An inertial separator includes a main duct having a first half with high aspect ratio and positive curvature and a latter half with larger average curvature and an outside wall section removed; a part for sucking boundary layer formed on the side of the outside wall of the latter half with the section removed; a curved duct of a final collection part succeeding the part for sucking boundary layer, having a larger mean curvature and a smaller radial channel width than the latter half of the main duct, with an outside wall section removed; and a collection chamber part formed on a side of the outside wall of the curved duct with the section removed. A hybrid air cleaner combines the inertial separator with an air filter, removably having an allergen suction device sucking allergen from hair, bedding and so on, and a separated blowing mouth whereby the suspended allergen may be transported away during a patient's sleep.

The increase of atopy and allergic disease is a global tendency, and 30 to 50% of the whole population are estimated to be atopic (non-patent ref. 1 which is listed hereinafter). The atopy indicates a condition wherein IgE is inclined to be generated against foreign antigens and Type 1 allergy is inclined to be caused. The typical diseases of Type 1 allergy are allergic rhinitis, allergic bronchial asthma and allergic conjunctivitis, which are caused by airborne particles containing antigen. Included among such airborne particles are, house dust whose important constituent is dust mites, and which is mentioned in a perennial case, and pollen which is mentioned in a seasonal case.
Perennial Allergic Rhinitis
Allergic disease shows a tendency of increasing and house dust mite allergy is recognized as a global health problem by WHO (non-patent ref. 1 below).
According to the allergy skin prick test among adults in south west London, the proportion of subjects with at least one positive reaction (that is the diameter of weal caused by grass pollen, house dust, or house dust mite antigens is larger than 1 mm), showed a significant increase from 23% ( 312/1359) in 1974 to 46% ( 34/74) in 1988 (non-patent ref. 2). According to the follow-up survey of the allergy skin test that was carried out on 1333 subjects aged 3 years and more, in Tucson, Ariz., during 8 years on average, the proportion of subjects with at least one positive reaction to plural antigens increased from 39.1[%] to 50.7% (non-patent ref. 3).
Furthermore, the proportion of the complicated cases of perennial allergic rhinitis and pollinosis is large. According to the postal questionnaire to adults aged 16 to 65 years in London, 55% of 1309 subjects with rhinitis had perennial symptoms only, 11% seasonal symptoms only, and 34% had the complicated symptoms of them (non-patent ref. 4).
In Japan, the estimated national prevalence of perennial allergic rhinitis in 1998 is 19.8%, and the estimated prevalence of Japanese cedar pollinosis is 17.3% (non-patent ref. 5). In addition, about 37% of perennial allergic rhinitis are in the complication of Japanese cedar pollinosis, which is based on the complication rate of these two allergic rhinitis by age groups, and others (non-patent ref. 6).
In perennial allergic rhinitis and allergic bronchial asthma, the dust mite allergen scattering from bedding is the matter of great concern. The dust mite allergen is contained in the fragments of the dead bodies and feces of mites. They break into particles with an aerodynamic diameter of over 1 or 2 μm and scatter (non-patent ref. 7). According to the example of measuring the aero-concentration of DerI and DerII as major allergens, the aero-concentration at the place near a sleeper's head and 30 cm high above a quilt is about 10 times as large as that at the place a little high above a usual floor (non-patent ref. 8). From the viewpoints of the length of sleeping hours and the situation in which the respiratory organs are close to bedding, it is understood how serious it is for the dust mite allergen to scatter from bedding.
Allergen exists in nightclothes also. The DerI concentration of the fine dust got from nightclothes is over 2 μg/g fine dust on average, which can induce allergic symptoms (non-patent ref. 9).
A Hybrid Air Cleaner
It is known that the symptoms of perennial allergic rhinitis are reduced if bedding is cleaned with a vacuum cleaner. However, it is hard to get into the habit of cleaning bedding with the vacuum cleaner of a floor movable type or a stick type. The vacuum cleaner of a handy type, which integrally has a motor and a paper dust pack, is too heavy to be easily handled.
Furthermore, although the dust mite allergen exists mainly inside bedding, cushions and others, rather than on the surface of these, removal of the inner allergen effectively with the existing vacuum cleaner has not been achieved.
The patient of perennial allergic rhinitis uses an air cleaner while sleeping, so it is useful that the air cleaner is equipped with a light allergen suction device and bedding is easily cleaned. In this case, dust sucked from bedding is too heavy a load for an air filter, so it is necessary to install a pre-collector which can collect comparatively large particles in upstream of the air filter.
As separators which collect comparatively large airborne particles, there are a cyclone, a multiclone, an inertial separator with a duct (for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,710,561, 4,971,604 and Japanese Patent Examined Publication S52-29277) and a renewable filter, for example a wire mesh of stainless steel and so on.
The apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,710,561, shown in FIG. 41(a), is a dust collector having a rectangular duct with continuous curvature and spanwise channel width larger than radial, and having an aperture on an outside adjacent to an outlet.
The apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,604, as shown in FIG. 41(b) removes mineral fibers that are pneumatically transported. A duct with a square or rectangular section is curved by 90° and an air flow passes through an exhaust portal, with particles getting to an output portal.
A representative dust collector is a cyclone or a multiclone comprising a plurality of cyclones in parallel. Although the collection efficiency of them is high, yet pressure loss is large. A tangential inlet cyclone is used usually at an inlet flow velocity of 7 to 15 m/s, and according to Iinoya's formula, the pressure loss of the above cyclone having a standard size ratio is about 240 to 1100 Pa with an outlet pipe open to the atmosphere (non-patent ref. 10).
Furthermore, a high-velocity swirling flow at an exit of the cyclone is extremely turbulent, which is not preferable for an input of a backward air filter.
Therefore, when the cyclone or the multiclone is used as a pre-collector upstream of the air filter, the suction power of the allergen suction device becomes weak. Furthermore, a household air cleaner is generally equipped with a fan whose wind flow rate is large and static pressure is low, so in a case where a flow to deal with by the allergen suction device ranges, the cyclone becomes unable to deal with a large flow.
Next, the method of separating particles from the air with a curved duct is described. Although the curved duct has the advantage that pressure loss is small, yet the collection efficiency of particles is not good owing to the turbulence of flow caused by centrifugal force.
When particles and so on are separated from the air by the curved duct with a circle or square section (for example, Japanese Patent Examined Publication S52-29277), a secondary flow, a velocity component, that is perpendicular to a direction of a main stream, develops, so the collection efficiency falls. The secondary flow is a phenomenon that is caused by the difference of a radial fluid thickness and the presence or absence of a sidewall friction.
The duct shown in FIG. 41(b) is also much affected by the sidewall friction. Furthermore, even if the duct is provided with a collection chamber at the output portal, particles separated from the air flow tend to re-scatter, because a collection mouth is wide.
On the other hand, in a curved rectangular duct with high aspect ratio, the effect of friction is restricted to the neighborhood of a sidewall and different flow phenomenons emerge over an outside concave wall and an inside convex wall. Concerning the stability and unstableness of a concentric flow, such things as the following are considered by persons, from Prandtl down (non-patent ref. 11).
When a fluid mass moves circularly at a radius y and with a velocity U, centrifugal force is balanced against pressure gradient. Therefore, let p and ρa be pressure and air density, respectively, andρa(U2/y)=dp/dy holds. Let U1 and U2 be the velocity at a radius y1 and y2, respectively. Now, when a fluid mass at the radius y1 moves to be at the radius y2 and the velocity U1 becomes U′, angular momentum is conserved like the next,ρay1U1=ρay2U′. At this time, centrifugal force acting on the fluid mass having moved isρa(U′2/y2)=ρa(y1U1/y2)2/y2.If this value is smaller than the pressure gradient at the radius y2, ρaU22/y2, that is y1U1<y2U2, the turbulence goes toward restoration, with the result that the flow becomes stable. Conversely, the former is larger than the latter, that is y1U1>y2U2, the turbulence goes toward increase, with the result that the flow becomes unstable. To be brief, in the concentric flow, when angular momentum radially increases, the flow becomes stable, and when angular momentum radially decreases, the flow becomes unstable.
In the curved rectangular duct with high aspect ratio, taking a radial distribution of a main stream velocity into consideration, a side to fulfill the stability condition that angular momentum increases is a convex wall side, and the one to become unstable is a concave wall side.
This is proved by the many experimental results of the past. In a boundary layer over a concave wall, there often occur Görtler vortices, the counter-rotating longitudinal vortex pairs whose axes are parallel to the direction of the main stream. The Görtler vortices are stationary longitudinal vortices that occur in a transition process from a laminar flow to a turbulent flow in the boundary layer, and it is also observed in a turbulent boundary layer. It is difficult to predict the occurrence of the Görtler vortices. The occurrence is much influenced by an overall apparatus configuration and turbulence at an entrance, and the vortices occur in some cases and do not occur in other cases. Even if the stationary vortices do not occur, the turbulence over the concave wall, which is caused by centrifugal force, is large.
To the contrary, a turbulent flow is further suppressed over the convex wall, which has been made clear by (a) a flow visualization with a smoke wire method and (b) the measurement of turbulent energy (non-patent ref. 12, non-patent ref. 13).
When particles are separated from the air flow by a curved rectangular duct with high aspect ratio, a flow turbulence over the concave wall of a duct like FIG. 41(a) is large, so a particle separation efficiency is not good. In addition, a plurality of prominent blades themselves disturb the current. Further, in this apparatus, even if it is equipped not with plural collection mouths but a single narrow collection mouth, the collection efficiency is low. Further, even if it is equipped with a wide collection mouth, the collection efficiency is not good because of the re-scattering of collected dust.
The above is the major problem wherein particles are inertially collected from the air with the duct.
Furthermore, the conventional inertial dust collector with the duct has a problem wherein a particle with large inertia and unfixed form tends to escape. When the diameter or velocity of a particle increases, which means a particle inertia increases, the particle property of following a current decreases and that of moving straight increases. In addition, a particle with a non-spherical or unfixed form irregularly bounces on a wall surface. For that reason, in the duct shown in FIG. 41(a), such particles tend to pass over the collection part. In the duct shown in FIG. 41(b), particles, which somewhat obliquely enters from an inlet, bounce on an outside wall, occasionally escaping. The phenomenon that hard coarse particles bounce on the wall surface and escape is observed in the cyclone also. The reason why the collection efficiency of the cyclone with a cylinder diameter less than 100 mm does not necessarily progress is believed to be due to the bounce of particles on the wall surface (non-patent ref. 14). Because an air filter is used downstream in a hybrid air cleaner, such particles that have escaped become the load of the air filter in full.
Next, a case where a renewable filter is used is described. When the renewable filter is used, collected dust is accumulated according to the use with the result that the suction power of the allergen suction device falls. Further, it has the problem of quickening the degradation of a deodorizing filter because the flow passes through the collected dust. In addition, it has a non-sanitary aspect where unwanted bacteria breed according to the temperature and humidity after water washing.
Furthermore, when particles with a diameter smaller than 20 μm are collected by the wire mesh of stainless steel, pressure loss gets large. The typical weaving patterns of wire meshes are plain weave, twill weave and twill Dutch weave. The plain or twill weave is the weaving pattern where every warp or weft is woven with separation. Although its pressure loss is small, a minimum aperture is 20 μm. The twill Dutch weave is the weaving pattern where wefts touch each other and a small wedge-shaped aperture, which is made up of a warp and a weft, plays a part as a filtering hole. Although its minimum filtering diameter can be under 20 μm, the pressure loss is large. The pressure loss of the twill Dutch wire mesh with a filtering diameter of 20 μm is 6 to 7 times larger than the twill wire mesh with a aperture of 20 μm. In bedding and so on, particles with a diameter smaller than 20 μm, which settled from atmospheric aerosol, are much contained. Pressure loss gets large when the twill Dutch wire mesh is used.
By the way, in a season when pollen scatters, pollen which adhered to hair or clothes during the patient's outdoor stay is carried indoors, and it re-scatters from them also. Pollen which re-scatters from hair passes in the neighborhood of the patient's eyes and/or respiratory organs, easily inducing allergic symptoms. The number of female patients with Japanese cedar pollinosis, aged 10 to 49 years, is greater than that of male patients (non-patent ref. 2, non-patent ref. 15). Woman's hair is so long and rich that pollen tends to adhere to it and go deep into it. Further, pollen which has invaded indoors and deposited on a sofa, bedding and so on, re-scatters from them during their use, inducing allergic symptoms. It is desirable to remove such pollen effectively, but a method or an apparatus for it is not presented.
Lastly, air blowing and circulation is mentioned. Although a conventional air cleaner circulates and purifies an air of a whole room, yet to remove the allergen suspending near the respiratory organs of the patient of perennial allergic rhinitis during his or her sleep, which is most important for the patient not sufficiently done.

