A connector has a housing mounted on a board, and a terminal retained within the terminal accommodation chamber. The housing has a terminal accommodation chamber. The terminal has a hollow-cylindrical connectable portion, into which a corresponding connection pin is inserted, and a leg plate extended from the connectable portion toward the board. The leg plate has a first plate portion extended from the connectable portion and a second plate portion substantially perpendicular to the first plate portion. The first and the second plate portion are partly connected to each other, and the second plate portion is connected to the board.

The present invention relates to a connector for use on a board and, more particularly, to a connector that is mounted on, for example, a printed circuit board.
A conventional connector mounted on a board has a terminal fused to the board.
However, when the connector mounted as above is slightly moved relative to the board and the terminal within this connector is moved following this movement thereof, the following inconvenience occurs. Namely, there is the possibility that cracks or fractures will occur in the fused portion between the board and the terminal, with the result that a state of electrical connection therebetween becomes unstable.
Not Applicable
Thereupon, it is an object of the present invention to provide a connector that is simple in structure and has a high reliability on the electrical connection.
To attain the above object, a connector according to a first aspect of the present invention has a housing mounted on a board and a terminal retained in a terminal accommodation chamber. The housing has the terminal accommodation chamber. The terminal has a hollow-cylindrical connectable portion, into which a corresponding connection pin is inserted, and a leg plate extending from the connectable portion toward the board. The leg-plate has a first plate portion extending from the connectable portion and a second plate portion substantially perpendicular to the first leg portion. The first plate portion and the second plate portion are partly connected to each other, and the second plate portion is connected to the board.
According to this construction, the leg plate of the terminal has the first plate portion and the second plate portion substantially perpendicular to the first plate portion, and the first and the second plate portion are partly connected to each other. And in addition the second plate portion is connected to the board. Therefore, when the terminal has received a stress acting thereon from a direction perpendicular to the first plate portion thereof, the first plate portion is deformed to thereby mitigate this stress. When the terminal has received a stress acting thereon from a direction perpendicular to the second plate portion thereof, the second plate portion is deformed to thereby mitigate this stress. In this way, the stresses acting at least from the two directions are mitigated by the first and the second plate portion. Accordingly, a stable state of electrical connection is obtained, whereby the reliability of this construction is enhanced.
A second aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the first aspect of connector the second plate portion is bent from the first plate portion.
According to this construction, the second plate portion is bent in a direction different from that in which the leg plate is extended. Therefore, the second plate portion is easily bent, whereby the workability of the terminal is enhanced.
A third aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the first aspect of connector the first plate portion has a stopper piece that externally protrudes and the housing has a slit into which the stopper piece is inserted.
According to this construction, the stopper piece of the first plate portion is inserted into the slit and is thereby retained. Therefore, the backlash of the terminal within the housing is suppressed. Therefore, the position of one of the housing and the terminal relative to the other is easily and reliably set, whereby the connector is easily connected to the board.
A fourth aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the first aspect of connector the second plate portion has a spring portion that is bent.
According to this construction, the spring portion mitigates the stress acting in the longitudinal direction (the direction in which the leg plate is extended) of the terminal. For this reason, when the terminal within the housing has received a stress acting in a direction perpendicular to the board in a state of its having been connected onto the board, the spring portion absorbs the stress and mitigates the same. Accordingly, the stress acting in the three directions are mitigated with the result that a more stable state of electrical connection is obtained, whereby the reliability on the connector is enhanced.
A fifth aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the fourth aspect of connector the second plate portion is bent from the first plate portion.
According to this construction, the bending direction of the spring portion and the bending direction of the second plate portion relative to the first plate portion differ from each other. Therefore, it is possible to simultaneously perform the bending of the both without impairing the dimensional precision after the bending thereof. Accordingly, it is possible to provide the terminal that is easy to work and high in precision.
A sixth aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the first aspect of connector the housing is constructed of a housing main body and a spacer block. The terminal accommodation chamber is formed in the housing main body. With the terminal being inserted into the terminal accommodation chamber from a side opposite to that on which the connection pin is inserted into the connectable portion, the spacer block is assembled to the housing main body. As a result of this, the spacer block stops the draw-off of the terminal; the connectable portion is retained by the housing main body; and the leg plate is retained by the spacer block.
According to this construction, the connector is provided through the easy operation of the spacer block being assembled to the housing main body after the insertion of the terminal into the terminal accommodation chamber. Also, in this construction, the position at which the stress is generated in the terminal is dispersed into two positions, i.e., the interior of the housing and the interior of the spacer block. Therefore, compared to a case where the stress-generation position is concentrated on one member, the stress is unlikely to directly act on the second plate portion. Therefore, the durability of the portion of connection of the second plate portion and the board is further enhanced.
A seventh aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the sixth aspect of connector the first plate portion has an externally protruding stopper piece; and the spacer block has a slit having the stopper piece inserted therein.
According to this construction, the second plate portion is disposed at a proper position by inserting the stopper piece into the slit of the spacer block after the accommodating of the connectable portion of the terminal into the housing main body.
An eighth aspect of the present invention is the connector wherein in the third aspect of connector the housing has a rib protruding along the slit.
According to this construction, with the stopper piece of the first plate portion being inserted in the slit, the rib retains the first plate portion. Therefore, a backlash is prevented from occurring in the second plate portion, whereby a stable connection structure is provided.


