An agitator mill for flowable mill charge grinding, has a fixed, outer, cylindrical grinding container, to which is coaxially fitted in spaced manner a cylindrical inner stator. A rotary driven, cup-shaped rotor is positioned coaxially to the grinding container and engages in the grinding area formed between the grinding container and the inner stator, so that the grinding area is subdivided into an outer grinding area and an inner grinding area, the grinding areas being interconnected hydraulically by means of a connecting area. A discharge device located within the inner stator is connected in the flow direction to the inner grinding area. A rotary, cylindrical separating screen is positioned coaxially to the rotor between the end of the inner grinding area and the discharge device. In order to ensure a correct operation of the agitator mill with relatively low constructional costs, the separating screen is fitted to the rotor and sealed with respect to the inner stator by means of a seal, particularly a slip ring seal.

Such an agitator mill, as shown in DE 41 42 213 A1, has an outer, cylindrical grinding container, which is fixed and connected to a coaxially spaced, cylindrical inner stator. The grinding container and inner stator are closed at their lower end by means of a circular base, so that between the outer grinding container and the inner stator is formed a circular grinding area. A cover is also mounted on the upper end of the grinding container.
A downwardly open cup-shaped rotor is mounted in rotary manner coaxially to the grinding container and inner stator and comprises a rotor base positioned in the vicinity of the grinding container cover and a downwardly directed cylindrical part connected thereto. The cylindrical part extends into the grinding area formed between the grinding container and the inner stator. Thus, the grinding area is subdivided into a cylindrical outer grinding area and a cylindrical inner grinding area coaxial thereto, the two grinding areas being hydraulically connected by means of a lower connecting area at the lower end of the cylindrical part of the rotor.
Into the inner stator is integrated a discharge device, which has a discharge tube issuing into the upper region of the inner stator. The upper mouth or opening of the discharge tube is surrounded by a cylindrical filter or separating screen, which is closed at the top and has over its circumference a screening surface.
In order to sufficiently comminute the mill charge, on the grinding container, inner stator and cylindrical part of the rotor are provided agitating bolts. Moreover, the inner and outer grinding areas contain grinding beads, which are in particular balls made from glass, minerals, steel or the like.
The mill charge is fed into the outer grinding area, normally under a slight pressure, in the form of a slurry, i.e. as dry material with internal liquid, in the upper region of the grinding container cover, so that it mixes with the grinding beads. The mill charge and grinding beads flow downwards through the outer grinding area, flows below the rotor in the lower connecting area and then rises upwards in the inner grinding area, where it passes on to the separating screen at the upper end. The separating screen retains the grinding beads and coarse mill charge fractions and they flow back via radially directed overflow ducts into the outer grinding area, whereas the fine fractions pass through the separating screen into the discharge device.
In earlier agitator mills the separating screen was fitted to the inner stator and was consequently also fixed. It has been found that such a construction leads to several disadvantages. Firstly there can be a short-circuit flow through the overflow ducts between the outer and inner grinding areas, so that the mill charge does not flow first through the outer and inner grinding areas, so that the grinding capacity of the agitator mill is significantly reduced. It has also been found that in the case of a high throughput and high mill charge viscosity, the separating screen becomes relatively rapidly clogged, which also leads to an undesired pressure build-up in the agitator mill.
To prevent the clogging of the separating screen an attempt has been made to provide on the inside of the rotor stripping edges extending to the separating screen surface and passing over the same. However, it is not possible to in this way achieve the desired separating screen cleaning action. It has in fact been found that the mill charge is smeared by the stripping edges and the separating screen clogs even more rapidly, even if the grinding beads are transported outwards.
From the aforementioned DE 41 42 213 A1 it is known to fit the separating screen to the discharge device located in the inner stator and to mount the same rotatably therewith in the inner stator, a separate motor being required as the drive. The rotation of the separating screen leads to a self-cleaning due to centrifugal force and within the mill charge builds up an outwardly directed pressure, so that an inwardly directed short-circuit flow through the overflow ducts is reliably avoided. However, the constructional effort and expenditure for the rotary bearing of the discharge device in the inner stator and the arrangement of a separate drive motor is very high. It is also necessary to connect the rotary discharge tube, outside the grinding container, to a further extending, fixed line network, which also requires a complicated transition construction.
The problem of the invention is to provide an agitator mill of the aforementioned type, in which a correct operation can be ensured at relatively low constructional costs.


The invention relates to a two-stage method for the preparation of polyoxyalkylene polyols having low equivalent molar masses, in which the method requires no reprocessing. The invention is characterized in that, in the first stage, a polyoxyalkylene polyol precursor is provided, which contains the salts of a strong Bronsted acid, and in that, in a second stage, the polyoxyalkylene polyol precursor is further reacted with alkylene oxides under DMC catalysis.

