The invention provides a method of treating of a substrate by contacting the substrate with a fluorochemical composition that comprises a condensation product of a di- or tri-isocyanate and at least one polyether, the polyether being obtained as the reaction product of a fluorochemical substituted epoxide. Substrates treated in accordance with the invention have good stain release properties, particularly to oil stains or tea stains, so stains can be more easily removed from the treated substrate in a laundering procedure.

The present invention relates to fluorochemical compositions for the treatment of substrates, in particular fibrous substrates such as textile to impart stain release properties to those substrates.
Certain fluorochemical compositions have been used to impart various properties, such as water and/or oil repellency, waterproofness, stain release and anti-staining to various substrates like leather, textiles and paper. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,493 describes the use of certain omega-perfluoroalkyl-1,2-epoxy-alkane copolymers as water and oil repellent treatments.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,077 discloses the use of certain polyoxy perfluorinated surface active oligomers in cosmetic compositions for hair to slow down the flow of sebum and the rate at which hair becomes greasy again.
EP 331307 discloses certain perfluoroalkyl polyether glycols derived from 3-perfluoroalkyl-1,2-epoxy propane. It is stated that these polyether glycols are useful for making polyurethanes in a condensation reaction with a di- or polyisocyanate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,765 discloses certain fluorochemical polyurethanes that it alleges impart permanent oil and/or water repellency to inorganic and organic objects. The polyurethanes disclosed in this patent are obtained by a condensation of a fluorochemical diol and a di- or polyisocyanate.
Certain fluorochemical compositions are also used to facilitate stain release from substrates such as fabrics. Such compositions may also include various modifying additives such as softeners, stiffeners and lubricants which are added to the composition to impart desired properties to a fabric. These additives typically increase the oleophilicity of the fabric, thereby significantly increasing the fabric""s tendency to accept oily stains and reducing its ability to release such stains after laundering.
An improvement to such compositions are fluorochemical treatments consisting of certain fluorinated compound and a non-fluorinated hydrophilic compound mixtures as well as treatments containing certain xe2x80x9cchemical hybridxe2x80x9d fluorochemical compounds which contain fluorochemical oleophobic segments (xe2x80x9cFxe2x80x9d) and non-fluorinated hydrophilic segments (xe2x80x9cHxe2x80x9d). Such improvement treatments are known to act as stain release compositions since they provide oil repellency during normal wear and inhibit wicking or diffusion of oily soils into the fabric or fiber bundles and facilitate soil release during laundering.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,574,791 discloses certain block-copolymers consisting of F and H segments and alleges that such polymers are useful as stain-release agents. The xe2x80x9cFxe2x80x9d segments are substantially free of hydrophilic groups whereas the xe2x80x9cHxe2x80x9d segments are substantially free of fluorinated aliphatic groups. The patent teaches that this segmentation of the polymer renders it xe2x80x9cautoadaptablexe2x80x9d, i.e., a fabric treated with the polymer will perform as an oil and water repellent in an atmospheric environment and will become hydrophilic when laundered thereby facilitating stain removal. The patent contemplates various chemical linkages for connecting the xe2x80x9cFxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cHxe2x80x9d segments, and amongst them is a urethane linkage derived from the reaction of an alcohol and an isocyanate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,944 discloses certain fluorochemical compositions containing block-copolymers that contain a fluorinated polyurethane segment linked to a hydrophilic polyethyleneoxide block via a urea linkage. The patent teaches that the fluorochemical composition can be used to impart stain release properties to a fabric.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,841,027 discloses certain fluorocarbamate soil-release agents. The urea linkage-containing alkoxypolyoxyalkylene fluorocarbamates are prepared by reacting (a) at least one polyisocyanate containing at least three isocyanate groups, with (b) at least one fluorochemical reagent containing one functional group having at least one hydrogen atom and at least two carbon atoms each of which is substituted with at least two fluorine atoms, (c) at least one hydrophilic, water-solvatable reagent containing a single functional group having at least one reactive hydrogen atom, and (d) at least one reagent containing one reactive hydrogen atom and, which on reaction with an isocyanate group, yields functionality which has abeyant chemical reactivity with fibrous substrates and then reacting the product with water. The patent discloses that reactants (b), (c) and (d) react with 55% to 95% of the isocyanate groups, and water reacts with the remainder.
JP-A-08-225493 discloses certain polymers derived from fluorine containing monomers and alleges such polymers are useful as stain releasing water and oil repellents. The monomers are fluorochemical acrylates or methacrylates that are prepared by first reacting, e.g., an alkyl ether of a polyglycol with a perfluoroalkyl epoxypropane and subsequently reacting the obtained alcohol with (meth)acryloyl chloride to obtain the fluorochemical monomer.
Despite the many fluorochemical compositions taught by the art to impart stain release properties to a substrate, there continues to be a desire for new fluorochemical compositions with improved properties. Properties like easy cleanability of natural fiber-based substrates (e.g., cotton and blends of cotton and polyester) are desired. In particular, it is especially desired to have treatments that will permit the easy removal of oil-type stains (like dirty motor oil and vegetable oil) and water-based stains (like tea and coffee) from such substrates. Also desired are fluorochemical compositions having low manufacturing cost, high storage stability, easy emulsifiability and high performance even if applied in low concentrations.
The present invention provides a method of treating of a substrate comprising the step of contacting the substrate with a fluorochemical composition which comprises a condensation product of a di- or tri-isocyanate and at least one polyether. The polyether being obtainable by reacting a fluorochemical substituted epoxide according to formula (I) with a compound of formula (II) or formula (III): xe2x80x83HX1xe2x80x94Bxe2x80x94X2Hxe2x80x83xe2x80x83(II)
(Rfxe2x80x2)kxe2x80x94L2xe2x80x94X2Hxe2x80x83xe2x80x83(III)
wherein:
B represents an organic residue obtained by removing the groups HX1 and HX2 from the compound in formula (II);
X1 and X2 are each independently selected from the group consisting of O, NH and S;
L1 represents an organic divalent linking group;
L2 represents an organic linking group having a valence of k+1;
k is an integer of 1 to 10;
Rf and Rfxe2x80x2 are each independently selected from the group consisting of perfluorinated and partially fluorinated aliphatic groups;
s is 0 or 1, and
a is 0 or 1, and preferably is 1.
Substrates treated in accordance with the invention have good stain release properties, particularly to oil stains or tea stains, so stains can be more easily removed from the treated substrate in a laundering procedure.
In another aspect, the invention provides certain fluorochemical compositions for use in the method, a process for the preparation of the fluorochemical compositions and the polyether used to prepare the fluorochemical compositions.
The condensation product used in the fluorochemical composition is prepared by reacting a di- or tri-isocyanate with certain polyether obtainable by reacting a fluorochemical substituted epoxide of formula (I) with a compound of according to formula (II) or (III). Mixtures of compounds of formula (I), (II) or (III) may also be used to practice the invention.
The molar ratio of the fluorochemical substituted epoxide to the compound according to formula (II) is preferably between about 2 and 50 and more preferably between about 5 and 20. The molar ratio of the fluorochemical substituted epoxide to the compound according to formula (III) is preferably between about 2 and 30 and more preferably between about 4 and 15. Preferably, the molecular weight of the polyethers obtainable from a reaction of a compound of formula (I) with a compound of formula (II) is between about 2,000 and 50,000 g/mol, more preferably is between about 6,000 g/mol and 15,000 g/mol. The molecular weight of polyethers obtainable by reaction of a compound of formula (I) with a compound of formula (III) is preferably between about 3,500 g/mol and 25,000 g/mol, more preferably is between about 4,500 g/mol and 16,000 g/mol.
The polyethers can be prepared using conventional reaction conditions well-known to those skilled in the art. Typically, the reaction of compounds according to formula (I) with compounds according to formula (II) or (III) is carried out in the presence of an acid catalyst. Acid catalysts include fluorosulfonic acid and lewis acids such as antimony pentafluoride, boron trifluoride, tin tetrachloride or aluminium trichloride. Suitable reaction temperatures are typically between about 20 and 100xc2x0 C., and more preferably are between about 50 and 90xc2x0 C. The reaction solvent is preferably inert and free of water and include materials like toluene and fluorinated solvents (e.g., trifluorotoluene). After the polyether is prepared, it may be desirable to remove catalyst residues and excess reagents from the reaction mixture. Generally, it is also preferred to replace any fluorinated solvent that is used with another organic solvent that readily solubilises the polyether.
The preferred compounds according to formula (I) contain fluorinated aliphatic groups (Rf) that are preferably stable and inert. Most preferably, such groups are saturated, non-polar, monovalent fluoroalkyl groups, and may, for example be straight chain, branched chain, or cyclic groups or combinations thereof Rf may contain heteroatoms (such as oxygen, divalent or hexavalent sulfur or nitrogen) provided they are bonded only to carbon atoms, and while it is preferably fully-fluorinated, it may contain hydrogen or chlorine atoms as substituents. However, preferably Rf contains no more than one atom of either for every two carbon atoms. Typically, Rf contains at least about 3 carbon atoms, preferably 3 to 14 carbon atoms and more preferably at least 6 carbon atoms. Rf preferably contains about 40% to 80% fluorine by weight, and more preferably, about 50% to 78% fluorine by weight. The terminal portion of the Rf radical is preferably a perfluorinated moiety, preferably containing at least about 7 fluorine atoms, e.g., CF3CF2CF2xe2x80x94, (CF3)2CFxe2x80x94, F5SCF2xe2x80x94. Preferred Rf groups are fully or substantially fluorinated according to the formula CnF2n+1, where n is 3 to 14.