A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device is provided which uses a laser crystallization method capable of increasing substrate processing efficiency. An island-like semiconductor film including one or more islands is formed by patterning (sub-island). The sub-island is then irradiated with laser light to improve its crystallinity, and thereafter patterned to form an island. From pattern information of a sub-island, a laser light scanning path on a substrate is determined such that at least the sub-island is irradiated with laser light. In other words, the present invention runs laser light so as to obtain at least the minimum degree of crystallization of a portion that has to be crystallized, instead of irradiating the entire substrate with laser light.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laser irradiation method for crystallizing a semiconductor film using a laser light or for performing activation after ion implantation and to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a technique of forming a TFT on a substrate has greatly progressed, and its application and development for active matrix semiconductor display devices have been advanced. In particular, since a TFT using a polycrystalline semiconductor film has higher field-effect mobility (also referred to as mobility) than a TFT using a conventional amorphous semiconductor film, it enables high-speed operation. Although the pixel is conventionally controlled by a driving circuit provided outside the substrate, it is therefore possible to control the pixel by the driving circuit formed on the same substrate where the pixel is formed.
Incidentally, as for the substrate used in the semiconductor device, a glass substrate is regarded as promising in comparison with a single crystal silicon substrate in terms of the cost. A glass substrate is inferior in heat resistance and is easily subjected to thermal deformation. Therefore, in the case where a polysilicon TFT is formed on the glass substrate, in order to avoid thermal deformation of the glass substrate, the use of laser annealing for crystallization of the semiconductor film is extremely effective.
Characteristics of laser annealing are as follows: it can greatly reduce a processing time in comparison with an annealing method using radiation heating or conductive heating; and it hardly causes thermal damage to the substrate by selectively and locally heating a semiconductor or the semiconductor film, for example.
Note that the laser annealing method here indicates a technique of re-crystallizing the damaged layer formed on the semiconductor substrate or the semiconductor film, and a technique of crystallizing the semiconductor film formed on the substrate. Also, the laser annealing method here includes a technique applied to leveling or surface reforming of the semiconductor substrate or the semiconductor film. A laser oscillation apparatus applied thereto is a gas laser oscillation apparatus represented by an excimer laser or a solid laser oscillation apparatus represented by a YAG laser. It is known that the apparatus performs crystallization by heating a surface layer of the semiconductor by irradiation of the laser light in an extremely short period of time of about several tens of nanoseconds to several tens of microseconds.
Lasers are roughly divided into two types: pulse oscillation and continuous oscillation, according to an oscillation method. In the pulse oscillation laser, an output energy is relatively high, so that mass productivity can be increased by setting the size of a beam spot to several cm2 or more. In particular, when the shape of the beam spot is processed using an optical system and made to be a linear shape of 10 cm or more in length, it is possible to efficiently perform irradiation of the laser light to the substrate and further enhance the mass productivity. Thus, for crystallization of the semiconductor film, the use of a pulse oscillation laser is becoming mainstream.
However, in recent years, in crystallization of the semiconductor film, it is found that grain size of the crystal formed in the semiconductor film is larger in the case where the continuous wave laser is used than the case where the pulse oscillation laser is used. When the crystal grain size in the semiconductor film becomes large, the mobility of the TFT formed using the semiconductor film becomes high. For this reason, a continuous wave laser has been attracting attention recently.
However, since the maximum output energy of the continuous wave laser is generally small in comparison with that of the pulse oscillation laser, the size of the beam spot is as small as about 10−3 mm2. Accordingly, in order to perform processing on one large substrate, it is necessary to move a beam irradiation position on the substrate upward and downward, and right and left, and the processing time per substrate is prolonged. As a result, the efficiency of substrate processing is poor and there is an important problem of how to improve the processing speed of the substrate.
Note that beam spot length adjustment technologies using a slit have conventionally been used (refer to, for example, Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 below).
Further, technologies using a laser light of continuous oscillation for crystallization after forming the semiconductor film into an island shape have conventionally been used (refer to, for example Non-Patent Document 1 below).
(Patent Document 1)
JP 11-354463 A (page 3, FIG. 3)
(Patent Document 2)
JP 09-270393 A (pages 3 to 4, FIG. 2)
(Non-Patent Document 1)
Akito Hara, Yasuyoshi Mishima, Tatsuya Kakehi, Fumiyo Takeuchi, Michiko Takei, Kenichi Yoshino, Katsuyuki Suga, Mitsuru Chida, and Nobuo Sasaki, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., "High Performance Poly-Si TFTs on a Glass by a Stable Scanning CW Laser Lateral Crystallization", IEDM2001.