Polyoxyalkylene polyols suitable for the preparation of polyurethanes can be obtained via various preparation processes. One process of significance on the industrial scale is the base-catalyzed addition of alkylene oxides onto H-functional starter compounds, and another is the use of double metal cyanide compounds as catalysts ("DMC catalysts") for the addition of alkylene oxides onto H-functional starter compounds. The addition of alkylene oxides onto suitable starter compounds which is catalyzed by (Lewis) acids is of minor importance owing to the tendency to form unwanted by-products.
Among the basic catalysts, the alkali metal hydroxides of the greatest significance. They allow the problem-free preparation of short-chain polyoxyalkylene polyols and/or polyoxyalkylene polyols having a high ethylene oxide content, but the catalyst in the alkaline crude polymer generally has to be removed by means of a separate workup step. In general, optionally after a preceding hydrolysis step, this is accomplished by neutralization with a sufficiently strong acid, followed by a distillation step. The salts that precipitate out here typically have to be removed by a filtration step. Distillation and filtration processes are time-consuming and energy-intensive and additionally, in some cases, do not have good reproducibility. Therefore, many processes that do not need a filtration step and in many cases do not need a distillation step either have been developed: Neutralization with hydroxycarboxylic acids such as lactic acid is described in WO 9820061 and US 2004167316 for the workup of short-chain polyols for rigid foam applications; these are widely used and well-established processes. U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,548 shows how the polymerization-active sites can be deactivated in a similar manner by reaction with formic acid. The metal carboxylates formed after neutralization with hydroxycarboxylic acids or formic acid are soluble in aqueous solution in the polyoxyalkylene polyols and are therefore normally left in the end products.
However, a disadvantage in these processes is the catalytic activity of the salts of the comparatively weak acids that remain in the products, which is unwanted for many polyurethane applications. In JP-A 10-30023 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,110,268, neutralization is therefore accomplished using aromatic sulfonic acids or organic sulfonic acids which likewise form salts soluble to give a clear solution in the polyoxyalkylene polyols, but ones that are less basic and feature lower catalytic activity. A crucial disadvantage here is the high costs of the sulfonic acids. Workup by means of acidic cation exchanges as described in DE-A 100 24 313 entails the use of solvents and the distillative removal thereof, and is thus likewise associated with high costs. The phase separation processes that are likewise occasionally employed require merely a hydrolysis step, but not a neutralization step, and are described, for example, in WO 0114456, JP-A 6-157743, WO 9620972 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,823,145. The use of coalescers or centrifuges assists the phase separation of the polyoxyalkylene polyols from the alkaline aqueous phase; here too, it is often necessary to add solvent in order to increase the difference in density between the polyalkylene polyol phase and the water phase. Processes of this kind are not suitable for all polyoxyalkylene polyols; in particular, they are unsuccessful in the case of short-chain polyoxyalkylene polyols.
If the polyoxyalkylene polyols to be prepared have exceptional structural properties, for example a sufficiently high content of oxyethylene units, or starter compounds containing amino groups have been used, it is possible via the choice of the ratio of sulfuric acid to basic catalyst in the polyoxyalkylene polyols to produce soluble sulfuric salts which can remain in the products and do not disrupt subsequent reactions to give the polyurethane material owing to their neutral to slightly acidic character. Processes of this kind are described in patent specifications EP 2028211 A1 and WO 2009/152954.
Amines can also be used as catalysts for the addition of alkylene oxide onto H-functional starter compounds, as described, for example, by Ionescu et al. in "Advances in Urethane Science & Technology", 1998, 14, p. 151-218. By means of aminic catalysis, it is only possible to obtain polyoxyalkylene polyols with comparatively low equivalent molar masses. The residues of aminic catalysts are likewise soluble in the polyoxyalkylene polyols and can remain in the products. However, it is also true of these that, because of their basic character, they can influence the course of reaction in downstream reaction steps, possibly in an undesirable manner.
The equivalent molar mass of materials containing active hydrogen atoms is understood to mean the total mass of the material containing active hydrogen atoms divided by the number of active hydrogen atoms. In the case of materials containing hydroxyl groups (for example polyoxyalkylene polyols), they are related to the OH number (hydroxyl number) as follows:equivalent molar mass=(56 100 [mg/mol])/(OH number [mg KOH/g])  (I)
The equivalent molar mass of the polyoxyalkylene polyols is thus ascertained according to formula (I), where the hydroxyl number of the polyoxyalkylene polyol can be ascertained according to DIN 53240 or determined spectroscopically by NIR.
As compared with the classes of catalyst mentioned so far, DMC catalysts from the most recent generation as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,470,813, EP-A 700949, EP-A 743093, EP-A 761708, WO-A 97/40086, WO-A 98/16310 and WO-A 00/47649 have exceptionally high activity and enable the preparation of polyoxyalkylene polyols having high equivalent molar masses with very low catalyst concentrations (25 ppm or less), such that no removal of the catalyst from the finished product is required, nor is there any expected influence of the residues originating from the DMC catalysts on the characteristics of polyols produced in this way in further reaction steps to give the polyurethane. A typical example is that of the highly active DMC catalysts which are described in EP-A 700949 and contain not only a double metal cyanide compound (e.g. zinc hexacyanocobaltate(III)) and an organic complex ligand (e.g. tert-butanol) but also a polyether having a number-average molecular weight greater than 500 g/mol.
A characteristic of DMC catalysts is their marked sensitivity to high concentrations of hydroxyl groups which are caused, for example, by large amounts of starters such as ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, glycerol, trimethylolpropane, sorbitol or sucrose, and polar impurities in the reaction mixture. The DMC catalysts in that case, for example, cannot be converted to the polymerization-active form during the reaction initiation phase, or alkylene oxide addition reactions that are already running can stop as a result of the presence of a hydroxyl group concentrations. This naturally limits the usability of DMC catalysts for the preparation of short-chain polyoxyalkylene polymer is having OH numbers of not less than 200 mg KOH/g which find use, for example, in the production of rigid foams There has therefore been no lack of attempts to make the indisputable advantages of DMC catalysis utilizable for the preparation of short-chain polyoxyalkylene polyols as well.
WO 2011/075333 A1 describes a fully continuous production process to be conducted at high reaction temperature and under DMC catalysis for polyoxyalkylene polyols having OH numbers of up to 660 mg KOH/g. The disadvantage of such continuous processes is there a lack of flexibility in the event of product changes; in addition, the continuous stable metered addition of solid starters, for example sorbitol, trimethylolpropane, pentaerythritol or sugars, is found to be difficult. The metered addition of such starters has to be effected via metering zones that are heated at high cost or in solution. A batchwise process for the preparation of short-chain polyoxyalkylene polyols is the subject of WO 2012/134849: In an alkylene oxide addition step catalyzed by "superacids", what are first obtained are precursors which, after neutralization of the precursor, are converted in a subsequent second reaction step under DMC catalysis to the end products, short-chain polyoxyalkylene polyols having OH numbers between 140 and 625 mg KOH/g. The disadvantage of this process lies in the use of the superacids in the first process step, which promotes the formation of unwanted by-products, for example of dioxolanes and dioxanes. Catalysts of this kind are therefore not normally used in commercial production processes and would first have to be introduced at many sites. A process to be conducted batchwise is likewise described in WO 2012/091968: The conversion of the DMC catalyst to the active state is facilitated by the addition of magnesium compounds or compounds of metals on groups 3-15 of the Periodic Table, or of compounds of the lanthanides, and its activity is increased. A disadvantage here too is of course the use of additional components; moreover, it appears that, in principle, only alkylene oxide addition products prefabricated separately from the actual starter compounds by a process which is not described any further are suitable as starting compounds for the DMC-catalyzed step. An effective measure for lowering the concentrations of hydroxyl groups in DMC-catalyzed batchwise processes if the meat addition of the low molecular weight H-functional starter compound(s) in parallel to the metered addition of the alkylene oxide(s). This "process for continuous metered addition of starter" is disclosed in WO-A 97/29146. A further development of the process of parallel metered addition of low molecular weight starter compound and alkylene oxide with the aim of preparation of polyoxyalkylene polyols with lower equivalent molar masses is presented by the teaching of EP 1577334: The sensitivity of the DMC catalyst to high hydroxyl group concentrations is lowered by the addition of small amounts of inorganic or organic Brønsted acids to the low molecular weight starter compound metered in. In this process too, the need to initially charge a starter polyol prefabricated by alkylene oxide addition is found to be disadvantageous; the continuous stable metered addition of solid starters, for example sorbitol, trimethylolpropane or sugars, can likewise be found to be problematic. In US-A 2010/0324340 it was found that, in the process for continuous metered addition of starter, too high a water content in the starter stream is found to be a hindrance in the preparation of polyoxyalkylene polyols having low equivalent molar masses. Consequently, this application discloses a process in which low molecular weight H-functional starter compounds that have been adjusted to a minimum water content in a costly and inconvenient manner are used.

Method for the preparation of polyoxyalkylene polyols


A method for enabling a communication via a mobile phone enables a comfortable creation of communications during a context of a mobile phone provided by a conventionally static application. It is proposed that the method comprises as a first step displaying information 2,3,4 available for a specific content on a display of the mobile phone. In a next step, it is detected whether a user selected a displayed information 4,5. In case an information 4,5 is selected, the kind of the selected information is determined. Then, functions 6,7 associated to the kind of the selected information are presented on the display. To at least one kind of possible information the establishment of at least one kind of communication is associated as at least one function. Finally, a function 7 selected by a user is activated. The invention relates equally to a corresponding mobile phone.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a method for enabling a communication via a mobile phone. The invention relates equally to a mobile phone enabling a communication, which mobile phone comprises a display and processing means.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Mobile phones, like personal digital assistant (PDA) phones, are well known from the state of the art.
Such mobile phones usually comprise processing means providing a variety of functions and a display for presenting pieces of information to a user in accordance with a current context.
A mobile phone can be used in particular for communication purposes. In order to enable a communication, conventional mobile phones usually comprise an application managing a phonebook, which application is run by the processing means of the phone. When the user opens the phonebook, a list of stored phone numbers are presented on the display. The user can then select one of these numbers by means of a number parser. Alternatively, the user can input a desired phone number manually. The selected or the input number is used for establishing a desired connection, e.g. for a phone call, for sending an SMS (short message service) message or for transmitting a facsimile.
Mobile phones moreover often comprise static applications presenting some content on a display of the mobile phone, which content is not restricted to comprise a specific kind of information, e.g. a calendar, a browser or a messaging application. In some cases, a presented content will comprise a contact information based on which a connection could be established. Such a contact information can be for instance a phone number that might be used for establishing a phone call.
Known applications of this kind, however, do not comprise any immediate communication features themselves. They lack in particular call creation possibilities. For example, in case a user wants to establish a call to a phone number presented in a calendar, the user has first to enter the number again, or, in case the number is stored in the phonebook, to open a phonebook and select the number, before a connection can be established. This is obviously rather annoying for a user, since the desired phone number was already displayed. A direct manipulation method, which comprises tapping the number, further results in a high error rate. The same applies to other connection related information, e.g. email addresses or fax-numbers.

Method for enabling a communication via a mobile phone and mobile phone enabling a communication


A system and methods which enable modeling of end consumer interests based on online activity and producing e-commerce reports is described. The method includes scoring and classifying interests and preferences of consumers in relation to various items being offered as function of time and utilizing such scores to predict purchasing activity and revenue yield for n-dimensional combinations of interest for generation of consumer lists for target marketing and merchandising. The method also includes converse modeling of the performance and behavioral profile of items offered as a function of consumer activity. This Abstract is provided for the sole purpose of complying with the rules that allow a reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the disclosure contained herein. This Abstract is submitted with the explicit understanding that it will not be used to interpret or to limit the scope or the meaning of the claims.

