern is seen in obstructive gastroparesis **Normal 3 cpm EGG pattern is seen in functional dyspepsia reflux type

Percutaneously placed electrical gastrointestinal pacemaker stimulatory system, sensing system, and pH monitoring system, with optional delivery port


Exemplary methods for estimating an orientation angle and a translation values for scanned images are disclosed. The methods described herein may be embodied as logic instructions on a computer-readable medium. In one exemplary implementation meaningful image information is removed from a scanned image, resulting in a transformed image that comprises alternating, parallel lines disposed at an orientation angle relative to an orthogonal axis. The orientation angle may be determined using geometric techniques or statistical correlation techniques, and statistical correlation techniques may be implemented to determine translation values.

Images such as photographs, pictures, logos, etc. may be created using digital rendering techniques, or using analog techniques which may be digitized. Digital images may be stored in a suitable storage medium such as, e.g., a hard disk drive, CD-ROM, etc., and may be transmitted across digital communication networks for viewing and/or printing at remote locations.
In certain applications, e.g., security and counterfeit detection, it may be desirable to compare a scanned copy of a digital image to the original digital image to assess the fidelity of the scanned copy to the original digital image. Because the scanning process is imprecise, the scanned copy may appear rotated about an axis. Also, the image may be displaced, or translated, within the frame captured by the scanned copy. It is desirable to remove this rotation and/or translation before performing a comparison between the scanned copy and the original digital image.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Estimating orientation angle and translation values of a scanned image


An access point generates a management communication frame, that includes information indicating network parameters of a wireless communication network, for transmission in an operating channel of the wireless communication network. The operating channel including i) at least one primary component channel used at least for synchronizing with client stations associated with the access point and ii) at least one scanning channel specified, by the first communication protocol, to be used for scanning by client stations not associated with the access point. The access point generates a physical layer data unit to include the management communication frame, and transmits the physical layer data unit in the at least one scanning channel, specified by the first communication protocol, to allow discovery of the wireless communication network by client stations that are not associated with the access point.

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) have evolved rapidly over the past two decades, and development of WLAN standards such as the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 Standard family has improved single-user peak data throughput. For example, the IEEE 802.11b Standard specifies a single-user peak throughput of 11 megabits per second (Mbps), the IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g Standards specify a single-user peak throughput of 54 Mbps, the IEEE 802.11n Standard specifies a single-user peak throughput of 600 Mbps, and the IEEE 802.11ac Standard specifies a single-user peak throughput in the gigabits per second (Gbps) range. The IEEE 802.11ax Standard now in the final stage of development significantly improves throughput over the IEEE 802.11ac Standard.
Communication devices (e.g., access points (APs)) that manage a WLAN often transmit management frames, such as beacon frames, to announce the presence of a WLAN and to allow other communication devices (e.g. client stations) to discover the WLAN. In a typical WLAN, such management frames are transmitted over only a primary channel of the wireless network. Communication devices that are seeking to discover a network and that are not aware of a frequency location of the primary channel of the network are typically configured to scan through all channels available for operation of the network until at least one management frame, that is transmitted in a primary channel of a network, is received by the communication device.


To provide porous monodispersed particles obtained by preparing, as seed particles, poly(methyl methacrylate) particles or acrylic resin particles comprising 70% by mass or more of methyl methacrylate as a copolymerization component, swelling the seed particles 20 to 80 times the size of the original seed particles by mass using a swelling solution comprising an oil-soluble polymerization initiator and a monomer mixture containing 70% by mass or more of methyl methacrylate and 3 to 8% by mass of divinylbenzene, and polymerizing the monomers. The particles are porous particles with a diameter of the order of micrometers and a narrow particle-size distribution and are monodispersed. Colored monodispersed particles obtained by agglomerating a pigment in the porous monodispersed particles are monodispersed and spherical, and contain a large amount of pigment therein.

Methods which utilize phase separation by emulsion polymerization have heretofore been known to produce particles in the order of submicrometers having various shapes such as DARUMA-shaped (potbellied particles), IIDAKO-shaped (octopus ocellatus-shaped particles), KONPEITO-shaped (a Japanese confectionery with wart-like protrusions over the surface-shaped particles), hollow particles, and other irregularly shaped particles (see Non-Patent Document 1).
On the other hand, as a method for producing porous particles with pores in the order of micrometers, a method comprising causing polymer seed particles to absorb a cross-linking monomer and an initiator, and polymerizing the monomers (see Patent Document 1), and a method comprising adding a mixture of cross-linking monomers to polymer particles, and polymerizing the monomers by heating them rapidly to the decomposition temperature of the initiator in the presence of an oil-soluble initiator (see Patent Document 2) have been known.
Known porous particles with a particle diameter in the order of micrometers, however, have low porosity and a wide particle-size distribution and are not monodispersed, and therefore have not been practical.
Thus, porous particles which have high porosity and a narrow distribution have been required for use as a carrier for pigments or pharmaceutical agents, or for use as various types of adsorbents, analytical columns, and the like.
Moreover, colored resin particles produced by staining resin particles with a dye have problems of poor color developing stability and the like. A method of coloring resin particles with a pigment has been regarded as a preferable method for overcoming such a problem.
Among the methods for coloring resin particles with a pigment, Patent Document 3 reported a method of preparing a pigment-containing monomer by suspension polymerization, and Patent Documents 4 and 5 proposed polymerized toners. The colored resin particles obtained by these methods, however, had a wide particle-size distribution, and were not monodispersed.
Moreover, Patent Document 1 reported a method comprising preparing porous particles as resin particles, and adding a pigment to the porous particles. The pigment, however, was not easily agglomerated in the porous particles obtained by this method, and the amount of pigment contained therein was small.
Patent Document 1: JP 2000-191818 A
Patent Document 2: JP 1986-225254 A
Patent Document 3: JP 2004-4506 A
Patent Document 4: JP 2004-271816 A
Patent Document 5: JP 2004-226449 A
Non-Patent Document 1: M. Okubo et. al., Colloid Polym. Sci., 274:433-438 (1996)

Porous monodispersed particles and method for production thereof, and use thereof


A video processing system includes a storage device, a receiving circuit, an audio/video demultiplexing circuit, a video decoder, and a display engine. The storage device includes a data buffer, a bitstream buffer, and a display buffer. An output of the receiving circuit is written into the data buffer. An input of the audio/video demultiplexing circuit is read from the data buffer, and an output of the audio/video demultiplexing circuit is written into the bitstream buffer. An input of the video decoder is read from the bitstream buffer, and an output of the video decoder is written into the display buffer. An input of the display engine is read from the display buffer. Each of the data buffer, the bitstream buffer, and the display buffer is a ring buffer.

The disclosed embodiments of the present invention relate to video data processing, and more particularly, to a video processing system using a ring buffer and a racing-mode ring buffer access control scheme.
One conventional video system design may include a video transmitting system (which may serve as a video recording system) and a video receiving system (which may serve as a video playback system). Regarding the video transmitting system, it may be composed of a plurality of processing stages, including a video encoder, an audio/video multiplexing circuit, a transmitting circuit, etc. Regarding the video receiving system, it may be composed of a plurality of processing stages, including a receiving circuit, an audio/video demultiplexing circuit, a video decoder, a display engine, etc. However, the conventional video system design may fail to meet the requirements of some ultra-low latency applications due to long playback latency at the video receiving system. Hence, there is a need for an innovative low-latency and high-performance video receiving system.

Video processing system using ring buffer and racing-mode ring buffer access control scheme


A coupler-based programmable phase logic device operates using coherent optical or microwave signals. The device is composed of a mixing stage and a logic stage and utilizes 3-port and 4-port couplers, such as integrated optic non-3dB Y-branches and integrated optic directional couplers. The device receives two coherent data input signals and three coherent control input signals and produces a coherent phase modulated data output signal. The data input signals are externally phase modulated to have one of two relative phase values, as in the binary phase shift keying (BPSK) method The data output signal is a phase modulated signal having one of the two relative phase values that is related to the phase values of the data input signals by a Boolean logic function, such as OR, AND, NAND, or NOR. The control input signals determine the logic function performed by the device and can be changed dynamically for dynamic device operation.

Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to phase logic devices and relates specifically to logic gates operating with no active components and performing logic primarily using the phase of a signal.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The field of optics is expanding at a phenomenal rate. Many types of devices for controlling optic signals have been developed. Optical devices are replacing a variety of electronic functions and optical logic gates are one of the most important areas of development in optical computing.
Logic gates using a combination of electronics and optics have been developed; however, these devices are limited in speed by the electrical-optical interaction. All-optical logic devices are preferable because they are capable of much higher operating speeds.
A variety of physical phenomena has been exploited to create all-optical logic gates, but phase effects and beam interference have provided some of the simplest and fastest methods yet.
Several phase logic devices exist; however, they require feedback or special filtering to operate. They also have not taken advantage of the simple optic components that are currently available.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,126, Hait describes a special phase interference technique that transmits all input energy to an output signal. He also describes an AND phase logic gate that requires a feedback signal. The feedback signal adds extra transmission time to the phase logic gate and creates a more complex operation. He also does not describe how the phase logic gate can be made from available technology and components.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/522,912, assigned to the assignee of the present application, a special filtering method that uses a threshold device is described. A phase logic device that employs the special threshold filtering method is also described. However, threshold devices are special optical components that have not yet been developed to full economic viability on a mass production scale.
A simple and versatile phase logic device that uses commonly available and easily manufacturable components would be economically viable immediately and is needed to further advance the optical computing cause.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a logic device that fulfills the above mentioned deficiencies.
A coupler-based programmable phase logic device is a phase logic device that is composed of signal combiners. The device can be used with any coherent signals, in particular, optic beams, such as laser beams, or microwave signals, such as maser beams. The device uses only 3-port couplers and 4-port couplers. Control input signals determine the logic function performed by the device and can be changed dynamically for dynamic and programmable device operation.
The device receives two coherent data input signals and three coherent control input signals and produces a coherent phase modulated data output signal. The two data input signals are externally phase modulated to have one of two phase values, as in the binary phase shift keying method. The data output signal is a phase modulated signal having one of the two phase values that is related to the phase values of the data input signals by a Boolean logic function, such as AND or OR.
The device is composed of a mixing stage and a logic stage. The data input signals are directed into a mixing stage which produces two intermediate signals. The intermediate signals are then directed into the logic stage which produces the data output signal.
The mixing stage consists of a cross-over section and a transferring section. The cross-over section facilitates an interaction between the data input signals and the transferring section applies two control input signals.
The logic stage consists of a combining section and a magnitude shifting section. The combining section combines the intermediate signals, and the magnitude shifting section modifies the magnitude of the data output signal with a third control input signal.

Coupler-based programmable phase logic device


A force exerting device having a force exerting structure including a load arm as a first side, pivotable about a load pivot, a resilient member attached to the load arm and to a termination point and forming a second side of the force exerting structure. The third side of the structure is formed by a line from the termination point to the load pivot. A first adjustment mechanism moves the termination point to change the length of the third side of the structure. A second adjustment mechanism moves the termination point in a direction different than the first adjustment direction so the termination point location can cross a substantially plumb line passing through the load pivot. A force modification device may be included to dynamically adjust the resilient member termination point position in response to motion of the load arm.

This invention relates generally to equipment supports, and more particularly to portable equipment utilized in conjunction with motion picture or video cameras.
Mobile film or video cameras typically require angular and spatial stability in order to obtain smooth, high-quality results. The Steadicam® portable camera stabilizing device, which has become a de facto standard in the TV and movie industry, was developed to permit stable ambulatory videography or cinematography by an operator. The inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 4,017,168 (Re. 32,213), U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,156,512 and 4,474,439 are directed to aspects of such stabilizing devices.
Spring powered 'equipoising' parallelogram arms have been used for decades to support and position payloads such as lamps, x-ray machines and dental equipment. These arms rely to a greater or lesser extent on friction to retain a set angle or position, since existing spring geometries do not necessarily provide appropriate or consistent lift throughout the entire angular excursion of the parallelogram links. The Steadicam®, however, provides near frictionless support of the floating camera payload in order to isolate a camera from unwanted spatial movements of the operator, and further mandates a spring design for the support arm that will equipoise almost perfectly, that counters the fixed weight of the gimbaled camera assembly with nearly constant positive buoyancy from its lowest to its highest point of parallelogram excursion
The formulas for determining the appropriate spring rate to achieve this in equipoising arms factor down to the expression K=P/d, where K is the spring rate, P is the load and d is the height of the lifting triangle, which is incorporated into the parallelogram and exercises it upward. When a spring of the rate specified in the above formula is deployed as a side of the triangle, it produces the appropriate force to exactly lift the specified weight throughout the entire vertical range of motion. This property is termed "iso-elasticity".
It is noted that any shaped lifting structure can be used that follows the principals described herein and can be substituted for the "lifting triangle" referenced extensively throughout. It is also noted that reference to a triangle or structure sides does not necessarily mean the sides are physical structures.
In order to lift the load consistently throughout the entire excursion of the typical parallelogram arm, however, spring rate indicated by the above formula mandates spring designs that are typically up to three times as long as the diagonals across which they are to act. The present inventor's U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,208,028 and 4,394,075 originally solved this problem by dividing the spring into a chain of three spring segments in series, interconnected by steel cables running over pulleys at the parallelogram link ends, that permitted the entire spring to expand and contract, and yet still applied the sum of the collective force in series across the diagonal, as if produced by a single, continuous spring.
In practice it was found that when the support of lighter cameras required relaxing the tension of the spring series, the spring rate became inappropriate for those reduced loads and iso-elasticity was compromised. As a consequence, the arm tended to 'ride' harshly and the desired positive buoyancy for the load only prevailed in one sector of its vertical excursion. Further, this three-spring solution was complex and expensive, requiring a plurality of pulleys and robust cables.
The present inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,196 (the '196 patent) describes an arm that is powered by a single, high-rate spring, applying its force via a differential pulley and tackle through a cable running across the diagonal, so that the effective rate is appropriate for iso-elasticity according to the above formula. This arm adjusts the lifting strength of the arm in a novel manner by raising and lowering the attachment point of the spring cable within the parallelogram linkage (thus increasing or decreasing the height, and thus the efficiency, of the lifting triangle) without compromising the spring rate required to provide 'iso-elasticity'. The same formula, K=P/d, indicates that if only the height of the appropriate lifting triangle is increased or reduced proportionately with the weight to be carried, the property of iso-elasticity will be maintained. In practice, the arm embodying the technology claimed in the '196 patent was found to be somewhat frictional due to the 'gear ratio' of the differential pulley. Also, the closer iso-elasticity was achieved, the more erratic was the arm's behavior at the extremes of high and low lifting position. As the lifted or depressed angle of an equipoising support arm exceeds 50° from the horizontal, its exact performance is increasingly subject to minute variations of load, torque, friction and the collective bearing tolerances of its pivots.
The present inventor's continuation of the above patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,515 (the '515 patent), reverted to the complex and expensive 'three-spring' method to achieve iso-elasticity, but sought to achieve predictable performance at the high and low extremes of excursion by selectably decreasing the lifting efficiency of the spring geometry. This was done by adjustably offsetting the path of spring termination so that it was raised and lowered along a line within the parallelogram that was angularly displaced from vertical in order to slightly reduce the degree of iso-elasticity. The angle of the line was fixed, however, and since only its lateral displacement could be adjusted, its effect inappropriately increased rather than decreased the lifting efficiency where it was most needed—as the spring termination point was lowered.
What was needed was a means that would permit the use of a single spring that could actually fit within the diagonal distance of a support arm parallelogram and still produce iso-elastic equipoising of the load. An arm was also needed that would predictably, frictionlessly, equipoise the load throughout its entire excursion—all the way from its lowest to its highest parallelogram positions.
All previous Steadicam®-type arms, particularly those that approach iso-elasticity under certain loads, have needed to arbitrarily restrain their vertical travel to a degree of parallelogram excursion well short of maximum or minimum in order to avoid unruly, unpredictable performance at extreme high and low angles. Even with a degree of control over iso-elasticity, parallelogram arms were still prone to unexpected and forcible closure as angles neared 60° above or below horizontal. Arms would typically be characterized as those that 'behaved' and those that arbitrarily 'locked up' at those high and/or low excursions.
Restraining 'bumpers' have, therefore, been a feature of these equipoising arms from the beginning. The more 'iso-elastic' the spring geometry, the more irregularly the arms tend to lift at these vertical extremes of excursion. This is partly a consequence of the unpredictably varying torques imposed by the cantilevered, gimbaled payloads that hang at various angular positions relative to the arm parallelogram. The result has been an uncontrollable tendency to lock up, or lurch 'over-centers', at the high or low position, and so various bumper designs have, in some cases, restrained the travel to as little as 45° above level. In no case were the angular extremes of lift available from such parallelograms, and thus the lifting range of travel of the arms was curtailed. In addition, bumpers "bumped" more or less suddenly and further caused operators to be wary of approaching them—which further limited the usefulness of these support arms. What was needed was practical control of the general level of iso-elasticity, and further, some additional automatic control over the geometrical contour of lift that would provide smooth, predictable behavior at these extreme high-low angles of arm excursion, by gently de-powering the arms just before bumping, clunking or shooting over centers and locking up.
Applicant has previously refined the 'offset' concept described in the '515 patent, and placed it fixedly 'outside' vertical to, in effect, uniformly change the effective rate throughout the arm's excursion and simulate the effect of the correct rate using a spring short enough to fit into the diagonal (this concept has been successfully marketed as the 'Flyer' arm). Limitations in the Flyer arm, however, were evident at extremes of high lift. There was also an irregular curve of performance.
Parallelograms are capable of closing to nearly ±80° , but have previously been unusable at those angles due to the foregoing problems, despite various bumper schemes employed to tame these extreme up/down positions.
What is further needed is a way to regularize and level out the lifting curve and avoid the tendency to jump 'over centers' and lock up at high/low extremes.