Method of manufacturing a semiconductor device that includes patterning sub-islands

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


An apparatus, including a plurality of devices, a network operations center (NOC), and a plurality of control nodes. Each device consumes a portion of the resource when turned on, and performs a corresponding function within an acceptable operational margin by cycling on and off. The NOC generates a plurality of run time schedules that coordinates run times for the each of the plurality of devices to control the peak demand of the resource. Each of the control nodes is coupled to a corresponding one of the devices. The plurality of control nodes transmits sensor data and device status to the NOC for generation of the plurality of run time schedules, and executes selected ones of the run time schedules to cycle the plurality of devices on and off, and each control node monitors a corresponding device for deviations from nominal operation.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of resource management, and more particularly to an off-site apparatus and method for evaluating the operation of equipment in a demand coordination network and for coordinating the use of certain resources such that a peak demand of those resources is optimized.
2. Description of the Related Art
The problem with resources such as electrical power, water, fossil fuels, and their derivatives (e.g., natural gas) is that the generation and consumption of a resource both vary with respect to time. Furthermore, the delivery and transport infrastructure is limited in that it cannot instantaneously match generation levels to provide for consumption levels. The delivery and transport infrastructure is limited in supply and the demand for this limited supply is constantly fluctuating. As anyone who has participated in a rolling blackout will concur, the times are more and more frequent when resource consumers are forced to face the realities of limited resource supply.
Most notably, the electrical power generation and distribution community has begun to take proactive measures to protect limited instantaneous supplies of electrical power by imposing a demand charge on consumers in addition to their monthly usage charge. In prior years, consumers merely paid for the total amount of power that they consumed over a billing period. Today, most energy suppliers are not only charging customers for the total amount of electricity they have consumed over the billing period, but they are additionally charging for peak demand. Peak demand is the greatest amount of energy that a customer uses use during a measured period of time, typically on the order of minutes.
For example, consider a factory owner whose building includes 20 air conditioners, each consuming 10 KW when turned on. If they are all on at the same time, then the peak demand for that period is 200 KW. Not only does the energy supplier have to provide for instantaneous generation of this power in conjunction with loads exhibited by its other consumers, but the distribution network that supplies this peak power must be sized such that it delivers 200 KW.
Consequently, high peak demand consumers are required to pay a surcharge to offset the costs of peak energy generation and distribution. And the concept of peak demand charges, while presently being levied only to commercial electricity consumers and to selected residential consumers, is applicable to all residential consumers and consumers of other limited generation and distribution resources as well. Water and natural gas are prime examples of resources that will someday exhibit demand charges.
Yet, consider that in the facility example above it is not time critical or comfort critical to run every air conditioning unit in the building at once. Run times can be staggered, for example, to mitigate peak demand. And this technique is what is presently employed in the industry to lower peak demand. There are very simply ways to stagger run times, and there are very complicated mechanisms that are employed to lower peak demand, but they all utilize variations of what is known in the art as deferral.
Stated simply, deferral means that some devices have to wait to run while other, perhaps higher priority, devices are allowed to run. Another form of deferral is to reduce the duty cycle (i.e., the percentage of the a device cycle that a device is on) of one or more devices in order to share the reduction in peak demand desired. What this means in the air conditioning example above is that some occupants are going to experience discomfort while waiting for their turn to run. When duty cycles are reduced to defer demand, everyone in the facility is going to experience mild discomfort. And as one skilled in the art will appreciate, there is a zone of comfort beyond which productivity falls.
Virtually every system of resource consuming devices exhibits a margin of acceptable operation ("comfort zone" in the air conditioning example above) around which operation of the device in terms of start time, duration, and duty cycle can be deferred. But the present inventors have observed that conventional techniques for controlling peak demand all involve delaying ("deferring") the start times and durations of devices and/or decreasing the duty cycles, thus in many instances causing local environments to operate outside of their acceptable operational margins. It is either too hot, too cold, not enough water, the motors are not running long enough to get the job done, and etc.
Accordingly, what is needed is an apparatus and method for managing peak demand of a resource that considers acceptable operational margins in determining when and how long individual devices in a system will run.
What is also needed is a technique for scheduling run times for devices in a controlled system that is capable of advancing the start times and durations of those devices, and that is capable of increasing the duty cycles associated therewith in order to reduce demand while concurrently maintaining operation within acceptable operational margins.
What is additionally needed is a mechanism for modeling and coordinating the operation of a plurality of devices in order to reduce peak demand of a resource, where both advancement and deferral are employed effectively to reduce demand and retain acceptable operational performance.
What is moreover needed is an demand coordination apparatus and method that employs adaptive modeling of local environments and anticipatory scheduling of run times in order to reduce peak demand while maintaining acceptable operation.
Furthermore, what is needed is a demand coordination mechanism that will perform reliably and deterministically in the presence of periodic network disruptions.
Also, what is needed is a technique for characterizing consumption of a resource by one or more devices by passively monitoring a corresponding resource meter.
In addition, what is needed is a mechanism for characterizing consumption of a resource by one or more devices by actively cycling the one or more devices and monitoring a corresponding resource meter.
Furthermore, what is needed is a technique for analyzing a system of devices within a facility with respect to consumption of a resource.
Moreover, what is needed is a mechanism for controlling a comfort level within a facility by substituting interrelated devices in order to control consumption of a resource.
In addition, what is needed is a technique for identifying candidate buildings for application of resource demand management mechanisms.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Apparatus and method for evaluating equipment operation in a demand coordination network


A method to identify a relationship between at least pairs of variables in a dataset generates a novel measure of dependence, referred to as a Maximal Information Coefficient (MIC), that captures a wide range of interesting associations (not limited to specific function types such as linear, exponential or periodic, or to all functional relationships), and that gives similar scores to equally noisy relationships of different types. MIC is based on the idea that if a relationship exists between two variables, then a grid can be drawn on a scatterplot of the two variables that partitions the data to encapsulate that relationship.