High aspect ratio and multi-curvature separator, and hybrid air cleaner using the same

Nakamura Medicine and Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd.


A heat exchanger module includes a first heat exchanger disposed at a downstream air side of second and third heat exchangers. In the heat exchanger module, walls are formed in reinforcement plates of the second and third heat exchangers, to be approximately perpendicular to a cooling air flow direction. Further, communication holes through which air passes are provided in the walls of the reinforcement plates. Accordingly, a sufficient amount of air for heat exchange can be supplied to the first heat exchanger, while the second and third heat exchangers can be reinforced enough by the reinforcement plates.

When plural heat exchangers are arranged in a line with respect to an air flow direction (for example, referring to EP 859209 (corresponding to JP-A-10-111086)), an insulation gap is provided between a first heat exchanger core and a second heat exchanger core by plates disposed parallel to the air flow direction between the two heat exchanger cores. However, in this document, because the plates are disposed parallel to the air flow direction, it is impossible to increase quadratic moments of plate cross sections perpendicular to an axis parallel to the air flow direction. Therefore, the heat exchanger cores cannot be reinforced enough by the plates.
In contrast, if the plates are disposed nearly perpendicular to the air flow direction between the two heat exchanger cores, it is possible to increase quadratic moments of plate cross sections perpendicular to the axis parallel to the air flow direction without increasing a thickness of the plates. In this case, it is possible to reinforce enough the heat exchanger cores by the plates. However, a new problem as following is caused.
When the plates are disposed nearly perpendicular to the air flow direction, air cannot pass through portions where the plates are disposed between the two heat exchanger cores. Accordingly, if other heat exchanger is disposed at a downstream air side of the two heat exchanger cores, the other heat exchanger cannot be provided with enough air necessary for a heat exchange and cannot perform a sufficient heat exchange.


A mounting board has a board, retaining members mounted on the upper surface of the board, and a part retained by the retaining members. The part is mounted such that at least a part thereof is arranged below the lower surface of the board, and that the part is electrically connected to the board through the retaining members. Such an arrangement as described above eliminates the need of connecting the discharge gap element to the board by using lead wires, and of mounting it on the upper surface of the board. This lowers the height of the board and admits an elevated part.