Preferably, s and a in formula (I) are 1 and the organic divalent linking group, L1, is present. Preferably L1 is selected from the group consisting of straight chain, branched chain or cyclic alkylene, arylene, aralkylene, oxy, oxo, thio, sulfonyl, sulfoxy, amino, imino, sulfonamido, carbonamido, carbonyloxy, urethanylene and ureylene groups and combinations thereof such as sulfonamidoalkylene or carbonamidoalkylene. A particularly preferred L1 is represented by the following formula:
wherein:
R5 represents a lower alkyl containing 1 to 4 carbon atoms,
R4 is selected from the group consisting of linear or branched alkylene groups that contain 1 to 4 carbon atoms, e.g. methylene, ethylene, propylene, butylene, and
p is 0 or 1.
Examples of compounds according to formula (I) are as follows:
wherein R is a lower alkyl group having 1 to 4 carbon atoms such as methyl and ethyl.
Compounds of the type 1, 2, 3 and 4 shown in the above list are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,077. Preferred Rf groups in the above formulas are perfluorinated alkyls having 6 to 14 carbon atoms. Still further suitable compounds according to formula (I) are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,090.
The preferred compounds according to formula (II) contain B residues which are linear or branched alkylene groups preferably having about 2 to 4 carbon atoms, alkylene groups substituted with a partially or fully fluorinated aliphatic group optionally linked to the alkylene group through an organic divalent linking group such as a sulfonamido group, and poly(oxyalkylene) groups in which the oxyalkylene moieties preferably have about 2 to 4 carbon atoms. B also can be a divalent linking group according to the following formula:
wherein:
Rfxe2x80x3 is selected from the group consisting of perfluorinated and partially fluorinated aliphatic groups, and suitable Rfxe2x80x3 groups include the Rf groups described herein;
L3 and L4 each represent organic divalent linking groups which may be the same or different and include those described herein for L1;
R8 is a hydrogen atom or a methyl group;
Z represents the residue of a free radical initiator;
r is a number of 1 to 10;
u is 0 or 1;
w is 0 or 1; and
v is an integer of 1 to 4.
Preferably L3 corresponds to one of the following formulas:
wherein:
R1 represents a lower alkyl group containing 1 to 4 carbon atoms and R2 is selected from the group consisting of linear and branched alkylene groups that contain 2 to 4 carbon atoms.
A particularly preferred L4 group is xe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94R3xe2x80x94 where R3 is selected from the group consisting of linear and branched alkylene groups having 1 to 4 carbon atoms.
Compounds of formula (II) that include an organic divalent linking group according to formula (A) are typically prepared by oligomerization of a fluorinated ethylenically unsaturated compound (like an acrylate or methacrylate) in the presence of a chain transfer agent containing two functional groups selected from the group consisting of hydroxy, amino or thiol groups. Examples of suitable chain transfer agents include 3-mercapto-1,2-propanediol and 2,3-dimercaptopropanol.
Examples of fluorinated ethylenically unsaturated compounds include the general classes of fluorochemical acrylates, methacrylates, vinyl ethers, allyl compounds containing fluorinated sulfonamido groups, acrylates and methacrylates derived from fluorochemical telomer alcohols, acrylates and methacrylates derived from fluorochemical carboxylic acids, and perfluoroalkyl acrylates and methacrylates as disclosed in EP-A-526 976.
Preferred examples of fluorinated ethylenically unsaturated compounds include:
where R is a methyl, ethyl or n-butyl group.
The oligomerization is typically carried out using a free-radical initiator. Such free-radical initiators are known in the art and include azo compounds, such as azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) and azo-2-cyanovaleric acid and the like, hydroperoxides such as cumene, t-butyl, and t-amyl hydroperoxide, dialkyl peroxides such as di-t-butyl and dicumylperoxide, peroxyesters such as t-butylperbenzoate and di-t-butylperoxy phthalate, diacylperoxides such as benzoyl peroxide and lauroyl peroxide.
Examples of compounds according to formula (II) include:
where
Rfxe2x80x3 is, for example, a perfluorinated alkyl group containing about 6 to 14 carbon atoms, and preferably about 8 carbon atoms;
alkane diols (particularly C2-C4 alkane diols such as ethylene glycol and 1,4-butanediol);
polyester diols, polycaprolactam diols, poly(oxyalkylene)diols, the fluorochemical diols described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,944;
diamines (such as C2-C4 diamines, ethylenediamine, 1,2-diaminopropane, 1,3-diaminopropane, 1,4-diaminobutane, 1,10-diaminodecane, 1,7 diaminoheptane, 1,6-diaminohexane, 1,12-diaminododecane, 1,9-diaminononane, 1,8-diaminooctane, 1,5-diaminopentane, isophoronediamine, Jeffamine(trademark) ED having a molecular weight between 600 and 6000, Jeffamine(trademark) EDR-148, piperazine, 1,8 naphtalenediamine, 1,2/1,3/1,4/phenylenediamine, 4-methyl-1,3-phenylenediamine and 4-methyl-1,2-phenylenediamine);
aminoalcohols (such as 2-aminobenzylalcohol, 4-amino-1-butanol and ethanolamine); and
thiols (such as 1,2-ethanedithiol, 1,3-propanedithiol and 2-mercaptoethanol and polyoxyalkylenethiolen).
Rfxe2x80x2 in formula (III) can be perfluorinated or partially fluorinated. Examples of Rfxe2x80x2 are the same as those described herein for the Rf groups. A compound according to formula (III) can have a single Rfxe2x80x2 group or multiple groups Rfxe2x80x2 and the Rfxe2x80x2 groups can be the same or different. Typically, a compound according to formula (III) has about 1 to 8 Rfxe2x80x2 groups and preferably about 2 to 6.
The linking group, L2, in formula (III) has a valence equal to k+1. Examples of such groups include straight chain, branched chain and cyclic alkylene, arylene, aralkylene, oxy, oxo, thio, sulfonyl, sulfoxy, amino, imino, sulfonamido, carbonamido, carbonyloxy, urethanylene and ureylene groups and combinations thereof such as sulfonamidoalkylene or carbonamidoalkylene. A particularly preferred L2 group is represented by the following formula:
where R5 is a lower alkyl group containing 1 to 4 carbon atoms and R4 is selected from the group consisting of linear and branched alkylene groups that contain about 2 to 4 carbon atoms, e.g., ethylene, propylene or butylene. More preferably L2 corresponds to the following formula:
wherein:
L3 represents an organic divalent linking group such as those described above for L1;
L6 represents an organic divalent linking group such as a linear or branched alkylene group (including alkylene groups containing a cyclic group), an arylene group (including a heteroarylene group) or an alkylarylene group;
Z represents the residue of a free radical initiator;
R8 is a hydrogen atom or a methyl group;
k is a number of 1 to 10; and
u is an integer of 0 or 1.
Preferably L3 corresponds to one of the following formulas:
where R1 is a lower alkyl group containing about 1 to 4 carbon atoms and R2 is a linear or branched alkylene group that contains about 2 to 4 carbon atoms.
Compounds having an L2 according to formula (B) are typically prepared by oligomerization of a fluorinated ethylenically unsaturated compound such as those described above, and in particular an acrylate or methacrylate, in the presence of a functionalized chain transfer agent containing a hydroxy, amino and thiol group. Examples of suitable chain transfer agents include 2-mercaptoethanol, 3-mercapto-2-butanol, 4-hydroxythiophenol, 1-mercapto-2-propanol, 2-mercaptopyridinol, o-, m-, and p-thiocresol and 2-mercaptoethylamine. Preferred compounds include 2-mercaptoethanol, 4-mercaptobutanol, 11-mercaptoundecanol and 2-mercaptoethylamine. The oligomerization is typically carried out using a free radical initiator as described above.
Examples of compounds according to formula (III) include:
where R is a lower alkyl group that has about 1 to 4 carbon atoms such as methyl, ethyl and n-propyl;
In the above compounds, Rfxe2x80x2 is preferably a perfluorinated alkyl group containing from about 6 to 14 carbon atoms, and more preferably about 8 carbon atoms, and k is as defined above.
A particularly preferred condensation product for use in the fluorochemical composition is a condensation product of the di- or tri-isocyanate, the polyether and a chain terminator selected from the group consisting of alcohol, thiol and amine compounds. A chain terminator is preferably used in an amount sufficient to react about 5% to 50% of the number of NCO groups of the polyisocyanate, more preferably from about 30% to 50%.
A preferred chain terminator is represented by the following formula (IV):
R6xe2x80x94YH
wherein:
Y is selected from the group consisting of O, S and NR7;
R6 represents an organic radical that is free of active hydrogen atoms and capable of reacting with an isocyanate; and
R7 represents a hydrogen atom or an organic radical that is free of active hydrogen atoms and capable of reacting with an isocyanate, e.g. a lower alkyl group that has 1 to 4 carbon atoms.
Examples of R6 include residues obtained by removing a hydroxyl moiety from an oxime, linear or branched alkyl groups and polyether groups. Another useful chain terminator includes a fluorinated group and can be represented by the following formula (V):
Rfaxe2x80x94L5xe2x80x94
where Rfxe2x80x2 is selected from the group consisting of perfluorinated or partially fluorinated aliphatic groups like those described herein for Rf, and L5 is an organic divalent linking group. Examples of suitable L5 groups include those described herein for L1.
Representative examples of chain terminators include alkanols (such as methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and n-propanol); alkyl ethers of polyethylene glycols (such as polyethyleneglycol methyl ether); fluorinated mono-alcohols such as: xe2x80x83Rfaxe2x80x94CH2xe2x80x94CH2xe2x80x94OH
Rfaxe2x80x94CH(CH3)xe2x80x94CH2xe2x80x94OH
(where R is a lower alkyl group that contains about 1 to 4 carbon atoms (e.g. methyl, ethyl or n-propyl) and Rfa is a perfluorinated alkyl group containing about 6 to 14 carbon atoms, and preferably about 8 carbon atoms); isocyanate blocking agents such as arylalcohols (e.g., phenol, cresols, nitrophenols, o- and p-chlorophenol, naphthols, 4-hydroxybiphenyl); C2 to C8 alkanone oximes (e.g. acetone oxime, butanone oxime); arylthiols (e.g., thiophenol); organic active hydrogen compounds (e.g.; diethyl malonate, acetylacetone, ethyl acetoacetate, ethyl cyanoacetate, epsilon-caprolactam); sodium bisulfite; and hydroxylamine.
