A process for preparing N-phosphonomethyl iminodiacetic acid wherein solutions of an alkali metal salt of IDA are reacted with formaldehyde so as to form the alkali metal salt of hydroxymethyliminodiacetic acid (HMIDA). The HMIDA can be subsequently reacted with a phosphorous source such as phosphorous acid to produce PMIDA in good yield.

N-phosphonomethylglycine (glyphosate) is an important broad spectrum herbicide. One conventional precursor to glyphosate is N-phosphonomethyliminodiacetic acid having the following structure: ##STR1## Conventional routes to compound (I) typically involve phosphonomethylating iminodiacetic acid (IDA), the latter obtained by recovering (IDA) from the crude hydrolysate of iminodiacetonitrile (IDAN) by acidification with a mineral acid, crystallization of IDA, filtration thereof, and drying. Such processes result in waste in that the alkali metal salt solution separated from IDA upon the filtration step contains unrecovered IDA. Indeed, fractional crystallization is necessary to precipitate the alkali metal salt, which can then be separated from the IDA solution by centrifugation. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,269, disclosed is a process of recovering IDA from an aqueous solution of sodium sulfate and the amino acid by adjusting the pH of the solution to 1.5-3 to form an IDA precipitate and a first mother liquor, and separating and recovering the IDA precipitate therefrom. Sodium sulfate can then be precipitated from the first mother liquor by concentrating the liquor and adjusting the temperature so as to prevent the concomitant precipitation of IDA. The process can then be repeated. However, at some point successive fractional crystallization steps become uneconomical, notwithstanding the presence of additional product in the solution. U.S. Pat. No. 3,852,344 discloses a similar process wherein the sulfuric acid is replaced with hydrochloric acid, with sodium chloride being recovered as the by-product instead of sodium sulfate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,988 discloses an additional process which can be carried out on the waste streams generated from the process of the '269 patent. Thus, the temperature of such waste streams is adjusted so as to precipitate IDA and sodium sulfate decahydrate in the same mother liquor. The mixed crystals are then separated from the mother liquor and recycled to an earlier step in the IDA production process.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,288,846 to Irani, phosphonomethyliminodiacetic acid crystals can be prepared from IDA acid, formaldehyde and phosphorous acid in the presence of hydrochloric acid: ##STR2##
In order to simply the foregoing process, compound (I) can be prepared by hydrolyzing iminodiacetonitrile with an alkali metal base to form an alkalimetal salt of iminodiacetic acid, which is converted to IDA strong acid salt and phosphonomethylated, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,103. Specifically, the alkali metal salt of IDA is reacted in series first with a strong mineral acid to form the strong acid salt of IDA and the alkali metal salt of the strong acid, and then phosphonomethylated by reacting the strong acid salt of IDA with phosphorous acid and formaldehyde to provide compound (I) and an alkali metal salt. An amount of water sufficient to dissolve the alkali metal salt is added, and compound (I) is separated as a precipitate. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,775,498 discloses a process for preparing N,N-diacetic acid aminomethylenephosphonic acid by adding phosphorous trichloride to an aqueous solution of a first quantity of an alkali metal salt of IDA and forming a mixture of phosphorous acid and iminodiacetic acid hydrochloride and alkali metal chloride, adding formaldehyde to the mixture while simultaneously adding a second quantity of the alkali metal salt of IDA, adding an amount of water sufficient to dissolve the alkali metal salt, adjusting the pH of the resulting mixture to the isoelectric point of N,N-diacetic acid aminomethylenephosphonic acid, and separating the precipitated acid: ##STR3##
However, alkali metal salt solutions of IDA, such as IDANa.sub.2, are impractical to store and ship on a commercial scale, as the solubility is only about 22% at room temperature and about 40% at temperatures on the order of 60.degree. C. Even where 40% solubility is acceptable, it is expensive and inconvenient to maintain the high temperatures necessary for such solubility.
It therefore would be desirable to produce phosphonomethyliminodiacetic acid (PMIDA) from an intermediate that can be readily stored and/or shipped at ambient temperature on a commercial scale.

Conversion of hydroxymethyl-iminodiacetic acid to phosphonomethyl-iminodiacetic acid


The invention provides novel mutant S182 sequences, methods of diagnosing Alzheimer's disease using these novel mutant S182 genes, a model system for Alzheimer's disease comprising a mutant S182 gene, and methods of identifying mutations in genes homologous to the S182 gene.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative disease of the central nervous system characterized clinically by dementia and neuropathologically by the presence of numerous senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. AD is typically a disease of the elderly, afflicting up to 6% of those aged 65 years and up to 20% of 80 years olds. This is termed late onset AD. In addition, a small number of pedigrees have been described wherein the disease is inherited as an autosomal dominant with age dependent penetrance. Most commonly, the age of onset of the disease is below 60 years in these families. This is termed early onset AD. Genetic factors have been implicated in both early and late onset AD.
At least three different genetic loci that confer inherited susceptibility to this disease have been identified.
The .epsilon.4 (112CysArg) allele of the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene located on chromosome 19 is associated with AD in a significant proportion of cases with late onset. Strittmatter et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 1993, 90:1977-1981; Saunders et al., Neurology 1993, 43:1467-1472. Inheritance of this allele has also been reported to lower the age of onset in a dose dependent manner. Corder et al., Science 1993, 261:921-923. Conversely, inheritance of the apolipoprotein E .epsilon.2 allele appears to confer a decreased risk of developing AD. Corder et al., Nature Genet. 1994, 7:180-184. While the biochemical mechanism of these effects is still unclear, there are significantly increased numbers of A.beta. deposits in the brains of patients having one or two .epsilon.4 alleles. Schmechel et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 1993, 90:9649-9653; Hyman et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 1995, 92:3586-3590.
Mutations in the gene for the .beta.-amyloid precursor protein (.beta.APP) on chromosome 21 have been found in a small number of families with disease onset before 65 years of age. Goate et al., Nature 1991, 349:704-706; Chartier-Harlin et al., Nature 1991, 353:844-846; Murrell et al., Science 1991, 254:97-99; Karlinsky et al., Neurology 1992, 42:1445-1453. These disease-causing mutations have been modelled in transfected or primary cultured cells and shown to lead to altered proteolytic processing of .beta.APP in a way that favors production of its amyloidogenic and potentially neurotoxic A.beta. fragment. Further, transgenic overexpression of one mutant .beta.APP has resulted in the first mouse model of AD, in which age-linked cerebral deposition of A.beta. is accompanied by neuronal, astrocytic and microglial pathology. Games et al., Nature 1995, 373:523-527.
A third locus (AD3) has been mapped by genetic linkage studies to chromosome 14q24.3 which may account for up to 70% of early-onset autosomal dominant AD. Schellenberg et al., Science 1992, 258:668-670; St. George-Hyslop et al., Natur Genet. 1992, 2:330-334; Van Broeckhoven et al., Natur Genet. 1992, 2:335-339. The AD3 locus is associated with the most aggressive form of this disease (onset 30 to 60 years of age) and it has been suggested that mutations at this locus put into effect a biologically fundamental process leading to AD. Sherrington et al., Nature 1995, 375:754-760.
A novel gene with five missense mutations in seven pedigrees segregating early-onset, autosomal dominant AD at the AD3 locus was recently cloned. Sherrington et al., Nature 1995, 375:754-760. This gene has been called S182. Analysis of the nucleotide sequences of the S182 transcript revealed heterozygous nucleotide substitutions in the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction products from affected members of six large pedigrees. Each of the nucleotide substitutions occurred within a putative open reading frame of the S182 transcript and are predicted to change the encoded amino acid at the following positions (numbering FAD4 and Torl.l; HisArg codon 163 in pedigree 603; AlaGlu at codon 246 in pedigree FAD1; LeuVal at codon 286 in pedigree FAD2; and CysTyr at codon 410 in pedigrees FAD3 and NIH2. of all the nucleotide substitution cosegregated with the disease in their respective pedigrees, none were seen in asymptomatic family members aged more than 2 standard deviations beyond the mean onset, and none were present on 284 chromosomes from unrelated neurologically normal subjects drawn from comparable ethnic origins. Sherrington et al., Nature 1995, 375:754-760.
A number of other mutant S182 genes have now been identified. These mutants are useful in the diagnosis of early-onset AD and in evaluating agents which may be useful for the treatment of this disease.