There is disclosed: a wood adhesive composition comprising a protein and a poly(glycidyl ether); a method for using the wood adhesive composition to make a composite wood product; and composite wood products made using the wood adhesive composition.

Adhesives compositions have been made using raw materials such as starch, blood and collagen extracts from animal bones and hides, milk protein and fish extracts. However, adhesive compositions made from these materials typically suffer from a number of drawbacks, including lack of durability and poor water resistance.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,813,387, 1,724,695 and 1,994,050 describe the use of soy flour for adhesive compositions. However, the soybean adhesives described in these patents exhibit relatively short pot lives and poor water resistance.
Blood protein was utilized in the past to improve the water durability of soy protein based adhesive compositions. However blood protein is expensive and not generally desirable to use in engineered or composite wood products.
Phenol-formaldehyde (PF) and urea-formaldehyde (UF) adhesive resins are commonly utilized in adhesive compositions for use with composite wood products. Composite wood products made using phenol-formaldehyde and modified urea-formaldehyde resins have acceptable water resistance and are dominant in the exterior composite wood market. Urea-formaldehyde based resins are dominant in the interior wood market, but lack hydrolytic stability along the polymer backbone. This causes large amounts of free formaldehyde to be released from the finished composite wood products.
In 1987 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified formaldehyde as a "Probable Human Carcinogen". In June of 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified formaldehyde as a "Carcinogen to Humans". In June of 2010, the EPA reclassified formaldehyde to a "Known Human Carcinogen". Finally, in June of 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services listed formaldehyde as a "Known Human Carcinogen" on their "Report of Carcinogens" (ROC).
As a result of these recent carcinogenic "classifications" for formaldehyde, several new and more stringent composite panel emission standards have been developed which limit the emissions of formaldehyde from composite products; including the 2007 California Air Resource Board (CARB) issued "Airborne Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) to Reduce Formaldehyde Emissions from Composite Wood Products" and the similar 2010 National Standard "Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products" Act" (S-1660).
U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,060,798 and 7,252,735; U.S. Patent Applications 2008/0021187, 2008/0050602 and 2008/0292886 to Li et al. describes adhesive compositions for use in engineered wood products that use proteins, such as soy protein, together with Amine-epichlorohydrin polymers (AE polymers). Composite wood products made using adhesive compositions comprising AE polymeres and soy protein have improved water resistance compared to composite wood products made with soy protein alone. However, adhesive compositions comprising AE polymers and proteins generally must be utilized at pH levels at or near neutral conditions to provide reasonable pot life times and this often limits the unfolding of the protein that can be achieved in such a system. Also, adhesive compositions utilizing proteins and AE polymers may produce or contain 1-chloro-2,3-propanediol (CPD) and 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol (DCP), that are both known carcinogens. Although commercially successful, these protein/AE polymer adhesives still suffer from only marginal water resistance and dry bond strength.

Wood adhesive compositions comprising proteins and poly (glycidyl ether), and uses thereof


In a cellular communication system, for example UMTS using WCDMA, a configuration of radio links is controlled. In a mobile unit, and in a base station, a synchronization counter indicates time codes (CFN) for synchronization of configuration changes across the system. Messages are exchanged between a network controller, the base stations and the mobile units, which messages include a change command (62) for changing a configuration, and a reconfiguration command (61) for changing a current configuration state to a next configuration state at a selected future time code (63). Traditionally a prepared reconfiguration period (67) for such a reconfiguration change was treated as a blocking period for further changes. According to the invention the prepared reconfiguration period is determined, and a prepared reconfiguration period indicator (66) is added to the change command. Hence other configuration changes can be effected during the prepared reconfiguration period.

Cellular communication systems are widely known for mobile communication, for example in the GSM telecommunication system and the UMTS system. The UMTS system is a wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system according to an ITU standard derived from code-division multiple access (CDMA), and is officially known as IMT-2000 direct spread. WCDMA is a third-generation (3G) mobile wireless technology offering much higher data speeds to mobile and portable wireless devices than commonly offered in today's market. WCDMA can support mobile/portable voice, images, data, and video communications at up to 2 Mbps (local area access) or 384 Kbps (wide area access). The input signals are digitized and transmitted in coded, spread-spectrum mode over a broad range of frequencies. A 5 MHz-wide carrier is used, compared with 200 kHz-wide carrier for narrowband CDMA. Further detailed description of the WDCMA system can be found in the (proposed) technical standardization documents for the UMTS system, e.g. in the document NBAP TS 25.433 available from the website of the 3G partnership project (http://www.3gpp.org/).
An example of configuration control in a radio network telecommunication system is known from the patent application WO01/41492. A telecommunications system employing WCDMA technology is described, which utilizes compressed mode techniques to allow a mobile station to take measurements on another frequency in preparation for inter-frequency transfer. The configuration of the radio links, i.e. the selected transmission mode, coding, frequency, bandwidth, etc., has to be known both to the transmitter and to the receiver. For controlling the configuration of the radio links the assumption was that the compressed mode characteristics in a transmission slot were controlled by the network, but such control leads to problems when one considers that the slot characteristics are very dependent upon the mobile station characteristics. In the document, the control of the slot specifications are dictated by the mobile station to the network and acknowledged by the network to the mobile station. Thereafter, the network informs the WCDMA base station of the slot specifications, which are then imposed from the WCDMA base station to the mobile station. Once the mobile station receives the slot from the WCDMA base station, the mobile station is confident that the slot will conform to the characteristics that the mobile station needs in order to make the appropriate measurements.
It is to be noted that in general configuration changes, for example adding a radio link, may be effected directly by issuing change commands. However, for complex changes of the configuration such as compressed mode, there is a need for a time interval between the network deciding that a next configuration state is to be set, and the actual activation of the next configuration. In particular several involved communication elements (mobile units and/or base stations), which are operating according to a current configuration state, need to be informed of the upcoming change, because they need some time to prepare for the next configuration state.
In the existing UMTS system, there is, according to NBAP TS 25.433, provided a reconfiguration process to engage a next configuration state at a selected future time. A synchronization time counter is maintained in the communication elements, indicating time codes for synchronizing configuration changes and further time-dependent functions. However, after the involved communication elements have been informed about the reconfiguration process, further configuration changes, which relate to communication elements in the system that are not aware of the reconfiguration process, have to be postponed until after said selected future time.