Conventionally, as a part to be mounted on a board, there has been used one as shown in FIG. 1 (here, as an example, a discharge gap element is given).
Referring to FIG. 1, reference numeral 12 denotes a board, reference numerals 12a and 12b mounting holes on the board 12. Reference numeral 15 denotes a discharge gap element, and reference numerals 15a, 15b leads projected from the side of an electrode on both ends of the discharge gap element 15. The discharge gap element 15 is mounted on the board 12 by inserting these leads 15a, 15b into the inserting holes 12a, 12b on the board 12 and then by soldering them.
As an example of a mounted part other than the discharge gap element, JP 82933/1993 A disclosed one in which a sub-board is mounted on the upper surface of a mounting board and a leadless part is soldered onto this sub-board.
Since this conventional discharge gap element is mounted into the mounting holes on the board as shown in FIG. 1, it is mounted on the upper part of the board and the height of the board after mounting obtained by an equation (the thickness of the board itself+the height of the discharge gap element element). In order to hold down the height of the board, there has no other choice but to lower the height of the discharge gap element. The same holds true for the other parts to be mounted on the board, as they are mounted on the upper part of the board, there has no other way than to lower the height of the part in order to hold down the height of the board.
In addition, the conventional discharge gap element was permitted to arrange only in the neighborhood of the mounting holes on the board and to have a lower freedom of arrangement thereof. For this reason, in case of trying to hold down the height of a specific portion of the board after parts have been mounted thereon, if the necessity arises to move the position of the discharge gap element on the board, much time requires for redesign of the circuit pattern.
Further, the discharge gap element has conventionally been used in a lighting device for a discharge lamp of a motor vehicle, or the like.
First, the conventional discharge lamp will be described.
Among the discharge lamps, a high intensity discharge (HID) lamp such as a metal halide lamp, a high-pressure sodium vapor lamp, a mercury lamp, or the like, has advantages that it has large luminous flux, high lamp efficiency, and long lifetime. Therefore, it has been used as an illumination lamp in indoor and outdoor facilities, warehouses, factories, or the like, or as a street lamp, or the like. Recently, it is being used particularly as a headlamp for a vehicle such as a motor vehicle. In order to light this kind of discharge lamp, it is necessary to apply a high starting voltage at the time of starting. In addition to a stabilizer to stably light the discharge lamp, a starting device (an ignitor) to generate the starting voltage, including parts called as a transformer, a capacitor, a discharge gap element, or the like, is required.
FIG. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view of the lighting device as seen from the vehicle explaining a conventional lighting device for the HID headlamp of a motor vehicle.
Inside a housing 1 a reflector 2 is attached which acts as a reflecting mirror to converge an optical axis, and on an inner surface of which a reflecting surface is coated. An HID bulb 4 held by a bulb socket 3 is mounted substantially in the center of the reflector 2. An ignitor 5 for generating a high voltage, e.g., of 30 KV in order to light the HID bulb 4 is disposed separate from the HID lighting fixture. A power control circuit (ballast) 7 for lighting the HID lighting device is disposed integrally with, or separate from, the ignitor 5 or a transformer 6. The HID lighting device configured in this manner instantaneously applies a high voltage to the HID bulb 4 to induce the high-voltage discharge of the HID bulb, whereby the gas filled inside the bulb gives rise to discharge to light it. Reference numeral 8 denotes a lens and the luminous flux of the HID bulb is dispersed within a predetermined range through the lens 8 to illuminate the ahead of the vehicle, thereby securing the safety of the vehicle when running in the dark.
This kind of HID headlamp is mounted in a space between a bumper 9 and an engine hood 10. In the primitive HID lighting device, the ignitor 5 for generating the high voltage and the control circuit (ballast) 7 for supplying electricity to the HID lighting device are mounted separate from the lighting fixture, and the power is supplied to the bulb socket 3 through a harness 11.
In this kind of structure, since the ignitor 5 and the bulb socket 3 are disposed separate from each other and they are connected through the harness 11, it was compelled to cover the harness 11 with a high-performance electromagnetic shielding wire in order to shield the electric waves to be leaked out from the harness 11. However, complete removing of the effect on a car radio or the like was ended in failure.
In order to solve this problem, the best way is to incorporate the high-voltage module inside the lighting fixture and also to shield the inside of the lighting fixture from the electromagnetic waves by means of metallic thin film deposition or the like. As one approach, it is devised that the ignitor 5 for generating the high voltage is integrally mounted with the HID bulb.
One such example will be described with reference to FIG. 3.
As shown in FIG. 3, it has conventionally been known (e.g., in JP 136938/1991 A) to annex the ignitor 5 on a board on which the HID bulb 4 is mounted, and to house them inside the lighting fixture.
Referring to FIG. 3, reference numeral 12 denotes the board which is attached to the reflector 2 and onto which the HID bulb 4 is assembled, reference numeral 13 a transformer around which a primary coil and a secondary coil are wound to generate the starting voltage for the HID bulb, reference numeral 14 a charging capacitor therein the starting energy, reference numeral 15 a discharge gap element. Through a potential difference charged in the capacitor 14 on both ends of the discharge gap element 15, the gas filled inside the part quickly starts electric discharge due to dielectric breakdown, which supplies electricity to the primary coil of the transformer 13. This generates a high-voltage pulse of 20 KV through 30 KV in the secondary coil of the transformer 13, whereby the HID bulb 4 is illuminated by discharge. Reference numeral 16 denotes a cap.
Typically, a starting device 300 of the HID lighting device is made up of the transformer 12, the capacitor 14, the discharging gap 15, or the like. The one described with reference to FIG. 3 houses the starting device 300 inside the lighting fixture. In order to prevent the electric noises from being leaked out, the inner wall surface of the housing 1 is provided with a coating of a metallic thin film for shielding purpose, and the body of the housing 1 is grounded.
As a discharging gap 15, the same one is used as that described with reference to FIG. 1.
However, such the arrangement as shown in FIG. 3 encumbers miniaturization, in particular, thickening of the starting device 300, as the starting device 300 is housed inside the lighting fixture. It is therefore infeasible to miniaturize the lighting fixture and to attain a space efficiency inside the vehicle. Further, soldering after the leads 15a, 15b extended from both electrodes of the discharge gap element 15 have been inserted into the board requires the cutting work for excess leads protruded from the back of the board. In addition, the discharge gap element 15 bent at the lead wires interferes with other parts on the board.
Further, as described above, the parts such as the conventional discharge gap element, or the like, are mounted on the upper part, of the board, when they are mounted on the mounting board. Therefore, in order to hold down the height of the board, there has no other way than to lower the height of the parts.
Still further, in the mounting board on which the parts such as the conventional discharge gap element, or the like are mounted, the parts were allowed to arrange only in the vicinity of the mounting holes on the board and to have a lower freedom of arrangement. Therefore, in case of trying to lower the height of a particular portion of the board after parts have been mounted thereon, if the necessity arises to move the position of the discharge gap element on the board, much labor costs for redesign of the circuit pattern.
This invention has been made to solve the above and other problems and an object thereof is to provide a mounting board suitable for miniaturization of the apparatus as well for mass production, a board for mounting thereon a part, a method of mounting the mounting board, as well as a bulb socket using the mounting board.

Installation substrate, method of mounting installation substrate, and bulb socket using installation substrate


An implantable medical device is disclosed having a helical construct including a set of spiral coils for local in vivo application of a therapeutic substance in a biological lumen. The helical construct is configured to apply less than 0.75 Bar of pressure to the biological lumen wall. The helical construct can have at least two sets of spiral coils having opposing helical directions. The device can be used for the treatment of vascular disorders such as restenosis and vulnerable plaque.

Various devices and methods have been proposed for local application of a therapeutic agent or drug such as stents, vascular paving, and particle delivery. Stents are metallic or polymeric implantable structures that have been modified for local delivery of a drug. A polymer dissolved in a solvent including a drug can be applied to the stent. The solvent is removed, leaving behind a polymer coated stent capable of delivering a drug. A disadvantage of using a stent includes the trauma caused to the lumen, such as a blood vessel, during implantation of the stent. Radial pressure applied by the stent can lead to inflammation and tissue damage, which can cause the onset of restenosis or amplify the degree of vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and migration. Hyper-proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells caused by the application of radial pressure by a stent can mitigate the effects of local therapeutic substance application.
For some applications such as vulnerable plaque, radial pressure applied by a stent can cause more sever damage than just inducement of restenosis. Unlike occlusive plaques that impede blood flow, vulnerable plaque develops within the arterial walls. Vulnerable plaque can exist without the symptomatic characteristic of a substantially narrow arterial lumen. The intrinsic histological features that may characterize a vulnerable plaque include increased lipid content, increased macrophage, foam cell and T lymphocyte content, and reduced collagen and smooth muscle cell content. This fibroatheroma type of vulnerable plaque is often referred to as "soft" collagen, whose reduced concentration combined with macrophage derived enzyme degradations cause the fibrous cap of these lesions to rupture under unpredictable circumstances. When ruptured, the lipid core contents, thought to include tissue factor, contact the arterial bloodstream, causing a blood clot to form that can completely block the artery resulting in acute coronary syndrome (ACS). This type of atherosclerosis is coined "vulnerable" because of unpredictable tendency of the plaque to rupture. It is thought that hemodynamic and cardiac forces, which yield to circumferential stress, shear stress, and flexation stress, may cause disruption of fibroatheroma type of vulnerable plaque. These forces may arise as the result of simple movements, such as getting out of bed in the morning, in vivo forces related to blood flow and the beating of the heart, as well as radial force applied by a stent. Accordingly, it is desirable to treat conditions such as vulnerable plaque with adequate source of drug delivery without the drawbacks associated with a stent.
Vascular paving can be performed by loading a monomer, pre-polymer or polymer in a balloon catheter, and then applying the composition directly to the inside of a tissue lumen within a zone occluded by the catheter balloon. The application can be through pores of the balloon, for example. The process is followed by curing or polymerizing the applied composition. The tissue surface may be an internal or external surface, and can include the interior of a tissue lumen or hollow space whether naturally occurring or occurring as a result of surgery, percutaneous techniques, trauma or disease. The polymeric material can be reconfigured to form a coating or "paving" layer in intimate and conforming contact with the surface. The resulting paving layer optionally can have a sealing function. The coating preferably has a thickness on the tissue surface on the order of 0.001-1.0 mm; however, coatings having a thickness outside that range may be used as well. By appropriate selection of the material employed and of the configuration of the paving material, the process can be tailored to satisfy a wide variety of biological or clinical situations. Drawbacks associated with vascular paving include the downstream flow and waste of the paving material prior to the curing of the composition and difficult and cumbersome procedural steps for the surgeon including the necessity to occlude the vessel in which the procedure is performed and the curing or polymerization of the polymer to achieve conformal coating about the location where its benefit is most desired. In sum, vascular paving has been considered a difficult procedure which can certainly out weight its benefits.
Particle drug delivery includes release of particles having a drug at the treatment site. If the particles are delivered so as to be embedded within the treatment site, they can cause sever trauma to the vessel, which would present the same issues as a stent as described above. If the particles are simply delivered without being embedded within the lumen, the therapeutic effect of the particles can depend on their size. Too small of particles can simply wash away with blood flow, resulting in negligible therapeutic treatment at the desired site. Moreover, other areas of the body not in need of treatment will be exposed to the drug, which in effect would be equivalent to systemic delivery of the drug. If the particles are too large, they form an embolus, causing cell damage or death.
It is desirable to address and treat vascular conditions, such as vulnerable plaque, a disease that is often seen in diabetics, with a use of a device that does not provide the above described drawbacks. It is also desirable to have a device which provides a sustained delivery of therapeutic agents to long or extended portions of coronary vessels or to a multitude of focal manifestations of a disease site. The use of the implantable device of the present invention, as can be appreciated by one having ordinary skill in the art, is certainly not limited to coronary vessels as it can have a multitude of applications in a variety of biological lumens and cavities.