Method of making a field emitter device with submicron low work function emission tips without using photolithography. The method includes depositing in situ by evaporating or sputtering a discontinuous etch mask comprising randomly located discrete nuclei. In one embodiment an ion etch is applied to a low work function material covered by a discontinuous mask to form valleys in the low work function material with pyramid shaped emission tips therebetween. In another embodiment an ion etch is applied to an electrically conductive base material covered by a discontinuous mask to form valleys in the base material with pyramid shaped base tips therebetween. The base material is then coated with a low work function material to form emission tips thereon.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to field emitters, and more particularly to method which uses a discontinuous thin film of randomly located discrete nuclei as a discontinuous etch mask to fabricate a high efficiency large area field emitter device.
2. Description of Related Art
Field emitters are widely used in ordinary and scanning electron microscopes since emission is affected by the adsorbed materials. Field emitters have also been found useful in flat panel displays and vacuum microelectronics applications. Cold cathode and field emission based flat panel displays have several advantages over other types of flat panel displays, including low power dissipation, high intensity and low projected cost.
The present invention can be better appreciated with an understanding of the related physics. General electron emission can be analogized to the ionization of a free atom. Prior to ionization, the energy of electrons in an atom is lower than electrons at rest in a vacuum. In order to ionize the atom, energy must be supplied to the electrons in the atom. That is, the atom fails to spontaneously emit electrons unless the electrons are provided with energy greater than or equal to the electrons at rest in the vacuum. Energy can be provided by numerous means, such as by heat or irradiation with light. When sufficient energy is imparted to the atom, ionization occurs and the atom releases one or more electrons.
Several types of electron emissions are known. Thermionic emission involves an electrically charged particle emitted by an incandescent substance (as in a vacuum tube or incandescent light bulb). Photoemission releases electrons from a material by means of energy supplied by incidence of radiation, especially light. Secondary emission occurs by bombardment of a substance with charged particles such as electrons or ions. Electron injection involves the emission from one solid to another. Finally, field emission refers to the emission of electrons due to an electric field.
In field emission (or cold emission), electrons under the influence of a strong electric field are liberated out of a substance (usually a metal or semiconductor) into a dielectric (usually a vacuum). The electrons "tunnel" through a potential barrier instead of escaping "over" it as in thermionics or photoemission. Field emission is therefore a quantum-mechanics phenomena with no classical analog. A detailed explanation of field emission quantum mechanics is beyond the scope of the discussion herein. Nevertheless, field emitters have been extensively studied and are well known in the art. See generally, P. H. Cutler and T. T. Tsong, Field Emission and Related Topics, 1978.
The shape of a field emitter effects its emission characteristics. Field emission is most easily obtained from sharply pointed needles or tips whose ends have been smoothed into a nearly hemispherical shape by heating. Tip radii as small as 100 nanometers have been reported. As an electric field is applied, the electric lines of force diverge radially from the tip and the emitted electron trajectories initially follow these lines of force. Devices with such sharp features similar to a "Spindt cathode" have been previously invented. An overview of vacuum electronics and Spindt type cathodes can be found in the November and December, 1989 issues of IEEE Transactions of Electronic Devices. Fabrication of such fine tips, however, normally requires extensive fabrication facilities to finely tailor the emitter into a conical shape. Further, it is difficult to build high performance large area field emitters (i.e. more than a few sources per square micron area) since the cone size is limited by the lithographic equipment. It is also difficult to perform fine feature lithography on large area substrates as required by flat panel display type applications. Thus, there is a need for a method of making field emitters with fine conical or pyramid shaped features without the use of lithography.
The work function of the electron emitting surface or emission tip of a field emitter also effects emission characteristics. The work function is the voltage (or energy) required to extract or emit electrons from a surface. The lower the work function, the lower the voltage required to produce a particular amount of emission.
Prior attempts to fabricate field emitter devices have included the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,947,716 describes enhancing emission quality by altering the molecular structure of a tip to lower the work function of the planes where increased adsorption is desired, and increasing the work function in regions where less adsorption is desired. The molecular alteration is accomplished with thermal field buildup by subjecting the emitter tip to heating pulses in the presence of an electrostatic field to cause surface migration of the tip atoms along the field lines.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,970,887 describes a semiconductor substrate with integral field emitter tips in which an insulating layer and conductive layer are provided with openings at the tips to form micro-anode structures for each tip. The tips are electrically isolated from one another by initially doping the substrate to provide opposite conductivity-type regions at each tip.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,998,678 describes making field emitters by forming a metal layer on a substrate, forming conical emitters on the metal, forming an insulating layer with height equal to the emitters, forming another metal layer as an accelerating electrode, and etching he insulating layer to expose the emitters.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,307,507 describes making field emitters by selectively masking a single crystal substrate so that the unmasked regions define islands, orientation-dependent etching the substrate to from holes whose sides intersect at a crystallographically sharp point, removing the mask, covering the substrate and filling the holes with an emissive material, and etching the substrate to expose sharp emission tips.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,996 describes making field emitters by anisotropically etching a single crystal silicon substrate through photoresist openings to form funnel shaped protrusions thereon, then conformally depositing a refractory metal onto the protrusions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,108 describes making field emitters by coating a metal carrier wire with crystals of an oxide compound which has a metallic luster and which is a compound transition metal selected from the group of tungsten, molybdenum, niobium, vanadium and titanium.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,343 describes a self-aligned gate process for making field emitters which includes forming conical emission tips on a substrate, depositing oxide on the tips, depositing gate metal on the oxide, depositing photoresist on the gate metal, etching the resist to expose gate metal above the tips, etching the exposed gate metal, removing the resist, and etching the exposed oxide to expose the emission tips.
Nevertheless, there still exists a need for relatively simple methods of making field emitter devices with low work function materials to produce sub-micron conically shaped emission tips without the use of photolithography.

Method of making a field emitter device using randomly located nuclei as an etch mask

Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation


An attaching apparatus (10) includes a guiding bracket (30), a pivot bracket (40), and a sliding bracket (50). The guiding bracket includes a supporting plate (312), and a first table (32) defining a first space (322). The pivot bracket includes a pivot device having a connecting plate (42) and a pivoting plate, the pivoting plate is pivotably connected to the connecting plate. The sliding bracket slidably engages with the guiding bracket. The first table is movably positioned on the supporting plate. The first table under the first space defines one or more suction holes. The pivoting plate includes a second table (430), and two locators (440, 450) movably positioned on the second table. The second table defines one or more suction holes (434). The attaching apparatus can be readily adjusted to attach LCD panels and polarizers of various different sizes.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an attaching apparatus for optical films, and particularly to an attaching apparatus used to attach a polarizer onto a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel.
2. General Background
A process of fabricating an LCD generally comprises attaching two polarizers onto two opposite surfaces of an LCD panel. To attach the polarizers onto the LCD panel in mass production, an attaching apparatus is necessary.
Typical attaching apparatuses are each limited to a specific-sized polarizer and a specific-sized LCD panel. The attaching apparatus generally comprises a polarizer aligning device used to align the polarizer with the LCD panel.
Referring to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, these represent a conventional polarizer aligning device as disclosed in Taiwan Patent No. 478,434 issued on Mar. 1, 2002. The polarizer aligning device 60 comprises a flat plate 62, and a plurality of locators 61 protruding from two adjacent sides of the flat plate 62. Each locator 61 has two orthogonal portions. Each locator 61 and the flat plate 62 form an elongate space 610 having an elongate opening nearest to a middle of the polarizer aligning device 60. A height H of the space 610 is equal to a thickness of the LCD panel. A width W of the space 610 is equal to a distance between the corresponding sides of the overlapped polarizer and LCD panel.
In use, the LCD panel is placed on the flat plate 62, and two adjacent sides of the LCD panel are insert into the spaces 610. The polarizer is placed on the LCD panel and overlaps most of the LCD panel. Two adjacent sides of the polarizer are adjusted to abut against the parts of each locator 61 above the space 610. Thus, the polarizer is aligned with the LCD panel.
However, each locator 61 typically is immovable. If the locator 61 becomes distorted, the only way to repair it is by forcing it back into position, such as by hammering it. In addition, when the locator 61 becomes worn out, the polarizer aligning device 60 may not be able to accurately align the polarizer with the LCD panel, and typically must be replaced.
What is needed, therefore, is an attaching apparatus for an optical film which is adjustable.