Technical Field
The disclosed subject matter relates generally to identifying associations in large data sets.
Background of the Related Art
Mutual Information
The information-theoretic concepts of entropy and mutual information are well-known. The Shannon entropy of a discrete random variable X is a measure of its information content and is defined by
                              H                                (            X            )                          =                  -                                    ∑                              i                =                1                            B                                                                  p                                                  (                                      x                    i                                    )                                                          log                                                                                p                                                  (                                      x                    i                                    )                                                                                (        0.1        )            where x1, . . . , xB are the possible values of X.
Given two random variables, X and Y, their mutual information quantifies how much of the information in each variable can be explained by the other and is defined by:I(X;Y)=H(X)+H(Y)−H(X,Y)  (0.2)where H(X,Y) refers to the entropy of the ordered pair (X,Y), and can be re-written directly as:
                              I                                (                          X              ;              Y                        )                          =                  -                                    ∑                              i                ,                                  j                  =                  1                                            B                                                                  p                                                  (                                      i                    ,                    j                                    )                                                          log                                                                                p                                                        (                                          i                      ,                      j                                        )                                                                                p                      x                                                                                (                      i                      )                                                                                p                      y                                                                                (                      j                      )                                                                                (        0.3        )            where p is the joint probability distribution function and px and py are the marginal probability distribution functions of X and Y respectively. Intuitively, mutual information is a measure of the degree to which knowing the value of either variable gives information about the other. It has several properties that make it a desirable basis for a measure of association: it is invariant under order-preserving transformations of X and Y, it is always non-negative, and, most importantly, it equals zero precisely when X and Y are statistically independent.
The challenge in applying mutual information to detect relationships between two continuous variables lies in the fact that it is calculated over probability distributions. Methods for estimating the mutual information of the prior distribution of a set of measurements, called mutual information estimators, have been based on a range of techniques from histograms, to kernel density estimation, to clustering.
Mutual Information Estimation Using Gridding-Based Methods
Estimating mutual information from empirical data commonly involves two steps: estimating the joint distribution of the data, and then calculating the mutual information of that estimated distribution. Early methods for mutual information estimation impose a grid on the data in question to obtain an estimate of their joint probability distribution as illustrated in FIG. 1 (a). To this distribution they apply Equation 0.3 above to obtain a mutual information score. When formulating an approach to gridding the plot of a set of ordered points, there are two main questions to be considered: how many cells to allow in the grid, and where to place the grid lines. Equispatial partitioning (i.e. the histogram approach) simply chooses fixed numbers of rows and columns and splits the scatter plot into equal-sized rectangles. Equipartitioning (called adaptive partitioning in the literature) chooses fixed numbers or rows and columns and splits the scatter plot while attempting to place the same number of points in each row and column. Alternatively, the more advanced Fraser-Swinney algorithm continues refining its partition until a condition about the equi-distribution of the points in the cells is met. Similarly, algorithms for Bayesian bin density estimation can be used to evaluate the posterior probabilities of all possible binnings in estimating the joint distribution.
In addition to being heavily impacted by the partitioning method chosen, grid-based approaches are significantly affected by the numbers of rows and columns of the chosen grid (FIG. 1 (b-d)). To illustrate this point, imagine a set of 1000 uniformly distributed points in the x-y plane. If each axis is partitioned in half (making 4 total "boxes") then each quadrant of the x-y plane will have approximately the same number of points in it, and the estimated mutual information of this distribution is very close to zero. If, on the other hand, each axis is partitioned into 1,000 pieces (making a total of 106 boxes), most of the columns will contain close to one non-empty box and the same is true for most of the rows. This will lead to a very high mutual information score since knowing the column in which a point falls is almost tantamount to knowing the row in which it falls and vice versa. This illustrates a standard dilemma in density estimation: if the number of partitions used is too small, then only very coarse details of the data become visible, but if it is large, then spurious fine details receive too much emphasis, resulting in artificially high mutual information scores.
When attempting to estimate the mutual information of a distribution given a finite set of points drawn from that distribution, equipartitioning performs significantly better than equispatial partitioning provided the numbers of rows and columns are large enough and the sample size is even larger. However, as discussed above both of these methods suffer from the fact that the numbers of rows and columns chosen affect the resultant scores. The Fraser-Swinney algorithm does not provide a significant improvement over either method. Finally, in cases where N<<MXY, approaches like Bayesian bin density estimation tend to work well.
Limitations of Mutual Information
Mutual information is a nonparametric statistic that is designed to detect any deviation from statistical independence, regardless of the form of that deviation. Because of this attractive property, mutual information has been used in several settings to measure the strength of associations of specific types. However, it has not been effectively used to compare relationships of different types to each other. This is because the mutual information of different types of functional relationships depends heavily on the specific functions governing those relationships. Simply put, not all functions preserve information to the same extent. For example, a perfect linear relationship has a higher mutual information than a perfect parabolic one because a linear function maps every x value to a unique y value while a parabolic function does not.
Mutual information does not give a meaningful measure of the strength of a dependence that can be compared across relationship types. The aim of all of the above mutual information estimation methods is to accurately estimate the mutual information of the "true" distribution governing a set of sample points. However, given that different distributions have inherently different mutual information scores, mutual information, no matter how well estimated for a given set of points, is not sufficient for comparing different distributions. This limitation has prevented the realization of the full potential of mutual information to detect a wide range of relationships.
Finally, not only is the mutual information of different classes of distributions different, but mutual information estimation is sensitive to sample size, making it very difficult even to compare the mutual information scores of the same types of distributions with different sample sizes. This, compounded by the fact that mutual information is unbounded and grows to infinity with increased sample size, makes interpreting mutual information scores extremely difficult in most settings. Mutual information can of course be normalized, but the differences between differential entropy and discrete entropy limit the scope of normalized mutual information variants that employ entropy to discrete random variables.
In this application, the partiality of a statistic will refer to a tendency of that statistic to give higher scores to certain relationship types (i.e. lack of equitability). A practical example of how the partiality of mutual information affects its ability to agnostically score different types of relationships can be observed using a dataset containing data from the World Health Organization about all the countries in the world (which is explored further below as a detailed example of the application of the disclosed subject matter). FIG. 7(i) shows a quartet of relationships from the WHO dataset. Of these four relationships, the left two appear relatively noiseless while the right two appear more noisy. However, mutual information as estimated by Kraskov et al. assigns the top two relationships similar scores and assigns the bottom two relationships similar scores as well.