Controlling reconfiguration in a cellular communication system


A minimally-invasive annuloplasty ring for implant at a mitral annulus. The annuloplasty ring has an inner core member with a C-shaped plan view that generally defines an oval with a major axis and a minor axis, and is symmetric about the minor axis. A posterior portion of the core member bisected by the minor axis has a thicker radial dimension than a pair of free end regions terminating on an anterior side of the core member. The radial thickness smoothly transitions between the posterior portion and the end regions. The inner core member may be covered with a fabric, and is a superelastic metal so that it can be straightened out and delivered through an access tube. The curvatures and thicknesses around the core member are selected so that the strain experienced when straightened does not exceed 7-8%.

In vertebrate animals, the heart is a hollow muscular organ having four pumping chambers: the left and right atria and the left and right ventricles, each provided with its own one-way valve. The natural heart valves are identified as the aortic, mitral (or bicuspid), tricuspid and pulmonary, and are each mounted in an annulus comprising dense fibrous rings attached either directly or indirectly to the atrial and ventricular muscle fibers. Each annulus defines a flow orifice.
Prosthetic annuloplasty rings are used to repair or reconstruct damaged or diseased heart valve annuluses. An annuloplasty ring is designed to support the functional changes that occur during the cardiac cycle: maintaining coaptation and valve integrity to prevent reverse flow while permitting good hemodynamics during forward flow. The annuloplasty techniques may be used in conjunction with other repair techniques. The rings either partially (C-shaped) or completely (D-shaped) encircle and are secured to the valve annulus, and may be rigid, flexible, or semi-flexible.
Although mitral and tricuspid valve repair can successfully treat many patients with valve problems, techniques currently in use are attended by significant morbidity and mortality. Most valve repair and replacement procedures require the entire sternum of the patient is divided from top to bottom to gain access to the patient's thoracic cavity as well as the use of cardiopulmonary bypass. There are a number of significant drawbacks to current methods.
Currently, there is a move in cardiovascular surgery toward minimally invasive surgery (MIS), which essentially means performing procedures such as valve replacement and repair through smaller than traditional surgical exposure. MIS procedures generally involve a partial sternotomy, in which only a portion of the sternum is divided, or a thoracotomy, in which an incision is made between ribs. Particularly in the latter case, the surgical exposure is very limited and poses a new set of challenges compared to a full open procedure. Surgeons have become very adept at operating though these small openings, and surgical instruments and support devices exist to facilitate such procedures, but adaptations of annuloplasty rings that can easily be inserted through such small openings are required.
What is needed are devices and methods for annuloplasty rings which could be configured to pass through a small opening or tube while retaining a pre-defined shape and a desired amount of rigidity.

Minimally-invasive low strain annuloplasty ring


A lawn tractor lift consisting of a lift arm having a forward end and a rearward end, a tire wheel receiving cradle pivotally mounted upon the forward end of the lift arm; a lever arm having a forward end and a rearward end, and a curved bar providing a variable fulcrum, the curved bar having a forward end and a rearward end, and a pivot point, the rearward end of the curved bar being fixedly attached to or formed wholly with the forward end of the lever arm, the forward end of the curved bar being fixedly attached to or formed wholly with the rearward end of the lift arm, the curved bar, upon alternate levering and counter-levering of the lever arm, alternately rearwardly and forwardly moving the pivot point.

Lawn or garden tractors commonly include a rotary blade mower deck which is suspended below the tractor's chassis, and which is positioned between the tractor's front and rear tires. Periodic maintenance of lawn or garden tractors commonly includes tasks of cleaning the mower deck by scraping mud and debris from under surfaces of the mower deck, and removal, sharpening, and reinstallation of grass cutting rotary blades. In order to perform such maintenance tasks, clearance between the ground and the lower surfaces of the mower deck must be sufficient to allow an operator to access the under surfaces of the mower deck with tools such as wrenches and scrapers.
A commonly utilized means for providing the needed ground clearance for such mower deck maintenance includes steps of providing a pair of wheel stand ramps, and driving the front tires of the lawn or garden tractor up the ramps and onto the wheel stands. Drawbacks and deficiencies of such mower deck access means include insufficient resultant ground clearance, and ramp structures blocking access to the under surfaces of the mower deck.
Another commonly known means for providing ground clearance for lawn tractor mower deck maintenance includes steps of situating the lawn or garden tractor upon a vertical vehicle lift, and operating such apparatus for vertically raising the lawn or garden tractor above the ground. Common drawbacks or deficiencies of utilizing such vertical lifts include excess bulk and immobility of vertical lift machines, high expense of obtaining and maintaining vertical lifting machines, and an awkward resultant horizontal orientation of the lawn or garden tractor upon vertically lifting.
The instant inventive lawn tractor lift overcomes or ameliorates the problems and deficiencies described above by providing a lift arm, fulcrum, and lever arm assembly which is capable of attachment to a lawn or garden tractor's front tires, and which provides a rearwardly moveable fulcrum or pivot point for providing enhanced mechanical lifting advantage upon initial levering and, in sequence, providing enhanced upward movement upon final levering.


An actuator and a method of controlling the actuator are disclosed. In one embodiment, the actuator is a valve comprising a first port and a second port fluidly connected with the first port such that fluid communicates between the first port and the second port. A flexible member is operatively connected with the first port and the second port. The flexible member is movable between a first position permitting fluid communication between the first port and the second port and a second position reducing fluid communication between the first port and the second port. A first controller is operatively connected with the flexible member for moving the flexible member between the first position and the second position. A second controller is operatively connected with the flexible member for retaining the flexible member in the second position.

Embodiments described herein relate to a device having a control and a method of controlling the device. More specifically, the embodiments relate to a valve control and a method of controlling the valve.
Controllers and methods of controlling are used in many applications, Given the different applications, there is a need for different controllers and methods of controlling suited for a particular application. For instance, instead of having one controller for one device, it may be desirable to have one controller for a number of devices. Alternatively, for performance reasons and the like, multiple controllers may be linked to one device. Also, it may be a concern to have a controller that takes up as little space as possible.


The present invention is directed to a method utilizing a recombinant microorganism for the production of aspartate derived amino acids and precursors thereof, in particular for the production of L-lysine. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a recombinant microorganism having improved aspartate-derived amino acid synthesis activity in comparison to the initial microorganism and the use of such microorganisms in producing said amino acids and precursors and derivatives, in particular in the synthesis of L-lysine.