Offering relevant products is becoming increasingly important for e-commerce companies in order for them to effectively attract and retain consumers given the ever increasing number of competitors emerging on the Internet. As consumers are faced with an overwhelming selection of products, content, and/or service online, companies are faced with an equal level of decision complexity in order to effectively determine which of their ever expansive inventory of products should be offered to a consumer population the vast majority, of which are anonymous visitors of their online stores. This lack of visibility into the interests and shopping preferences of a large and often heterogeneous consumer base leads to suboptimal marketing and merchandising strategies as a result of undifferentiated product offerings.
The economic implications of non-relevant product offerings are quite considerable and could determine the long-term viability of present e-commerce companies engaged in a pernicious business cycle as they are forced to spend more on acquiring new customers in order to compensate for their turnover of the consumers that have previously visited and may have purchased within their online stores.
The standard approaches used by e-commerce companies to target customers is based on multivariate analysis, segmentation, and list generation of demographic and psychographic data, preference data provided during account registration online and/or historic purchase data of individual users in standard data-mart/data-warehouse environments. Each of these criteria presents significant limitations in enabling effective and scalable targeting of online consumers. First, demographic and psychographic data offers poor resolution into the nuanced interests of customers to specific products or product classes within a wide array of highly diversified inventories. In addition, only the disproportionately small population of consumers that have provided their identifiable address information (i.e., buyers, registrants/account holders, etc.) can be classified based on these criteria and thus targeted. The vast majority of online shoppers, who are anonymous visitors, simply can not be targeted.
Second, in the case of the use of interest or preference data explicitly provided by online consumers when they register or create accounts, such data is often sparse and unreliable in determining a customer's true shopping interests. It is usually non-reflective on what a particular customer has actually purchased, if they have purchased at all. This is similar in many ways to the demographic and psychographic data which has limited consumer reach and allows for targeting of disproportionately small populations.
Lastly, the third criteria for targeting consumers considered most effective by traditional brick-and-mortar companies and optimized, in particular, by retail catalog companies, is data on historic purchasing activity. While initial purchasing activity is an often effective determinant of future purchasing activity, it is dependent on the type of product being offered and their natural buying cycles (i.e., refrigerators and mortgage packages versus groceries and DVDs, etc.). Such factors determine the likelihood of repeat purchase rates. Response rates often drop precipitously on the second and future campaigns as natural buying thresholds have been exceeded.
Analysis of order data has been the mainstay of current database marketing/business intelligence technologies due in large part to its success in traditional catalog retail business models. When applied to e-commerce, the use of an order-centric data model, as typified in the canonical data warehouse star-schemas, presents significant limitations as an artifact of an old world brick-and-mortar paradigm. With point-of-sale systems such as cash registers as the primary transactional system of record, purchasing activity has been the central event space for analysis by commercial consumer oriented database systems offering a very myopic view of the breadth of important shopping dynamics that are occurring.
Despite the emergence of e-commerce and its vast new sources of transactional data, the capacity of e-commerce companies to effectively segment and target market and merchandise to their customers has remained a considerable challenge. Of the many reasons why efficient use of clickstream data has remained elusive for e-commerce companies, the most noteworthy data management and analytical limitations include: unwieldy volumes (terabytes) of raw transactional data requiring high storage and processing capacity, non-standardized data structures leading to limited semantic resolution and join complexity from modeling of multiple and heterogeneous event spaces due to dimensional non-conformity, and disproportionately small population of known consumers such as buyers and registrants, that are often considered more valuable to companies, whose clickstream data can actually be applied to them and be effectively leveraged to increase revenue and profits.
Many current solutions in the market have developed approaches to integrating voluminous clickstream data but still offer little to no improved ability to effectively target their consumers in order to increase revenues and profits. Many of the packaged data warehouse solutions, while integrating clickstream data, have architected the schema based on traditional approaches that make multivariate analysis across single or the desired multiple events inordinately processing intensive and often improbable to conduct. Given the cost of storing and processing terabytes of raw clickstream data, such packaged solutions are still oriented towards standard order-centric schemas and data architectures.
To fulfill this growing need to store and process terabytes of clickstream data in a cost-effective manner for e-commerce companies, web analytic service companies emerged. Many of these companies serve ostensibly as outsourced data warehouse solutions for e-commerce companies. Their technology services allow for the rapid processing of clickstream data in order to provide reports for aggregate traffic analysis, page performance, site usage, and conversion analysis. Rarely can such patterns give insight into meaningful shopping patterns that can be readily attributed to individual or segments of customers for target marketing and merchandising.
Only recently, and in rare cases, are the client company's internal customer ids provided to such third party analytic services to allow for true onsite behavioral mapping and identification. The emergence of customer-level clickpath aggregation has led to new technologies in partnership with Email Service Providers whereby client companies can set up specific business rules to instantiate automated targeting events. The best known involves the use of trigger-based events where consumers that exhibit specified actions online (i.e., abandon item in shopping cart, download article, etc.) are sent a targeted email relating to the event in order to influence a desired activity such as a purchase or subscription.
Despite major advancements in processing power and storage capacity, most commerce analytic data systems (i.e., data warehouses, data marts, etc.) fail to provide companies with the ability to determine and launch high-performance campaigns by effectively determining what to offer their fickle and largely anonymous mass of customers as well as the means of targeting them in the rare occasions that their interests and preferences are determined. The analytic limitations of current direct marketing and merchandising technology solutions are the result of the continued use of an increasingly outdated commerce data model paradigm, inherent in brick-and-mortar systems, which are primarily designed to mine order-centric activity, albeit across a limitless set of dimensions.
Given the aforementioned, a need exists for decision support/revenue management system that effectively models the full breadth and depth of e-commerce data to enable companies to optimize servicing of their customers based on revenue projections of their differentiated shopping behaviors.

System and method for providing E-commerce consumer-based behavioral target marketing reports


A system and method for determining a SONOS VT window using a current sensing scheme is disclosed. The present invention creates a first current path and a second current path through the volatile and non-volatile sections of an nvSRAM memory cell. The erase threshold voltage of the first edge of the window is determined when current is detected in the first path. The program voltage of the second edge of the window is determined when current is detected in the second path. Accordingly, the voltage used to power a plurality of SONOS transistors may be set using the values of the first and second threshold edges to determine the VT window.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to memory, and more particularly to on chip sensing of a SONOS VT window in a non-volatile Static Random Access Memory (nvSRAM).
2. The Relevant Technology
Semiconductor memory devices are widely used in the computer and electronics industries as a means for retaining digital information. A typical semiconductor memory device is comprised of a large number of memory elements, known as memory cells, that are each capable of storing a single digital bit. The memory cells are arranged into a plurality of separately addressable memory locations, each being capable of storing a predetermined number of digital data bits. All of the memory cells in the device are generally located upon a single semiconductor chip which is contacted and packaged for easy insertion into a computer system.
Margin mode testing, where a threshold voltage range is measured for silicon oxide nitride oxide semiconductor (SONOS) transistors in a nonvolatile memory portion by performing a series of recall operations using varying bias levels, is currently used to determine the store/erase voltage, VSE, for a RECALL operation on a non-volatile Static Random Access Memory (nvSRAM) cell. A margin mode process begins by storing data into the non-volatile SRAM cell. Then, the opposite data is then written into the Static Random Access Memory (SRAM ) cell. VSE is set to a static value of 0V. The stored data is then recalled and the entire contents of the SRAM is read to check if the recall operation was successful. Typically, once the threshold voltage range is determined and VSE is set, it is not altered. If a VSE for a RECALL operation is chosen based on the VT window, it may be that the VSE falls outside of that range due to degradation of the program and erase threshold voltages of the SONOS transistors.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for determining the threshold voltage range for the SONOS transistors without having to perform an endless number of tests that are both time consuming and unable to adapt to the degradation of threshold voltages.


A wireless transmit receive unit (WTRU) is configured to operate in an high speed data packet access (HSDPA) mode in a cell and/or state and to clear HSDPA resources when moving out of the cell and/or state. The WTRU is configured to clear HSDPA resources when conditions to perform high speed downlink shared channel reception are not met.

Wireless transmit receive units (WTRUs) in a UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) can be in either of two modes: Idle or Connected. Based on WTRU mobility and activity while in connected mode, the UTRAN can direct the WTRU to transition between a number of radio resource control (RRC) sub-states: Cell_PCH, URA_PCH, Cell_DCH and Cell_FACH. The Cell_PCH and URA_PCH states are used to trigger cell updates on a paging channel (PCH) for a mobile WTRU. The Cell_DCH state is characterized by dedicated channels (DCHs) in both the uplink and the downlink. On the WTRU side, this corresponds to continuous transmission and reception and can be demanding on user power requirements. The Cell_FACH state is characterized by a forward access channel (FACH) and does not use dedicated channels, thus allowing better power consumption, at the expense of a lower uplink and downlink throughput.
Recent work by the standardization bodies has identified the possibility of using high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) in Cell_FACH and Cell_PCH/URA PCH. HSDPA is a feature that was introduced in Release 5 of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specifications to operate in Cell_DCH. HSDPA tries to make better use of the downlink shared capacity by using three key concepts: Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), retransmissions using a Hybrid-ARQ (HARQ) scheme, and Node B scheduling, all operating at a very fast rate.
The following HSDPA characteristics are relevant:                a. Every WTRU having a HSDPA connection is assigned a high speed downlink scheduling channel (HS-DSCH) Radio Network Temporary Identifier (H-RNTI). This identifier is unique within a cell and assigned by the serving Radio Network Controller (RNC).        b. A WTRU is attached to a single serving cell (Node B).        c. The WTRU has to receive indication of the physical channel resources to use (HS-PDSCH info), as well as how to set up the HARQ processes and the HARQ memory.
In 3GPP Release 6, HSDPA was only supported in Cell_DCH. Therefore, when moving out of Cell_DCH state, all HSDPA resources had to be cleared. However, with the introduction of enhanced Cell_FACH the WTRU may move from Cell_DCH to any other state and still support HS-DSCH reception, which may not require the WTRU to clear all HSDPA resources. Therefore, an additional condition was added to the variable HS_DSCH_RECEPTION associated with HS-DSCH reception in Cell_DCH. The HSDPA resources are only cleared when the requirements to perform HS-DSCH reception are not met and the WTRU is in Cell_DCH.
It is assumed that if a WTRU supports HSDPA in Release 7, it also supports HSDPA in Cell_FACH and in Cell_PCH/URA_PCH. HS-DSCH reception in Cell_FACH can be configured without HS-DSCH reception in Cell_PCH and URA_PCH. HS-DSCH reception in Cell_PCH and URA_PCH without the support of HS-DSCH reception in Cell_FACH is not supported. The WTRU support for these features is signaled by the WTRU to the network.
The network signals its support for enhanced Cell_FACH via the System Information Block (SIB5/5bis) to the WTRU. Two new information elements (IEs) have been introduced:                a. "HS-DSCH common system information" indicating the HSDPA reception is supported for Cell_FACH state; and b. "HS-DSCH paging system information"—indicating that HSDPA is supported for Cell_PCH/URA_PCH state.To indicate whether HS-DSCH reception is ongoing in Cell_FACH, two new Boolean variables have been introduced, which are used as flags by the WTRU radio resource control (RRC) controller:        a. HS_DSCH_RECEPTION_Cell_FACH_STATE: If TRUE indicates that HS_DSCH reception in Cell_FACH reception is ongoing; and        b. HS_DSCH_RECEPTION_OF_CCCH_OF_ENABLED: If TRUE indicates that HS-DSCH reception is enabled for CCCH. This variable is set to TRUE when the WTRU is using a common H-RNTI to receive HSDPA traffic, and is set to FALSE when the WTRU is not.However, no new variable has been defined for HS-DSCH reception indication in Cell_PCH or URA_PCH states. When in Cell_PCH or URA_PCH, and if the IE "HS-DSCH paging system information" is broadcasted, the WTRU sets up HSDPA reception.
Scenarios can occur where the WTRU transitions from Cell_DCH to a state that does not support HSDPA. For instance, the WTRU could transition from Cell_DCH to Cell_FACH in a cell that does not support the Enhanced Cell_FACH feature, or the WTRU could transition from Cell_DCH to Cell_PCH in a cell that does not support HS-DSCH reception in Cell_PCH. In such scenarios the HSDPA resources are not cleared and the WTRU will continue to perform HS-DSCH reception procedures. This behavior is undesirable since the WTRU will waste resources and battery while attempting to receive on this channel. In addition, failure to clear HSDPA resources (i.e. clear IEs, release HARQ resources, performing enhanced high speed medium access channel (MAC-ehs) reset) is likely to cause problems when the WTRU resumes HS-DSCH reception in another state.
Similar problems occur in some scenarios of cell reselection. For instance, the WTRU may reselect from a cell that supports HS-DSCH in CELL to a cell that does not support the Enhanced Cell_FACH feature and the HSDPA resources are not cleared.