Cidofovir or foscarnet based compounds having an amino acid or dipeptide esters are provided as prodrugs.

The prodrug approach has been utilized widely since the late 1950s for increasing drug bioavailability as well as drug targeting after oral administration. A prodrug is a compound that undergoes transformation within the body before eliciting a therapeutic action. This strategy is based on chemically modifying an active substance by attaching pro-moieties to pharmacophores, which ideally should overcome the biochemical and physical barriers impeding drug transport of the parent substance. Limited oral bioavailability is usually attributed to poor membrane permeability, low aqueous solubility (in the gastrointestinal fluids), or extensive first-pass metabolism.
It was long thought that intestinal absorption of most drugs proceeded by passive diffusion, in which the lipid solubility of the drug molecule was the determining factor. However, many water-soluble compounds have been shown to move well across cell membranes utilizing specialized carrier-mediated transport mechanisms. These membrane transporters play a key role in determining exposure of cells or organisms to a variety of solutes including nutrients and cellular byproducts, as well as drug molecules. Efforts have been made to improve drug bioavailability by using different pro-moieties targeting various active transportation systems present in the small intestine. Examples of transportation systems include peptide transporters, organic cation transporters, organic anion transporters, glucose transporters, vitamin transporters, bile acid transporters, fatty acid transporters, phosphate transporters, monocarboxylic acid transporters, bicarbonate transporters, ABC transporters, nucleoside transporters and amino acid transporters, as described by H.-C. Shi et al, in: R. Mannhold, H. Kubinyi, G. Folkers, Eds., Methods and Principles in Medicinal Chemistry, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2003; pp. 245 287, herein incorporated by reference. All of these transporters are mainly located in the brush border membrane with variable distribution along the gastrointestinal tract, and show diverse substrate specificities.
The peptide transporter-1 (PepT1) is known to play a critical role in the absorption of diverse drugs and prodrugs from the intestinal tract. PepT1 is located in the apical enterocytic membrane of the upper small intestine where it serves as a symporter, using an electrochemical proton gradient as its driving force. Human PepT1 (hPepT1) contains 708 amino acids oriented in 12 membrane-spanning domains. The hPepT1 carrier protein is stereoselective, with peptides that contain L-amino acid residues having higher affinity for binding and transport than peptides containing one or more D-amino acids.
Many pharmaceuticals are known to utilize the intestinal PepT1 to gain entry into the systematic circulation. Such pharmaceuticals include β-lactam antibiotics such as penicillins and cephalosporins, ACE-inhibitors, renin inhibitors, thrombin inhibitors, and the dipeptide-like anti-neoplastic drug bestatin, as well as prodrugs of ganciclovir L-Dopa and pamidronate. Valacyclovir is one example of a prodrug enhancing bioavailability (3- to 5-fold) compared to the parent drug (20%), acyclovir. The increased bioavailability is suggested to result from PepT1 mediated absorption and rapid hydrolysis to acyclovir. Since PepT1 is an important di/tri peptide transporter in human enterocytes, the transportation of hundreds of different possible dipeptides, thousands of possible tripeptides, and diverse drugs and prodrugs, implies broad substrate specificity for this transporter.
Cidofovir [(S)-1-(3-hydroxy-2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl)cytosine, HPMPC] has been approved in the clinic as a treatment for AIDS-related cytomegalovirus retinitis. Cidofovir is known for its broad-spectrum activity against virtually all DNA viruses. It has been shown to have therapeutic potential not only against cytomegalovirus, but also against other herpes viruses such as herpes simplex virus (HSV), varcella-zoster virus (VZV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and human herpes virus types 6, 7, and 8. It also has anti-viral activity against adenoviruses, papovaviruses such as papillomavirus and polyomavirus, pox viruses such as variola virus (the etiological agent for small pox) and other orthopox viruses such as monkeypox virus, hepadnaviruses such as hepatitis B virus, and iridiovirus.
The basic structure of cidofovir is shown in formula (I).

There is also a cyclic form of cidofovir. Cyclic cidofovir has a six-membered ring having two oxygen atoms, as shown in formula (II).

The potential use of variola virus and monkeypox virus as bioterrorism weapons has stimulated efforts to develop new drugs for treatment of smallpox and other pox infections. Cidofovir has been approved for use in the treatment of smallpox. Although, cidofovir is a very active agent against orthopoxviruses in vitro and in animal model infections; it does not show activity when administered orally due to lack of bioavailability via the oral route. Thus, cidofovir must be given systemically by injection or intravenously. Accordingly, there is a need to develop cidofovir-based drugs with enhanced oral bioavailability.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)

The United States of America as represented by the NIH Division of Extramural Inventions and Technology Resources (DEITR)


In a method controlling an ion detector, one or more ion input signals are received at the ion detector. A data point indicative of an intensity of at least one of the received ion input signals is acquired. Asynchronously with acquiring the data point, a drive voltage applied to the ion detector is regulated to operate the ion detector at a gain optimal for the intensity of at least one of the received ion input signals. An ion detector for implementing the method is also provided.