Amino acids and their derivatives are important precursors in the pharmaceutical industry and added to a wide variety of food and feed as supplements. Several amino acids, such as glutamate, lysine and threonine are produced using their natural biosynthetic pathways. In natural amino acid biosynthesis the amino acid aspartate serves as the precursor for the production of other amino acids, such as lysine, threonine, isoleucine and methionine.
With a world-market of 900,000 t/a, the essential amino acid L-lysine is one of the most important biotechnological fermentation products (Kohl and Tauch, 2009). It is mainly applied as supplement to animal feed (Anastassiadis, 2007). Supplementation of such feed materials with a lysine rich source leads to optimized growth of e.g. pigs or chicken. The continuing increase in consumption of white meat has led to an increased demand for lysine during the past decades.
Lysine can be produced by e.g. fermentation methods. For this purpose, certain microorganisms such as C. glutamicum have been proven to be particularly suited. Fermentation as technique for the industrial production of amino acids emerged with the discovery of the glutamate secreting bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum. Within a few years from its discovery, the first lysine excreting mutants of C. glutamicum were applied for large scale production (Kinoshita, et al., 1961). Research continues to be directed towards new technologies to establish high-efficient fermentation including optimization of the fermentation procedure, down-stream processing as well as strain engineering.
Classically strains were engineered by an iterative approach of random mutagenesis with UV light or chemical mutagens and subsequent strain selection. The key to success in these days was the use of toxic lysine analogues, such as S-(2-aminoethyl) cysteine, to select for feedback resistant strains (Nakayama and Araki, 1973). These classical strains typically shared point mutations in the aspartokinase gene, which release the encoded enzyme from feedback inhibition by lysine and threonine (Kalinowski, et al., 1991; Thierbach, et al., 1990). Remarkable production properties such as a conversion yield up to 50% and a lysine•Cl titre of 100 g L−1 are achieved with such classically derived strains (Leuchtenberger, et al., 2005). This was, however, typically linked to extensive fermentation times of 2-3 days, limiting productivity. Additionally, auxotrophy and the weak stress tolerance, resulting from undesired mutations which accumulated during strain development (Ohnishi, et al., 2002), further display severe disadvantages of conventional production strains. In recent years, recombinant DNA technology and molecular biology initiated a new era of strain engineering-rational optimization by metabolic engineering (Ikeda, et al., 2006). Many of these studies have focused on optimization of the flux through the lysine biosynthesis by directly modifying enzymes of this pathway. The release of aspartate kinase from feedback control is today regarded as one of the most important features of industrial production strains. Beside modifications concerning pathway regulation, the intracellular activity of rate determining enzymes of the biosynthetic pathway is a key point for strain engineering. Strategies for increasing enzyme activity within the cell involve overexpression by the use of stronger promoters, mutating the promoter sequences or regulatory regions upstream of the gene, or increasing the copy number of the coding gene. Plasmid-related overexpression in this context is appropriate to achieve higher enzyme activities and better lysine yields (Eggeling, et al., 1998) but can hardly be applied in an industrial process.
Identification of beneficial targets apart from the biosynthetic pathway itself became soon necessary to abolish bottlenecks within the precursor and co-factor supply towards creation of competitive production strains. This is, however, more challenging and difficult as it requires understanding of the organism on a systems level. In this regard, the availability of the genome sequence of Corynebacterium glutamicum has been a mile stone for metabolic engineering (Haberhauer, et al., 2001; Kalinowski, et al., 2003; Ohnishi, et al., 2002; Pompejus, et al., 2002). It provided the basis for (i) genome breeding by comparative sequence analysis between classically derived production strains and the wild type (Ohnishi, et al., 2002), (ii) a detailed in silico reconstruction of the metabolic network of C. glutamicum (Kjeldsen and Nielsen, 2009) including stoichiometric modelling approaches to analyze the theoretical production capacity as well as metabolic pathways involved (Kromer, et al., 2006; Wittmann and Becker, 2007), and (iii) the discovery of transcriptional regulatory networks by means of specific sequence motives within the genome (Kohl and Tauch, 2009). These models, however, are not applicable to predict the activity of the metabolic pathways in vivo, i.e. the fluxome, as key characteristic for systems understanding and guidance of strain engineering. Flux analysis is a central element of metabolic engineering (Stephanopoulos, 1999), as indicated by the impressive progress to estimate metabolic fluxes in vivo (Christensen and Nielsen, 2000; Christensen, et al., 2000; Frick and Wittmann, 2005; Van Dien, et al., 2006; Wittmann, 2007; Wittmann and Heinzle, 2002). Beyond the insight into the biological system, 13C metabolic flux analysis has proven useful for strain characterization and identification of beneficial targets for lysine production (Kiefer, et al., 2004; Wittmann and Heinzle, 2002). Together with complementary findings from determination of the active set of genes (transcriptome) (Hayashi, et al., 2006) and proteins (proteome) (Bendt, et al., 2003) and from quantification of intracellular metabolite levels (metabolome) (Borner, et al., 2007) an extensive data set is provided to gain a deep insight into cell physiology on a global level. This systems-oriented approach displays an excellent platform for metabolic engineering (Lee, et al., 2005).
The major lysine-producing microorganism Corynebacterium glutamicum was discovered in the 1950s in a large screening program in Japan. Strains were successively optimized for lysine production using an iterative process of random mutagenesis and screening for improved production characteristics. This resulted in efficient production strains but also led to an accumulation of side-mutations causing impaired growth, weak stress tolerance or increased nutrition demands. Accordingly, the production performance currently obtained is significantly below the theoretical capacity predicted for C. glutamicum. The progress in molecular biology and systems-oriented tools for the analysis of the metabolism and regulatory state of the cell nowadays shifts strain engineering to a more precise and targeted optimization systems metabolic engineering. This aims at superior hyper-producing strains with exclusive sets of beneficial modifications exhibiting increased production yield, titre and productivity.
In the past, various attempts have been made to increase the production of L-lysine using microorganisms. General attempts to increase production of e.g. methionine or lysine by up- and/or downregulating the expression of genes being involved in the biosynthesis of methionine or lysine are e.g. described in WO 02/10209, WO 2006/008097, and WO 2005/059093.
The central catabolic network, previously identified in C. glutamicum, comprises the pathways of glycolysis, pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and glyoxylate shunt.
WO 03/042389 relates to a genetically modified microorganism into which a G6PD gene (zwf) has been introduced or in which a G6PD gene has been modified, and the use of such microorganism in preparing a compound of interest, such as an amino acid, particularly preferably lysine.
WO 0220542 relates to a process for the fermentative preparation of L-amino acids, in particular L-lysine, in which the metabolic pathways which reduce the formation of the desired L-amino acid are at least partly eliminated are employed, e.g. using an enhanced gap2 gene. A long list of additional genes that may be modified is mentioned as well.
EP 0435132 discloses microorganisms of the genus Corynebacterium or Brevibacterium which contain a recombinant DNA and are suitable for obtaining amino acids, especially L-lysine. The DNA sequences are derived, in particular, from L-lysine-producing strains of the genus Corynebacterium or Brevibacterium, preferably from a mutant obtained by mutagenesis of Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 with reduced feedback inhibition of aspartate kinase.
EP1067193 discloses an L-lysine producing coryneform bacterium (A) with an amplified pyc (pyruvate carboxylase) gene in which at least one of the additional genes dapA (dihydropicolinate synthase), lysC (aspartate kinase), lysE (lysine exportercarrier) and/or dapB (dihydropicolinate reductase) is amplified, preferably over-expressed.
EP0854189 discloses a coryneform bacterium harboring an aspartokinase in which feedback inhibition by L-lysine and L-threonine is substantially desensitized, and comprising an enhanced DNA sequence coding for a dihydrodipicolinate reductase, an enhanced DNA sequence coding for dihydropicolinate reductase, an enhanced DNA sequence coding for dihydropicolinate synthase, an enhanced DNA sequence coding for diaminopimelate decarboxylase and an enhanced DNA sequence coding for aspartate aminotransferase.
EP0857784 relates to a DNA comprising aspartokinase gene free from feed back inhibition by L-lysine, etc., and containing diaminopimelic acid decarboxylase gene and improved in L-lysine-producing ability of a coryneform bacterium.
WO/2007/017526 discloses a process for the preparation of a aspartate and derived amino acids like lysine, threonine, isoleucine, methionine, or homoserine employing microorganism with enhanced isocitrate lyase and/or malate synthase expression.


A manufacturing method, a manufacturing apparatus, a computer readable recording medium, and a program for manufacturing a machine component having a rotation symmetry plane are provided. According to one embodiment, the manufacturing method includes positioning a linear cutting edge (2A) inclined at an angle greater than 0° and smaller than 90° with respect to a Z axis at a cutting start position displaced from a position on an X axis along a direction of a Y axis in a three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate system in which an axial line of rotation of a rotation symmetry plane (1A) is defined as the Z axis, an axis in a radial direction of the rotation symmetry plane is defined as the X axis, and an axis orthogonal to both of the Z axis and the X axis is defined as the Y axis and machining the rotation symmetry plane (1A) by feeding the cutting edge (2A) from the cutting start position along a track having an X axis component, a Y axis component, and a Z axis component while the cutting edge is in contact with a rotating machine component (1).

A method of cutting and machining an object with a tool of which cutting edge is set obliquely to an axial line of rotation has been proposed. International Publication No. 2001/043902 (PTD 1) and International Publication No. 2003/022497 (PTD 2) disclose a method of machining a workpiece with a linear cutting edge. The cutting edge is set as being inclined with respect to a direction of feed and fed in a direction transverse to an axial line of rotation of the workpiece. With this machining method, a surface of the workpiece can be machined to be smooth and highly efficient machining can be achieved.