What is described is a control system for controlling the coupling between a driveshaft of a motor vehicle propulsion system and a primary input shaft of a gearbox by means of a servo-assisted friction clutch.

In practice, a servo-controlled gearbox is a conventional mechanical gearbox operated by means of servo-controllers, comprising an actuator for disengaging and engaging the friction clutch between the driveshaft and the primary input shaft of the gearbox, an actuator for selecting the transmission ratios and an actuator for engaging the selected transmission ratio.
Servo-controlled gearboxes are well known in the prior art and are used to reproduce and optimize the driver's gear change commands.
The control strategies of a control system for a servo-controlled gearbox must adapt themselves to the operating conditions of the vehicle and must maintain the driving sensation requested by the driver by means of the commands imparted to the accelerator pedal.
A control system for a servo-controlled gearbox is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,389,346 held by the present applicant. The system comprises an electronic control unit connected to a plurality of sensors for detecting the operating conditions of the vehicle, including a potentiometric sensor for detecting the position of the accelerator pedal, to the actuators of the gearbox, and to the actuators controlling the power delivered by the vehicle's propulsion system, in order to permit the integrated control of the propulsion system and the gearbox during a gear change operation.
The detection of the position of the accelerator pedal enables the driver's intentions to be correctly recognized.
The operation of the control unit is based on a reference model in which the actuator command signals are determined by means of a mathematical model of the driving behaviour, which is designed to adapt the behaviour of the vehicle in terms of comfort and performance, in the various stages of the gear change, according to the commands imparted by the driver by means of the accelerator pedal and a command lever or push button for selecting the transmission ratio, in other words for requesting a change to a higher or lower ratio.
In both a gear-change operation and a driving-away manoeuvre, the vehicle's propulsion system changes its mode of operation from clutch partially disengaged to clutch engaged. At the instant the clutch bites, the inertia applied to the engine changes virtually instantaneously, causing discontinuities in the vehicle's acceleration, specifically a negative change of acceleration which may be perceived by the driver and reduces the performance of the system.

System and method for controlling the coupling between the driveshaft and the primary gear shaft in a motor vehicle with a servo-controlled gearbox

Abstract: A control unit receives at its input signals indicating a command imparted by the driver of the motor vehicle by operating the accelerator pedal in a driving-away or gear-changing manoeuvre, and generates—on the basis of a mathematical reference model—reference torque request signals indicating the reference torques requested from the driveshaft and from the friction clutch, the said request signals or data varying in time in such a way as to cause synchronization between the angular velocities of the driveshaft and of the primary gear shaft to be reached at the same moment as the difference between the angular accelerations of the said shafts becomes zero.

C.R.F. Società{grave over ( )} Consortile per Azioni


A centrifugal plasma arc furnace is used to vitrify contaminated soils and other waste materials. An assessment of the characteristics of the waste is performed prior to introducing the waste into the furnace. Based on the assessment, a predetermined amount of iron is added to each batch of waste. The waste is melted in an oxidizing atmosphere into a slag. The added iron is oxidized into Fe.sub.3 O.sub.4. Time of exposure to oxygen is controlled so that the iron does not oxidize into Fe.sub.2 O.sub.3. Slag in the furnace remains relatively non-viscous and consequently it pours out of the furnace readily. Cooled and solidified slag produced by the furnace is very resistant to groundwater leaching. The slag can be safely buried in the earth without fear of contaminating groundwater.

Throughout the industrialized world there are deposits of contaminated soil which pose a hazard. Ground water which enters these contaminated soils can dissolve and carry some of the contaminants into drinking water supplies. The contaminants include such materials as harmful organic compounds and soluble heavy metals. In some cases the soils are contaminated with radioactive wastes.
In some serious cases, contaminated soils are removed and treated in furnaces to produce vitrified masses of material. When contaminated soil is vitrified, its density is increased and its volume is reduced. Additionally, organic compounds are typically pyrolized and rendered harmless. When a mass of contaminated soil is vitrified, it can be safely buried in the earth because any heavy metal components of the soil are made substantially unleachable in ground water.
In addition to contaminated soils, there are other hazardous objects which require safe disposal. For, example obsolete military devices such as fuses and chemical warfare apparatus need to be destroyed in a cost-effective way. In many of these cases, for purposes of maintaining secrecy, there is a need to obliterate any discernible features or characteristics of the devices. Disposal of such devices in a vitrified soil medium has been found to be technically and economically viable.
Centrifugal plasma arc furnaces have been employed with some limited success to perform these disposal tasks. One such furnace is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,137 (M. P. Schlienger), issued Aug. 4, 1992. In principle, this furnace is operated in a semi-batch mode. Materials to be treated are fed into a refractory lined rotatable chamber. A plasma arc torch heats the material in the chamber as it rotates. The material melts and forms a slag. Material is continually fed into the chamber until a predetermined mass of material is in a molten form. The chamber is then stopped and the slag is poured out of the chamber into a container. After the chamber is emptied, the process of introducing material and melting with the plasma arc torch is repeated.
The principle of operation of a centrifugal plasma arc furnace is well-described in the above identified U.S. Patent and various other patents which have issued from related applications. These patents however do not describe a practical method for operating the centrifugal plasma arc furnace to achieve a cost-effective waste disposal system.
We have found that the furnace suffers from various shortcomings which have heretofore precluded its economic application to real-life disposal problems. For example, we have observed that the furnace can not be operated successfully be simply introducing waste materials of any variety into the rotating chamber. In many cases, the waste materials form a molten slag which is too highly viscous. Highly viscous molten slags typically will not pour out of the chamber. This problem is particularly acute when stainless steel objects are part of the waste materials. When the chamber cannot be easily emptied, the furnace cannot operate as a high productivity commercial unit but is instead relegated to operation as a laboratory experimental device.
It is desirable therefore to provide a method that will facilitate the use of a centrifugal plasma arc furnace to process large quantities of contaminated materials in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

Method for treating waste containing stainless steel


Cardiac output of a test individual is determined in a noninvasive method, by processing CO.sub.2 expirogram data obtained from the individual. The method also noninvasively determines pulmonary arterial blood CO.sub.2 concentration for the test individual. An apparatus for carrying out this noninvasive method includes a database of computed numerical CO.sub.2 expirograms, a device for measuring experimental CO.sub.2 expirogram data and means for processing the data sets to determine cardiac output.