A further suitable chain terminator includes a functionalized oligomer that has a functional group selected from the group consisting of hydroxy, amino and thiol groups. Such an oligomer can be prepared by free radical oligomerization of a fluorocherical monomer and/or fluorine free monomer in the presence of a functionalized chain transfer agent as described above. Examples of fluorochemical monomers are those described above. Suitable fluorine-free monomers include the general classes of ethylenic compounds capable of free-radical polymerization, such as, allyl esters (e.g., allyl acetate and allyl heptanoate); alkyl vinyl ethers and alkyl allyl ethers (e.g., cetyl vinyl ether, dodecylvinyl ether, 2-chioroethylvinyl ether and ethylvinyl ether); unsaturated acids (e.g., acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, alpha-chloro acrylic acid, crotonic acid, maleic acid, fumaric acid, itaconic acid and their anhydrides and esters such as vinyl, allyl, methyl, butyl, isobutyl, hexyl, heptyl, 2-ethyl-hexyl, cyclohexyl, lauryl, stearyl, isobornyl and alkoxy ethyl acrylates and methacrylates); alpha-beta unsaturated nitriles (e.g. acrylonitrile, methacrylonitrile, 2-chloroacrylonitrile, 2-cyanoethyl acrylate and alkyl cyanoacrylates); alpha, beta-unsaturated carboxylic acid derivatives (e.g., allyl alcohol, allyl glycolate, acrylamide, methacrylamide, n-diisopropyl acrylamide, diacetoacrylamide, N,N-diethylaminoethylmethacrylate and N-t-butylamino ethyl methacrylate); styrene and its derivatives (e.g., vinyltoluene, alpha-methylstyrene and alpha-cyanomethyl styrene); lower olefinic hydrocarbons which can contain halogen (e.g., ethylene, propylene, isobutene, 3-chloro-1-isobutene, isoprene, and allyl or vinyl halides such as vinyl and vinylidene chloride). Further suitable monomers include urethane-type (meth)acrylates such as a blocked isocyanate obtained by first reacting hydroxyethyl(meth)acrylate with a diisocyanate and subsequently reacting the obtained isocyanate containing (meth)acrylate with an isocyanate blocking agent such as butanone-oxime. The latter type of monomer can be homo-oligomerized or co-oligomerized with for example another (meth)acrylate such as butyl(meth)acrylate.
Suitable di- or tri-isocyanates include aliphatic and aromatic isocyanates and examples of such compounds include: 4,4xe2x80x2-methylenediphenylenediisocyanate, 4,6-di-(trifluoromethyl)-1,3-benzene diisocyanate, 2,4-toluenediisocyanate, 2,6-toluene diisocyaniate, o, m, and p-xylylene diisocyanate, 4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanatodiphenylether, 3,3xe2x80x2-dichloro-4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanatodiphenylmethane, 4,5xe2x80x2-diphenyldiisocyanate, 4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanatodibenzyl, 3,3xe2x80x2-dimethoxy-4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanatodiphenyl, 3,3xe2x80x2-dimethyl-4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanatodiphenyl, 2,2xe2x80x2-dichloro-5,5xe2x80x2-dimethoxy-4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanato diphenyl, 1,3-diisocyanatobenzene, 1,2-naphthylene diisocyanate, 4-chloro-1,2-naphthylene diisocyanate, 1,3-naphthylene diisocyanate, and 1,8-dinitro-2,7-naphthylene diisocyanate; alicyclic diisocyanates such as 3-isocyanatomethyl-3,5,5-trimethylcyclohexylisocyanate; 3-isocyanatomethyl-3,5,5-trimethylcyclohexylisocyanate; aliphatic diisocyanates such as 1,6-hexamethylenediisocyanate, 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,6-hexamethylenediisocyanate, and 1,2-ethylenediisocyanate; aliphatic triisocyanates such as 1,3,6-hexamethylenetriisocyanate; aromatic tri-isocyanates such as polymethylenepolyphenylisocyanate (PAPI); cyclic diisocyanates such as isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) and dicyclohexylmethane-4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanate.
Also useful are isocyanates that contain internal, isocyanate-derived moieties such as biuret-containing tri-isocyanates (e.g., DESMODUR(trademark) N-100, available from Bayer), isocyanurate-containing tri-isocyanates (e.g., IPDI-1890 available from Huls AG, Germany), and azetedinedione-containing diisocyanates (e.g., DESMODUR(trademark) TT available from Bayer). Also suitable are other di- or tri-isocyanates such as DESMODUR(trademark) L and DESMODUR(trademark) W (both available from Bayer), and tri-(4-isocyanatophenyl)-methane (available from Bayer as DESMODUR(trademark) R).
The condensation reaction of the polyether and the isocyanate is carried out under conventional conditions well-known to those skilled in the art. Preferably the reaction is run in the presence of a catalyst. Suitable catalysts include tin salts such as dibutyltin dilaurate, stannous octanoate, stannous oleate, tin dibutyldi-(2-ethyl hexanoate), stannous chloride; and others known to those skilled in the art. The amount of catalyst present will depend on the particular reaction, and thus it is not practical to recite particular preferred concentrations. Generally, however, suitable catalyst concentrations are from about 0.001 to 10 percent, preferably about 0.1 to 5 percent, by weight based on the total weight of the reactants.
The condensation reaction is preferably carried out under dry conditions in a polar solvent such as ethyl acetate, acetone, methyl is,obutyl ketone, and the like. Suitable reaction temperatures will be easily determined by those skilled in the art based on the particular reagents, solvents, and catalysts being used. While it is not practical to enumerate particular temperatures suitable for all situations, generally suitable temperatures are between about room temperature and about 120xc2x0 C.
The fluorochemical composition is soluble in various organic solvents such as ethyl acetate, ethers (di-propylene glycol mono methyl ether, tetrahydrofuran, ethylene glycol ethers), ketones (acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone), alcohols (methanol, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, glycols), dimethylpyrrolidone and mixtures thereof. Accordingly, the fluorochemical composition can be used as a solution in such organic solvents or alternatively, an emulsion in water of the fluorochemical composition can be prepared according to well-known techniques. For example, a solution of the fluorochemical composition in an organic solvent, e.g., ethyl acetate, gradually can be added to a solution of an emulsifier in water with vigorous stirring. The thus obtained pre-mix may then be subjected to ultrasound treatment or high shear homogenization to obtain a milky to transparent emulsion of the fluorochemical composition in water. If desired, the organic solvent can then be removed e.g. by distillation under reduced pressure.
The fluorochemical composition of this invention can be applied using conventional application method but is peferably used a aqueous emulsion. Alternatively, it can be used as a treatment composition in solvent. An aqueous emulsion will generally contain water, an amount of the fluorochemical composition effective to provide stain release properties to the substrate treated therewith, and a surfactant in an amount effective to stabilize the emulsion. Water is preferably present in an amount of about 70 to 2000 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of the fluorochemical composition. The surfactant is preferably present in an amount of about 1 to 25 parts by weight, preferably about 2 to 10 parts by weight, per 100 parts by weight of the fluorochemical composition. Conventional cationic, nonionic, anionic, and zwitterionic surfactants are suitable.
The amount of the treating composition applied to a substrate in accordance with this invention is chosen so that the desired stain release properties are imparted to the substrate surface. Typically, the amount of the treating composition is sufficient to provide about 0.01% to 5% by weight, and preferably about 0.05% to 2% by weight, based on the weight of the substrate, of the fluorochemical composition on the treated substrate. The amount of treating composition necessary to impart the desired stain release properties to the substrate can be determined empirically and can be increased as necessary or desired.
To the fluorochemical composition of the invention there may also be added other fluorinated products, polymers or auxiliary products such as starch, dextrin, casein, polyvinyl alcohols, cellulose and cellulose derivatives such as cellulose ethers, copolymers of (meth)acrylic acid and alkyl esters of (meth)acrylic acid, polyglycols such polyethylene glycols, sizing agents, materials to improve water and/or oil repellency, fire proofing or antistatic properties, buffering agents, fungicidal agents, optical bleaching agents, sequestering agents, mineral salts, surface-active agents, or swelling agents to promote penetration.
Particularly suitable auxiliary products for use in the fluorochemical composition include polyvinyl alcohols and non-ionic cellulose ethers. A substantial improvement relative to the release of dirty motor oil stains was noticed for many of fluorochemical compositions of the invention containing polyvinyl alcohol or a non-ionic cellulose ether, whereas the improvement was less pronounced for the release of tea or wine stains. This finding is rather surprising since the addition of other hydrophilic polymers such as polyglycols or copolymers of alkyl (meth)acrylate and (meth)acrylic acid to the fluorochemical composition did not show this improvement or even lead to a reduced stain release performance of the fluorochemical composition. Preferred polyvinyl alcohols are those having a degree of hydrolysis of at least about 65% by weight, and more preferably a degree of hydrolysis of at least about 85% by weight. Most preferably, the polyvinyl alcohol has a degree of hydrolysis between about 65 and 90% by weight.
Examples of non-ionic cellulose ether derivatives include methyl cellulose, hydroxypropyl cellulose and methylhydroxypropyl cellulose. Particularly preferred cellulose ethers are hydroxyalkyl cellulose ethers. Preferably the etherified cellulose is highly hydrophilic. Accordingly, cellulose ethers that contain large hydrophobic substituents such as the hydrophobically modified cellulose ether NEXTON(trademark) (available from Aqualon) are not preferred for use in the fluorochemical composition of this invention.
The substrates treated by the fluorochemical composition of this invention are not especially limited and include plastic, metal, glass, fibrous materials such as textile fabrics, wood, non-wovens and paper. The fluorochemical composition is particularly useful for imparting stain release properties to a substrate that comprises natural fibers, in particular a substrate that consists of cellulose fibers or a substrate consisting of cellulose and polyester fibers. Substrates treated with a fluorochemical composition of this invention have particular good stain release properties for dirty motor oil stains and tea stains.
In order to affect treatment of a textile substrate, the substrate can be immersed in a diluted emulsion. The saturated substrate can then be run through a padder/roller to remove excess emulsion, dried and cured in an oven at a temperature and for a time sufficient to provide a cured treated substrate. This curing process is typically carried out at temperatures between about 50xc2x0 C. and 190xc2x0 C. depending on the particular system or application method used. In general, a temperature of about 120xc2x0 C. to 170xc2x0 C., preferably about 150xc2x0 C. to 170xc2x0 C. for a period of about 20 seconds to 10 minutes, preferably 3 to 5 minutes, is suitable. The cured treated substrate can be used as desired, e.g., incorporated or fashioned into a garment.
The invention is further illustrated by reference to the following examples without however the intention to limit the invention thereto.