Method for manufacturing machine component, apparatus for manufacturing machine component, method for machining rotation symmetry plane, recording medium, and program


Systems and method determine a fluid efficiency of a fluid that flows through a fluid power system. Characteristics of the fluid is monitored in real-time as the fluid flows through the fluid monitoring device that is coupled to the fluid power system as the fluid flows through the fluid power system. A fluid status is determined in real-time that is associated with fluid parameters of the fluid that is determined from the fluid parameters detected by the fluid monitoring device. The fluid status of the fluid is determined in real-time when the fluid status indicates that a corrective action is to be executed to increase a quality of the fluid and an assessment of the corrective action that is to be executed is generated based on the fluid parameters. Degradation of the components of the fluid power system increases without the corrective action being executed to the fluid.

Industrial systems often times utilize fluid power systems to perform work, such as, to run hydraulic motors or to extend and retract cylinders in various manufacturing or production environments, for example. These fluid power systems include fluids, such as hydraulic fluid, to maneuver the components of the fluid power system, such as the machine, in executing the desired work. As the fluid pushes through the fluid power system as the fluid power system executes the desired work, a fluid status of the fluid may deviate as the fluid may be tainted with numerous types of impacts from the fluid power system. For example, the particle count of the particles included in the fluid may increase as the fluid power system operates and an increase in particles in the fluid may impact the performance of the fluid power system as well as cause wear and/or damage to the components of the fluid power system should the fluid not be treated for the increase of particles included in the fluid. In performing corrective action to the fluid to improve the fluid status of the fluid, the efficiency in which the fluid power system operates increases as well as prevents and/or slows down the mechanical wear of several of the components of the fluid power system. Corrective action to the fluid may be any type of action that addresses the fluid parameters of the fluid that are negatively impacting the fluid status of the fluid. However, a failure to implement the corrective action to adequately address the fluid parameters that are negatively impacting the fluid status of the fluid may result in the components of the fluid power system to eventually fail if the quality of the fluid is not increased.
Failure of the fluid power system can have catastrophic consequences. For example, if a pump included in the fluid power system abruptly fails, substantial debris can be introduced into the system causing damage to downstream components. In addition, catastrophic failures can result in substantial disruption of the manufacturing process. In view of the consequences of failure in components of the fluid power system, it is desirable to determine in real-time when the fluid status of the fluid indicates that a corrective action is to be executed to increase the quality of the fluid and to execute the corrective action to increase the quality of the fluid. In increasing the quality of the fluid when the fluid status of the fluid is negatively impacted by various fluid parameters, the quality of the fluid may be adequately increased, thus avoiding a major disruption in production.
One problem, however, is how to objectively determine how to evaluate the quality of the fluid. Generally, preventive maintenance schedules are developed from past experience and are subjective. Because fluid wear cannot be easily monitored during operation, the decline in the performance of the fluid to adequately improve the quality of the fluid may not be easily predicted. In this regard, the fluid parameters of the fluid that are negatively impacting the fluid status of the fluid continue to have an increased negative impact on the fluid. The quality of the fluid may continue to decrease as the fluid parameters negatively impacting the fluid status of the fluid remain unchecked. By determining the fluid parameters that are negatively impacting the fluid status of the filter and in turn determining corrective actions to be executed to remedy the fluid parameters negatively impacting the fluid, the appropriate corrective actions may then be executed to increase the quality of the fluid before a decrease in the performance in the fluid power system occurs and/or the components of the fluid power system suffer wear and/or damage.


The invention provides a method of delivering a selected DNA sequence to the central nervous system of a mammal by administering to said mammal a neurotropic virus, said virus containing a selected DNA sequence under the control of a promoter which permits expression of the DNA during the latent infectious state of the virus.