This invention relates to a noninvasive method and apparatus for determining cardiac output for an individual from CO.sub.2 gas expirograms and, more particularly, for determining both cardiac output and pulmonary arterial blood CO.sub.2 concentration of an individual.
Cardiac output, sometimes termed total cardiac output, is a well-known term for heart blood flowrate, i.e., the averaged cardiac blood flow per unit of time. Cardiac output for a healthy, adult male human being at rest is about 6000 ml/min, but cardiac output may range from about 1 l/min to about 20 l/min under other conditions (exercise, disease, etc.). Cardiac output is a highly useful measurement in assessing cardiac performance, diagnosing and determining the extent of cardiac and pulmonary disease, and monitoring the effect and effectiveness of treatment protocols involving, e.g., exercise or drugs.
Currently used techniques for determining cardiac output are invasive, i.e., methods requiring skilled personnel in which blood samples are withdrawn for analysis of blood gases, or in which an indicator medium is injected and monitored via blood sampling or catheterization. The dye-dilution technique, for example, requires venous catheterization, with injection proximate to the right atrium, and arterial catheterization with a catheter sufficient for withdrawal of dye-containing blood at a rate of 15-20 ml/min. Thermodilution, a widely used technique, requires right-sided catheterization to the pulmonary artery by a catheter/thermistor, with cold saline being injected near the right atrium to produce a dilution temperature curve useful for accurate determination of cardiac output.
Invasive cardiac output measurement techniques need to be used with great care since they involve a risk of adverse medical consequences if improperly executed. Likewise, the limitations of such invasive techniques are self-evident: they are complex procedures that require trained personnel and controlled conditions, e.g., a clinical environment, and they are not well suited for obtaining repeat measurements from unconfined individuals over extended periods of time. A recent study has raised questions about the safety of right heart catheterizations, i.e. pulmonary artery catheterizations, which are commonly used in invasive cardiac output measurement techniques as described above; see Connors, Jr. et al., J. Am. Med. Assn., (Sept. 18, 1996).
Several noninvasive techniques for determining cardiac output have been reported in the literature, but none has proven to be a simple, easily administered, reliable technique applicable generally to all individuals, i.e., healthy adults and children, as well as diseased and critical care patients; see, e.g., Conway, "Clinical Assessment of Cardiac Output", Europ. Heart J. 11:148-150 (1990).
Inert gas and CO.sub.2 rebreathing techniques, such as described by Stok et al., "Noninvasive Cardiac Output Measurement by Arterial Pulse Analysis Compared with Inert Gas Rebreathing", J. Appl. Physiol., 74:2687-2693 (1993), tend to raise mixed venous blood CO.sub.2 concentration which itself raises cardiac output during the measurement technique. Rebreathing techniques, moreover, are generally not suitable for critically ill patients, since patients are generally required to be cooperative and perform rapid, deep breathing maneuvers.
Stout et al., "Pulmonary Blood Flow Determined by Continuous Analysis of Pulmonary N.sub.2 O Exchange", J. Appl. Physiol. 38:913-918 (1975), describe a technique for measuring cardiac output by applying an idealized homogeneous lung model to multibreath analyses of soluble inert gas (N.sub.2 O) and insoluble inert gas (N.sub.2 or He) during artificial ventilation of anesthetized dogs breathing a gas mixture containing these components. Nielsen et al., "Precision and Accuracy of a Noninvasive Inert Gas Washing Method for Determination of Cardiac Output in Men", J. Appl. Physiol., 36:1560-1565 (1994), describes the application of the multibreath method of Stout et al. to healthy human beings under controlled ventilation at rest and during exercise, finding that the multibreath method was useful for determining cardiac output under exercise conditions but that an inert gas rebreathing method was more accurate at rest.
Stok et al., "Noninvasive Cardiac Output Measurement by Arterial Pulse Analysis Compared with Inert Gas Rebreathing", J. Appl. Physiol., 74:2687-2693 (1993), describe measurement of changes in cardiac output in healthy adult males by arterial pulse analysis, but this technique requires an initial determination or calibration of absolute cardiac output, e.g., by inert gas rebreathing or other potentially invasive methods.
Zenger et al. "Measurement of Cardiac Output by Automated Single-Breath Technique, and Comparison with Thermodilution and Fick Methods in Patients with Cardiac Disease", Am. J. Cardiol., 71:105-109 (1993), describe measurement of cardiac output from single breath measurements of acetylene gas, used as a tracer gas, but the technique requires controlled inhalation, breath-holding, constant rate exhalation by the individual being tested and administration of a tracer gas not normally present in the lung. This level of cooperation is unworkable with some patients for whom cardiac output measurements are nevertheless highly desirable, e.g., critically ill or unconscious patients.

Noninvasive method and apparatus for determining cardiac output

Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania


An improved harness or harness-like garment for purposes of making the user more visible and/or with optional pocket or item(s) carrying means, having strap or straps or strap-like element(s) configured in two substantially “Y” or “V” shaped forms or one of each; the tops of the substantially “Y”-shaped and/or “V”-shaped forms are joined together, fused or one part; the bottoms of the substantially “Y” and/or “V”-shaped forms are fastened, joined fused or in one part to a waist strap forming means so that they meet the waist strap forming means at substantially 180 degrees from each other around the somewhat circular waist strap forming means; the waist strap forming means preferably having closure means.

The present invention relates to reflective and/or high visibility garments, and more particularly to a harness system used to make the user more visible during daylight, night-time and twilight hours having the abilities to provide very simple use and comfort. For a jogger or other user it increases the ability to indicate a presence which might not otherwise be clearly and easily apparent. The invention also optionally provides a pocket which can be conveniently located for access for use of the person engaging in vigorous activity. It also allows these items to be carried comfortably, easily assessable, and without interfering with the warning capabilities of the harness. The harness of the present invention furthermore provides simple height and a waist adjustment. The device of the present invention is designed primarily for active sports joggers and bicyclists. It is also suitable for pedestrians, crossing guards, traffic policemen, mail personnel, roller bladers, skate boarders, delivery personnel, for walking the dog or children playing in or around roadways.


An electric connector includes a plug terminal 15 and a connector housing 2. The plug terminal 15 has a contact portion 151 in one end and an electric wire connecting terminal 153 in the other end, and the connector housing 2 accommodating the plug terminal. In the plug terminal 15, the contact portion and the electric wire connecting portion are connected through an elastic spring portion 15b, the connector housing 2 accommodates both the plug terminal 15 and a gate member 10 which holds a contact portion of the plug terminal, the contact portion 151 of the plug terminal is held in the connector housing by the gate member 10 while the spring is compressed and pushed in, and the hold state is released to project the contact portion of the plug terminal from the connector housing in coupling the electric connector to the mating connector. Therefore, the invention can provide the electric connector enabling it to protect the plug terminal with a simple structure in which the contact portion of the plug terminal is pushed in the connector housing before coupling the electric connector to the mating connector.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plug-type electric connector coupled to a receptacle connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electric connector is used in almost all of electric or electronic instruments. The electric connector usually includes a receptacle connector and a plug-type connector which is plugged in the receptacle connector. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, a plug-type electric connector 30 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,896,529B2 includes three plug terminals 31a to 31c, a connector housing (hereinafter simply referred to as "housing") 32, and a cover body 33. The housing 32 accommodates the plug terminals, and the housing 32 is covered with the cover body 33. The housing 32 and the cover body 33 are made of insulating materials.
The housing 32 includes a rectangular solid-shaped body 32a and a U-shaped heads 32b extending from the body 32a. Three plug terminals 31a to 31c are projected with the same length within the U-shaped head 32b. Opposite portions of the U-shaped head 32b include a pair of side pieces 321 and 322, and thin grooves are formed in the side pieces 321, 322 respectively, and lock arms 341, 342 to be engaged with a mating connector (not shown) are accommodated in the grooves. In the three plug terminals 31a to 31c, their front end portion is located in the U-shaped head 32b, and their rear end portion is accommodated in the housing 32 while projecting into the end portion of the body 32a. Electric wire is connected to the rear end portion of each of the plug terminals 31a to 31c. The housing 32 accommodates the plug terminals 31a to 31c and the lock arms 341 and 342, and then the cylindrical cover body 33 is fitted in the body 32a of the housing 32. A push button 33a is formed in one of surfaces of the cover body 33, the lock arms 341 and 342 are lowered to release the engagement with the mating connector by depressing the push button 33a.
In the electric connector 30, the respective plug terminals 31a to 31c are projected from the U-shaped head 32b of the housing 32. There is also well known an electric connector which plug terminals are accommodated in a housing before coupling to a mating connector. As shown in FIG. 13, this kind of typical electric connector 35 includes a terminal portion 38, a housing 39, and a cover body 40 covering the housing 39. The terminal portion 38 has a coil spring 36 and a plug terminal 37, and the housing 39 accommodates the terminal portion 38. In coupling the electric connector 35 to the mating connector M, the cover body 40 of the connector 30 is pressed against the mating connector M to move the cover body 40 in a Y-direction. The plug terminal 37 is projected from the cover body 40 and brought into contact with a contact C by moving the cover body 40 in the Y-direction. In the electric connector 35, the plug terminal 37 is accommodated in the housing 39 before coupling with the mating connector M, so that the plug terminal 37 never collides with an obstacle.
In the electric connector 30 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,896,529 B2, the three plug terminals 31a to 31c are positioned within the U-shaped side pieces 321 and 322 of the U-shaped head 32b, and the three plug terminals 31a to 31c are coupled to the mating connector. Before coupling the three plug terminals 31a to 31c to the mating connector, the three plug terminals 31a to 31c are always projected outward although they are located within the U-shaped side pieces. Therefore, the obstacle or the like comes into contact with the projected plug terminal to damage or deform the plug terminal, and the plug terminal might be folded down at worst. Any damage, deformation or the like of the plug terminal causes a failure of connection to the mating connector in good condition. On the contrary, in the conventional electric connector 35, because the plug terminal 37 is covered with the cover body 40, such problems are never caused. However, in the terminal portion 38 of the electric connector 35, because the plug terminal 37 and the spring 36 are individually formed, the number of component items is increased while an assembling work becomes complicated, and it is difficult to stably maintain electric contact between the plug terminal 37 and the spring 36. Further, because the cover body 40 is moved in coupling the electric connector 35 to the mating connector M, a mechanism for moving the cover body 40 is required to complicate the structure of the electric connector 35.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the invention is to provide an electric connector enabling it to protect the plug terminal with a simple structure in which the contact portion of the plug terminal is pushed into the connector housing before the electric connector is coupled to the mating connector.
Another object of the invention is to provide an electric connector which can easily be assembled with the small number of component items by making the plug terminal integrated with the contact portion and the spring usable.