Handling cell reselections and state transitions for high-speed downlink packet access


A bioremediation process employing an improved bioreactor comprises pumping contaminated ground water from a recovery well in a contamination site, passing the water through a fully pressurized bioreactor wherein the water is enriched with nutrients and oxygen and treated with microorganisms native to the contamination site, and returning the enriched and treated water and microorganisms in a finely dispersed state to the contamination site, thereby enhancing bioremediation in a subsurface bioactive zone. The recirculation is accomplished with only the recovery well pump. The bioreactor is a fully pressurized fluidized bed bioreactor. The bioreactor includes a recirculation loop driven by a fluidization pump. The loop has a first branch that returns a portion of the recirculating water directly to the bioreactor inlet. A second branch of the recirculation loop includes a venturi/shearing nozzle driven by the fluidization pump that siphons biomass and attached particulate solids from an upper portion of the bioreactor and shears the biomass from the particulate solids and breaks up the biomass into fine particles. The fine particles pass through the bioreactor and outlet filter and well screen and are returned along with treated ground water to the contamination site. Computer controls provide a means for monitoring and adjusting operation from a remote location. Passive sparge and vent wells contribute to the in place bioremediation as well as serve to strip and remove volatile contaminants from the contamination site.

The invention generally relates to bioremediation and more particularly relates to extraction and processing of ground water from a contaminated area in a pressurized bioreactor and reinjection of the treated water back into the contaminated area along with oxygen, nutrients, and finely dispersed native microorganisms.
A number of systems and processes have been developed for remediating subsurface soil and ground water that have been contaminated with hydrocarbons or other organic compounds. Early efforts involved prohibitively expensive excavation of contaminated soil. In situ processes include removal of contaminated ground water by pumping, cleaning the water by above ground treatment, and reintroducing the water into the ground water.
Bioremediation involves the use of biological media to decompose organic compounds. This can occur in situ or above ground and can use naturally occurring or specially cultured biological media. Above ground vessels in which biological treatment of ground water is undertaken are called bioreactors. The use in remediation of microorganisms that are naturally occurring or native to the area of the contamination is believed to be advantageous, because the native microorganisms are already adapted to the soil conditions and the contaminants. The challenge is to stimulate the proliferation of these naturally occurring microorganisms and provide a compatible environment for biological action on the contaminants. Without assistance, natural biological breakdown of contaminants in the soil can take an undesirably long time.
Bioreactors typically require multiple pumps, one to supply groundwater to the bioreactor and another to return the groundwater to the contamination zone. Bioreactors also tend to clog up with biomass as the biomass grows in the bioreactor. Electrically operated mixing devices are typically employed to break up the biomass colonies as they enlarge. Bioreactors employing multiple pumps and electrically operated mixers are expensive, require maintenance, and have not been entirely satisfactory.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved process and bioreactor apparatus for enhancing the rate and efficiency of bioremediation in contaminated soil and ground water using naturally occurring biological media.


The significance of this invention is to provide an upgraded container for reusable cooking grease. The product comprises components constructed of heat resistance material to effectively store, refrigerate and reheat cooking oil without deforming shape or dimension. There is a flip latch used to scoop grease drippings back into the container and to cover the pouring holes. Beneath the holes is a drip catcher used to catch dripping grease after pouring. An indicator shows level of contents at all times. At the top rim of the container is the strainer secured in place to prevent anything other than grease from flowing back in the container.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention deals with the heating, refrigeration, and reusing of cooking grease.
2. Description of Prior Art
Excess cooking oil sometimes accumulates due to a variety of reasons. It is unsafe to store hot cooking grease into jars and can due to common household injuries. Moreover, this common method of storing is messy and unsightly.
Therefore, a container is desirable that may refrigerate, heat, and store cooking oil to avoid waste. After refrigeration, hardened grease can be discarded with proper disposal. The container can be washed and stored for further use.
Several types of products filter and collect grease for storage. U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,339 to Graves (1985) discloses an inner disposable container within an outer one that has two lids. However, both lids must be removed in order to store grease or remove it for cooking use. The inner container must be replaced after several uses, which become an expensive practice over time. This two piece container is expensive to produce and inefficient overall.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,964 to Heguyi (1977) discloses a strainer and handle which is adjustable to a container. However, one must obtain a container that will withstand hot cooking oil, and not deform the pot's shape when pouring. Yet the same configuration container must be able to refrigerate grease and store it at room temperature. Purchasing two separate items is costly, not to mention time consuming locating them for use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,015,112 to Nancin (1991) discloses a container with an applicator to drain excess grease to and from the pot. Yet, it does not provide a strainer to avoid draining anything other than grease. This applicator must be assembled to the container before usage. This is an impossibility if misplaced or lost.
My invention describes a container feasible and capable of doing all of the above with repeated use without disposal. All other grease containers, heretofore, must concede one or more of the following disadvantages:
(a) angled spouts are set on top of the orifice and more likely to spill, as well as an inconvenience to remove for certain functions.
(b) containers without handles and pouring spouts are hazardous as it is difficult to grip or pour.
(c) container which incorporates assembly parts are time consuming.
(d) production of container with assembly or inner disposal parts are expensive to replace.
(e) most grease containers cannot indicate the grease level at any given time.