Mass spectrometry (MS) describes a variety of instrumental methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis that enable ionizable components of a sample to be resolved according to their mass-to-charge ratios. For this purpose, a mass spectrometer converts the sample components into ions, sorts or separates the ions based on their mass-to-charge ratios, and processes the resulting ion output (ion current, flux, beam, etc.) as needed to produce a mass spectrum. Typically, a mass spectrum is a series of peaks indicative of the relative abundances of charged components as a function of mass-to-charge ratio. The information represented by the ion output can be encoded as electrical signals through the use of an appropriate transducer to enable data processing by both analog and digital techniques. An ion detector is a type of transducer that converts ion current to electrical current and thus is commonly employed in an MS system.
Insofar as the present disclosure is concerned, MS systems are generally known and need not be described in detail. Briefly, a typical MS system generally includes a sample inlet system, an ion source or ionization system, a mass analyzer (also termed a mass sorter or mass separator), an ion detector, a signal processor, and readout/display means. Additionally, the modern MS system includes an electronic controller such as a computer or other electronic processor-based device for controlling the functions of one or more components of the MS system, storing information produced by the MS system, providing libraries of molecular data useful for analysis, and the like. The electronic controller may include a main computer that includes a terminal, console or the like for enabling interface with an operator of the MS system, as well as one or more modules or units that have dedicated functions such as instrument control and data acquisition and processing. The MS system also includes a vacuum system to enclose the mass analyzer in a controlled, evacuated environment.
In operation, the sample inlet system introduces a small amount of sample material to the ion source. In hyphenated techniques, the sample inlet system may be the output of an analytical separation instrument such as employed for chromatography, electrophoresis, solid-phase extraction, or other techniques. The ion source converts components of the sample material into a stream of positive and negative ions. One ion polarity is then accelerated into the mass analyzer. The mass analyzer separates the ions according to their respective mass-to-charge ratios. The mass analyzer produces a flux of mass-resolved ions and the ions are collected at the ion detector. The mass analyzer may be of the time-sequenced type such as an ion trap, a Fourier Transform (FT) device, or an ion cyclotron resonance (ICR) device, or may be of the continuous-beam type such as a multipole device, a time-of-flight (TOF) device, or an electric or magnetic sector device.
In certain hyphenated techniques, such as tandem MS or MS/MS, more than one mass analyzer (and more than one type of mass analyzer) may be used. As one example, an ion source may be coupled to a multipole (for example, quadrupole) structure that acts as a first stage of mass separation to isolate molecular ions of a mixture. The first analyzer may in turn be coupled to another multipole structure (normally operated in an RF-only mode) that performs a collision-focusing function and is often termed a collision chamber or collision cell. A suitable collision gas such as argon is injected into the collision cell to cause fragmentation of the ions and thereby produce daughter ions. This second multipole structure may in turn be coupled to yet another multipole structure that acts as a second stage of mass separation to scan the daughter ions. Finally, the output of the second stage is coupled to an ion detector. Instead of multipole structures, magnetic and/or electrostatic sectors may be employed. Other examples of MS/MS systems include the Varian Inc. 1200 series of triple-quadrupole GC/MS systems commercially available from Varian, Inc., Palo Alto, Calif., and the implementations disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,576,897, assigned to the assignee of the present disclosure.
As previously noted, the ion detector functions as a transducer that converts ionic information (which may be mass-discriminated by a mass analyzer) into electrical signals suitable for processing/conditioning by the signal processor, storage in memory, and presentation by the readout/display means. A typical ion detector is an electron-multiplier (EM). The electron multiplier includes, as a first stage, an ion-to-electron conversion device. Ions from the mass analyzer are focused toward the ion-to-electron conversion device. The ion-to-electron conversion device typically includes a surface that emits electrons in response to impingement by ions. The conversion rate mainly depends on the ion's mass, thermal state, charge state, and velocity, and the type of impact surface. The ion conversion stage is followed by an electron multiplier stage. A voltage potential is impressed across the length of a containment structure of the electron multiplier. The electrical current resulting from the ion-to-electron conversion is amplified in the multiplier stage through multiplication of liberated electrons. The gain of this multiplication can be influenced by the applied voltage potential. An anode positioned at the end of the multiplier collects the multiplied flux of electrons and the resulting electrical output current is transmitted to subsequent processes such as a current-to-voltage converter. Another type of ion detector is the photo-multiplier (PM). As appreciated by persons skilled in the art, a photo-multiplier may be substituted for an ion detector and operated in an analogous manner.
In MS systems, the ion current input into electron multiplier may range, for example, from about 10−1 ions (ion counts) per second to greater than 1012 ions per second. Electron multipliers provide an electrical current gain that may range, for a given construction, from 103 to 109 depending on applied control voltage. In the present context, the gain of the electron multiplier may be expressed as the ratio of its output electrical current to its input ion current. Hence, the output of an ion detector equipped with an electron multiplier is an amplified electrical current proportional to the intensity of the ion current fed to the ion detector, the ion-to-electron conversion rate, and the gain of the electron multiplier. This output current can be processed as needed to yield a mass spectrum that can be displayed or printed by the readout/display means. A trained analyst can then interpret the mass spectrum to obtain information regarding the sample material processed by the MS system.
Like many analytical techniques, figures of merit are associated with the performance of a mass spectrometer. From the above description of the function of the ion detector, it can be seen that the performance of the ion detector and associated collection electronics can significantly affect the performance of the mass spectrometer as a whole. Two important figures of merit are sensitivity and dynamic range, which in the present context can provide a measure of the performance of the ion detector employed in an MS system or other system employing an ion detector. To optimize sensitivity, the detector system needs to be able to detect a single ion entering the ion detector (i.e., single ion counting). To achieve this, the gain of the ion detector is increased until the output current signal exceeds all other sources of noise, with an S/N of about 5:1 when a single ion enters the ion detector. Dynamic range may be characterized as being the range in which the output response to the ion input signal is linear. Dynamic range may be limited by the signal processing circuitry that follows the ion detector or by the maximum allowable output current of the electron multiplier. For example, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are often provided to transform the analog signals generated by the ion detector to digital signals in order to take advantage of computerized data acquisition hardware and software. In this case, the dynamic range of an ion detector system can be limited to the maximum input signal range of the ADC. To compensate for this limitation, a user of an MS system has traditionally reduced the gain of the electron multiplier by lowering the high-voltage supplied to the electron multiplier. However, this will result in losing sensitivity because single ions can no longer be detected. Increasing sensitivity such as by increasing gain may exceed the maximum allowable output current of the electron multiplier, and/or prematurely stress or age the specialized material that comprises the surfaces of the electron multiplier. These surfaces are designed to be operated at a gain that results in an optimum output current providing a good S/N ratio and reasonable service life. The means taken for extending dynamic range may reduce sensitivity, lower the precision of detected mass peaks, and, if a high sensitivity is selected, narrow the bandwidth of amplifiers employed in signal processing and/or limit the maximum scan speed of the mass analyzer. Moreover, there has not existed a sufficient method for increasing both dynamic range and sensitivity, or at least increasing dynamic range without adversely affecting sensitivity.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,144, commonly assigned to the assignee of the present disclosure, describes apparatus and methods for increasing the dynamic range of an ion detector by changing the gain of the ion detector for each following scan if necessary. After each scan, the digital output signal of the ion detector is then back scaled according to the gain on the ion detector to provide the mass spectrum. The invention disclosed in this patent has been successfully tested and implemented, but may be considered as having some drawbacks. For instance, because the gain is set only once per scan, the dynamic range and sensitivity of all data within that scan is effectively limited to the ion detector gain set for this scan. It is therefore desirable to change the ion detector gain on every sample, rather than on every scan. To improve scan speeds, it is also desired to be able to collect data points very rapidly, for example, every 10 μs for a quadrupole-based MS or every 1 μs for an ion trap-based MS. To change the gain of the electron multiplier by 103, for example, one would need to change the control voltage to the multiplier by about 600 V. Therefore, the implementation of an extended dynamic range technique on a sample-by-sample basis would require a DC amplifier with close to a 600 V/μs slew rate, which in practice is very difficult to do and would require a large amount of power. Additionally, if it is desired to have an ion deprecation accuracy of better than 0.01%, this DC amplifier would also need to be able to settle its output voltage to within 5 V within one sample. In addition, while waiting until the ion detector gain changes, one cannot collect data because the gain of the multiplier would be unknown during this time.
Accordingly, there continues to be a need for improved techniques for optimizing sensitivity and dynamic range in mass spectrometers utilizing ion detectors. In particular, there is a need for optimizing multiplier gain at a rate faster than a scan-by-scan basis, and for optimizing multiplier gain independently of the ion sampling rate.

Real-time control of ion detection with extended dynamic range


An apparatus for delivering water vapor to a gas is formed from a plurality of hollow fiber membranes each defining a passage for the flow of gas from an upstream end of the passage and enclosed by an enclosure. The hollow fiber membranes have a combined surface area in the range of about 90 square centimeters to about 110 square centimeters. The enclosure contains an air inlet positioned to direct air to the upstream end of each of the passages of the hollow fiber membranes and an air outlet positioned to direct air from the downstream end of each of the passages of the hollow fiber membranes. The enclosure preferably has a water inlet positioned to direct water toward the outer surfaces of the hollow fiber membranes and a water outlet positioned to direct water from the enclosure.

It has been recognized that the delivery of oxygen and oxygen-enriched air to the respiratory tract of a patient often results in discomfort to the patient, especially when the air is delivered over an extended period of time. It has also been recognized that the delivery of air having relatively low absolute humidity can result in respiratory irritation.
Several devices have been proposed to overcome these problems. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003/0209246A1, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes embodiments of an apparatus and method for respiratory tract therapy adapted to heat and humidify air and to deliver heated and humidified air to the respiratory tract of a human patient. Devices such as those disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003/0209246A1 represent an improvement over prior art devices.
Nevertheless, there remains a need for devices adapted to deliver supplemental breathing gases at low continuous flow rates such as flow rates less than about 5 liters per minute at high relative humidities such as about 100% relative humidity and in an elevated temperature range such as a temperature range from about 33° C. to about 43° C. There also remains a need for delivering gas warmed and humidified with water vapor at flow rates ranging from about 1 liter per minute or lower to about 8 liters per minute or higher.

Apparatus and method for delivering water vapor to a gas


The tank flap of an automobile is locked via a wire spring with which an extension connected to the tank flap will cooperate. A spring-biased locking body keeps the wire spring in the releasing position when the tank flap initially is forced inwards.

A fuel door housing has become known from DE 203 11 149 U1, for example. It comprises a single-piece cup shaped body which is inserted into a through aperture in the body of a vehicle. The cup shaped body pivotally supports a tank flap which, at its inside, has an arresting shoulder which interacts with a closing element of a closing device. The closing device may be driven via a central power door lock control. The closing device is housed in a separate compartment of the cup shaped body.