A working vehicle with power steering, having a substantially closed accommodating space defined by an engine hood and a control panel, an engine disposed in the accommodating space and a steering shaft disposed in the control panel. A cooling fan produces cooling air flows moving toward the engine from an air intake formed in the control panel. A power steering apparatus for supplying steering assist power to the steering shaft, and a control unit for controlling the power steering apparatus, are arranged in the accommodating space to be exposed to the cooling air flows.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a working vehicle with power steering, having a substantially closed accommodating space defined by an engine hood and a control panel, an engine disposed in the engine hood, and a steering shaft disposed in the control panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
To facilitate turning of a steering wheel on grounds offering strong resistance to running or on inclined grounds, many working vehicles today have power steering apparatus for providing electric or hydraulic power to assist steering power.
Since the power steering apparatus generates power, main components thereof become heated. Therefore, heat must be taken into account in designing a layout of a steering control line, including the power steering apparatus, from the steering wheel to knuckle arms of dirigible wheels. There are severe space restrictions particularly with working vehicles such as a small working vehicle and a lawn tractor having a mower unit suspended below a vehicle body. For such working vehicles, it is not easy to design a steering control line layout in a way to solve the problem of heating.


A riding lawn care vehicle may include a battery power source, an electric drive motor, at least one blade drive motor, a current sensor, and a drive controller. The electric drive motor may be powered by the battery power source. The electric drive motor may be operably coupled to a wheel of the riding lawn care vehicle to provide drive power for the riding lawn care vehicle. The at least one blade drive motor may be powered by the battery power source. The at least one blade drive motor may be operably coupled to at least one cutting blade of the riding lawn care vehicle. The current sensor may be disposed to monitor total current drawn from the battery power source. The drive controller may receive total current data from the current sensor and provide a drive control signal related to operation of the electric drive motor based on the total current data.

Lawn care tasks are commonly performed using various tools and/or machines that are configured for the performance of corresponding specific tasks. Certain tasks, like grass cutting, are typically performed by lawn mowers. Lawn mowers themselves may have many different configurations to support the needs and budgets of consumers. Walk-behind lawn mowers are typically compact, have comparatively small engines (e.g., less than 200 cubic centimeters (cc)) and are relatively inexpensive. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, riding lawn mowers, such as lawn tractors, can be quite large and sometimes have engines exceeding 400 cc. Riding lawn mowers can sometimes also be configured with various functional accessories (e.g., trailers, tillers and/or the like) in addition to grass cutting components. Riding lawn mowers provide the convenience of a riding vehicle as well as a typically larger cutting deck as compared to a walk-behind model.
Rising fact costs and an increased awareness of pollution and other byproducts of fossil fact burning engines have generated much interest in the development of cleaner energy sources. Battery powered vehicles have a potential for reducing dependence on fossil fuels. However, given the long history of development of products that burn fossil fuels, it should be appreciated that many new design considerations that were not issues previously may come into play when battery powered vehicles are employed.

Battery powered lawn care vehicle with efficient drive controller


A prism coupled waveguide-fed solar collector array optimized for geometric fill factor. An integrated linear array of prisms is arranged with their input faces in a common plane. The exit faces of the prisms each feds a corresponding optical waveguide and detector.

Technical Field
This application relates generally to solar collectors, and more particularly to optimization of geometric fill factor in a solar collector that is fed via prism-coupled optical waveguide(s).
Background Information
A Monolithic Thin Film Concentrating (MTFC) Solar Collector with an option for Spatially Separated Photovoltaic (PV) Devices has the potential to provide improved efficiency, while lowering the manufacturing cost over conventional solar concentrating systems. The monolithic structure is divided into three (3) major areas: 1) a uniform leaky-wave solar antenna, 2) a waveguide and 3) a PV device region. Here, the PV can be any combination of photovoltaic optical to electrical converting device such as a semiconductor or an antenna-coupled metal insulator metal (MIM) device(s). This entire structure lends itself to fabrication using thin film processes typical in the semiconductor industry that produce Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. Processes such as Metal Oxide Vapor Chemical Deposition (MOVCD), Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) and Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) are well suited to cost-leverage by high volume production.
More details of such a device are provided in a co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/357,448 entitled "Leaky Wave Mode Solar Receiver" filed Jan. 24, 2012, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
The discriminating features of this solar cell design come from the application of electromagnetic theory, similar to phased array antennas, to the light propagation. The sun's energy is concentrated using a wide-band uniform leaky-wave solar "antenna" that couples the energy into a planar waveguide. Optical coating filters within the waveguide, direct the spectral energy bands into photovoltaic devices, each having a band-gap optimized to the wavelength of energy incident on each of them. The unique features of this arrangement are; the uniform leaky-wave antenna region is broadband, collecting the entire solar spectrum. The capture area of the antenna has a wide field of view in one (1) plane which eliminates the need for 2-axis tracking. Tracking in the single axis is accomplished by electro-mechanical means with the use of MEMS actuators to physically tilt the sub-arrays, conventional solar trackers, or by controlling the propagation constant in the traveling wave array structure with piezoelectric actuators which adjust the phase progression on the antenna and allows for beam steering without physically tilting the array.
The waveguide structure is designed to be optimized for the solar spectrum and coherently directs energy to the photovoltaic region. One aspect to lowering the cost is in using multiple, spatially separated photovoltaic devices. By separating the devices, the costs, design constraints and inefficiencies associated with lattice matching and tunnel diode junctions are eliminated. Furthermore, this structure takes advantage of the strengths of Concentrated PV (CPV) approaches, such as higher efficiencies of PV devices under concentration, and the reduction of PV material, while reducing the major costs involved in CPV systems such as the high cost of optics, trackers, and tandem multi-junction PV cells. By applying a systems engineering approach, all the key components are integrated into the monolithic architecture to yield a system that reduces the cost of generating solar power through an increase in efficiency while lowering manufacturing costs.

Optimizing geometric fill factor in prism-coupled waveguide-fed solar collector


A method for transmitting signals in a wireless communication system including the steps of (a) transmitting and receiving the signals subsequently via transmission paths thereby allowing an estimation of channel quality of each transmission path, (b) selecting on a basis of the estimated channel quality several transmission paths as candidates for a communication channel, (c) repeating step (a) at least once under different transmission and/or reception conditions for the several transmission paths selected in step (b), and (d) selecting on basis of the estimated channel quality a small number of transmission paths out of the several transmission paths as candidates for a communication channel.