Fluorochemical composition containing a condensation product of a fluorochemical polyether and a poly-isocyanate to impart stain release properties to a substrate


A system, method and software product processes configuration information. One or more configuration elements are identified from one or more configuration commands and associated with design elements of an electronic circuit design. Each configuration element is retrieved for at least one design element.

An electronic computer aided design ("E-CAD") package is utilized to construct a Very Large Scale Integration ("VLSI") circuit design. The VLSI circuit design consists of a netlist that identifies electronic design elements (e.g., capacitors, transistors, resistors, etc.) and their interconnectivity (e.g., signal nets) within the VLSI circuit design. The VLSI circuit design is constructed from hierarchical cells (also known as design blocks) that provide specific functionality to the VLSI circuit design. Cells may be constructed from electronic design elements, nets and other cells, and may be re-used one or more times. Each use or instantiation of a cell in the VLSI circuit design is called an "instance."
A signal net is a single electrical path in a circuit design that has the same electrical characteristics at all of its points. Any collection of wires that carries the same signal between design elements is a signal net. If the design elements allow the signal to pass through unaltered (as in the case of a terminal), then the signal net continues on subsequently connected wires. If, however, the design element modifies the signal (as in the case of a transistor or logic gate), then the signal net terminates at that design element and a new signal net begins on the other side.
A signal net may be divided into signal net 'pieces', each of which is part of a Highest Level Signal Name ("HLSN"). A HLSN is the unique signal name that identifies a collection of signal nets or 'hierarchical signal net pieces', which are the small pieces of intermediate wire (signal nets) in each hierarchical design block of a circuit design.
A significant characteristic of VLSI and other types of circuit design is a reliance on hierarchical description. A primary reason for using hierarchical description is to hide the vast amount of detail in a design. By reducing the distracting detail to a single object that is lower in the hierarchy, one can greatly simplify many E-CAD operations. For example, simulation, verification, design-rule checking, and layout constraints can all benefit from hierarchical representation, which makes them more computationally tractable. Since many circuit designs are too complicated to be easily considered in their totality, a complete circuit design is often viewed as a collection of design element aggregates that are further divided into sub-aggregates in a recursive and hierarchical manner. In VLSI circuit design, these aggregates are commonly referred to as design blocks or cells, as noted above. Each cell also typically has one or more 'ports'; each port provides a connection point between a signal net within the cell and a signal net external to the cell.
A design engineer uses the E-CAD tool to analyze the VLSI circuit design during development. The E-CAD tool typically selects a 'stage' within the circuit design for analysis. The stage is contained within one cell that may be instantiated one or more times in the VLSI circuit design; the VLSI circuit design, therefore, may contain more than one identical stage. Each stage in the circuit design has instantiation-specific configuration information that is used by the E-CAD tool during analysis of the stage. The instantiation-specific configuration information may have several different sources, including input/output from other analysis tools and user input.
The E-CAD tool may perform several types of analyses (using different analysis tools, for example) on the VLSI circuit design, with each analysis utilizing particular configuration information. Each analysis tool that accesses configuration information typically parses textual configuration information contained in configuration files. These configuration files may therefore be parsed several times during analysis of the many stages of a VLSI circuit design.
If the VLSI circuit design contains billions of design elements and has many stages, the analyses can take hours or even days of processing time to complete, resulting in lost productivity. Continuous lost productivity due to lengthy engineering development slows technology advancement and can result in significant costs, as well as lost business.

System and method for processing configuration information

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP.


A continuously variable speed transmission with first and second adjustable sheaves and an endless flexible element which is trained over the sheaves. A torque sensor is installed between a prime mover and the shaft for the first sheave to determine the axial position of the axially movable flange of the first sheave in dependency on the transmitted torque and the selected transmission ratio. The torque sensor employs an annulus of spherical rolling elements between the surfaces of two ramps one of which is movable axially of the shaft for the first sheave to initiate controlled radial and/or axial movements of the rolling elements. The surfaces of the ramps generate torque- and transmission ratio-dependent forces.

The invention relates to continuously variable speed transmissions in general, and more particularly to improvements in transmissions of the type wherein an endless flexible element is trained over two sheaves to transmit torque from an engine or another suitable torque applying device to a driven unit, e.g., in a motor vehicle. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in transmissions of the type wherein at least one of the sheaves comprises an axially fixed and an axially movable flange and the movements of the axially movable flange are controlled, at least in part, by a torque sensor.
It is already known to provide a continuously variable speed transmission of the above outlined character with a torque sensor wherein spherical rolling elements are confined between two ramps serving to generate twisting and/or pressing forces in dependency on the torque and/or transmission ratio. Reference may be had, for example, to published German patent application Serial No. 28 46 546 wherein the rolling elements of the torque sensor are distributed in such a way that the rolling elements are not invariably capable of moving along the adjacent surfaces of the ramps. This results in the development of certain hysteresis which can adversely influence the operation of the transmission.

Continuously variable speed transmission


A remotely programmable message delivery system comprises a number of client computers which communicate with a server to send control signals to one or more remote message playback devices. The message playback devices are each provided with a library of messages, and comprise at least one music on-hold-compatible telephone system, a public address system or other audio and/or visual advertising device. Message playlists from the client computers can be sent via the server to the message playback devices by a communication link such as a radiopaging system. The client computer is programmed to generate screens for guiding an operator to select messages from the library of messages and the order and times at which they are to be played by selected message playback devices. Message playback devices can be organized into one or more regions to allow a message playlist to be sent to more than one message playback device using a single radiopaging signal. The client computer can also generate screens to display the text of selected messages.

Many businesses use music on-hold-compatible (MOH) telephone systems to provide a customer with music or audio promotions of products or services while the customer is placed on-hold and waiting for assistance. A number of existing MOH telephone systems use tape players as the audio source. The promotional messages are recorded on endless loop cassette tapes. These systems are disadvantageous because the tapes are subject to wear, and the tape players are prone to mechanical malfunctioning. Messages are not modified (i.e., adding or deleting individual messages from a message playlist or modifying the sequence for playing messages on the playlist) because an individual message track cannot be accessed without first winding the tape forward or backward, respectively, past the succeeding or preceding message tracks. Thus, tapes requiring modification are usually discarded, and a new tape is purchased and recorded with messages in accordance with a new message playlist.
Another type of existing MOH telephone system eliminates the use of a tape player by downloading digitized audio messages onto an integrated circuit (IC) chip. The stored messages are played in a particular sequence that is repeated. While the number of moving parts that are subject to mechanical failure is reduced, the system is nonetheless disadvantageous because it is does not allow a user to program when an individual message is to be played or to add or delete a message from a playlist or modify the sequence with which the stored messages are played.
An improved MOH telephone messaging system is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/999,592, filed Dec. 31, 1992, for ON-HOLD MESSAGING SYSTEM AND METHOD, the entire subject matter of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. The improved MOH telephone messaging system uses at least one optical disc player, such as a compact disc player (CDP), as the audio source. A CDP delivers improved sound quality and offers the ability to add or delete individual messages from a playlist and to change the play sequence of messages stored on an optical disc. For example, the CDP can be programmed to not play one or more of the stored messages at all. Thus, a message playlist can be altered without purchasing and recording a new message storage medium, unlike audio sources which use a cassette tape or an IC. The disclosed CDP-based telephone messaging system, however, is not remotely programmable.

Programmable messaging system for controlling playback of messages on remote music on-hold- compatible telephone systems and other message output devices


Based on reference information of a structured-document application program, structure information and contents of a structured document to be delivered are specified separately. Based on the specification, the structure information and the contents are obtained from a database which stores the structured document, to generate the structured document to be delivered. The generated structured document is delivered to the structured-document application program.