A large number of the human genetic diseases result from deficiencies of enzyme activity in metabolic pathways. Some of the enzyme deficiency diseases can be ameliorated by dietary restriction, enzyme replacement, or enzyme manipulation, but this approach has only limited applications. Allotransplantation of tissues from a genetically normal donor into a patient to provide a source of normal enzyme has produced encouraging results in a small number of animal and human patients. However, this approach is limited by the frequent lack of a histocompatible donor, and by the relatively high morbidity and mortality of the procedure even when a matched donor is available. Somatic cell gene therapy has the potential to overcome these limitations by transferring a normal copy of a defective gene into a patient's own cells and returning the corrected cells to the patient's body by autologous transplantation.
The objective of gene therapy is to permanently correct the genetic defect in the target cells. Although showing great promise, gene therapy has encountered a number of difficulties.
The gene involved in the disease must be identified and cloned. Although self-apparent, this has not been accomplished for many genetic diseases. At the present time, the lack of cloned genes precludes the use of many animal models of human genetic disease for gene therapy studies.
A vector system must be developed that is capable of stably transferring the gene into the appropriate target cell. Several methods have been developed to transfer cloned genes into mammalian cells, achieve stable integration into the host cell DNA, and express the transferred gene. The most widely used method for gene therapy studies is the replication-defective retroviral vector system, which can transfer genes into a high percentage of target cells in tissue culture. However, the types of cells and, consequently, the diseases that are candidates for gene therapy using this method are limited by the fact that target cells must undergo mitosis for vector provirus integration to occur.
The transferred gene must be appropriately expressed in the diseased target cells. A major problem encountered in retroviral vector gene transfer into somatic cells, particularly bone marrow cells, has been that the expression of the inserted gene is either abrogated or substantially reduced when the cells containing the transferred gene are returned to the animal host. The failure of transduced hematopoietic cells to maintain expression of a vector gene in vivo may be caused by vector dysfunction, poor survival of the transfected cells, selection against the transfected cells by the host, or low efficiency of transfer into true pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells. Inadequate expression of the transferred gene in vivo may also be a consequence of not including all of the necessary regulatory elements in the vector design. To overcome this obstacle, new vectors have achieved improved expression by using internal promoters to regulate expression, by including certain intronic genomic sequences and, in the double-copy (DC) vectors, by moving the transferred gene outside the retroviral transcription unit. The correctly expressed transferred gene must be able to cure or significantly alter the course of the disease. A crucial test of the feasibility of applying gene therapy methods to human patients will be the demonstration of its effectiveness in altering the pathophysiology of disease in animal models. Progress in gene therapy has been hampered because animal disease models have not yet been discovered or created for most of the human genetic diseases in which the cloned gene is available.
The pluripotent hematopoietic stem cell is a major target for either replacement by transplanted normal allogeneic cells or correction by gene transfer in disorders such as lysosomal storage diseases. The basis for this approach is that lysosomal enzymes can be exported from normal to mutant cells via both receptor-mediated endocytosis and direct intercellular transfer of the enzyme. Bone marrow transplantation studies indicate that circulating blood cells producing normal lysosomal enzymes can export the enzyme to other cell types in sufficient amounts to impede or reverse the storage process in certain tissues. Thus, sustained expression of a vector-transferred lysosomal enzyme gene in autologously transplanted hematopoietic cells, when achievable, may be an effective approach to therapy for some organ systems. However, bone marrow transplantation has not been very effective in lysosomal storage diseases.
Treating the CNS disease will be critical in human patients with disorders of the CNS such as lysosomal storage diseases because many are mentally retarded and may benefit from such treatment. Whether enzymes can be exported to the CNS from donor bone marrow-derived cells has been a difficult problem to address experimentally because most studies have been performed in limited numbers of human patients or outbred domestic animals. Nevertheless, widespread increase of fucosidase enzyme activity in leukocytes, plasma, and visceral tissues was accompanied by a rapid improvement in the peripheral nerve and visceral lesions of fucosidosis and more gradual improvement in the CNS after bone marrow reconstitution in dogs with β-fucosidase deficiency and α-L-iduronidase deficiency. Also, post-transplantation improvements in mental development have been reported in a child with MPS IH and a child with aryl sulfatase-A deficiency. In contrast, in other lysosomal storage diseases little evidence has been found for alteration of the CNS in post-transplant animals. For example, in both Niemann-Pick mice (spm/spm) and MPS VII mice, bone marrow transplantation resulted in increased levels of activity of the missing enzyme and marked improvement in many affected organs such as spleen and liver, but neurological manifestations were not improved, nor was enzyme activity significantly increased in the CNS.
The failure of bone marrow transplantation to affect the CNS may be due to the inability of either hematopoietic cells or exported enzyme to cross the blood-brain barrier. Some experiments suggest that disruption of this barrier may allow some cells or enzyme to enter the CNS. In preliminary studies in MPS VII mice, increasing the dose of radiation to recipient mice resulted in a small increase in the level of β-gus activity in the CNS of long-term chimeras. The infiltration of donor-derived enzymatically competent, foamy macrophages in the CNS of bone marrow transplanted recipients has been shown in "twitcher" mice [Hoogerbrugge et al., "Donor-derived cells in the central nervous system of twitcher mice after bone marrow transplantation", Science 239:1035-1038 (1988)]. However, it is not known whether the presence of donor cells in the CNS is due to normal migration of the cells or if normal barriers to such migration have been disrupted by the disease process, in which toxic amounts of psychosine accumulate intercellularly in the CNS as a result of the defect in galactosylceramidase. In addition, even with appropriate allotransplantation, a major complication is fatal sepsis resulting from the immunosuppressive drugs administered to prevent graft rejection.
New approaches are needed to achieve significant alterations in the CNS component of disorders of the CNS. One approach for delivering gene products to the CNS is to engraft genetically altered cells into the brain as a source of a biological molecules [T. Friedmann, "Progress toward human gene therapy", Science 244:1275-1281 (1989)]. This approach has been used to introduce nerve growth factor (NGF) into rat brains by transplantation of fibroblasts expressing a retroviral vector transferred NGF cDNA. A second approach to delivering gene products to the CNS is using neurotropic viruses as vectors to transfer the gene into CNS cells.
Infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), a neurotropic virus, begins with viral replication in epithelial tissues. After initial replication at the site of infection, HSV-1 establishes latent infection in the nervous system during which no virus can be detected unless reactivation occurs. However, during latency viral DNA can be detected in the CNS of mice and humans [Fraser et al., "Molecular biology of latent HSV-1. In: Human herpes virus infections. II viral glycoproteins and immunobiology", Raven Press NY 39-55 (1986)]. Latent HSV-1 can be found in more than 80% of humans of which 30% have occasional reactivations in the form of cold sores.
Latency is established in the neuron and the establishment of latency probably depends on the lack of specific factors or specific interactions of the virus with the neuron. Estimates of the proportion of latently infected cells in sensory ganglia are in the range of 0.1-1%, based on reactivation from dissociated cell preparations. It has been suggested that specific viral gene products may be required for the establishment of a latent infection. However, results from experiments using HSV-1 temperature-sensitive mutants (both DNA replication positive and negative) suggest that neither DNA replication nor a productive infection are absolute requirements for establishing a latent infection. Furthermore, recent results suggest that no viral gene product is required for latency.
The acute viral infection is cleared by the immune system but there is little convincing evidence that clearly implicates involvement of the immune system in establishment, maintenance or reactivation of latency.
Using in situ hybridization and Northern blotting, the viral transcripts expressed during latency have been mapped to one small region of the viral genome—the repeat long region. These results in animal models have been repeated with human tissue. The transcripts made during latency have been called latency-associated transcripts (LATs) and their promoter has been mapped to a specific TATAA box within the repeat long region of the viral genome. LAT RNAs do not have an essential role in latency but they may play a role in the efficiency or speed of reactivation of the virus. Data suggest that the lytic and latent viral cycles are separate and that it is the absence of the virion-encoded transactivating factor which causes a latent infection to be established.
The LAT gene product has been seen to accumulate to high levels in the neuronal cells of both latently infected animals and humans for the life of the animal. All other HSV-1 genes are silent during latency. Thus it has been thought that the promoter of the LAT gene could be used to express foreign genes during latency. One group has constructed a virus containing the β-globin gene inserted 26 bases downstream of the TATA box of the LAT promoter and documented expression of the reporter gene in the peripheral nervous system for up to three weeks after establishment of the latency [Dobson et al., "Identification of the latency-associated transcript promoter by expression of rabbit β-globin mRNA in mouse sensory nerve ganglia latently infected with a recombinant herpes simplex virus", J Virology, vol. 63, No. 9, pp 3844-51 (1989)]. Their analysis of RNA indicated that appropriate splicing, polyadenylation and cytoplasmic transport of the β-globin gene occurred in the spinal ganglia indicating that the neurons of the peripheral nervous system have appropriate transcription and translation machinery. Another group tested a recombinant HSV-1 vector wherein the β-galactosidase gene was placed about 823 base pairs (bp) downstream of the LAT promoter [Ho et al., "Herpes simplex virus latent RNA (LAT) is not required for latent infection in the mouse," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:7596-7600 (1989)]. Although the viruses expressed foreign genes during latency in vivo, the documented expression was limited to the peripheral nervous system. Id. Recombinant HSV-1 vectors also have been constructed using the HSV-1 immediated early (IE 4/5) or TK promoters to express the β-galactosidase or HPRT genes [Pallela et al., "Expression of human HPRT in mRNA in brains of mice infected with a recombinant herpes simplex virus-1 vector", Gene, 80:137-44 (1989); Pallela et al., "Herpes simplex virus-mediated human hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase gene transfer into neuronal cells", Molecular and Cellular Biology, vol. 8, No. 1 pp 457-60 (1988); Geller, A. I., Breakfield, X. O. "A defective HSV-1 vector expresses Escherichia coli β-galactosidase in cultured peripheral neurons", Science, 241:1667-69 (23 Sep. 1988); Geller, A. I., Freese, A., "Infection of cultured central nervous system neurons with a defective herpes simplex virus 1 vector results in stable expression of Escherichia coli β-galactosidase", Proc Natl Acad Sci, 87:1149-1153 (1990) and Ho et al., "β-galactosidase as a marker in the peripheral and neural tissues of the herpes simplex virus-infected mouse," Virology 167: 279-283 (1988)].
There exists a need for vectors which can deliver foreign genes to, and express them in, the central nervous system preferably on a long term basis in order to modulate biological properties of the central nervous system, such as are found in disease states affecting the central nervous system.

Method of delivering genes to the central nervous system of a mammal

Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania


A knife includes two housings having a front portion for engaging with blades. One of the housings includes a projection formed in the front portion for engaging with a depression of the other housing so as to secure the front portions of the housings together. A rod is rotatably engaged in the rear portion of one of the housings. A cap is secured to one end of the rod, and a spring biases the cap to engage with the rear ends of the housings so as to secure the rear ends of the housings together. The housings can be secured together without additional tools.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a knife, and more particularly to a utility knife.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typical utility knives comprise two housings that have one end pivotally coupled together so as to allow the rotation of the housings one relative to the other, and that have the other end secured together by fastening members, particularly the screws. Three examples of the utility knives are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,741 to Castelluzzo, filed on May 19, 1992; U.S. Pat. No. 4,663,845 to Weimann, filed on Mar. 5, 1986; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,578 to January filed on May 7, 1991. An additional tool, such as screw driver, is required for unthreading the screws for disengaging the housings.
German Patent No. DE 2839067 also discloses a utility knife and includes a control knob rotatably engaged in the rear portion of the knife housings. However, the control knob includes only a small portion extended outward of the knife housings such that the control knob may not be easily operated. In addition, it will be difficult to assemble the control knob into the rear portion of the knife housing.
The present invention has arisen to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-described disadvantages of the conventional knives.