The present invention relates to a method for transmitting signals in a wireless communication system and to a wireless communication system enabling an improved beam steering algorithm for non-line of sight (NLOS) wireless systems.
Wireless communication is used in a large variety of technical fields, such as mobile telephone, wireless LAN, walkie-talkies, broadcast radio systems, point-to-point radio systems and many other known and future applications. The communication radius covered by a respective wireless communication system basically depends on the technique used. Whereas cellular communication systems, such as the GSM and the UMTS system, are adapted for a communication radius up to about 10 km (or more), wireless LAN is in the range of about 100 m (or more) and the Bluetooth system is in the range of several 10 m (or more). The major influences on the communication range of a wireless communication system are the radio frequency and output power used. Although only little absorption of electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere occurs at the radio frequency used for GSM and UMTS, a significant absorption occurs in the 60 GHz range, which makes it quite well suited for low range and indoor wireless communication. Furthermore, the kind of transmission and/or reception antennas used for respective wireless communication technique varies depending on a respective field of application. E.g., if a number of receivers has to be reached or if the location of the receivers is unknown or varies frequently, e.g. due to movement, wide beam antennas or omni-directional antennas are sometimes used. However, the utilisation of wide beam antennas in high data rate mm waves wireless communication systems is problematic, because of the multi-path fading effect.
As shown in FIG. 3 according to prior art, when wide beam antennas 24, 25 are used for both transmitter and receiver sides and the line of sight link P0 is blocked by an obstacle 22, there exist a lot of reflections paths P1, P2 between the transmitter 20 and the receiver 21, i.e. transmission paths in which the transmitted electromagnetic wave is reflected at least once by objects 23a, 23b, 23c, 23d before it reaches the receiver. The channel delay spread might be over tens of symbol periods when the data rate is high, e.g. over 1 Gbps, which leads to severe inter-symbol interference due to deep frequency selective fading.
Two conventional solutions exist for such kind of non line of sight (NLOS) user scenarios, where both of the solutions need high-speed and complex signal processing circuits. One solution adopts a channel equaliser including linear, decision feedback or maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) equaliser. When the channel delay spread is much longer than the symbol duration, the equaliser becomes complex and needs a lot of processing power. Another solution is the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique, which is already adopted in wireless LAN systems. However, due to its inherent linear modulation and high peak to average ratio problems, the power consumption of the power amplifier (PA) in such systems is very high. Obviously, a high speed fast Fourier transformation (FFT) and other signal processing modules are required for demodulating a 1 Gbps signal. Therefore, it is important to find other solutions which do not require complex and high speed baseband circuitry for high data rate millimeter wave range communication systems.
Document EP 1 659 813 A1 proposes to use a pair of sharp beam steering antennas on the transmitter and on the receiver side. The narrow beam antennas are able to be steered into different positions and thereby the transmitter and the receiver are adapted to establish a first communication path for wireless communication via those narrow beam antennas. Further, document EP 1 659 813 A1 proposes that the transmitter and the receiver are adapted to automatically establish at least one alternative communication path for wireless communication via said first and second narrow beam antennas, such alternative communication path being spatially different from said first communication path.
The disadvantage with the beam steering algorithm of the state of art is that in order to find the optimum steering position and thereby the optimum transmission path, it is necessary to estimate the channel quality of each possible transmission path. This is e.g. achieved by measuring bit error rate (BER) performance. In order to achieve a reliable estimation of the channel quality elaborated, complex channel quality measurements are necessary. On the other hand, if the complexity of the channel quality measurement is reduced, the risk of false estimations of channel quality increases.

Method for transmitting signals in a wireless communication system and communication system


There is provided a method of enabling a user equipment to transmit a control signal to a base station. The method includes allocating a control signal to a control region on a subframe, the subframe comprising the control region for the control signal and a data region for user data, wherein different frequency bands within the control region are allocated to different user equipments, and transmitting the subframe in uplink direction. A control signal can be robustly transmitted under variance of channel condition.

A third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) mobile communication system based on a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) radio access technology has widely deployed all over the world. High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which can be defined as the first evolution stage of the WCDMA, provides the 3GPP mobile communication system with high competitiveness in the mid-term future. However, since the requirements and expectations of users and service providers continuously increase and the development of a competing radio access technology is in progress, there is a need for a new technology evolution in the 3GPP for further competitiveness.
One of systems that are considered in the post third-generation systems is an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system which can attenuate an Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) with low complexity. In the OFDM system, pieces of data that are input in series are transformed into N pieces of parallel data and then transmitted through N subcarriers. The subcarriers have orthogonality with each other. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) refers to a multiple access scheme of realizing multiple access by independently providing each user with part of subcarriers.
One of the major problems of the OFDM/OFDMA system lies in that Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) can be very high. The PAPR problem is that the peak amplitude of a transmit signal is very higher than a mean amplitude. It has its origin in that an OFDM symbol is constructed by overlapping N sinusoidal signals on different subcarriers. The PAPR is related to the capacity of the battery and problematic in user equipment sensitive to power consumption. To reduce power consumption, it is necessary to lower the PAPR.
One of systems that have been proposed to lower the PAPR is Single Carrier-Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA). The SC-FDMA is of a type in which Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) is combined with a Single Carrier-Frequency Division Equalization (SC-FDE). The SC-FDMA has a similar characteristic to that of OFDMA in that data is modulated and demodulated in time domain and frequency domain by employing Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), but is advantageous in transmission power saving because the PAPR of a transmit signal can be lowered. In particular, it can be said that SC-FDMA is advantageous in uplink direction in which communication is performed from a user equipment to a base station, which is sensitive to transmission power in relation to the battery capacity of the user equipment.
Important things when the user equipment transmits data to the base station are small bandwidth and wide coverage. The SC-FDMA system has wider coverage than that of other system when using the same power amplifier is provided.
Data includes user data and a control signal concerned with the user data. A transmitter can transmit only the control signal and can also transmit the user data and the control signal by multiplexing them. If transmission of the control signal is failed, a receiver does not know even whether user data has been sent. Accordingly, transmission of the control signal requires high reliability.
Since radio resources used for transmitting the control signal may limit data rate, it is better that radio resources necessary for transmitting the control signal are small. Also, a number of terminals exist within one cell. It is therefore necessary for a base station to identify a user equipment which has sent the control signal.
There is a need for a method of allowing a user equipment to transmit a control signal to a base station with high reliability.


A separation member separates a sheet, conveyed by a separation roller in a conveying direction, from remaining sheets supported by a support member. At least one of a first guide and a second guide is a movable guide which moves in a width direction orthogonal to the conveying direction to increase and decrease a distance therebetween. An urging member is retained, at one end thereof, by a base portion in an elastically deformed state and urges the separation member toward the separation roller. In response to the movable guide decreasing the distance between the first guide and the second guide, an engaging mechanism reduces elastic deformation of the urging member by moving the base portion in a first direction. In response to the movable guide increasing the distance, the engaging mechanism moves the base portion in a second direction opposite to the first direction.