A method is for impregnating a high voltage insulation of a winding bar (10), the winding bar (10) having a conductive bar (1) around which layers of insulating mica tape defining said high voltage insulation are wrapped. The method includes enclosing the winding bar (10) in a flexible sleeve (3), applying a vacuum in the flexible sleeve (3) to extract the gases contained in the insulating mica tape, supplying an impregnating resin into the flexible sleeve (3) to impregnate the mica tape (2), and curing the resin. The impregnating resin is supplied into the flexible sleeve (3) at a pressure less than 1.5 bar.

1. Field of Endeavor
The present invention relates to a method for impregnating a high voltage insulation of a winding bar.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Winding bars have a conductive bar made of a plurality of interwoven strands, each having an insulating layer wrapped around its surface; the manufactured conductive bars have an insulation (main insulation) wrapped around their surface.
In order to manufacture the main insulation, typically a dry mica tape is wrapped around the conductive bar to define a plurality of layers that are then impregnated with a resin.
In this respect, U.S. Pat. No. 6,840,749 ("'749 patent") discloses a device for impregnating the mica tape layers of high voltage winding bars.
According to the '749 patent and with reference to FIG. 1, the conductive bar 1, with the dry mica tape 2 wrapped around it, is first covered over its entire length by a flexible sleeve 3.
Then the flexible sleeve 3 (preferably contained in clamp shaped tools 4 that accommodate the sleeve 3 and the conductive bar 1 with the mica tape 2) is inserted into a pressure resistant tank 5.
A vacuum is then applied in the flexible sleeve 3, in order to extract the air contained in the mica tape 2 (mica tape may contain up to 50% air).
Then, pressure is applied in the chamber 7 between the pressure resistant tank 5 and the flexible sleeve 3 and impregnating resin is injected into the flexible sleeve 3 to impregnate the mica tape 3.
As the sleeve 3 is flexible, the differential pressure between the pressure of the chamber 7 and the pressure within the flexible sleeve 3 (being the pressure with which the impregnating resin is injected into the flexible sleeve 3) causes the flexible sleeve 3 to press against the mica tape 2.
Then the resin is cured.
In order to achieve a quick impregnation (the resin deteriorates after a prefixed time), the impregnating pressure (i.e., the pressure of the resin entering the flexible sleeve 3 to impregnate the mica tape 2) is quite high, for example 10 bar; therefore the pressure in the chamber 7 (i.e., inside of the tank 5) must be higher than 10 bar.
Even if this method proved to be quite efficient, it needs the large pressure resistant tank 5 (to withstand the high pressure to be applied therein; pressure resistant tanks are very costly components and, for these particular kind of impregnating plants, they could cost as much as 50% of the total cost of the impregnating plant.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,531,751 discloses a coil around which a mica tape is wrapped and, around the mica tape, a layer of armor tape is applied with a portion of the coil that is not covered by it.

Method for impregnating a high voltage insulation of a winding bar


A refrigerant monitoring system for a heating or cooling system includes a neural network that is used to compute the refrigerant charge in at least one refrigeration circuit of the system. The neural network is trained to learn certain characteristics of the heating or cooling system during a development mode of operation. The thus trained neural network timely computes refrigerant charge during a run time mode of operation. Information as to the computed refrigerant charge being at variance with the nominal amount of refrigerant charge for at least one refrigeration circuit is made available for assessment during the run time mode of operation.

This invention relates to monitoring the operation of a heating or cooling system, and more specifically to monitoring the level of refrigerant charge present in the refrigeration circuit of any such system.
Many heating and/or cooling systems employ refrigeration circuits. Heat pumps, for instance, use a refrigeration circuit to absorb heat from beneath the ground that can be thereafter surrendered through a heat exchanger to air in a building that is to be heated by the heat pump. Chiller systems on the other hand absorb heat from water flowing through an evaporator so as to thereby chill the water. The chilled water is ultimately used to cool the air in a building by virtue of the chilled water absorbing heat from the air flowing through a heat exchanger. It is important that both the heat pump and the chiller have a sufficient or adequate charge of refrigerant in order to accomplish their respective functions.
It is also important to detect any change in refrigerant charge before the heating or cooling system has operated at an undercharged or overcharged condition for a prolonged period of time. In this regard such changes, if significant, could cause harm to the system. Any such change in refrigerant charge may also be potentially harmful to the atmosphere in the event that the change is attributable to a refrigerant leakage.
Heating or cooling systems have heretofore been equipped with a variety of alarms that may detect an inadequate refrigerant charge. For instance a chiller system equipped with alarms located primarily at the inlet side of one or more of the system's compressors may be triggered due to low refrigerant charge. These alarms may however also be triggered due to other problems occurring within the system. For example, alarms for monitoring suction pressure or suction temperature at the inlet of the compressor may also be triggered due to a stuck expansion valve or fan failure. These alarms may also not be triggered until a substantial amount of refrigerant has been lost. This would occur if the thresholds for the alarms were improperly set. For example, the alarms for monitoring suction pressure or suction temperature at the inlet of the compressor may be set too low.
It is to be noted that certain attempts have been made to define a variable limit for triggering the alarm of a particularly monitored refrigerant condition. For instance, the limit for the refrigerant pressure in the condenser unit in a chiller is varied for a particular load conditions in U.S. Pat. No. 5,539,385. This is, however, a varied limit for only a particular condition as opposed to monitoring a combination of conditions present within the chiller system.
It is an object of the invention to detect early loss of small amounts of refrigerant without reliance on individual thresholds of one or more alarms being exceeded.
It is another object of the invention to detect incremental changes in refrigerant charge without relying on one or more alarms that may be triggered for a variety of possible reasons.


There have been problems in the facility information management system arts because when a distance-based facility database is searched for the facility information by specifying the name and distance of a facility, the location and position of a specific facility must be found on a figure such as a map. Such a location is not easily pointed out especially when the facility is damaged. To overcome the above problems, the present invention relates the distance-based facility data with map data and allows a generation of graphical figure data to be overlaid on a map from the numerical data corresponding to the facility parameters stored in the distance-based facility data.

In typical database systems, Information with respect to any facilities, including railway installations, road facilities, and river facilities may be managed as data, which corresponds to a predetermined origin coordinate with a distance therefrom to a building (sometimes referred to as mileage data). More specifically, facility information may include the construction date, management number, structure information such a wall thickness for example and so on. The information about the buildings may be managed so as to relate the distance from a predetermined origin to the start point of the facility and to the end point of the facility. For example, a bridge has a first end or start point and also a second end or end point.
When the above described facility information is stored in a database, an information retrieval search may be performed by using the name or distance of, for example, a building as a search key. In this search method although the distance to the building will be found, its geographical position will not be clear. For example, searching on a map is required to find the exact position. Thus, in order to find the position and contents of a facility, it is necessary to perform a retrieval search on not only a database but also a reference to a map. In such a method, the identification of a position for example in case of an occurrence of damage to a facility has not been easily performed.
Moreover, even when both the facility data and the map data are computerized, since these data sets are not related to each other, there will be no guarantee that an update to the one will be reflected to the other. When an update of the one is not correctly reflected to the other, there can be inconsistencies between data sets. In such a case, the reliability of the map data and facility data will be ultimately degraded.
Therefore, the facility data and map data are required to be reliably related so as to allow finding the position of a building on a map, and to be updated correctly so as to have no inconsistency between the facility data and map data.

Map generating system and map management system


The invention allows multiple application systems to use a single database system. The database system is divided into at least a first memory portion and a second memory portion. The memory portions are disjunctive. The database system stores a first assignment of a first profile to the first memory portion and a second assignment of a second profile to the second memory portion . The first and second profiles are unique and refer to the first and second application systems, respectively. The first application system and the second application system access the first memory portion and the second memory portion, through the respective profiles.