Identifying associations in data and performing data analysis using a normalized highest mutual information score


A method of producing a carbon fiber-metal composite material includes: (a) mixing an elastomer, a reinforcement filler, and carbon nanofibers, and dispersing the carbon nanofibers by applying a shear force to obtain a carbon fiber composite material; and (b) replacing the elastomer in tho carbon fiber composite material with a metal material, wherein the reinforcement filler improves rigidity of at least the metal material.

The present invention relates to a carbon fiber-metal composite material and a method of producing the same.
In recent years, a composite material using carbon nanofibers has attracted attention. Such a composite material is expected to exhibit improved mechanical strength and the like due to inclusion of the carbon nanofibers. However, since the carbon nanofibers have strong aggregating properties, it is very difficult to uniformly disperse the carbon nanofibers in the matrix of the composite material. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain a carbon nanofiber composite material having desired properties. Moreover, expensive carbon nanofibers cannot be efficiently utilized.
As a casting method for a metal composite material, a casting method, which causes magnesium vapor to permeate and become dispersed in a porous formed product of oxide ceramics while introducing nitrogen gas so that a molten metal permeates the porous formed product, has been proposed (e.g. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-183269). However, since the related-art casting method which causes the molten metal to permeate the porous formed product of oxide ceramics involves complicated processing, production on an industrial scale is difficult.

Carbon fiber-metal composite material and method of producing the same


In one embodiment, a surface scanning system comprises a radiation directing assembly that scans a surface using a Cartesian scanning pattern; and a radiation collecting assembly that collects radiation reflected from the surface. A scattered radiation collection system is included that measures the scattered light from the surface.

The subject matter described herein relates to surface inspection techniques, and more particularly to surface scanning, for materials such as, for example, semiconductor materials.
When a patterned wafer is illuminated, the intensity of scattered and reflected light is dependent on the orientation of the incoming radiation with respect to the pattern. Thus, a spiral scan of a patterned wafer will have variations in image intensity as a function of azimuthal angle (as measured from the center of the wafer). The intensity variations complicate the algorithms required to extricate defect information from the image and can dramatically reduce the sensitivity to a variety of defect types. Other modes of surface scanning may be useful for reducing these artifacts.


The present disclosure relates to a composition for removing scales and solid deposits. The composition comprises at least one dispersant salt, at least one hydrocarbon, and at least one ionic liquid.

Hydrocarbons such as crude oil, tar sands, bitumen, tight oil, refined petroleum fractions, and the like contain metals, sand grits, and gum forming compounds. When such hydrocarbon streams are handled in the process industry, most often the corrosive products formed on the inner surface of the process equipments get carried along with the hydrocarbon streams. In addition, organic gum is formed inside the process equipments due to the characteristics of the compounds present in the hydrocarbons. These lead to deposition of organic and inorganic solids in the process equipments such as on the inner walls of heat exchangers, pipelines, pumps, reactors, catalyst bed, valves, etc. The presence of such solid deposits perturbs the operation of the plant. Such solid deposits can block the flow of process streams in the equipments and lead to pressure drop increase, reduce the heat transfer between surfaces, foul the catalyst bed, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the catalyst bed, corrosion of inner walls of equipments and scale formation on the surface, leading to frequent maintenance. Continuous operation of the plant becomes a challenge if the solid deposits are more and hence lead to non-uniform flow distribution and fluctuations in the key parameters of the operation.
Such solid deposits can be removed from the process equipment internals by forced shut down of the plant and manually scavenging the deposits. This is a time consuming process and leads to loss of production. The solid deposits, however, can be disentangled from their location and kept either freely suspended in the process stream or removed along with the process stream. This can be done during an online plant operation by using a dispersant chemical.
I heretore, the inventors of the present disclosure envisage a dispersant composition and a method of using the dispersant composition to remove scales and solid deposits in a process industry.