Adapter for attaching a patient positioning plate of a patient transport cart or gurney to a diagnosis and/or treatment table, in particular of a medical examination modality, has attachment elements for detachable attachment to the diagnosis and/or treatment table, and the shape of the top side of the adapter in the attachment region for the patient positioning plate is substantially adapted to the underside of the patient positioning plate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns an adapter to attach a patient positioning plate of a patient transport gurney or cart to a diagnosis and/or treatment table, in particular of a medical examination modality.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The transfer of recumbent patients (that naturally thus have only limited movement) from the patient transport cart to a diagnosis and/or treatment table is very work- and time-intensive. Normally a number of people, often up to six, are necessary for the transfer, since the patient that is manually transferred must be kept very stable in order to prevent the patient from suffering injury during the transfer. In the transfer, the patient is shifted from the patient positioning table of a patient transport cart (gurney) to the diagnosis and/or treatment table, or is raised using a sheet or a board. A single transfer is already difficult, and an even greater effort exists when a patient must be transferred multiple times. A transfer normally takes at least five minutes, thus if six people are required, a transfer involves a total effort of a half work-hour, For patients who must be frequently transferred due to back illnesses, for example, or for trauma patients, the transfer frequently entails a total effort of a number of work-hours. This is very involved and finally also very cost-intensive. Moreover, the transfer event is laborious for the people undertaking it, since it ensues (as stated) manually and a considerable must be lifted, and this must often ensue very slowly and carefully.

Adapter to attach a patient positioning plate of a patient transport cart to a diagnosis and/or treatment table, in particular of a medical examination modality


A two layer type air conditioner for vehicles facilitates drainage of water induced into a blower through an outside air intake to a condensed water outlet and prevents backflow of water to the blower. A blower has an intake duct for inhaling inside air and outside air. A double suction type scroll case mounted on the intake duct is divided into two passages by a partition plate. A blower fan is rotatably mounted in the two passages. A motor turns the blower fan. A case for the air conditioner includes an evaporator for cooling the air blown from the blower and a condensed water outlet for draining condensed water generated from the evaporator. The case is divided into two passages corresponding to those of the scroll case. A drain drains water induced into the blower to the condensed water outlet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a two layer type air conditioner of a vehicle, and more particularly, to a two layer type air conditioner of a vehicle, which can easily drain water, such as rainwater, induced into a blower through an outside air intake to a condensed water outlet formed for draining condensed water generated from an evaporator to the outside, and can prevent backflow of water to a blower.
2. Background Art
In general, an air conditioner of an automotive vehicle incurs a great loss of fuel due to a heavy load of a compressor if only the outside air is discharged to the inside of the vehicle through an outside air intake of a blower when the air conditioner is operated. Moreover, the air conditioner causes a passenger's inconvenience due to pollution of the inside air of the vehicle if only the inside air is circulated through the inside air intake of the blower. Particularly, the air conditioner increases the passenger's inconvenience since it cannot rapidly heat the vehicle and cannot defrost windows of the vehicle at the same time when the air conditioner is operated in a heating mode by an outside air intake mode in winter.
Considering the above points, for instance, Japanese Patent Publication No. 1999-170841 discloses a two layer inside air and outside air flow air conditioner. In the two layer inside air and outside air flow air conditioner, the inside air of the vehicle previously heated in the heating mode is induced through an inside air intake of a blower and heated in a heater core, and then, discharged to the inside of the vehicle through a floor vent. After that, the outside air of a low humidity is induced through the outside air intake of the blower and heated, and then, discharged to the inside of the vehicle through a defrost vent.
As shown in FIG. 1, the two layer type air conditioner includes: the blower 10 for controlling the airflow of the air discharged to the inside of the vehicle by inhaling the inside air and outside air according to the air intake mode; and an air conditioning case 60 housing an evaporator 80 embedded therein for cooling the air blown from the blower 10 and a number of vents (not shown) mounted on an outlet for controlling the air flow of the air discharged to the inside of the vehicle. The air conditioning case 60 may further include a heater core (not shown) embedded therein for heating the air.
In more detail, the blower 10 includes: an intake duct 20 having at least one inside/outside air intake (in the drawing, one outside air intake 26 and two inside air intakes 22 and 24 are formed) and at least one door for controlling opening and closing of the inside/outside air intake (in the drawing, two doors 28 and 30 are formed); a double suction type scroll case 40 embedded in the intake duct 20 and divided into a first flow channel 44 and a second flow channel 46 by a partition plate 42; a blower fan 48 rotatably extending from the first flow channel 44 to the second flow channel 46; and a motor 50 for rotating the blower fan 48.
Furthermore, also the air conditioning case 60 is divided into two passages 66 and 68 by a partition plate 62 in correspondence with the first and second passages 44 and 46. A condensed water outlet 64 for draining condensed water generated from the evaporator 80 to the outside is formed on the bottom of the air conditioning case 60 corresponding to the evaporator. Furthermore, an insulator 70 serving as a cushioning material, seal material or insulating material is mounted between the air conditioning case 60 and the evaporator 80. The insulator 70 has a drain hole 72 for inducing the condensed water generated from the evaporator 80 to the condensed water outlet 64.
However, water is flown into the blower 10 from the outside air intake 26 due to various environments, for instance, when the vehicle travels on a waterway, travels in the rain, or is washed. When water is induced into the blower 10, the blower 10 cannot be operated due to a damage of the motor 50. Therefore, a technology to discharge water induced into the blower 10 to the condensed water outlet 64 has been disclosed.
That is, as shown in FIG. 1, when a drain pipe 90 is connected from the bottom of the intake duct 20 to the upper portion of the insulator 70 mounted on the air conditioning case 60, water induced into the intake duct 20 through the outside air intake 26 is induced to the upper portion of the insulator 70, so that the water can be drained to the outside through the drain hole 64 of the insulator 70 and the condensed water outlet 64.
However, the conventional two layer type air conditioner has several problems in that water and condensed water may flow backward to the blower 10 since static pressure directing to the evaporator 80 is higher than that directing to the bottom of the intake duct 20, and in that the flow channel for naturally draining water to the outside may be stopped due to its small area. Additionally, the blower 10 may be sealed in order to prevent backflow of water or condensed water to the blower 10. At this time, to improve sealing efficiency, a sealing rib (not shown) protrudes to the side surface of the air conditioning case 60, and a number of screws are used for enhancing its assembling performance, thereby the manufacturing costs of the conventional two layer type air conditioner is increased. Furthermore, in case where water induced into the blower 10 is drained to the drain hole, the number of components of the air conditioner is increased, and the system package of the air conditioner is increased in volume.

Two layer type air conditioner of vehicles


An equipment cabinet (1) has a first compartment (3), a second compartment (5), and a ventilation system. The first compartment (3) may be an inner or electronic compartment and the second compartment (5) may be an outer or battery compartment. The ventilation system has at least one operating configuration which enables air to flow from outside the second compartment to the first compartment then to the second compartment, and which enables little or no air to flow from the second compartment to the first compartment. The ventilation system has another operating configuration in which little or no air can flow from outside the second compartment to the first compartment, little or no air can flow from the second compartment to the first compartment, and air is able to substantially recirculate through or in the first compartment.

Electronic equipment for many functions is housed in cabinets. Such equipment may be equipment for airport runways, traffic lights, remote cellular sites, weather tracking sites and light houses. Equipment cabinets, in both central and remote locations must be maintained within a temperature range that allows the electronics inside the cabinet to function. If the temperature inside the cabinet becomes too high or too low the equipment may malfunction or cease to function altogether.
Some equipment is housed in cabinets in remote locations that may be hard to access and maintain. Remote locations may also be in a harsh environment that may be subject to temperature extremes. In these circumstances the equipment inside the cabinets must be protected from low temperatures as well as from high temperatures.
Current systems for providing ventilation for equipment cabinets may include a separate ventilation chamber attached to the cabinet. Air circulates in the ventilation chamber altering the air temperature inside the cabinet. A disadvantage of this system is that the cabinet does not experience any change in air.
Equipment cabinets may house batteries as a primary or back up source of power for the electronic equipment. Gases, for example hydrogen, may be released from the batteries during use or when they are overcharged. The gases have a corrosive effect on the electronic equipment that may cause the equipment to malfunction.
It is an object of at least preferred embodiments of the present invention to provide an improved equipment cabinet, or to at least provide the public with a useful choice.

Equipment cabinet with a ventilation system