In the past decade, many organizations implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to have an integrated, single software solution on which they could run their business. Client-server technology that was first introduced by the SAP R/3 ERP software became the de facto industry standard for business application software. Client-server technology separates the client (front end) from the application server that is running the application software. Further, the application server is separated from a database server that is running the database software. The database holds all data that are relevant to the application software. The high scalability of this multi-tier approach allowed huge numbers of users in an organization to work simultaneously in the same application system because the load of the system could be better balanced between application servers and database servers compared to systems where applications were run on the data base server.
Driven by the Internet and the idea to optimize business processes not only inside organizations, but also across organizations, many new business software applications were developed to complement the inner-organizational ERP application software. These additional software applications were designed to enable business processes across companies. Examples are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications to improve the management of customer relationships and Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications to improve logistics between companies and supplier relationships. However, this approach results in multiple, different and distributed software packages and increases the complexity of system landscapes in organizations.
The typical landscape of today consists of distributed systems with different software applications and separate servers. Each system requires its own database on its own physical hardware. The reasons for this are hardware and software related. For example, most symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) systems were limited to less than 16 processors and less than 4 GB of shared main memory. Operating systems did not offer the feature of creating multiple logical partitions for groups of processors. Databases only allowed for a maximum number of manageable tables (e.g. 10000).
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of an organization's computer system landscape of the prior art. The application systems ERP 1, CRM 2 and SCM 3 are connected through a network. The network is a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network or any other network known in the art and comprises the branches 10 and 11. Each of the application systems requires its own database system (DB) with the corresponding application data, for example, ERP DB 4, CRM DB 5 and SCM DB 6. Each database system 4-6 is connected to the corresponding application system 1-3 via network branches 12-14. Each application system 1-3 provides application services to pluralities 20-22 of application users. Multiple application users of each of the pluralities can be assigned to a single person. All application users of the pluralities can connect 23-25 to the corresponding application system 1-3 through, for example, a browser based front end computer (not shown) via the network. The system of the prior art, therefore, implies the need of providing three database server computers as well as the need of administrating (backup, tune, manage) these three different database systems.
Further, in case of a total or partial system break-down it is very difficult to have a consistent backup of all database systems. This is critical, because the different application software applications exchange data. For example: an order gets created by a sales person using an internet sales application in the CRM system 2. Then, the order is transferred into the order fulfillment application of the ERP system 1. The SCM system 3 analyzes the order for availability by using the available-to-promise application and finally an analytical application system for simulations (not shown) creates a forecast for the order. Therefore, a full and consistent point-in-time recovery of all databases in the system landscape is desired to guarantee data integrity of all business application data.

Method, computer program product and computer system for a single database system to support multiple application systems


This invention relates to an apparatus, comprising: at least one process microchannel having a height, width and length, the height being up to about 10 mm, the process microchannel having a base wall extending in one direction along the width of the process microchannel and in another direction along the length of the process microchannel; at least one fin projecting into the process microchannel from the base wall and extending along at least part of the length of the process microchannel; and a catalyst or sorption medium supported by the fin.

Microchannel reactors may be used in a variety of catalytic processes wherein reactants contact a catalyst within the microchannel reactor and undergo reaction. The term "microchannel" is used herein to refer to a channel having an internal width or height up to about 10 mm. A problem with these microchannel reactors relates to the fact that for many processes it is difficult to provide adequate catalytic surface area for the process to operate effectively. Also, for many processes it is difficult to provide sufficiently short mass transport distances for the reactants to the catalytic surface area for the process to operate effectively.
One solution to these problems is to coat the interior walls of the microchannel with an intermediate layer of an inorganic oxide, called a washcoat, in order to provide a high surface area. The catalyst is then deposited on the surface of the washcoat. A problem with the use of these washcoats is that the additional surface area that is provided is not sufficient for many processes.
Another solution to this problem is to deposit the catalyst on a porous structure such as a foam, felt or wad which is then placed in the microchannel. The term "foam" is used herein to refer to a structure with continuous walls defining pores throughout the structure. The term "felt" is used herein to refer to a structure of fibers with interstitial spaces therebetween. The term "wad" is used herein to refer to a structure of tangled strands, like steel wool. A problem with each of these support structures is that the thermal conductivity provided by these support structures is inadequate for many processes.
The present invention provides a solution to these problems. With the present invention, one or more internal fins for supporting a catalyst is provided wherein the fin provides enhanced surface area for the catalyst as well as enhanced thermal conductivity. The fins also provide short mass transport distances of the reactant to the catalytic surface where reaction occurs. In one embodiment of the invention, the internal fin provides the microchannel with enhanced structural stability.
A problem with microchannel reactors that are coupled with adjacent heat exchangers relates to the relatively high pressure drop that often occurs as a result of the small internal dimensions of the microchannels when high heat flux or high throughput is desired. If the microchannel height or width is maintained relatively small to overcome mass transport limitations, the pressure drop tends to increase in inverse proportion to the channel height or width, potentially limiting maximum throughput.
The present invention provides a solution to this problem by increasing the total cross-sectional area available for fluid flow through the microchannel from the minimum dimension needed to minimize or reduce the effect of mass transport limitations. If the fins project outwardly at right angles from the heat transfer surface from an adjacent heat exchanger, the height of the fins can be significantly greater than the gap size needed to minimize mass transport limitations as long as the spacing between adjacent fins is kept small enough to minimize the mass transport limitations. Taller fins enable lower pressure drop per unit length through the microchannel reactor. The thermal conductivity of the fin material and fin height can also be tailored to prevent heat transfer limitations for the reaction of interest. Since the distances over which the rate of thermal conduction become limiting are often much larger than the distances over which the rate of mass transport become limiting, fin height can often be extended well beyond the maximum gap allowed for the desired mass transport characteristics. Thus a lower pressure drop and/or a higher capacity per microchannel may be realized through the use of the present invention with no decrease in reaction performance.
The fins provided for herein are not only useful in providing support for catalysts for use within microchannel reactors, they are also useful in providing support for sorption medium for use in separation processes conducted in microchannels.

Microchannel with internal fin support for catalyst or sorption medium


The invention relates to a method and a device for detecting, measuring and evaluating defects in an object and/or specific material property of an object using a phased array wave technique. The device comprises of a phased array transceiver probe/source and control unit for use in a phased array wave technique for transmitting and receiving wave signals on and from the area to be inspected. The phased array source is divided into a plurality of virtual probes/sources and each virtual probe/source comprises of plurality of elements arranged sequentially but without phasing for excitation.

Phased array has emerged as a rapid imaging technique in bio-medical and non-destructive evaluation applications, where ultrasonic waves are used for imaging. Other applications in the field of Radar imaging, Ground penetrating Radar (GPR) imaging, etc. can be found where microwaves are employed for imaging. This phased array method is preferred over conventional single transducer method is due to its flexibility in varying the angle of interrogation and/or focusing of the wave field to the point of interest through electronic means reducing the need to move the probe physically and at the same time increasing the imaging volume.
Since the phased array is based on the superposition of waves, the depth to which inspection is possible is directly related to the aperture size (and consequently the near field) of the phased array transducer. In the case of interrogation of thick materials, this limitation is a handicap. Increasing the number of active elements of the phased array system significantly adds additional complexity and cost in the electronic part of the system.
Other deficiencies of the current phased array focusing methods are (a) the focusing quality decreases with increase in the angle of orientation of the beam, (b) in case of complex geometries, there is no provision for any optimisation based on the geometries, (c) the current imaging uses only longitudinal ultrasonic waves in the case of imaging using ultrasonics in materials (d) the current phased array imaging techniques have limited compensation for material anisotropy and inhomogenity, (e) the current phased array imaging methods have limited applications when the surface contours of the material being interrogated is non-uniform.

Technique for imaging using array of focused virtual sources using phased excitation


Disclosed is, as a high-strength steel plate of API X80 grade or higher with a thickness of 38 mm or more, a steel plate for structural pipes or tubes that exhibits excellent resistance to PWHT and excellent toughness at the heat-affected zone, particularly at the butting faces joined by welding, without addition of large amounts of alloying elements. The steel plate for structural pipes or tubes disclosed herein has a specific chemical composition, in which the steel plate has mechanical properties including: (a) a 0.5% yield strength of 555 MPa or more; (b) a tensile strength of 625 MPa or more; and (c) a Charpy absorption energy vE−10° C. at −10° C. at its mid-thickness part of 250 J or more, and maintains the mechanical properties (a) to (c) even after subjection to heat treatment at 650° C. for 2 hours.