A known sheet separating device includes a support member, a pair of guides, a separation roller, a separation member, and an urging member. The support member supports sheets to be conveyed in a conveying direction. The guides are disposed at the support member while facing each other, and movable relative to each other in a width direction orthogonal to the conveying direction so as to align the sheets with respect to the center of the support member in the width direction. The separation member is urged by the urging member toward the separation roller and separates a sheet from the remaining sheets supported by the support member. The separation roller conveys the separated sheet in the conveying direction.
In the sheet separating device, the separation member is pressed against the separation roller by the urging member, whereby a braking force is generated between the separation roller and the separation member. When two or more sheets are about to be conveyed by the separation roller, a single sheet that is in contact with the separation roller is separated from the other sheets by the braking force acting on the other sheets.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A pair of velocity modulation coils are placed with a horizontal plane including a tube axis interposed therebetween, and a pair of magnetic substances are placed with a vertical plane including a tube axis interposed therebetween. A straight line portion of the velocity modulation coil extending substantially in parallel to the tube axis is placed between the magnetic substance and the tube axis. An interval D between the magnetic substance and the straight line portion is 1 to 3 mm. Assuming that the tube axis is a Z-axis, a size of the velocity modulation coil in a tube axis direction is L, and a position of an end of the velocity modulation coil on a side opposite to a phosphor screen in the tube axis direction is Z=0, a center point of the pair of magnetic substances in the tube axis direction is present in a range of Z=0.2×L to 0.9×L. Consequently, the sensitivity of velocity modulation can be enhanced while suppressing an increase in a driving power with a simple configuration.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cathode-ray tube apparatus used in a TV receiver, a computer display, and the like. The present invention also relates to a velocity modulation coil apparatus to be mounted on the cathode-ray tube apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
As one method for realizing higher image quality in a TV receiver, for example, the enhancement of the edge of an image is known. In order to enhance an edge of an image, a velocity modulation coil is used. The velocity modulation coil is provided at a neck of a cathode-ray tube or in the vicinity thereof, and generates a magnetic field in a vertical direction to modulate the horizontal scanning velocity of an electron beam, thereby enhancing the edge of an image (e.g., see JP 57(1982)-45650 U and JP6(1994)-283113 A).
In the color cathode-ray tube apparatus, along with the increase in a diameter of an electron beam spot on a phosphor screen ascribed to the recent enlargement of a screen, the increase in an anode voltage for higher brightness, or the increased flatness of a front panel, there is a demand for a further higher intensity in the magnetic field for enhancing an edge of an image.
In order to satisfy the above-mentioned demand, a color cathode-ray tube apparatus has been proposed that is capable of increasing the intensity of the magnetic field acting on an electron beam without increasing the amount of a current that flows through a velocity modulation coil and without increasing the winding number of the velocity modulation coil (e.g., see JP 6(1994)-283113 A and JP2003-116019 A).
In the color cathode-ray tube apparatus described in JP 6(1994)-283113 A, a pair of magnetic substances are placed in upper and lower portions of respective electron beam passage apertures of R, G, and B provided at a fifth grid (G5 electrode) of an electron gun housed in a neck, and a pair of velocity modulation coils are placed at positions on an outer circumferential surface of the neck corresponding to the G5 electrode.
In JP 2003-116019 A, a pair of velocity modulation coils and a pair of magnetic substances are placed so as to be opposed to each other in a vertical direction on an outer circumferential surface of a neck. Herein, the magnetic substance is placed in the vicinity of the center of a loop of the velocity modulation coil.
In JP 6(1994)-283113 A and JP 2003-116019 A, due to the above-mentioned configurations, a magnetic flux generated by a pair of velocity modulation coils is collected by a pair of magnetic substances so as to be concentrated in an electron beam passage region. Therefore, the intensity of a magnetic field contributing to the velocity modulation of the electron beam can be increased.
However, in the color cathode-ray tube apparatus described in the above-mentioned JP 57(1982)-45650 U, the velocity modulation coil, and a horizontal deflection coil and a vertical deflection coil are placed so as to be overlapped with each other along the tube axis direction. Therefore, a magnetic field generated by the velocity modulation coil and a deflection magnetic field generated by the horizontal deflection coil and the vertical deflection coil interfere with each other to cause the degradation of image quality (so-called ringing).
Furthermore, in the color cathode-ray tube apparatus described in the above-mentioned JP 6(1994)-283113 A, due to the loss caused by an eddy current generated on the surface of the electrode (G5 electrode) that is a metal component, the intensity of a magnetic field generated in the electron beam passage region in the G5 electrode is low. Thus, even if the magnetic substances are attached to the G5 electrode to allow an originally weak magnetic flux to be collected, a satisfactory increase of the intensity of a magnetic field cannot be expected. That is, in JP 6(1994)-283113 A, the sensitivity of velocity modulation (velocity modulation amount of an electron beam with respect to a current input to the velocity modulation coil) cannot be enhanced sufficiently. Furthermore, the magnetic substances are placed at the G5 electrode constituting the electron gun in the neck, so that the component assembly man-hour increases, resulting in an increase in a cost.
Furthermore, even if the magnetic substance is placed in the vicinity of the center of a loop of the velocity modulation coil as in the above-mentioned JP 2003-116019 A, the magnetic resistance with respect to the magnetic field generated by the velocity modulation coil cannot be reduced sufficiently. Consequently, a sufficient velocity modulation effect cannot be obtained.
On the other hand, a strong magnetic field also can be obtained by increasing the winding number of the velocity modulation coil instead of placing the magnetic substances as in JP 6(1994)-283113 A and JP 2003-116019 A. However, in this case, the impedance of the velocity modulation coil increases, making it necessary to apply a large power to the velocity modulation coil, which leads to an increase in a cost of a driving circuit.
Thus, a procedure of improving the effect of enhancing an edge of an image by the velocity modulation coil without increasing a driving power has not been realized.

Velocity modulation coil apparatus and cathode-ray tube apparatus

Matsushita Toshiba Picture Display Co., Ltd.


A game unit having a skill game coined with a prize dispenser. A coin toss gun shoots or tosses coins at targets in the skill game. A wheel unit has a flat top surface. A wiper wipes coins landing on the top surface in geometric paths which may lead to target holes spaced about the circumference of the wheel unit. The coin toss gun has a pull back lever arm for presetting the height of the coin toss.

Various arcade-style games have been known and used in the past. These types of games generally dispense tickets or tokens to a winning player. The player redeems the tickets for a prize at a redemption center at another location within the arcade. Winning tickets or tokens are ordinarily dispensed in proportion to the player's game score or how well the player did. At the redemption center, prizes and merchandise are displayed. By trading in tickets or tokens, the winning player can receive a prize from the operator of the redemption center.
The redemption center requires a substantial amount of space. An attendant is also necessary at the redemption center to count tickets for tokens tendered by winning players in exchange for prizes. Accordingly, redemption centers have not been practical or cost effective at locations having only few machines and players.
As far as is known, all redemption centers have in the past also operated on the principal that arcade games and other skill games are played for fun and amusement, with tickets or tokens dispensed to winners, redeemable for a prize, but not for any specific prize. Accordingly, while playing an arcade game, the player is not attracted or motivated to win any specific prize.


A flat and thin bladder device is used to cause earthworms to migrate to the earth's surface for easy collection. The bladder is laid flat on the earth's surface and has a maximum thickness between its top wall and bottom wall of not over about 5 centimeters but has area dimensions greater than 1 meter in all directions and not greater than about 4 meters in all directions. The maximum thickness of the bladder is limited by a pattern of spaced connections between the top wall and bottom wall forming the bladder. At least the bottom wall is opaque to block out light under it, and the bottom wall has a plurality of openings that are substantially uniformly distributed for the escape of water from the bladder to earth underlying the bottom wall. Water is introduced to the bladder at a rate about equal to the rate of water escaping from the bottom wall. Soaking the earth under the bladder causes earthworms to migrate to the surface and they are then easily collected as portions of the bladder are lifted to expose them.

This invention relates to a new device and a new method for collecting earthworms, with due attention to safety for the person collecting the earthworms as well as to safety and freedom from harm or injury to the earthworms being collected.
Collecting earthworms for use as bait in fishing, and particularly the collection of earthworms of night crawler size for that purpose, has been an activity not always accomplished under agreeable conditions. For example, nighttime collection after a rain is commonly recognized as one of the best times to collect earthworms, but the darkness and wetness are not conditions of choice for human comfort. Another problem with nighttime collection is that it is conducted under conditions that seem to be highly favorable to the earthworms, particularly the night crawlers. During nighttime hours they seem to have a sharpened sense for detecting an approaching collector (whether from sound or vibration caused by a collector's movement or from the light of a collector's flashlight, etc.). In any event, night crawlers generally are well on their way striving to get back into the earth by the time a collector reaches out to grab them during nighttime collection efforts.
Digging and turnover of earth has been another way to collect the earthworms needed for fishing, but this approach requires physical effort not always giving commensurate results.
Still further, an electrical device to assist collection has been used, but according to the following newspaper article from the "Saint Paul Pioneer Press" of Saint Paul, Minn. (Jun. 2, 1993 at page 4A), much danger is associated with its use:
"Worm Getter," an electrical probe that is suppose [sic] to shock earthworms into crawling to the surface of the ground where they can be collected for fish bait, is being recalled by retailers because such devices have been putting fishermen underground instead. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said the 83,000 owners of the devices should return them for refunds, following reports that 30 worm hunters have been electrocuted.
Other techniques for collecting earthworms have involved the use of chemicals, but this can be harmful to the earthworms as pointed out in U.S. Pat. No. 1,446,914 as well as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,239,413, both of which teach chemical solutions designed to drive earthworms out of the earth.
Thus, to the extent known, the art has not heretofore had a completely safe and harmless and almost effortless technique for stimulating earthworms to migrate to the earth's surface for easy collection at any time that the person collecting the worms elects to engage in collection. This invention constitutes a breakthrough solution to that problem.

Flexible bladder for soaking the earth and collecting earthworms and method of use


A push-to-talk communications device (PCD) provides improved push-to-talk (PTT) communications. The PCD may include a PTT activator and a PTT module having a buffer and communications logic for providing full duplex PTT communications. In a Point-to-Point PTT mode of operation, PTT communications are performed between two PCDs with the PCDs exercising floor control. After the establishment of communications between the PCDs, the PCDs may enter a PTT talk mode wherein messages are transmitted between the PCDs in real time when a PTT activator is engaged. A PCD may also enter a group PTT mode wherein a PTT server exercises floor control between an initiating PCD and multiple target PCDs.