Composition and method for dispersing scales and solid deposits


The mechanical movement includes a checking device which is a passive indicator element. The passive element is fixed to a fixed support portion of the mechanical movement. The passive element may be a strip or a plate fixed to the fixed support portion of a regulating member and configured to vibrate according to one or more clearly defined vibration frequency components following the vibration of the mechanical movement. The vibration frequency components of the strip or plate define an acoustic signature specific to the timepiece to allow the authenticity of the timepiece to be determined by a measurement of the acoustic signature using an acoustic measuring system.

In the case of a timepiece, such as a mechanical watch, an acoustic signature or acoustic hallmark consists in studying the noises generated by the escapement. To perform this type of measurement, it is sufficient to position the cased watch on a fitting stand, which is always identical, and to record the sound emitted over time by an aerial or contact microphone. The time signal is then analysed to detect the occurrence of shocks and frictions. These measurements are performed to check the chronometric performances of the mechanical movement and to identify operating defects. There are commercial devices which automatically perform this type of measurement. They are for example produced by Witschi Electronic AG.
To the Applicant's knowledge, these measurements have never been adapted and utilised for detecting any counterfeiting of a timepiece. The reason for this is that the analysis generally does not take account of the specific frequency content of the generated noise. Further, depending on the various systems for measuring the noises generated by a mechanical watch movement, it is difficult to extract behaviour patterns, which are repeated, for different mechanical movements of perfectly identical design. It is to be noted that the simple fact of removing and recasing the same mechanical movement in the watch case is liable to modify certain features, such as the peak shock level. The position of a contact or aerial microphone may also be a source of strong variations in basic acoustic signature indicators. This means that it is not possible to differentiate each watch tested so that it can be precisely identified either as a specific calibre, or as a specific piece.

Method for checking the identity of a mechanical watch movement


Protection panel (3) for an aircraft suitable for being associated with at least a portion of the surface to be protected, consisting of a plurality of layers associated with each other made of aramid fibre in which at least one of said layers consists of an aramid fibre or unidirectional fabric.

The present invention relates to a protection panel for aircrafts.
In particular, the present invention relates to a protection panel for engines or other critical aircraft components suitable for the absorption of impact with fragments for example metallic having a high kinetic energy which could cause a catastrophic breakage of one or more components of another engine of the aircraft.
The ever-increasing use of twin-engine aeroplanes even on long-range lines makes it fundamental to protect engines or other critical components from impact with splinters expelled from the other engine due to the breakage of moving mechanical organs.
Traditional solutions use metallic protections installed directly on the engine for this purpose.
These traditional solutions mainly have the disadvantage of being heavy, costly and obstructing maintenance operations.
The Applicant has faced the problem of simply, effectively and economically protecting engines from damage due to interferences with objects, for example projected towards the fan cowl of the engine itself by the breakage of another engine of the aircraft.
In particular, the solution found envisages that on the fan cowl of the engine or plating adjacent to other critical components, a multilayer panel be installed having at least one layer of fabric or unidirectional made of aramid fibre. The various layers can be bound to each other by means of a resin which should then be polymerized according to a specific treating cycle on a suitable mould, or by sewing the various layers together.


A method of a continuous speech recognition system is given for discriminatively training hidden Markov for a system recognition vocabulary. An input word phrase is converted into a sequence of representative frames. A correct state sequence alignment with the sequence of representative frames is determined, the correct state sequence alignment corresponding to models of words in the input word phrase. A plurality of incorrect recognition hypotheses is determined representing words in the recognition vocabulary that do not correspond to the input word phrase, each hypothesis being a state sequence based on the word models in the acoustic model database. A correct segment of the correct word model state sequence alignment is selected for discriminative training. A frame segment of frames in the sequence of representative frames is determined that corresponds to the correct segment. An incorrect segment of a state sequence in an incorrect recognition hypothesis is selected, the incorrect segment corresponding to the frame segment. A discriminative adjustment is performed on selected states in the correct segment and the corresponding states in the incorrect segment.