For excavation of oil and gas by seabed resource drilling ships and the like, structural pipes or tubes such as conductor casing steel pipes or tubes, riser steel pipes or tubes, and the like are used. In these applications, there has been an increasing demand for high-strength steel pipes or tubes of no lower than American Petroleum Institute (API) X80 grade from the perspectives of improving operation efficiency with increased pressure and reducing material costs.
Such structural pipes or tubes are often used with forged products containing alloying elements in very large amounts (such as connectors) subjected to girth welding. For a forged product subjected to welding, post weld heat treatment (PWHT) is performed to remove the residual stress caused by the welding from the forged product. In this case, there may be a concern about deterioration of strength after heat treatment. Accordingly, structural pipes or tubes are required to retain excellent strength, in particular high strength, in their longitudinal direction, that is, rolling direction, even after subjection to PWHT in order to prevent fractures during excavation by external pressure on the seabed. In addition, by applying PWHT, the carbide formed in the heat-affected zone becomes coarse during welding, which may lower the toughness of the steel. It is thus required for structural pipes or tubes to have sufficient strength and toughness not only in the state of base metal before PWHT but also after PWHT.
Thus, for example, JPH1150188A (PTL 1) proposes a process for producing a high-strength steel plate for riser steel pipes or tubes that can exhibit excellent strength even after subjection to stress relief (SR) annealing, which is one type of PWHT, at a high temperature of 600° C. or higher, by hot rolling a steel to which 0.30% to 1.00% of Cr, 0.005% to 0.0030% of Ti, and 0.060% or less of Nb are added, and then subjecting it to accelerated cooling.
In addition, JP2010235986A (PTL 2) proposes a technique for producing a steel plate excellent in strength of base metal and in resistance to PWHT by controlling the microstructure of the steel and precipitation of composite carbide, the technique including: hot-rolling a steel containing 0.005% to 0.025% of Ti, 0.005% to 0.025% of Nb, 0.15% to 0.60% of Mo, and 0.10% or less of V; and then accelerated-cooling the steel under specific conditions.

Steel plate for structural pipes or tubes, method of producing steel plate for structural pipes or tubes, and structural pipes and tubes


Processes and systems for computer enabled volume data rendering, and more particularly for mapping of volume rendering colors upon polygonal model objects applied to computer enabled volume rendering are described. In one example, the mapping or encoding of the color of volume rendering data upon polygonal model objects located inside volumetric data is achieved by assigning the rendering result of voxels near the surface of the polygonal object.

Visualization of volumetric objects that are represented by three dimensional scalar fields is one of the most complete, realistic and accurate ways to represent internal and external structures of real 3-D (three dimensional) objects. As an example, Computer Tomography (CT) digitizes images of real 3-D objects (such as inside the human body) and represents them as a discrete 3-D scalar field representation. MRI (Magnetic Resonant Imaging) is another system to scan and depict internal structures (e.g. the human body) of real 3-D objects.
As another example, the petroleum industry uses seismic imaging techniques to generate a 3-D image volume of a 3-D region in the earth. As in the human body, some important structures, such as geological faults or salt domes, may be embedded within the region and are not necessarily on the exterior surface of the region.
Direct volume rendering is a well-known computer graphics technique for visualizing the interior of a 3-D region represented by such a 3-D image volume on a 2-D image plane, e.g., as displayed on a computer monitor. Hence a typical 3-D dataset is a group of 2-D image "slices" of a real object generated by the CT or MRI machine or seismic imaging. Typically the scalar attribute or voxel (volume element) at any point within the image volume is associated with a plurality of classification properties, such as color (e.g., red, green, and blue) and opacity, which can be defined by a set of lookup tables. During computer rendering, a plurality of "rays" is cast from the 2-D image plane into the volume and the rays are each attenuated or reflected by the volume. The amount of attenuated or reflected ray "energy" of each ray is indicative of the 3-D characteristics of the objects embedded within the image volume, e.g., their shapes and orientations, and further determines a pixel value on the 2-D image plane in accordance with the opacity and color mapping of the volume along the corresponding ray path. The pixel values associated with the plurality of ray origins on the 2-D image plane form an image that can be rendered by computer software on a computer monitor. Computer enabled volume rendering as described here may use conventional volume ray tracing, volume ray casting, splatting, shear warping, or texture mapping. A more detailed description of direct volume rendering is described in "Computer Graphics Principles and Practices" by Foley, Van Darn, Feiner and Hughes, 2nd Edition, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company (1996), pp 1134-1139.
In the CT example discussed above, even though a doctor using MRI equipment and conventional methods can arbitrarily generate 2-D image slices/cuts of an object (e.g., a human heart or knee) by intercepting the image volume in any direction, no single image slice is able to visualize the entire exterior surface of the object. In contrast, a 2-D image generated through direct volume rendering of the CT image volume can easily display on an associated computer monitor the 3-D characteristics of the object (e.g., a heart, which is very important in many types of cardiovascular disease diagnosis).
Similarly in the field of oil exploration, direct volume rendering of 3-D seismic data has proved to be a powerful tool that can help petroleum engineers to determine more accurately the 3-D characteristics of geological structures embedded in a region that are potential oil reservoirs and to increase oil production significantly.
One of the most common and basic structures used to control volume rendering is the transfer function. In the context of volume rendering, a transfer function defines the classification/translation of the original pixels of volumetric data (voxels) to its representation on the computer monitor screen, particularly the commonly used transfer function representation which is color (e.g., red, green, and blue) and opacity classification (often referred to as "color and opacity"). Hence each voxel has a color and opacity value defined using a transfer function. The transfer function itself is mathematically (e.g., a simple ramp) a piecewise linear function or a lookup table. Computer enabled volume rendering as described here may use conventional volume ray tracing, volume ray casting, splatting, shear warping, or texture mapping. More generally, transfer functions in this context assign renderable (by volume rendering) optical properties to the numerical values (voxels) of the data-set. The opacity function determines the contribution of each voxel to the final (rendered) image.
A common need of volume rendering applications is the extraction of traditional computer graphics polygonal objects from volumetric data. A polygon in computer graphics is a 2-D shape, e.g., a mesh represented in 3-D space. A polygonal in computer graphics can be used to represent a 3-D manifold with an infinitely thin surface, thus visualizing only a tiny subset of the actual object being represented. Its position is defined by the XYZ coordinates of its vertices (corners). Volumetric data and polygonal object models representing the volumetric data are different kinds of data in this field; volumetric data is a 3-D array of pixels while the well-known polygonal object model is a list of polygonal objects such as triangles or rectangles, which are each represented by a grouping of correspondent XYZ vertices with assigned colors at each vertex. In volumetric data, the 3-D array of pixels is used to visualize all internal and external structures of the object, rather than the infinitely thin manifold on the outside of the object.
Even though direct volume rendering plays a key role in many important fields, currently available 3-D printing devices expect as input a polygonal object representation of 3-D objects to be printed. Thus, porting the visual information from volume rendered images to polygonal object models is a significant technical problem.

Volume rendering color mapping on polygonal objects for 3-D printing


A rock drill includes a housing in which are disposed a reciprocable percussive device, slidably mounted in the housing, a rotary device, and a shank adapter aligned with the percussive device. The shank adapter includes first and second adapter portions. The first adapter portion has a front end and a rear end, the rear end arranged to be impacted by the percussive device and rotated by the rotary device. The second adapter portion has a rear end releasably connected to the front end of the first adapter portion, and a front end carrying a coupling adapted for connection with a drill rod component.

A typical rock drill comprises a shank adapter, percussion device and rotating device. A drill string can be fastened to the shank adapter, to which rotation torque is transmitted from the rotating device by means of the shank adapter and impact pulses are transmitted from the percussion device. The percussion device generally comprises a reciprocating percussion piston arranged to provide impacts to an impact surface located outermost at the back end of the shank adapter.
This type of drill has a certain minimum length and, in practice, it cannot be made shorter than the minimum length. The minimum length is determined by the length of the percussion piston and shank adapter, the stroke length of the percussion piston and the remaining structure of the drill, such as the end covers. When quarrying in low spaces, for instance in tunnels, it is advantageous to use as short a drill as possible so as to be able to use drill strings of a practical length, especially for upwards drilling. However, the length of the drill cannot be shortened without shortening the length of the percussion piston and shank adapter. If the percussion piston is made very short, it is no longer possible to provide therewith the impact pulses needed to break rock, and the performance of the drill is substantially reduced. The shank adapter, too, should have a certain length so that drill strings can be firmly fastened to it and that it can be firmly supported in the body of the drill. In addition, the rotation torque required to rotate the shank adapter should be transmitted to the shank adapter. The stroke of the percussion piston also cannot be shortened very much without a harmful effect on the impact pulses transmitted to the shank adapter.
It is expensive to produce conventional one-piece shank adapters having splines at the back end, and a coupling, e.g., a thread or a hexagonal connector, at the free end for connection with the drill string. Moreover, since the adapter is a part that needs relatively frequent replacement, due mainly to wearing at the coupling (free) end thereof, there may be appreciable costs associated with the use of such drills.
An object of the invention is to provide a rock drill having a shank adapter that can be replaced more easily and at less cost.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel and improved rock drill shank adapter for percussive rock drilling.
Another object of the present invention to provide a novel and improved rock drill shank adapter for percussive rock drilling that is easily replaceable.
Still another object of the present invention to provide a novel and improved rock drill shank adapter for percussive rock drilling that is replaceable without dismounting the drill.
Another object of the present invention to provide drill string components for percussive rock drilling that are easily replaceable.

Drill string for upward drilling and components therefor