A Push-to-Talk (PTT) mode of communication is designed to minimize the delays associated with communicating between communication devices, so as to provide near-instantaneous connectivity. Typically operating in a half duplex channel configuration, which allows one communication device to transmit at a time, a communication device operating in a PTT mode may transmit to a single receiving terminal, or to a group of receiving communication terminals.
A simple example of a known PTT system is a set of two walkie-talkies. In this PTT system the walkie-talkie transmits at a particular frequency to another walkie-talkie, which is tuned to the same frequency. When the walkie-talkie transmit or talk button is depressed, the user may speak and transmit over his walkie-talkie. When the talk button is released the walkie-talkie does not transmit, but may receive transmissions from the other walkie-talkie. Because there is no network involved here, there are no time delays associated with the initiation and completion of a communication link. The significant drawback of such a system, however, is the limited operational range; normally the system does not operate when the distance between terminals exceeds about a mile.
A trunked communication system such as a cellular network may be used to support PTT mode communications. A typical PTT system 100 implemented over a cellular network, as known in the art, is depicted in FIG. 1, which shows a first communication device CD 110 transmitting to a second communication device CD 115. This PTT call is transmitted wirelessly to a first Base Station System (BSS) 120. From the BSS 120, the call request is routed to a first Mobile Switching Center (MSC) 130, which is associated with the BSS 120 serving the CD 110. The MSC 130 then routes the call to a PTT server 140, which is responsible for contacting the intended recipient and establishing floor control for the communications channel. When the CD 110 transmits over the assigned traffic channel, the PTT server 140 routes the call via a second MSC 150 and a second BSS 160 to the intended receiving communication device CD 115.
PTT communication networks, as currently implemented, are expensive and inefficient for conducting PTT calls between communications devices. The inclusion of a PTT server necessary for floor control in the known networks, introduces several time delays into the overall system performance. The user of the initiating communication device must wait for a PTT request to be sent to the PTT server 140, and wait for a responding acknowledgement, typically a chirp, prior to beginning to speak. Thus, there is a delay associated with contacting and receiving acknowledgement from the PTT server 140 before the user can begin to speak a message.
In addition to introducing time delays in the communications link, a PTT server necessitates the use of additional network resources. In a trunked communications system, channels are allocated and shared among multiple users according to need and availability. In the PTT network described above, a PTT server is an integral component of the communications network regardless of the number of targeted recipients. The inclusion of the PTT server necessitates the formation of additional trunk lines and allocation of network resources for establishing a communication connection between two communication devices, which could be performed by a standard cellular network without assistance from a dedicated PTT server.
A third disadvantage of a PTT server is that the receiving party may not cut in and speak while the sending party is speaking. The PTT server exercises floor control over the channel so that one communication device may not transmit over the PTT channel while another communication device is transmitting.

Methods for providing mobile PTT communications without requiring PTT servers


A projection exposure apparatus for microlithography includes a projection lens which includes a plurality of optical elements for imaging mask structures onto a substrate during an exposure process. The projection exposure apparatus also includes at least one manipulator configured to change, as part of a manipulator actuation, the optical effects of at least one of the optical elements within the projection lens by changing a state variable of the optical element along a predetermined travel. The projection exposure apparatus further includes an algorithm generator configured to generate a travel generating optimization algorithm, adapted to at least one predetermined imaging parameter, on the basis of the at least one predetermined imaging parameter.

To ensure very precise imaging of the mask structures on the wafer, a projection lens with the fewest possible wavefront aberrations is desired. Projection lenses are therefore equipped with manipulators which render it possible to correct wavefront aberrations by changing the state of individual optical elements of the projection lens. Examples of such a state change include a change in position in one or more of the six rigid body degrees of freedom of the relevant optical element, an application of heat and/or coldness to the optical element, and a deformation of the optical element. Usually, the aberration characteristic of the projection lens is measured at regular intervals and, if desired, changes in the aberration characteristic are determined between the individual measurements by simulation. Thus, for example, lens-element heating effects can be taken into account in calculations. The terms "lens heating", "lens-element warming", "mirror heating" and "mirror warming" are also used synonymously for "lens-element heating". The manipulator changes to be carried out to correct the aberration characteristic are calculated using a travel generating optimization algorithm, which is also referred to as "manipulator changing model".
"Travel" is understood to mean a change in a state variable of an optical element, effected via manipulator actuation, for the purpose of changing the optical effects thereof. Such travel defined by changing a state variable of the optical element is specified by intended change variables of the manipulator. By way of example, the manipulation can consist of a displacement of the optical element in a specific direction, but also, for example, of a local or two-dimensional loading of the optical element with heat, coldness, forces, light of a specific wavelength or currents. By way of example, the intended change variable can, in the case of a displacement, define a path length to be travelled or an angular range to be travelled.
The desire for continuous miniaturization of the structures to be imaged and for increasing the throughput lead to the situation where the aberration characteristic cannot, in general, be corrected sufficiently satisfactorily in a conventional manner by manipulators, neither during operation nor over the service life of a projection exposure apparatus. In this case, "sufficiently satisfactorily" is understood to mean that the uncorrected residual aberration characteristic leads to a sufficient imaging quality for a multiplicity of usage configurations. Here, a usage configuration should be understood to mean a combination of a mask with an illumination setting used for imaging the same.
It was found to be desirable to set the residual aberration characteristic in view of the processed usage configurations so that important structures, in particular so-called core-region structures (described in more detail below), are imaged very precisely and so that the residual structures, i.e. the peripheral structures, are imaged less precisely but still sufficiently precisely. This is possible, among other reasons, because core-region structures and peripheral structures scan different regions of the wavefronts and the peripheral structures pose significantly lower demands on the scanned wavefront region.
It is known to use travel generating optimization algorithms which usually solve unrestricted quadratic optimization problems in regularized fashion, usually via matrix multiplication by a single preceding calculation of the inverse. To regularize so-called "ill-posed problems", use is made in particular of singular value decomposition with singular-value cut-off or Tikhonov regularization. Details are disclosed in, for example, "Iterative Methods for III-Posed Problems: An Introduction," Inverse and III-Posed Problems, B. Bakushinsky, Mihail Y. Kokurin and Alexandra Smirnova, De Gruyter, 2010, chapters 4 and 5, pages 23-43. Here, the respective user configuration can, as a matter of principle, not be taken or not be sufficiently taken into account.

Projection exposure apparatus with at least one manipulator


Disclosed herein is a non-invasive system for determining tissue composition. The system comprises an imaging system with a non-invasive probe, a signal analyzer, and a correlation processor. The probe includes active imaging components for emitting energy and collecting imaging data including reflected signals from an object of interest. The signal analyzer analyzes the imaging data and determines one or more signal properties from the reflected signals. The correlation processor then associates the one or more signal properties to pre-determined tissue signal properties of different tissue components through a pattern recognition technique wherein the pre-determined tissue signal properties are embodied in a database, and identifies a tissue component of the object based on the pattern recognition technique.

Imaging various tissues and organs of the human body provides useful information in various disciplines of medical practice for determining the best type and course of treatment. For example, intravascular imaging technologies have enabled doctors to create and view a variety of images generated by an imaging device inserted within vasculature. Imaging of the coronary vessels of a patient by techniques involving intravascular insertion of a catheter-mounted probe (e.g., an ultrasound transducer array) can provide physicians with valuable information. Such image data indicates the extent of a stenosis in a patient, reveals progression of disease, and helps determine whether procedures such as angioplasty or atherectomy are indicated or whether more invasive procedures are warranted.
The development of new imaging and/or examining technologies has provided an increasing number of options available to doctors for the non-invasive diagnosis and evaluation of disease. Medical technologies for externally imaging and/or examining both external and internal bodily structures offers a diagnostic tool to establish the need for treatment of a diseased structure, to determine the most appropriate course of treatment, and to assess the effectiveness of the treatment. Such external imaging and/or evaluation techniques can complement traditional radiological imaging techniques (e.g., angiography and mammography) by providing images of the tissue and/or fluid flow without introducing instruments (and the associated health risks) into the patient's body. Internal body structures may be imaged and/or examined to determine the structural or flow characteristics that may indicate abnormalities such as, but not limited to, tumors, cysts, abscesses, mineral deposits, obstructions, plaques, and other anatomical defects or pathologies. Often these high quality images are generated in substantially real time. However, analysis of these images often localizes the object of interest but does not characterize the tissue, requiring a biopsy to classify the tissue and establish a definitive diagnosis. Also, analysis of these images are dependent upon highly trained observers and may be subject to observer biases and result in known observer-variability.
The devices, systems, and methods disclosed herein overcome one or more of the deficiencies of the prior art.

Devices, systems, and method for non-invasive tissue characterization

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