The invention generally relates to automatic speech recognition, and more particularly, to a technique for adjusting the mixture components of hidden Markov models as used in automatic speech recognition.
The goal of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems is to determine the lexical identity of spoken utterances. The recognition process, also referred to as classification, begins with the conversion of the acoustical signal into a stream of spectral vectors or frames that describe the important characteristics of the signal at specified times. Classification is attempted by first creating reference models that describe some aspect of the behavior of spectral frames corresponding to different words.
A wide variety of models have been developed, but they all share the property that they describe the temporal characteristics of spectra typical to particular words or sub-word segments. The sequence of spectra arising from an input utterance is compared to such models, and the success with which different models predict the behavior of the input frames determines the putative identity of the utterance.
Currently most systems utilize some variant of a statistical model called the hidden Markov model (HMM). Such models consist of sequences of states connected by arcs, and a probability density function (pdf) associated with each state which describes the likelihood of observing any given spectral vector at that state. A separate set of probabilities determines transitions between states.
Various levels of modeling power are available in the case of the probability densities describing the observed spectra associated with the states of the HMM. There are two major approaches: the discrete pdf and the continuous pdf. With continuous pdfs, parametric functions specify the probability of any arbitrary input spectral vector given a state. The most common class of functions used for this purpose is a mixture of Gaussians, where arbitrary pdfs are modeled by a weighted sum of normal distributions. One drawback of using continuous pdfs is that the designer must make explicit assumptions about the nature of the pdf being modeledxe2x80x94something which can be quite difficult since the true distribution form for the speech signal is not known. In addition, continuous pdf models are computationally far more expensive than discrete pdf models.
The total number of pdfs in a recognition system depends on the number of distinct HMM states, which in turn is determined by type of models usedxe2x80x94e.g., phonetic or word models. In many systems the states from different models can be pooledxe2x80x94i.e., the states from different models can share pdfs from a common set or pool. For example, some states from two different models that represent a given phone in different phonetic contexts (i.e., an allophone) may have similar pdfs. In some systems these pdfs will be combined into one, to be shared by both states. This may be done to save memory and in some instances to overcome a problem known as undertraining.
The model pdfs, whether discrete or continuous, are most commonly trained using the maximum likelihood method. In this manner, the model parameters are adjusted so that the likelihood of observing the training data given the model is maximized. However, it is known that this approach does not necessarily lead to the best recognition performance. This realization has led to the development of new training criteria, known as discriminative, the objective of which is to adjust model parameters so as to minimize the number of recognition errors rather than fit the distributions to the data.
FIG. 1 shows a feature vector 10 representative of an input speech frame in a multidimensional vector space, a xe2x80x9ccorrectxe2x80x9d state SC 11 from the model that corresponds to the input speech, and an xe2x80x9cincorrectxe2x80x9d state SI 12 from a model that does not correspond to the input speech. As shown in FIG. 1, the vector space distance from the feature vector 10 to the best branch 13 (the closest mixture component) of correct state SC 11, is very nearly the same as the vector space distance from the feature vector 10 to the best branch 14 of the incorrect state SI 12. In this situation, there is very little basis at the state level for distinguishing the correct state SC 11 from the incorrect state SI 12.
Discriminative training attempts to adjust the best branch 13 of correct state SC 11 a little closer to the vector space location of feature vector 10, and adjust the best branch 14 of the incorrect state SI 12 a little farther from the vector space location of feature vector 10. Thus, a future feature vector near the vector space of feature vector 10 will be more likely to be identified with correct state SC 11 than with incorrect state SI 12. Of course discriminative training may adjust the vector space of the correct state with respect to multiple incorrect states. Similarly, rather than adjusting the best branches of the states, a set of mixture components within each state may be adjusted.
While discriminative training shows considerable promise, so far it has been applied most successfully to small vocabulary and isolated word recognition tasks. In addition, discriminative training presents a number of new problems, such as how to appropriately smooth the discriminatively trained pdfs, and how to adapt these systems to a new user with a relatively small amount of training data.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,013 describes a system using discriminatively trained multi-resolution models in the context of an isolated word recognition system. However, the techniques described therein are not efficiently extensible to a continuous speech recognition system.
A representative embodiment of the present invention includes a method of a continuous speech recognition system for discriminatively training hidden Markov for a system recognition vocabulary. An input word phrase is converted into a sequence of representative frames. A correct state sequence alignment with the sequence of representative frames is determined, the correct state sequence alignment corresponding to models of words in the input word phrase. A plurality of incorrect recognition hypotheses is determined representing words in the recognition vocabulary that do not correspond to the input word phrase, each hypothesis being a state sequence based on the word models in the acoustic model database. A correct segment of the correct word model state sequence alignment is selected for discriminative training. A frame segment of frames in the sequence of representative frames is determined that corresponds to the correct segment. An incorrect segment of a state sequence in an incorrect recognition hypothesis is selected, the incorrect segment corresponding to the frame segment. A discriminative adjustment is performed on selected states in the correct segment and the corresponding states in the incorrect segment.
In a further embodiment, performing a discriminative adjustment occurs in a batch training mode at the end of a user session with the speech recognition system, and the discriminative adjustment performed on the selected and corresponding states represents a sum of calculated adjustments over the session. Alternatively, performing a discriminative adjustment may occur in an on-line mode in which the selected and corresponding states are discriminatively adjusted for each input word phrase.
Performing a discriminative adjustment may include using a language model weighting of the selected and corresponding states, in which case, when the selected segment of an incorrect recognition hypothesis is a fractional portion of a word model state sequence, the language model weighting for the fractional portion corresponds to the fractional amount of the word model that the fractional portion represents. The discriminative adjustment may include performing a gradient adjustment to selected branches of a selected state in the correct hypothesis model and a corresponding state in the incorrect hypothesis. The gradient adjustment may be to the best branch in each state model.