Grease container for reusable cooking oil


A current collector for an electrode of an electrochemical cell is described. The current collector has a peripheral edge between first and second major faces, the edge comprising at least a first edge contiguous with a second edge angled with respect to each other. A protrusion extends outwardly from the junction of the first and second edges. This protrusion helps to precisely position the current collector in a pressing fixture. That way, active material is contacted to each of the major faces of the current collector and is of a uniform thickness about its edges. Later, when the resulting electrode plate is assembled into an electrochemical cell, such as of a multi-plate construction, the protrusion also serves to maintain strict alignment of the plate inside the casing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrochemical cells generating electrical energy by means of a chemical reaction. Electrolytic cells, for example of the lithium/silver vanadium oxide (Li/SVO) type, are typically constructed of one or more layers of anode, separator, and cathode. A screen or foil current collector is enclosed in the anode and cathode to transport electrons. An electrode assembly may be built by stacking multiple layers or plates on top of each other or by winding one or more long strips of the stacked layers around a mandrel. The electrode assembly is placed inside a case and immersed in an electrolyte, which transports ions.
One of the concerns in constructing an electrochemical cell is ensuring that the anode and cathode electrodes are properly aligned. This is not as great a problem is jellyroll electrode assemblies where the electrodes are of plates that are substantially longer than they are wide. The electrodes are then laid one on top of the other and spirally wound into the jellyroll configuration.
However, in an electrochemical cell having a multi-plate construction, electrode misalignment is a concern. Misalignment results in there being electrode plates that are not directly opposed by plates of an opposite polarity. In that respect, electrode plate misalignment detracts from the cell's discharge efficiency, as there will be active material that may not be fully reacted during electrochemical discharge. This is particularly likely to occur at the electrode edges.
The present invention prevents such misalignment by providing at least one of the electrode current collectors with projections emanating from its corners. These protrusions help to precisely position the current collector in a pressing fixture for contacting an active material to both sides thereof. That way, active material is contacted to each of the major faces of the current collector and is of a uniform thickness about its edges. Later, when the electrode plate is assembled into an electrochemical cell, such as of a multi-plate construction, the protrusions also serve to maintain strict alignment of the plate inside the casing.
Without protrusions according to the present invention, it is possible for the current collector to be positioned inside a pressing fixture with one portion of its edge too close to the fixture sidewall and another portion positioned too far away from the fixture. The result is that there is too much active material at the current collector edge spaced from the fixture sidewall and not enough at the other edge. This unbalanced active material contact can result in diminished discharge efficiency when the plate is incorporated into an electrochemical cell.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 627,134 to McDougall and 1,600,083 to Webster relate to current collectors having apertured projections. The projections do not contact the casing sidewall to ensure proper alignment. Instead, they receive locking rods for maintaining alignment inside a battery. Also, the prior art projections are not capable of centering the current collector in a pressing fixture. For example, with a generally rectangular shaped current collector, the centering projections must emanate from the corners at about a 45° angle, or essentially centered between the two contiguous sides. That way, with the current collector positioned in a fixture having the protrusion nested in a fixture corner, the immediately adjacent current collector sides are spaced from the pressing fixture sidewall by a like distance. The prior art current collectors do not provide for this type of centering as their protrusions emanate from a current collector edge adjacent to a corner. A corner emanating protrusion provides for proper spacing along the current collector edge having the protrusion, but not along the adjacent edge.
An example of this is shown with the current collector 10 illustrated in FIG. 1. The current collector 10 comprises first and second major faces 12 and 14 extending to a surrounding perimeter edge formed by opposed right and left edges 16 and 18 extending to upper and lower edges 20 and 22. The right and left edges 16, 18 and the upper edge 20 are straight while the lower edge 22 is curved. The current collector 10 has an interior perforated region 24. Spaced apart protrusions 26 and 28 emanate from the upper edge 20 adjacent to the respective right and left edges 16 and 18. Similarly, spaced apart protrusions 30 and 32 emanate from the curved edge 22 adjacent to the respective right and left edges 16 and 18. Having a protrusion only emanating from one edge of a current collector, instead of a corner between adjacent edges, means that there is no structure for regulating the spacing of the other current collector edge within a pressing fixture or a casing sidewall, as the case may be. In other words, protrusion 26 correctly spaced the upper edge 20 from a fixture sidewall (not shown), but is incapable of regulating the distance between the fixture and the right edge 16 of the current collector 10. A similar problem exists with respect to protrusion 30 and edge 16 and protrusions 28 and 32 and edge 18.
Thus, there is a need for a current collector design that enhances alignment in a pressing fixture so that a desired thickness of active material contacts both major current collector faces and the surrounding edge. Additionally, the current collector must provide for proper alignment with the opposite polarity electrode when it is incorporated into an electrode assembly housed inside a cell casing. The present current collector design provides both of these benefits.

Self-centering current collector for an electrochemical cell


A monopole antenna printed on a substrate is provided. The monopole antenna includes a main body, an extension part, a connection part, a signal feeding terminal, and a ground plane. The main body has a first terminal and a second terminal, and further includes a width varying part and two folds, wherein the width varying part is disposed between the two folds. The extension part is extended toward a first inclined direction of the monopole antenna. The connection part connects the first terminal of the main body and the extension part. The signal feeding terminal is electrically connected to the connection part. The ground plane is adjacent to the signal feeding terminal.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a monopole antenna.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a small-sized communication product (such as a wireless router) or a communication product with built-in antenna, the antenna size affects the overall disposition of elements. Thus, the smaller the antenna, the more convenient the overall disposition of elements, and the smaller the size of communication products.
If it needs to have components of the antenna formed on the back of a circuit board to compensate the length of the antenna, dual-layer circuit board or multi-layer circuit board will be required, and the antenna cost will increase accordingly. If the antenna requires a ground terminal, the area/size of the antenna will increase.


A tool arrangement includes a tool unit 2, e.g. a cutting apparatus 2′, a spreader 2″, a squeezing device or the like, and a drive 3, a control and/or switching clement, as well as a first operating-medium circuit 4, in which tool arrangement a second operating-medium circuit 5 is provided, which is actively connected to the first operating-medium circuit 7 by a pressurized-media converter 6.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tool arrangement with a tool unit, e.g. a cutting apparatus, a spreader, a squeezing device or the like, and with a control and/or switching element, a drive, as well as a first operating-medium circuit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tools that must transfer large forces, as for example cutting tools, squeezing devices, and the like, are known. Such tools are therefore frequently equipped with a hydraulic or pneumatic drive, which, for example, effects an opening and closing movement of a spreader or a shearing device.
A tool of this type results from, for example, DE 692 21 221 T2, which tool displays a hydraulic cylinder, the lifting rod of which actuates the actual tool, which is formed by two cutting edges or two arms. The hydraulic drive, in this particular case, is operated by means of a compressible fluid.
Hydraulic fluids are in most cases a matter of incompressible oils, due to the corrosive characteristics of water. However, the case can also arise in which a diminishing in size or processing of diverse parts must take place under water. Thus, for example, in nuclear power stations or reactors it is necessary to crush parts under water, because the space for storage of the irradiated material is to be kept as small as possible. In the case of a leak in the tool, all of the water, which here concerns in particular deionized water (deionate), must be purified, which is associated with high costs.

Tool arrangement and application of said tool arrangement


An attenuator relay including encapsulation apparatus having an interior for enclosing an electro-mechanical relay and circuitry; an electro-mechanical relay having a number of contacts, the relay providing apparatus for closing a first circuit to allow current flow therethrough in a first condition, and apparatus for closing a second circuit to allow current flow therethrough in a second condition; and an attenuator circuit connected in the first circuit and enclosed within the encapsulating apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electro-mechanical relays and, more particularly, to electro-mechanical relay apparatus including a built-in attenuator network.
2. History of the Prior Art
Electro-mechanical relays have been used in electronic circuits for as long as such circuits have been manufactured. Such relays utilize a mechanical connector which is opened and closed to make contact between two points in a electric circuit. Although many such relays have been replaced by electronic switches which may be made very small and thus may be placed within the tiny circuits of modern electronics, many situations exist where the electrical-performance of an electro-mechanical relay is superior to that of the electronic switch. For example, an electro-mechanical relay can achieve a flat amplitude response well into the gigahertz frequency range and still have a response down to direct current. The power handling capabilities of an electro-mechanical switch greatly exceed those of electronic switches. For these and many other reasons, electro-mechanical switches are useful in many situations.
Moreover as the circuitry associated with electro-mechanical relays has become smaller and smaller, so have the electro-mechanical relays. Today, such relays often fit into packages of less than 0.05 cubic inches.
One type of mechanical switch provides two current paths through electronic circuitry so that two independent operations may be selected One specific use of such a switch is to provide a signal to a piece of electronic equipment in one position of the switch or, alternatively, to attenuate a signal for some other within the equipment in the other position of the switch. For example, a receiver for electronic signals may use a mechanical switch to activate either the receiver or built-in self-test equipment which assures that the receiver is operating correctly. However, the typical signal generated for self-testing a radio receiver is much too large to use, on the order of five milliwatts, and simply saturates the equipment (which is designed to detect small signals) producing no useful information. In order to utilize this locally generated signal with the self-testing circuitry, it is necessary to drastically attenuate the signal. Consequently, attenuator circuits have been designed to reduce the value of the testing signal to a value such as five micro-microwatts which would be typical of a received signal. Other values of attenuation may also be used in particular circuits. Such an attenuated signal may then be routed by the electro-mechanical relays and used for self testing. Many other uses exist for an electro-mechanical relay and circuitry capable of providing both a straight connection and an attenuated path.
Such attenuators operate efficiently but have a number of draw backs. First, the typical attenuator circuitry is much too large, ten times or greater than the volume of the relays with which they are associated, to conveniently fit within the same package as the receiver circuitry; so it is inconvenient to build them into the receiver without substantially enlarging the package. Second, because of their size, such attenuator circuits cannot be used with higher frequency receivers. The length of the connectors used offers too much residual impedance for use in high frequency circuitry. For example, receivers operating at about 1.5 gigahertz are about the upper limit for use with such attenuators.


The present invention discloses an apparatus which enables in-situ casts of the feet of a patient to be made whilst the feet support the patient's weight. In particular, two heel supports (28, 29) and two stirrups (38, 39) receive the heels and forefeet of the patient. Each is capable of independent movement being both rotation about the heel-toe axis and movement substantially transverse to that axis. A method of forming a cast of the patient's feet is also disclosed.