In recent years, use of a structured-document format called XML (extensible Markup Language 1.0, W3C Recommendation, 10, Feb. 1998) has been rapidly spreading in the fields of EC (Electronic Commerce) and B2B (Business to Business). XML is a data format expressing a hierarchical document structure by tags. With use of XML, annotation information such as the logical structure of a document, the types of stored data, and the like can be embedded in the document, separately from the body of data. This kind of document can be converted into a processible format easily by a calculator and allows various related information to be managed together. Unified management can hence be easier.
In some aspects, however, there are demerits from the viewpoints of individual application programs. That is, even those application programs that require only specific types of data have to exclude unnecessary data while processing data. Therefore, extra time and costs are demanded.
In general, an application program (XML application program) which handles an XML document converts the XML document into a data model such as DOM (Document Object Model Level 1, W3C Recommendation 1, Oct. 1998) by randomly accessing respective elements of the document, and then processes the document. DOM is a standard of an object-oriented data model which has a general-purpose interface designed supposing access from various XML application programs. If an XML document is developed on a main memory with use of a data model like DOM, calculation resources (calculation time, necessary memory) which are necessary for converting an XML document of a text format into the data model like DOM, increase as the document size increases. This has been a problem.
In case of handling a large amount of structured documents of XML or the like, a database is used as a storage of the structured documents. There are well-known systems of storing documents into a database, e.g., a system of mapping documents on RDB (Relational Database), a system of handling elements of a structured document as objects and storing the elements into ODB (Object Database), etc. When a structured-document application program processes a document in these systems, however, an original structured-document is regenerated from information stored in a database and then delivered to the structured-document application program. The documents to be treated therefore have large sizes. As the documents are more complicated, costs for picking up and delivering the documents increase.
Further, there is a case that the processing in the structured-document application program requires only a part of a document. For example, an ordinary search system needs to pick up only the titles of documents which satisfy search conditions and to output the titles in a search list. Unless the user requests access to the entire of a document, the entire part of the document is not required.
To solve these problems, compressed structured-documents are delivered according to a conventional technique. For example, "Proposals for XML data compression method based on element name compression: Simplified Element XML" (by Shouhei Yokoyama, Manabu Ohta, and Hiroshi Ishikawa), and "IPSJDBS/ACM SIGMOD Japan Chapter/JSPS-RFTF AMCP Joint Symposium concerning Database and Web Information System: pp. 331-337" (December 2000) disclose a technique of reducing delivery costs for XML documents by compressing tag information. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-236261 discloses a technique in which a means for extracting partial elements of XML documents is provided in the data server side, only those partial elements requested from a structured-document application program are delivered, and a cache mechanism for partial elements is provided in the client side where the structured-document application program operates, to reduce delivery costs for XML documents.
However, it is impossible to save calculation resources used by a structured-document application program although delivery costs for structured-documents can be reduced with only the delivery of compressed structured-documents. According to the Japanese patent Laid-Open No. 2001-236261, partial elements are extracted and delivered without distinguishing structure information from contents. Therefore, contents are extracted even with respect to those parts that are referred to by a structured-document application program. As a result, the delivery costs cannot be reduced sufficiently. These methods do not take into consideration restriction information concerning the document structure represented by the document type definition (DTD) in XML documents. It is hence possible that a document of a type which cannot be processed by a structured-document application program may be delivered. For example, in some cases, a structured-document application program of a type which verifies the document structure with use of DTD fails to verify a delivered document and cannot thereafter continue subsequent processing.
The present invention has been made to solve these problems, and has an object of providing a document delivery device, a document delivery method, a document delivery program, and a document delivery system, which are capable of reducing costs for delivery to structured-document application programs by extracting and delivering only information necessary for the structured-document application programs, and capable of calculation resources used by the structured-document application programs, and a document receiving device which receives delivered structured-documents.

Document delivery device, document receiving device, document delivery method, document delivery program, and document delivery system


Various improvements are provided in gas-based electrophoretic displays, including (a) the use of water getters to remove water from the gas; (b) the use of electron accepting or donating gases; (c) the use of electrophoretic polymer particles having high glass transition temperatures; (d) lateral movement of electrophoretic particles within the display; and (e) the use of variable thickness coatings on electrodes to provide for gray scale.

This invention relates to electrophoretic displays using gaseous fluids.
Particle-based electrophoretic displays, in which a plurality of charged particles move through a fluid under the influence of an electric field so as to change at least one optical property or optical characteristic of the display, have been the subject of intense research and development for a number of years. Such displays can have attributes of good brightness and contrast, wide viewing angles, state bistability, and low power consumption when compared with liquid crystal displays. Although the optical characteristic which changes is typically color perceptible to the human eye, it may be any other optical characteristic, such as optical transmission, reflectance, luminescence or, in the case of displays intended for machine reading, pseudo-color in the sense of a change in reflectance of electromagnetic wavelengths outside the visible range.
(The terms "bistable" and "bistability" are used herein in their conventional meaning in the art to refer to displays comprising display elements having first and second display states differing in at least one optical property, and such that after any given element has been driven, by means of an addressing pulse of finite duration, to assume either its first or second display state, after the addressing pulse has terminated, that state will persist for at least several times, for example at least four times, the minimum duration of the addressing pulse required to change the state of the display element. It is shown in published U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0180687 that some particle-based electrophoretic displays capable of gray scale are stable not only in their extreme black and white states but also in their intermediate gray states, and the same is true of some other types of electro-optic displays. This type of display is properly called "multi-stable" rather than bistable, although for convenience the term "bistable" may be used herein to cover both bistable and multi-stable displays.)
Nevertheless, problems with the long-term image quality of electrophoretic displays have prevented their widespread usage. For example, particles that make up electrophoretic displays tend to settle, resulting in inadequate service-life for these displays.
Numerous patents and applications assigned to or in the names of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and E Ink Corporation have recently been published describing encapsulated electrophoretic media. Such encapsulated media comprise numerous small capsules, each of which itself comprises an internal phase containing electrophoretically-mobile particles suspended in a liquid suspending medium, and a capsule wall surrounding the internal phase. Typically, the capsules are themselves held within a polymeric binder to form a coherent layer positioned between two electrodes. Encapsulated media of this type are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,930,026; 5,961,804; 6,017,584; 6,067,185; 6,118,426; 6,120,588; 6,120,839; 6,124,851; 6,130,773; 6,130,774; 6,172,798; 6,177,921; 6,232,950; 6,249,271; 6,252,564; 6,262,706; 6,262,833; 6,300,932; 6,312,304; 6,312,971; 6,323,989; 6,327,072; 6,376,828; 6,377,387; 6,392,785; 6,392,786; 6,413,790; 6,422,687; 6,445,374; 6,445,489; 6,459,418; 6,473,072; 6,480,182; 6,498,114; 6,504,524; 6,506,438; 6,512,354; 6,515,649; 6,518,949; 6,521,489; 6,531,997; 6,535,197; 6,538,801; 6,545,291; 6,580,545; 6,639,578; 6,652,075; 6,657,772; 6,664,944; 6,680,725; 6,683,333; 6,704,133; 6,710,540; 6,721,083; 6,724,519; 6,727,881; 6,738,050; 6,750,473; 6,753,999; 6,816,147; 6,819,471; 6,822,782; 6,825,068; 6,825,829; 6,825,970; 6,831,769; 6,839,158; 6,842,167; 6,842,279; 6,842,657; 6,864,875; 6,865,010; 6,866,760; 6,870,661; 6,900,851; 6,922,276; 6,950,200; 6,958,848; 6,967,640; 6,982,178; and 6,987,603; and U.S. Patent Applications Publication Nos. 2002/0060321; 2002/0063661; 2002/0090980; 2002/0113770; 2002/0130832; 2002/0180687; 2003/0011560; 2003/0025855; 2003/0102858; 2003/0132908; 2003/0137521; 2003/0222315; 2004/0014265; 2004/0075634; 2004/0094422; 2004/0105036; 2004/0112750; 2004/0119681; 2004/0136048; 2004/0155857; 2004/0180476; 2004/0190114; 2004/0196215; 2004/0226820; 2004/0239614; 2004/0252360; 2004/0263947; 2005/0000813; 2005/0001812; 2005/0007336; 2005/0007653; 2005/0012980; 2005/0017944; 2005/0018273; 2005/0024353; 2005/0035941; 2005/0041004; 2005/0062714; 2005/0067656; 2005/0078099; 2005/0099672; 2005/0105159; 2005/0105162; 2005/0122284; 2005/0122306; 2005/0122563; 2005/0122564; 2005/0122565; 2005/0134554; 2005/0146774; 2005/0151709; 2005/0152018; 2005/0152022; 2005/0156340; 2005/0168799; 2005/0168801; 2005/0179642; 2005/0190137; 2005/0212747; 2005/0213191; 2005/0219184; and 2005/0253777; and International Applications Publication Nos. WO 99/67678; WO 00/05704; WO 00/38000; WO 00/36560; WO 00/67110; WO 00/67327; WO 01/07961; and WO 03/107,315.
Some of the aforementioned patents and published applications disclose encapsulated electrophoretic media having three or more different types of particles within each capsule. For purposes of the present application, such multi-particle media are regarded as sub-species of dual particle media.
Many of the aforementioned patents and applications recognize that the walls surrounding the discrete microcapsules in an encapsulated electrophoretic medium could be replaced by a continuous phase, thus producing a so-called polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display, in which the electrophoretic medium comprises a plurality of discrete droplets of an electrophoretic fluid and a continuous phase of a polymeric material, and that the discrete droplets of electrophoretic fluid within such a polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display may be regarded as capsules or microcapsules even though no discrete capsule membrane is associated with each individual droplet; see for example, the aforementioned 2002/0131147. Accordingly, for purposes of the present application, such polymer-dispersed electrophoretic media are regarded as sub-species of encapsulated electrophoretic media.
Many of the aforementioned patents and applications recognize that the walls surrounding the discrete microcapsules in an encapsulated electrophoretic medium could be replaced by a continuous phase, thus producing a so-called polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display, in which the electrophoretic medium comprises a plurality of discrete droplets of an electrophoretic fluid and a continuous phase of a polymeric material, and that the discrete droplets of electrophoretic fluid within such a polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display may be regarded as capsules or microcapsules even though no discrete capsule membrane is associated with each individual droplet; see for example, the aforementioned 2002/0131147. Accordingly, for purposes of the present application, such polymer-dispersed electrophoretic media are regarded as sub-species of encapsulated electrophoretic media.
A related type of electrophoretic display is a so-called "microcell electrophoretic display". In a microcell electrophoretic display, the charged particles and the suspending fluid are not encapsulated within microcapsules but instead are retained within a plurality of cavities formed within a carrier medium, typically a polymeric film. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,672,921 and 6,788,449, both assigned to Sipix Imaging, Inc.
Although electrophoretic media are often opaque (since, for example, in many electrophoretic media, the particles substantially block transmission of visible light through the display) and operate in a reflective mode, many electrophoretic displays can be made to operate in a so-called "shutter mode" in which one display state is substantially opaque and one is light-transmissive. See, for example, the aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,130,774 and 6,172,798, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,872,552; 6,144,361; 6,271,823; 6,225,971; and 6,184,856. Dielectrophoretic displays, which are similar to electrophoretic displays but rely upon variations in electric field strength, can operate in a similar mode; see U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,346. Other types of electro-optic displays may also be capable of operating in shutter mode.
An encapsulated or microcell electrophoretic display typically does not suffer from the clustering and settling failure mode of traditional electrophoretic devices and provides further advantages, such as the ability to print or coat the display on a wide variety of flexible and rigid substrates. (Use of the word "printing" is intended to include all forms of printing and coating, including, but without limitation: pre-metered coatings such as patch die coating, slot or extrusion coating, slide or cascade coating, curtain coating; roll coating such as knife over roll coating, forward and reverse roll coating; gravure coating; dip coating; spray coating; meniscus coating; spin coating; brush coating; air knife coating; silk screen printing processes; electrostatic printing processes; thermal printing processes; ink jet printing processes; electrophoretic deposition; and other similar techniques.) Thus, the resulting display can be flexible. Further, because the display medium can be printed (using a variety of methods), the display itself can be made inexpensively.
As noted above, electrophoretic media require the presence of a suspending fluid. In most prior art electrophoretic media, this suspending fluid is a liquid, but electrophoretic media can be produced using gaseous "suspending" fluids (although the term "suspending fluid" is a misnomer when the fluid is a gas since the electrophoretic particles are not actually suspended by the fluid, and hence the term "suspending" is generally avoided below when the fluid is gaseous); see, for example, Kitamura, T., et al., "Electrical toner movement for electronic paper-like display", Asia Display/IDW '01 (Proceedings of the 21st International Display Research Conference in conjunction with The 8th International Display Workshops, Oct. 16–19, 2001, Nagoya, Japan), page 1517, Paper HCS1-1, and Yamaguchi, Y., et al., "Toner display using insulative particles charged triboelectrically", Asia Display/IDW '01, page 1729, Paper AMD4-4. See also European Patent Applications 1,429,178; 1,462,847; and 1,482,354; and International Applications WO 2004/090626; WO 2004/079442; WO 2004/077140; WO 2004/059379; WO 2004/055586; WO 2004/008239; WO 2004/006006; WO 2004/001498; WO 03/091799; and WO 03/088495. Such gas-based ("GB") electrophoretic media appear to be susceptible to the same types of problems due to particle settling as liquid-based electrophoretic media, when the media are used in an orientation which permits such settling, for example in a sign where the medium is disposed in a vertical plane. Indeed, particle settling appears to be a more serious problem in gas-based electrophoretic media than in liquid-based ones, since the lower viscosity of gaseous fluids as compared with liquid ones allows more rapid settling of the electrophoretic particles.
The use of gaseous fluids instead of liquids in electrophoretic media does provide certain advantages. For example, since the rate at which an electrophoretic can switch between its extreme optical states is a function of the viscosity of the fluid, the use of a lower viscosity gas in place of a liquid may provide a substantial increase in switching speed, thus potentially enabling displays capable of displaying video. However, the use of gaseous fluids is attended by a number of problems, and the present invention seeks to overcome or alleviate these problems.

Electrophoretic displays using gaseous fluids


A computer system provides a program access to a first register during real mode operation by using an index register and a data register, wherein the index register and the data register are located in real mode memory space and the first register is located outside of real mode memory space.

As more people are networked through their machines, transmitting, receiving and storing vital information, information technology departments face greater challenges keeping those networks operational and often from remote locations. In many instances, the network server needs to be rebooted in order to resolve issues or in the course of routine maintenance. When a computer (e.g., server) is booted up, an operating system is loaded into the computer's main memory. Once loaded users may run applications, or in case of a server, network services and applications are started to service its respective client machines. Additionally, for PC based systems, after booting up, the system may utilize a memory mapped I/O (MMIO) base address register located above one megabyte (1 MB) to access all available AHCI (advanced host controller interface) registers connected to a multitude of SATA (serial advanced technology attachment) devices.
In PC (personal computer) based systems, programs such as BIOS (basic input/output system), option ROMs (read-only memory), OSs (operating systems), or other programs are written to start up in 'real mode' (e.g., Intel's® 8086 mode). In real mode, a program cannot access memory above 1 MB. Because the MCH (memory controller hub—north-bridge) doesn't forward memory mapped I/O spaces above 1 MB down to ICH (I/O controller hub—south-bridge) and the memory space below 1 MB is also the main memory of the system, there is no memory to be allocated to AHCI accesses. Therefore, a real mode program is limited to using the IOBARs (0-4) (I/O base address registers) to access SATA devices; this limits the number of available devices it can access for boot up or any other purpose to 4.

Index/data register pair for indirect register access


An apparatus for generating electromagnetic radiation includes an envelope, a vortex generator configured to generate a vortexing flow of liquid along an inside surface of the envelope, first and second electrodes within the envelope configured to generate a plasma arc therebetween, and an insulative housing associated surrounding at least a portion of an electrical connection to one of the electrodes. The apparatus further includes a shielding system configured to block electromagnetic radiation emitted by the arc to prevent the electromagnetic radiation from striking all inner surfaces of the insulative housing. The apparatus further includes a cooling system configured to cool the shielding system.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for generating electromagnetic radiation. More particularly, illustrative embodiments relate to arc lamps having a vortexing flow of liquid along an inside surface of the arc tube or envelope.
2. Description of Related Art
Electric arc lamps are used to produce electromagnetic radiation for a wide variety of purposes. A typical conventional direct current (DC) arc lamp includes two electrodes, namely, a cathode and an anode, mounted within a quartz envelope often referred to as the arc tube. The envelope is filled with an inert gas such as xenon or argon. An electrical power supply is used to sustain a continuous plasma arc between the electrodes. Within the plasma arc, the plasma is heated by the high electrical current to a high temperature via particle collision, and emits electromagnetic radiation, at an intensity corresponding to the electrical current flowing between the electrodes.
The most powerful type of arc lamp is the so-called "water-wall" arc lamp, in which a liquid such as water is circulated through the arc chamber with a tangential velocity so as to form a vortexing liquid wall (the "water wall") flowing along the inside surface of the arc chamber envelope. The vortexing liquid wall cools the periphery of the inert gas column through which the arc is discharged. This cooling effect constricts the arc diameter and gives the arc a positive dynamic impedance. The rapid flow rate of the vortexing liquid wall ensures that this cooling effect is approximately constant over the entire length of the arc discharge, resulting in uniform arc conditions and spatially uniform emission of electromagnetic radiation. A vortexing flow of inert gas is maintained immediately radially inward from the vortexing liquid wall, to stabilize the arc. The vortexing liquid wall efficiently removes heat from the inside surface of the envelope and also absorbs infrared, thus lowering the amount of electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the envelope. The vortexing liquid wall also removes any material evaporated or sputtered by the electrodes, preventing darkening of the envelope. U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,185 to Nodwell et al., which shares overlapping inventorship with the present application, and which is incorporated herein by reference, is believed to disclose the first water-wall arc lamp. Further improvements upon such water-wall arc lamps are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,102 to Camm et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,490 to Camm et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,621,199 to Parfeniuk et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,781,947 to Camm et al., and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0276611 to Camm et al., all of which share overlapping inventorship with the present application, are commonly owned with the present application, and are incorporated herein by reference.
Due to the above-noted effects of the vortexing liquid wall, such water-wall arc lamps are capable of much higher power fluxes than other types of arc lamps. For example, the above-noted U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,185 to Nodwell et al. discloses and contemplates operation at 140 kilowatts, and subsequent water-wall arc lamps manufactured by the assignee of the present application have been rated for continuous operation at up to 500 kilowatts, and for pulsed or flashed operation at up to 6 megawatts. In contrast, other types of arc lamps are typically an entire order of magnitude less powerful, with continuous outputs typically limited to tens of kilowatts.
Many applications of such high-power water-wall arc lamps only require operation for short periods of time, such as several seconds. For example, in flash-assisted rapid thermal annealing of semiconductor wafers, as disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,941,063, an argon plasma water-wall arc lamp may be activated to continuously irradiate a semiconductor wafer for no more than several seconds, to heat the wafer in an approximately isothermal manner from room temperature to an intermediate temperature somewhere in the range between 600° C. and 1250° C., at a ramp rate between 250° C. per second and 400° C. per second. Upon reaching the intermediate temperature, another argon plasma water wall arc lamp is activated to produce an abrupt high-power irradiance flash, which may have a duration of about one millisecond for example, to heat the device side surface to a higher annealing temperature at a ramp rate in excess of 100,000° C. per second. Thus, in each annealing cycle, the water wall arc lamps may be activated for durations ranging from a millisecond to several seconds, with lengthy cooling periods between annealing cycles.