The present invention discloses an apparatus which makes the process of the prescription and manufacture of custom-made orthotic devices for the feet simpler, less expensive and more accurate. Orthoses for the feet are inner sole devices which are inserted into a person's shoes to correct malalignment of the foot, which can cause a variety of physical symptoms, including lower back pain, knee and other joint problems, heel spurs and general foot pain.
Orthotic therapy is defined as the use of an appliance or apparatus to support, align, prevent or correct deformity, or to modify position or motion, and improve the function of the movable parts of the body. The "orthoses" is the actual appliance or device. Orthotic foot devices are the most common form of orthoses and are generally used to correct malalignment of the feet. The device is inserted into the shoe and corrects, or attempts to correct, the malalignment by tilting the foot into its proper position.
Malalignment of the foot will usually mean that the foot leans too much to one side when standing or walking. This can cause symptoms such as back pain, knee problems and leg or general foot pain. The symptoms can be aggravated by age or sporting activities and it is usually only after a person has suffered ongoing chronic pain in their back, leg, knees or feet that the person will seek help. Diabetic patients over 60 years of age generally benefit greatly from feet orthoses. Correctly prescribed, foot orthoses can spread pressure evenly over the foot base and thus reduce the incidence of chronic ulcers.
In some cases, patients will visit a podiatrist to request orthoses after prior consultation with other medical and paramedical practitioners—such as physiotherapists, chiropractors or osteopaths—for a condition they would not have normally associated with the foot. In other cases, the patient will be prescribed orthotic inserts after consulting a podiatrist about general foot or heel pain. In most other instances, the patient will have heard of the benefits of orthotic inserts from satisfied former patients. Orthotic devices are popular with both professional and keen amateur sports people through word of mouth and also through the growth in the number of doctors specialising in sports medicine.
Pre-fabricated, generically sized, orthotic devices are also sold over the counter in pharmacies and by mail order by medical suppliers.
Orthotic devices for the feet have been widely prescribed by podiatrists in Australia since the early 1970s. Prior to this, neither podiatrists nor chiropodists were trained in assessing biomechanical abnormalities of the foot, a prerequisite for the prescribing of orthoses. Orthotic therapy has proved successful for many patients and demand has increased, mainly through word of mouth.

Apparatus and method for prescribing and manufacturing orthotic foot devices


A compound represented by formula (I); a multifunctional isocyanate composition, containing an adduct formed by treating the compound represented by formula (I) with a compound represented by formula (II); and a microcapsule using the multifunctional isocyanate composition:

Pyrithione compounds are typical compounds used in anti-Malassezia-furfur agents, anti-fouling agents for fishing nets, or antiseptics. However, pyrithione (2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide) is a highly irritating compound, and further, it is not stable chemically, and gradually converts into a disulfide body. Therefore, there are few actual cases in which pyrithion itself is used in industrial bactericides. For instance, pyrithione antimicrobial agents are generally known as sodium pyrithione, zinc pyrithione, and copper pyrithione. These metal pyrithiones exhibit very high antimicrobial activities, but they have respective drawbacks. Sodium pyrithione, for example, is unstable in a dried state, and it is difficult to handle. Zinc pyrithione and copper pyrithione are poor in solvent solubility, such that even mixtures of them with other industrial bactericides were unsuccessful in attempts to enhance antimicrobial power. In addition, all these pyrithione compounds have a simple structure with no substituents on their respective rings.
As an example of antiseptics intended to resolve the foregoing problems, chlorohexidin-2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide is disclosed in JP-A-2004-43421 ("JP-A" means unexamined published Japanese patent application). Although this agent obtained by combining chlorohexidin as a bactericidal disinfectant with 2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide is improved in bactericidal strength, it still has the simple structure with no substituent on the pyrithione ring.
There are very few pyrithione compounds known to have a substituent on their respective rings. One example of such a compound is described in the Journal of Organic Chemistry, 1995, p. 6706.
In addition, an amino acid moiety-introduced pyrithione derivative is described in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1997, p. 6457. Therein, it is stated that the N—O bond is severed in a quantum yield of about 1.0, to produce radicals, when the derivative is irradiated with light of wavelengths in the visible to near ultraviolet region.
Pyrithione compounds, having such a photo-decomposing property, have potential as photo-functional materials. To develop such materials, it is necessary to introduce various substituents into the foregoing simple structure, which can lead to various derivatives, and to impart thereto not only the photo-decomposing property but also a variety of desired properties. To create photo-functional materials in particular, it is necessary to obtain pyrithione derivatives having various substituents. Further, introduction of reactive sections enabling reaction with other compounds, in addition to mere substituents, becomes important for obtaining novel pyrithione derivatives.
On the other hand, microcapsules capable of changing their permeability to some substances by various stimuli have been studied. For instance, microcapsules for encapsulating functional materials, such as medicines, agricultural chemicals, insect repellents, or perfumes, have been offered. As medicine-encapsulated microcapsules, drug delivery systems have been proposed. And slow-release agricultural chemicals have been proposed as agricultural chemical-encapsulated microcapsules. In addition, microcapsules making the most of thermal changes in their permeability to certain substances have been studied for heat-sensitive recording materials. In such microcapsules, color-forming materials (e.g. diazonium salts or leuco dyes) are encapsulated. Alternatively, microcapsules making the most of changes caused in their permeability to certain substances by application of pressure thereto have also been studied, for pressure-sensitive recording materials. In such microcapsules also, color-forming materials (e.g. diazonium salts or leuco dyes) are encapsulated. As microcapsules changing their permeability to certain substances by exposure to light, microcapsules for light- and heat-sensitive recording materials have been proposed. For instance, a description of such microcapsules can be found in JP-A-2000-296675.

Pyrithione compound and microcapsule using the same

Abstract: wherein, in formula (I), R1 represents -L1-X1 or X1; R2 represents a hydrogen atom or -L2-X2; L1 and L2 each independently represent a divalent linking group; X1 and X2 each independently represent a nucleophilic substituent; n represents an integer of 1 to 4; and when n is 2 or more, R1s may be the same or different; andR3—(NCO)m  Formula (II)        wherein, in formula (II), R3 represents an arbitrary m-valent linking group; and m represents an integer of 2 or above.


A modular firearm is disclosed. The firearm that can be configured to operate using ammunition of different calibers via interchangeability of only a few parts. The firearm includes a foldable butt stock assembly for quickly and easily converting the firearm from an extended operating configuration to a compact transport configuration, and vice-versa. Additionally, the firearm includes a modular hand guard assembly having multiple mounting platforms for accommodating a variety of different accessories.

Typically, most conventional firearms have been adapted for specific tasks and generally are limited to use with specific calibers and/or types of ammunition. However, demand is increasing for firearms that can be modified to fire different types of ammunition, and/or can be reconfigured for different environments and uses. For example, in military applications today, the environments in which soldiers are forced to fight are changing such that they can be in open desert and then move into close quarter's battle in a more urban area within the matter of a few hours. At the same time, their weapons needs can further change, i.e., they might be faced with need for a longer range, sniping weapon or alternatively with needs for a more standard infantry rifle depending on the environment or situation. Carrying multiple different firearms is, however, impractical as adding undue weight and bulk to soldiers' packs and gear. Additionally, for more specialized uses, such as for sniping and other tactical situations, the weapon must be configurable as needed to fit the shooter's particular needs and/or use in a particular combat situation.
It therefore can be seen that a need exists for a modular firearm that addresses the foregoing and other related and unrelated problems in the art.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A simulation system obtains multiple random number vectors and a parameter vector and calculates realized values of the behavior of a stochastic system corresponding to each obtained random number vector. Based on each obtained random number vector, on the obtained parameter vector, and on a weight function, the system calculates the weight of each obtained random number vector regarding each of the parameters in the obtained parameter vector, and calculates an evaluation value of the behavior of the stochastic system corresponding to each obtained random number vector. Based on the calculated behavior evaluation value corresponding to each obtained random number vector and on the weight of each obtained random number vector regarding the parameter selected from the obtained parameter vector, the system calculates the sensitivity of an expected value for the behavior evaluation value of the stochastic system with regard to the selected parameter.

When a system of interest is given, the behavior of the system is put into a model. Computers are then used to simulate the behavior of the system based on the model in order to predict the future behavior of the system. Simple deterministic models fail to describe certain types of physical phenomena or social phenomena involving numerous factors, for example. Each of these phenomena is generally described as a complicated stochastic model.
Under given initial conditions, the deterministic system always produces a uniquely determined future behavior. By contrast, the stochastic system has its future behavior distributed according to a certain probability distribution. To obtain statistics such as the expected value for an index of interest, for example, computers are required to run simulations.
The Monte Carlo simulation method is known as one way to predict and simulate the stochastic behavior of a stochastic system. The Monte Carlo simulation method involves running a large number of times a simulation in which the stochastic behavior existing in the target system is simulated using random numbers, thereby estimating the expected value for the index of interest. In that case, the larger the number of simulations run, the closer the expected value for the index of interest is thought to be to its true value in accordance with the law of large numbers.
As the background art of this technical field, there is JP-2004-117228-A (Patent Document 1). Patent Document 1 states that "There are provided a data acquisition step 0201 to acquire a long-range weather forecast announced by the Meteorology Agency addressing weather physical quantities, a weather time series model preparation step 0202 to prepare a time series model followed by the weather physical quantities, a weather physical quantity simulation step 0203 to simulate the weather physical quantities of an estimation point over an estimation time period as many times as the number of simulations, and a weather physical quantity estimation result output step 0204 to output the result of simulations of the weather physical quantities as the result of weather physical quantity estimation. Furthermore, the weather time series model preparation step 0202 is constituted from a weather time series model parameter estimation step 02021 and a weather time series model parameter correction step 02022" (see the Abstract).


A promotional shopping-bag handle with hinged bag-gripping members contains a strap that includes an elongate sheet of material with two end portions and a central portion. Each end portion has a hook configured to receive the plastic handles of a shopping bag or the like. The strap may be plastic injection molded; it may be of uniform thickness throughout or selectively reduced in thickness to save material and weight in areas where extra bulk is not essential to the strap's function. Hinges provided between the central and end portions allow the end portions to deflect out of the plane of the central portion under the weight of the bags being supported. This allows the bag holder to respond to the weight of the bags while holding a central portion that is substantially flat, thus avoiding bending, compression and pain to the hand of the user.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates carrying devices and, more specifically, to a promotional shopping bag handle.
2. Background of the Invention
Paper bags, commonly used for many years in food shops and supermarkets, have been supplanted in most establishments with plastic bags provided with opposing openings which form hand gripping portions or handles. However, while used almost universally, such plastic bags tend to have smaller capacity than the paper variety and any significant purchase invariably results in multiple such bags being packed. Also, when heavy items, such as cans or bottles, are packed the handles gather and stretch to form relatively thin bands which apply substantial forces concentrated along narrow areas or regions of the hand, which can be painful when the bags are carried over for any period of time or distance.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,019 a strap for carrying shopping bags by hand or on a shoulder is disclosed that is made of a relatively thin sheet of flat material that includes a central portion dimensioned to be gripped by the hand and a pair of opposing spaced hooks at each end of the central portion. The hooks and the central portion are essentially formed of the same thickness material all arranged in the same plane. Thus, when the bags at the opposite ends pull downwardly on the hooks the entire strap bends out of the plane into an arcuate shape. Such bending of the central portion renders the device difficult and uncomfortable to hold as it squeezes or presses on opposite sides of the hand. When very heavy bags are carried bending becomes excessive and the resulting compression of the hand can become painful.

Promotional shopping-bag handle with hinged bag gripping members


A filter strip is provided for rolling sheets to construct custom cigars and/or cigarettes. The filter strip may be made of a deformable material which can be positioned on one end of the rolling sheet. The filter strip can be folded in a zig zag or spiral filter section with open section located longitudinally below to form a filter tip. The filter tip can assist the user in rolling by hand a substantially cylindrical or conical cigar or cigarette. The filter tip prevents tobacco filler material from being drawn through the cigar or cigarette and into a user's mouth, and permits the entire amount of tobacco filler to be consumed/smoked without risking burned hands and/or lips.

When using such conventionally shaped cigarette rolling paper to make or roll a cigarette by hand, the paper is first folded, bent or held in somewhat of a V-shape or U-shape with one of the sides of the "V" or "U" being longer than the other. An amount of smoking material, such as tobacco or the like, is distributed substantially over the entire length of the rolling paper in the bottom of the V- or U-shaped pouch formed by the rolling paper. The longer portion of the rolling paper, being free of any of the smoking material, is then bent or rolled over the portion of the rolling paper covered with the tobacco and is rolled over upon itself to form a substantially cylindrical shape. The longer end of the rolling paper is wrapped around itself as far as possible and overlaps an underlying layer to form part of the wall of the cylinder.
The rolling process, when performed by hand, requires a keen eye, a steady hand, and a high degree of digital dexterity, since the rolling paper is not very large compared to a human hand, since the particles of smoking materials tend to roll or slide off the small rolling paper, and since the rolling paper itself is very thin and easily ripped or torn. A critical step of rolling a cigarette by hand is using ones fingers to both form the "V" or "U" shaped pouch for the smoking material, and to roll the longer portion of the rolling paper around itself. During the process of rolling the longer portion of the paper around itself, the user depends on the trapped smoking material to provide the generally cylindrical shape to guide placement of the longer portion around itself to produce a generally cylindrical cigarette.
Oftentimes, however, the use of smoking material to guide placement of the longer portion around itself does not aid in producing a cylinder due to either poor distribution of smoking material along the V- or U-shaped pouch, causing the longer portion to be rolled too tight or too loose around itself, with respect to the majority portion of the smoking material, or due simply to the user's inability to correctly manipulate or spiral the cigarette rolling paper around itself between their fingers. The result of either of these situations can be an unsmokable cigarette, a cigarette that falls apart, or a cigarette that is torn, which also has the effect of making the cigarette unsmokable.
Cigarettes that are rolled by hand using conventional cigarette rolling paper do not include filters or other means for preventing the smoking material from being drawn into the users mouth. One method that is used to prevent smoking material from being drawn into a users mouth has been to restrict the size of the opening by pinching or twisting the end of the rolling paper upon itself. While this method is somewhat effective at reducing passage of smoking material from the cigarette, it also restricts the amount of air that can be drawn through the cigarette, and this restricts consumption of the smoking material. Restricting the cigarette air passage also requires a larger effort by the smoker that reduces smoking pleasure.
Cigarettes that are rolled using conventional cigarette rolling paper also do not permit complete use of the smoking material disposed within because the cigarette can only be smoked until the lit end approaches the user's fingers or lips during holding or smoking, the cigarette must be dispensed, and at which time a user's fingers or lips may be burned.
It is, therefore, desirable that a method and apparatus be provided for cigarette rolling paper be constructed in a manner that assists the user in rolling a cigarette by hand. It is desirable that the cigarette rolling paper be constructed in a manner that prevents smoking material from being drawn from the cigarette into a smoker's mouth. It is also desirable that the cigarette rolling paper be constructed in a manner that permits the entire smoking material to be smoked without the risk of burned fingers or burned lips. It is further desirable that the cigarette rolling paper be constructed from conventional materials using conventional techniques.
A segment of the smoking population enjoys smoking hand rolled cigars or cigarettes.
Typically, these individuals purchase rolling papers, tobacco leaves or cigar wrapping materials and hand roll their preferred brand of crushed tobacco, or herbs such as cloves, into a custom-made cigarette or cigar. The result is a personally customized tobacco or herbal product with superior smell and taste than a prefabricated store bought product. Hand fabricating cigars or cigarettes is time consuming and requires finger dexterity and skill.
Prior art includes tobacco products formed by rolling moistened tobacco leaves about a cylindrical form casing to form a shell whereby a consumer can fill the shell with crushed tobacco. In one embodiment of the prior art a slit is formed through a wall of the shell to allow prying open of the shell to insert the crushed tobacco. The slit must then be closed and sealed again prior to smoking the product. In another embodiment, a funnel is used to deposit the crushed tobacco into the ends of the cylindrical shell.
Disadvantages of these prior art tobacco products include: extended time and requisite finger dexterity required to place crushed tobacco in the end openings of a prefabricated cylindrical shell; extended time and requisite finger dexterity required to pry open a slit in the prefabricated shell and place crushed tobacco into the shell; wasted tobacco or herbal product resulting from the end, or butt, of the cigar or cigarette becoming unholdable due to increased temperatures as the product burns during consumption; tobacco debris sucked through the end of the tobacco product during consumption that ends up in the mouth or respiratory system of the consumer; fast burn rates at the end of the cigar the consumer lights—the end many consumers assert has the best flavor and is most enjoyable; and uneven distributions of nicotine—the result of a generally cylindrically shaped product burning during consumption.
While certain novel features of this invention shown and described below are pointed out in the annexed claims, the invention is not intended to be limited to the details specified, since a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art will understand that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation may be made without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention. No feature of the invention is critical or essential unless it is expressly stated as being "critical" or "essential."


A thermal clip system suitable for use with a wall assembly. The clip comprises a base section and an arm section. According to an embodiment, the clip is formed a unitary piece from extruded aluminum. The base section is configured with mounting holes for receiving fasteners to secure the clip respective studs in a wall. The arm section includes a surface for fastening a girt member, wherein the girt member is configured to secure one or more exterior cladding panels. The base section may include a recessed cavity for receiving an insulating material to form a thermal break between the clip and the stud wall. The arm section may include a recessed slot for receiving an insulating material to form a thermal break between the clip and the girt member.

In the building arts, insulation of exterior walls is an important design consideration, particularly in northern or extreme climates.
One building system found in the art is an exterior cladding system comprising a framework structure coupled to the exterior wall with exterior cladding panels connected to the framework. The exterior cladding panels can be engineered and fabricated to provide various aesthetic characteristics in addition to useful thermal and weather resistant properties. For example, the cladding panels and frame structure can comprise a rear ventilated rain-screen (RVRS) exterior wall structure.
A shortcoming with these types of systems is the connection between the exterior cladding framework structure and the exterior wall provides a thermal path for the escape of thermal energy, e.g. heat in winter and cooled air in summer. In addition, building code requirements are increasingly specifying improved thermal characteristics. For instance, the current industry standard for attachment of cladding type systems is inefficient in terms of effective R-Value. Compared to the nominal amount of insulation used in the assembly, the thermal resistance of the continuous vertical girt or continuous horizontal girt is typically only 40-60% effective. Therefore, typical traditional systems do not meet the prescriptive requirements of the national building code.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improvements in the art.