Apparatus and methods for generating electromagnetic radiation


A linear dimming LED driver circuit capable of adjusting color temperature used in a lamp of a down light or a tube light to drive a plurality of LED strings to emit light and the LED strings are formed by yellow-light and ultra blue LEDs. The circuit uses a switch to switch the conduction of the LED strings to change the color temperature of the light emission of the lamp, so that the control module will adjust the light emitting brightness of the lamp for better dimming range and work performance of the whole circuit if a driving voltage is in a mono sinusoidal voltage section greater than or equal to 129 volts and smaller than or equal to 135 volts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of power supply devices for light emitting diode (LED) lamps, and more particularly to a linear dimming LED driver circuit capable of adjusting color temperature that provides a higher energy conversion efficiency of the circuit and a better dimming range of the lamps through a single-stage modulation mode of a mono sinusoidal voltage section.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, most driving devices for LED lamps use a switching power converter as the main circuit architecture, and the switching power converter is a general Fly-back, Forward, Boost, Buck, Push-pull, Half-bridge or Full-bridge circuit. With reference to FIG. 1 for a driving device 1 that uses the boost power converter as the main circuit architecture and has the function of increasing a voltage level required by a load, and the driving device 1 includes a dimming module 10, a rectification module 11, a control module 12 and an output module 13, and the control module 12 includes a control chip 120, a protective resistor 121, the transistor 122 and the sensing resistor 123. The dimming module 10 is a tri-electrode AC switch (TRIAC), and the sensing resistor 123 is connected in series through the transistor 121, so that when the TRIAC switches the conduction angle of an input voltage to adjust the brightness, the sensing resistor 123 detects the driving current of the LED to form a buck to be provided for the control chip 120 to compare the hock with the input voltage to output a high-level voltage or a low-level voltage to the transistor 122, so as to timely conduct or disconnect the transistor 122 to adjust the duty cycle of a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signal, and achieve the effect of controlling the outputted driving voltage to change the brightness of the light emitted from the LED. In this method, the driving voltage is increased or decreased in stages according to a change of sine wave of the input voltage. In other words, an output status of a multi-stage modulation is achieved to provide excellent working efficiency of the whole driver circuit. In other words, the working quality can meet the industrial requirements, but a specific component cost is incurred and cannot be lowered further.
In addition, although the conventional lamps adopt a mixture of blue-light LEDs together with yellow-light LEDs to produce a lamp with the required light color, but at the research and design stages of the blue-light LEDs and yellow-light LEDs, the lamps so produced have the issue of a light color error due to the physical properties of different LEDs and cannot be overcome easily. In other words, the number of blue-light LEDs or yellow-light LEDs for actual light emission cannot be increased, so that manufacturers have to inspect and eliminate a large quantity of products with the aforementioned color issue before the products exit the factory. As a consequence, the yield rate is lowered and the inventory of defects is increased, and such consequence is not conducive to the economic development of the industry.
In view of the aforementioned problems, it is a main subject of the present invention to mix the blue-light LEDs with the yellow-light LEDs in the lamp and use them as the light source, and further simplify the circuit architecture and lower the production cost while keeping a high working efficiency and providing a wide dimming range, so as to achieve the effects of flexibly adjusting the light color and improving the cost-effectiveness.

Linear dimming LED driver circuit capable of adjusting color temperature


Techniques are provided to enable quick previews of what a modified document would look like. In an implementation, a set of page images are stored. Each page image represents a page of a document, the page having been converted to a page image for a first version of the document to permit the document to be viewed in a viewer program. A command is received to modify the document. The requested modification may include, for example, reordering pages, deleting pages, or extracting pages. A preview is generated for a second version of the document. The preview reflects the modification and uses at least one page image from the set of page images created for the first version of the document. Reusing page images allows the preview to be generated very quickly.

The present invention relates to the field of information technology, including, more particularly, to systems and techniques for document management.
Many companies turn to document management systems to help them store and manage their electronic documents. In some cases, a user will want to make modifications or alterations to the document. The process of modifying the document can take a significant amount of time and computing resources-especially if the document has many pages that need to be processed to complete the modification. Users may be left sitting at a blank screen for a long time while the system processes their modification request. This is generally undesirable.
Thus, there is a need to provide systems and techniques to improve the perceived response time of document modification operations.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and system for stashing of document alteration information for quicker web preview


A probe assembly used in testing instrument for determining optical signal within a test cell, comprising a top plate (5;205) with a through-hole (52;250) therein; a cylindrical light hood (2;202) having a central channel (21;221); the lower end of the optical pickup (1) is inserted into said channel (21;221) and surrounded by said light hood, and said light hood can slide down and up within a small distance isolating said one test cell of the sample being detected from its adjacent cells and surroundings when the lower end of said light hood is in said protruding position, so that the light interference from the adjacent test cells and surroundings with (to) the determination of the sampling being detected can be avoided. Also, the present invention further relates to the light hood included in the probe assembly and the instruments including the probe assembly.

Recently, there are various kinds of known testing instruments for determining optical signal. Its principle is that the optical signal picked up or determined by a photo electric converter (transducer) is converted into voltage or current signal and then these voltage and current signal is amplified. With the quantum physics developing, a novel high-sensitivity photoelectric testing device so called a single-photon counting device has been manufactured and widely used in aviation, space-flight, military affairs, medical treatment, security, scientific research, environmental protection, agriculture, and industry etc. An example of applying a single photon counter in medical field is a micro-cellular-plate-single-photon counting device with it, widely applied in various aspects of the clinic diagnosis, such as gene analysis, determinations of hormones, medicines, vitamin, and materials related to cancers and infections. Generally, the micro-cellular-plate-singe-photon counting device is consisted of a probe; more than one test cell; a transporter mechanism carrying the test cells; a housing; a controller; a central computer. The sequential steps of the determination process of the micro-cellular-plate-single-photon counting device are below: putting the prepared sample into a test cell and then placing the test cells into sample container (namely, micro-cellular-plate, e.g., a micro-cellular-plate with an array of 12 rows by 8 columns of test cells, i.e. 96 test cells); putting the sample container, i.e. the micro-cellular plate, onto a bracket; covering the housing; delivering the bracket with the micro-cellular plate on it into the housing in a light-sealing state by the transporter mechanism when the device switch is turned on; and determining the samples in the test cells one by one by movement of the optical pickup of the counting device in relation to the sample container.
Since the micro-cellular plate single photon counting device is an instrument which determines the number of photons within the test cell, the light-sealing of the device must conform to a severe requirement.
The probe used in the prior art is shown in FIG. 17. FIG. 17 shows the relationship of the optical pickup 1 and a plurality (e.g. 96) of the test cells 6 arranged one by one integrally or put into a contiguous relation on the 96-site micro cellular plate during one of the sample being determined. The test cells are disposable plastic products. The flush of their mouths is poor and also fluctuations of the height exist among plurality of the test cells, which can cause a light cross interference between the determined samples(namely, a secondary light seal defect). Said light cross interference refers to that the optical pickup is influenced by the light from the adjacent test cells, leading to an error in the determination of the sample being detected since the top of the test cell being detected or the top of its adjacent test cells can't closely abut against the top plate 102 of the housing due to the poor flush and the fluctuations of the heights of test cells. The determining results can be substantially influenced especially when the strength of light from the samples of the adjacent test cells is relatively high while that of the sample being detected is relatively low.

Probe assembly with a light hood and a detecting instrument equipped with the same

Beijing Yuande Bio-Medical Engineering Co., Ltd.


A connector assembly includes a conductive collet spring with an annular base and integral circumferentially spaced cantilevered generally parallel arms terminating at tip members diametrically spaced closer than the diameter of the base. A conductive housing overlying and electrically and mechanically engaged with the collet spring engageably receives the electrical terminal of a medical stimulating device and includes a distal mounting flange. A non-conductive barrel is fittingly attached to the distal mounting flange of the housing and has an inner bore for receiving a medical electrical lead. A non-conductive header encapsulates the connector assembly, is mounted on the casing, and has a header bore aligned with the inner bore for receiving the medical electrical lead which, when inserted and sufficiently advanced through the header bore, the inner bore, and the annular base, the tip members firmly engage the proximal terminal pin thereof.