Thermal clip system and apparatus for a building wall assembly


A process for ROM coding is described. First, the active device areas and isolation regions are defined on a semiconductor substrate. Then, silicon isotopes (Si.sup.30) are implanted into the active device areas to form isotope regions. Next, the remaining portions of the MOSFET structures are then formed. Next, an interlayer dielectric layer, and a metal layer are sequentially deposited and patterned to finish the basic ROM structure. Upon the receipt of an order, a passivation layer is deposited overlaying the interlayer dielectric layer. Next, a photoresist layer is coated over the passivation layer, and code implant windows are patterned. Finally, neutron irradiation is performed to activate the silicon isotopes into N-type phosphorus ions.

(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of read only memory (ROM) fabrication, and more particularly, to a ROM coding process during ROM manufacturing.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
ROM devices are standard components of modern computer and electronic systems. A ROM cell comprises an array of metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) arranged in columns and rows. These MOSFETs are either normally on or normally off to represent a function code of the ROM. The alternative on/off operation of these devices states of the MOSFETs is adopted to use for storage of data, which remains in the device when the external power supply is off.
At the intersection of horizontal conductive lines in the array are commonly referred as "wordline", while the vertical conductive lines in the array are commonly referred as "bitline". Referring now more particularly to FIG. 1, there is shown a example circuit diagram representation of a typical ROM array comprising two bitlines BL.sub.1, BL.sub.2 and three wordlines WL.sub.1, WL.sub.2, WL.sub.3 that are made of NMOSs. The enhancement mode transistor M.sub.11 which is represented address (11) is non-conductive when wordline WL.sub.1 is selected (that is WL.sub.1 low and WL.sub.2, WL.sub.3 high), therefore, the output of bitline BL.sub.1 is 0. On the other hand, the depletion mode transistor M.sub.12 is conductive when wordline WL.sub.1 is selected, therefore, the output of bitline BL.sub.2 is 1. That is, the outputs of BL.sub.1, BL.sub.2 is (0,1). Similarly, the outputs of BL.sub.1, BL.sub.2 is (1,0) when wordline WL.sub.2 is low (WL.sub.1, WL.sub.3 are high). Again, the outputs of BL.sub.1, BL.sub.2 would be (0,0) when wordline WL.sub.3 is low (WL.sub.1, WL.sub.2 are high). A set of (0,1), (1,0) and (0,0) codes are pre-stored in the ROM array as shown in FIG. 1. The conductive status of the transistors determine the functions of a specific ROM array. These codes are placed in the semiconductor substrate via code implanting to provide predefined binary data of the ROMs.
Conventionally, the code implantation is performed at a very early stage because of process limitation. Since the ions (impurities) cannot penetrate thicker layers, code implantation is performed before the dielectric layer is formed. Subsequent process steps such as dielectric layer and metal layer deposition, annealing, and passivation layer deposition are still needed to complete the ROM manufacture. Therefore, long turn around time is required and is not suitable for flexible business competitions.
There are many ways to deal with this problem with later stage code implanting. U.S. Pat. No. 5,429,974 to Hsue et al. of United Microelectronics Corporation, Taiwan (the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference) provides a code implanting process after final passivation layer is formed. However, thinner final passivation layer is required for this approach that may degrade the ROM performance. Besides, post-implant activating step may damage the metal layer.
This invention reveals an improved ROM coding process to eliminate above mentioned problems. Neutron irradiation is described in the article entitled "Phosphorus doping silicon by means of neutron irradiation" by Hass et al., IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. ED-23, No. 8, August 1976, pp. 803-805, which is fully incorporated by reference.


The effect of the action of collagenase in treating lesions containing collagen or mixed fibrin clots (e.g., burns or ulcers) is improved by applying collagenase to the wound in combination with an organogel and a phosphatidylcholine, of which lecithin is a readily available source, particularly when the collagenase is first mixed and stored with that choline and an organic solvent and is subsequently mixed with a second individually stored formulation comprising a gel-forming agent and water, the two formulations individually having satisfactory shelf lives and the resultant mixture being applied to the lesion promptly after being formed.

Collagenase has been used for years in the debridement of burns, which involve collagen, and various ulcers, which comprise mixed fibrin clots. The collagenase acts to remove the undesired tissue and thus promote the healing of the lesion. The greater the speed at which the debridement takes place the sooner will the wound heal. Thus speed of debridement is a prime consideratum.
We have discovered that if collagenase is applied to the wound in combination with a phosphatidylcholine (hereinafter termed "PC") of which lecithin is a readily available source, and an organogel a surprising increase in the speed of debridement results. Lecithin organogels have been used in the past in combination with drugs, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, anesthetics, hormones, steroids and anti-histamines, in order to enable the drugs to be applied topically and readily pass through normal skin and enter the bloodstream. Debridement, however, involves treatment of tissue other than skin, and the wound-debridement effect of collagenase is significantly different from the topical or transdermal delivery of drugs to the system because entry of the collagenase into the bloodstream, to the extent that it might occur, is not a factor.
We have discovered that a combination of collagenase with an organogel including PC, such as a lecithin organogel, when applied to lesions of the type here discussed, gives rise to a surprisingly rapid debridement significantly superior to the debridement effect of other collagenase preparations. (Because of the ready availability of lecithin as a source of PC we will for the most part use the term "lecithin" to refer generically to any source of PC as well as specifically to those complex substances to which the term is normally applied.)
Institutions where burns are treated, such as hospitals and in particular burn centers where burn treatment is the rule and not the exception, must maintain on the shelf adequate supplies of collagenase, so as to be ready to treat burn cases as soon as they are presented, in order both to speed healing and minimize pain. It therefore is essential that the collagenase standing on the shelf waiting to be used should have as long a shelf life as possible. However, it is well known that certain collagenase compositions which are quite satisfactory when first prepared find their potency waning significantly with time. In particular, combinations of collagenase with water or aqueous excipients, while therapeutically highly acceptable, nevertheless have a shelf life at room temperatures of two weeks or less, which makes them unsatisfactory.
The PC (lecithin) organogels useful in the present invention may contain water. In patent application Ser. No. 10/094,226, filed Mar. 11, 2002, and titled "METHOD OF ENHANCING THE EFFECT OF COLLAGENASE ON WOUNDS" some of us have disclosed that the shelf life problem presented by aqueous collagenase mixtures, which are very effective in debridement, can be overcome by starting with a first substance comprising collagenase in a non-aqueous excipient and a separate second substance comprising an aqueous excipient, the two substances being combined at the time of application to produce an improved and surprisingly rapid treatment effect as compared with applying the collagenase to the wound in a non-aqueous excipient or in an aqueous excipient alone. The advantages of that approach to the use of collagenase are also obtainable in connection with the present invention when the collagenase is initially combined with lecithin and an organic solvent to produce a non-aqueous phase and when the gel-forming agent is initially combined with water to produce an aqueous phase, the two phases being separately stored and each having an effective shelf life, the two phases being mixed together shortly prior to application to the wound.
It therefore is the prime object of the present invention to combine collagen with a substance which enhances the collagen's normal debridement effect, and to do so through the use of readily available ingredients and in a manner which enables the components when stored to have an adequate shelf life.

Wound treatment utilizing collagenase and a phosphotidylcholine organogel

Research Foundation of State University of New York


In accordance with example embodiments of the invention there is at least a method and apparatus to perform at least detecting, by an unmanned vehicle of a communication network, a radio connection quality degradation at the unmanned vehicle; and in response to the detecting, autonomously directing the unmanned vehicle on a rescue movement path to new geographical coordinates provided by the communication network to maintain or reestablish the radio connection. Further, to perform determining that a radio connection quality degradation is to occur or has occurred at an unmanned vehicle of a communication network; and based on the determining, providing a rescue movement path to new geographical coordinates to the unmanned vehicle for a radio connection quality degradation to maintain or reestablish the radio connection.

This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Certain abbreviations that may be found in the description and/or in the Figures are herewith defined as follows:
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
UAS Unmanned Aerial Systems
NW Network
URLLC Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications
D2D Device-to-Device
LTE Long Term Evolution
HO Handover
UTM Unmanned Traffic Management
V2N Vehicle-to-Network
HST High Speed Trains
ID Identifier
Unmanned systems sometimes referred-to in the art as "drones" have become more technologically advanced and provide advantages such that their use is being called on by businesses and individuals alike for many different purposes. These unmanned systems do not generally carry a human operator and can be remotely controlled using radio signals over radio connections.
An issue can occur at least in a case where the radio signals cannot be communicated with the unmanned system. With radio signals and radio connections being vulnerable to interruption it can be seen that this can lead to disastrous effects to an unmanned system and even other devices or persons surrounding it.
Example embodiments of the invention work to at least address these issues and solve such radio signal and radio connection failures at unmanned systems.

Unmanned arial vehicle recovery mechanism