ICDs are devices which are capable of recognizing ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation and delivering electrical therapy to terminate such an arrhythmia and may also be used to treat the atria. Advantageously, such devices are relatively small, light-weight and implantable. In order to sense and stimulate the heart, however, such ICDs must be used with an ICD lead—an electrical conductor that carries electrical signals between the heart and the ICD. Advantageously, the ICD lead can be inserted into the heart transvenously through a relatively simple and well-known surgical procedure. Disadvantageously, one end of the lead (sometimes designated herein as the "connecting end") must be electrically and mechanically secured to the ICD in a way that provides for a long-term safe and secure, yet detachable, connection. Those skilled in the art of ICDs have long sought after a simple, yet reliable and safe, technique for making this detachable electrical and mechanical connection between the ICD and the connecting end of the ICD lead.
In order to appreciate the advantages of the present invention, it will help first to have a basic understanding of the manner in which the mechanical and electrical connection functions are carried out in known ICDs. The main components associated with the connection function of known ICDs are shown in FIG. 1. An ICD 10 electrically includes a battery 14 that powers electronic circuitry 12. The ICD electronic circuitry 12 and battery 14 are mechanically housed and hermetically sealed in a suitable housing 16. Typically, this casing 16 is shaped to include a flat side or platform 20 to which a suitable epoxy header 22 can be bonded. At least one feedthru terminal 18, in electrical contact with the electronic circuitry 12, passes through the casing 16 and protrudes out from the platform 20. This feedthru terminal 18 is electrically isolated from the casing 16. A platinum wire 24, or other suitable conductive element, connects the terminal 18 to a conductive connector block 26 that is fitted within the header 22. An ICD lead 28, having a proximal electrode 30, connects to the ICD electronic circuitry by inserting the proximal electrode 30 into a receiving channel 31 of the header 22 until the electrode 30 is in contact with the connector block 26. A set screw 32 is then securely tightened using a torque wrench 34 to firmly hold the electrode 30 in both mechanical and electrical connection with the connector block 26. A septum 35 is typically placed over the set screw 32 in order to prevent body fluids from seeping through the set screw hole. Further, sealing ribs or ridges 36 on the connecting end of the ICD lead are designed to tightly engage the inside edges of the receiving channel 31 in order to prevent any body fluids from entering into the receiving channel 31 once the connecting end of the lead has been pushed into the header 22.
Typically, known headers 22 are cast in place from epoxy to the platform 20 of the ICD, or a premolded header is bonded to the platform 20 using a suitable sealing and bonding agent. Further, once the electrical connection is made from the terminal post 18 to the connector block 26, and the header 22 is attached to the housing, all remaining voids within the header, not including the receiving channel 31 into which the proximal end of the lead is to be inserted, must be filled with a suitable filler material, such as a two-component epoxy or silicone rubber.
As is evident from the above description, placing a header on an ICD housing is a very labor-intensive process involving many components. What is needed is a simpler manner of lead attachment that provides the requisite mechanical and electrical connection functions using fewer components and less labor yet providing higher reliability. As mentioned above, many known ICDs use a setscrew connector block assembly to make electrical contact between leads and device. The surgeon secures leads in the header by tightening the setscrew(s) with a torque wrench inserted through the septum. The septum is installed over the setscrew in the header to seal the connector block from body fluid. This process of tightening setscrews establishes electrical contact between lead and device and starts delivery of therapy.
Occasionally, the septum gets damaged either by the torque wrench or the setscrew, creating a leak path for body fluid to come in contact with the connector block. This may result in device malfunction and/or connector block corrosion. Additionally, the quality of electrical contact between the lead and device is compromised due to presence of body fluid.
Damage to setscrews is one of the main reasons for field return of devices. In many devices where the cause of failure is indeterminate, the septum is observed to be damaged.
In order to assemble the septum, a cavity is created in the header. The cavity raises the profile of header surfaces. This raised profile tends to rub against body tissue after implant and is a primary source of irritation and patient discomfort.
Low septums, however, are a cause of rejects in manufacturing. In this regard, it is noteworthy to explain that during normal header manufacturing operation, a cylindrical cavity is created in the side of the header and the septum is installed in the cavity such that the top surface of the septum is flush with the rim of the cylindrical cavity. Sometimes the cavity is created excessively deep, with the result that the septum sits low in the cavity. In this case the top surface of the septum lies below the rim of the cylindrical cavity. This condition is known as a low septum and is a cause of rejects.
This is one of the reasons for often low yield of the casting process when manufacturing ICD headers and, frequently, devices require rework on account of this problem. Further, during quality inspection, septums can get damaged due to insertion of torque wrench.
The present invention addresses these and other needs and it was in light of the foregoing that the present invention was conceived and has now been reduced to practice.

Collet spring for high voltage electrical contacts in ICD headers


Devices, systems and methods for treating disorders characterized by low cardiac output. The devices, systems and methods use intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation in combination with hypothermia of all or a portion of a human or veterinary patient's body to improve coronary perfusion and cardiac output. To effect the hypothermia, a heat exchange catheter may be positioned in the a patient's vasculature separately from the intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation catheter. Alternatively, a combination Intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation/heat exchange catheter may be utilized. Such combination catheter comprises a) a catheter sized for insertion into the aorta, b) a counterpulsation balloon and c) a heat exchanger. A drive/control system receives temperature and electrocardiograph signals and drives the inflation/deflation of the counterpulsation balloon as well as the heating/cooling of the heat exchanger.

A. Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump (IABP) Counterpulsation
An intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) is a device that may be used to a) increase myocardial blood flow in patients whose cardiac output is compromised due to heart failure or cardiac insufficiency and b) decreases the heart's workload, through a process called counterpulsation.
During each cardiac cycle, the human heart expels oxygenated blood into the aorta as its left ventricle contracts (i.e., during systole) and, thereafter, receives a backflow of arterial blood into the coronary arteries as its left ventricle relaxes (i.e., during diastole). The systolic pumping of blood into the aorta requires the heart muscle to overcome the static pressure of blood that is already in the aorta. A healthy heart is typically able to perform both of these functions effectively. However, a weakened or failing heart may be unable to perform the work required to fully overcome the static pressure of blood already in the aorta, thereby resulting in less ejection of oxygenated blood into the aorta during systole and less backflow of oxygenated blood into the coronary arteries during diastole. Intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation is a technique which causes more arterial blood to enter the coronary arteries (and thus more blood flow to the heart muscle) during diastole (less flow work) and decreases the amount of work that the heart must perform during systole (less pressure work). By increasing coronary blood flow, the myocardium receives more oxygen, thereby allowing the heart to pump more effectively and increasing the cardiac output that occurs with each heartbeat (i.e., the "stroke volume").
The IABP comprises a) a balloon catheter that is percutaneously insertable into the patient's aorta and b) a control console that is attached to the balloon catheter. A computer or controller within the control console receives the patient's electrocardiogram (ECG). In response to the ECG signal, the controller causes the intra-aortic balloon to be inflated during diastole (when the heart muscle relaxed) resulting in increased back pressure within the aorta and increased blood flow into the coronary arteries, and deflated during early systole (during a phase known as "isometric contraction") resulting in a reduction of intra-aortic pressure against which the heart must pump. In this way, the IABP improves blood flow to the heart muscle and reduces the workload of the heart muscle. Additionally, IABP counterpulsation has been demonstrated to improve peripheral or systemic arterial perfusion. Although the mechanism by which IABP counterpulsation improves peripheral or systemic profusion is not well understood, it is believed that inflation of the intra-aortic balloon during diastole serves to facilitate peripheral runoff (sometimes referred to as the intrinsic "Windkessel" effect) which then augments peripheral perfusion.
Preferably, the gas used to inflate the balloon is either carbon dioxide (which has fewer consequences in the rare event of a balloon bursting) or helium (which has the fastest ability to travel or diffuse).
B. The Effects of Hypothermia on Cardiac Function
Mild hypothermia has been shown to both increase the contractility of the heart muscle and to reduce its metabolic requirements. Indeed, if the hypothermia is systemic, the metabolic demands of the entire body are generally reduced, so that the demands placed on the heart may be reduced. Additionally, when the patient's body temperature is reduced and maintained 1EC or more below normothermic (e.g., less than 36EC in most individuals), such that the output of the heart increases, the condition and function of the heart muscle may improve significantly due to the combined effects of increased bloodflow to the heart, a temporarily decreased metabolic need and decreased metabolic waste products.
One method for inducing hypothermia of the heart or entire body is through the use of a heat exchange catheter that is inserted into a blood vessel and used to cool blood flowing through that blood vessel. This method in general is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,110,168 to Ginsburg, which is expressly incorporated herein by reference. Various heat exchange catheters useable for achieving the endovascular cooling are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,208 (Ginsburg), PCT International Publication WO 00/10494 (Machold et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,679 (Keller et al.), U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/777,612, all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. Other endovascular cooling catheters may be employed to practice this patented method, for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,425,484 (Dato), U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,963 (Dobak III) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,126,684 (Gobin, et al.), provided that they are able to provide adequate hypothermia to the diseased heart.
The potential for shivering is present whenever a patient is cooled below that patient's shivering threshold, which in humans is generally about 35.5° C. When inducing hypothermia below the shivering threshold, it is very important to avoid or limit the shivering response. The avoidance or limiting of the shivering response may be particularly important in patients who suffer from compromised cardiac function and/or metabolic irregularities. An anti-shivering treatment may be administered to prevent or deter shivering. Examples of effective anti-shivering treatments are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,231,594 (Dae et al.).

Intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation with concurrent hypothermia


A radio frequency (RF) receiver front end includes an RF attenuator for receiving an RF input signal and a low noise amplifier (LNA). In one form, the LNA provides a differential output signal and includes a first polarity amplifier and a plurality of second polarity amplifiers. The first polarity amplifier has an input terminal coupled to the output of the RF attenuator, an output terminal for providing a first component of the differential RF output signal, and has a first input impedance. Each of the plurality of second polarity amplifiers has an input terminal coupled to the output of said RF attenuator, and an output terminal. The output terminals of said plurality of second polarity amplifiers are coupled together and form a second component of the differential RF output signal. Each of the plurality of second polarity amplifiers has a second input impedance higher than the first input impedance.

Wireless RF receivers are used in a wide variety of applications such as broadcast radio and television, smart metering, remote control, and the like. As used herein, a "radio frequency" signal means an electrical signal conveying useful information and having a frequency from about 3 kilohertz (kHz) to thousands of gigahertz (GHz), regardless of the medium through which such signal is conveyed. Thus an RF signal may be transmitted through air, free space, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, etc.
An RF receiver generally receives an RF input signal from an antenna or other signal source and adjusts its gain for further processing. In a typical RF receiver front end, a signal from an antenna is input to an attenuator and the attenuator output signal is input to a low noise amplifier (LNA). The attenuator can either pass the signal through unattenuated or apply an attenuation. The attenuator provides proper input impedance to match the source impedance of the antenna for optimum power transfer while also providing appropriate output impedance as seen from the input of the LNA. The LNA then typically converts its single-ended input signal to a differential output signal in order to enable downstream stages to process the signal with better noise and distortion performance.
In one typical LNA configuration, two amplifiers are used to convert a single-ended input signal to a differential output signal; one amplifier generates the positive output and the other generates the negative output. In this configuration, one amplifier has relatively low input impedance to match the output impedance of the attenuator, while the other amplifier has relatively high input impedance but can be used to cancel the noise and distortion introduced by the first amplifier by making the noise and distortion common-mode at the output of the LNA. However in this configuration, the noise and distortion introduced by the second amplifier itself are not cancelled, which limits the overall performance of the LNA.
In the following description, the use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items. Unless otherwise noted, the word "coupled" and its associated verb forms include both direct connection and indirect electrical connection by means known in the art, and unless otherwise noted any description of direct connection implies alternate embodiments using suitable forms of indirect electrical connection as well.

High performance, low cost receiver front end