Discriminatively trained mixture models in continuous speech recognition


A method and apparatus for generating transform-based color profiles by a measurement-based Color Management System (CMS). The measurement-based CMS generates the transform-based profile wherein the measurement-based color system is parameterized by color data and procedures. The CMS may use a reference Profile Connection Space (PCS) loaded from a measurement profile, thus enabling user configuration of the generation process. The reference PCS may also be set to include a gamut that is appropriate for an eventual color-output device. In addition, a Gamut Mapping Model (GMM) used in the generation process is user-selectable as well as a Device Model (DM). The DM may also be supplied as a pluggable module. The CMS also features user-selectable mapping from an International Color Consortium (ICC) intent to a PCS profile and to a DM. The features of the CMS may be used in an application, stand-alone profiling tool or in an operating system utility.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Color Management Systems (CMSs) and more particularly, to measurement-based CMSs that can generate transform-based profiles either automatically or under user control.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, there are many software profile-building tools that convert colorimetric measurement data into an International Color Consortium (ICC) device profile. Most of these tools directly control various measuring devices, such as calorimeters, spectrophotometers, and spectroradiometers, to capture the colorimetric data. The better tools offer some controls to let users control some aspects of black-generation, under color removal, and similar areas that address the many-to-one relationship between device control values and colorimetry. Some tools even offer the option of directly manipulating the one dimensional lookup tables, multi-dimensional lookup tables, and matrices in the resultant ICC device profile.
It is also a common feature of these systems that the calorimetric measurements may be stored in a data file. Often, these measurements are stored in a standard file format like the CGATS IT8.7 series of file formats.
The profile-building tools referred to above are used to create transform-based profiles that work in transform-based Color Management Modules (CMMs). A transform-based CMM makes use of an internal Profile Connection Space (PCS) that has a colorimetrically-defined color space volume. The viewing conditions of the PCS are strictly defined. This allows the PCS values to represent a known appearance.
The ICC discovered that it was important that the PCS also have a limited volume. If a printer device model, for example, had to map all possible color appearance values to fit within the gamut of the printer, then the gamut of color appearance values produced by typical source devices ends up over-compressed. In order to overcome this problem, the ICC has defined a reference PCS gamut. Earlier, the definition of the PCS gamut was determined by individual vendors, who often did not publish the characteristics of this gamut. Colors within the PCS reference gamut occupy most or all of the printer's gamut. Colors outside the reference PCS gamut are either clipped or compressed into a narrow range of the printer's gamut. Note that similar compression may be necessary for input devices with a gamut that extends outside the PCS reference gamut. One example is the gamut of a monitor. The light green of the green primary is outside the typical PCS reference gamut and so must be compressed.
ICC profiles are called transform-based profiles because mapping between the source colorimetry in the source viewing conditions to the volume of the PCS in the PCS viewing conditions, which requires a significant amount of processing and often requires certain aesthetic decisions as well, is performed by the profile building software and is stored in the profile in the form of a pre-computed transform. There are several steps involved in computing this transform. First, the source device values must be converted into colorimetry—a process called "device modeling." Next, the source colorimetry and source viewing conditions are used to create color appearance values in a color appearance space. If some of the original color appearance does not fit within the PCS gamut, then some sort of gamut mapping will be needed. Many different Gamut Mapping Algorithms (GMAs) are known; it is an aesthetic decision which one to use. This mapping from source device space to the PCS gamut is called an AToB mapping. Once the mapping has been determined, the profile-building application creates a multidimensional lookup table (LUT). Using the LUT, a CMM can map from device control value to PCS value using simple table lookup and interpolation techniques. All the complex calculations took place when the LUT was created. A similar mapping, called a BToA mapping, is required to obtain device control values for an output device from PCS values.
ICC users have long requested that suppliers of CMSs move from the "Smart profile/dumb CMM" model to a "Dumb Profile/Smart CMM" model, that is, from a transform-based architecture to a measurement-based one. In a measurement-based model, the profiles contain only the colorimetric measurements themselves and the computation of the color transformation is performed by the CMS. U.S. Pat. No. 6,603,483 describes such an architecture. Such measurement-based profiles are much easier for users to validate and, if necessary, modify.
It may be the case in a networked computer environment that there are computers where the operating system supports a transform-based CMS and computers where the operating system supports a measurement-based CMS. A system based on measurement profiles may need to print to a networked printer. If that printer either is on an operating system using transform-based profiles or if the printer directly supports transform-based profiles, then there may be a need to provide a transform-based profile that has equivalent behavior to the color management transformation obtained from the measurement-based profile in a measurement-based CMS.
In the case above, if the destination machine (printer or networked computer) does not validate profiles, there is no need to create a completely conformant transform-based profile, since only one of the two transforms (AtoB or BtoA) is needed. However, profile building software will always build both transforms. Thus, it may be desirable to be able to create only the needed elements of the transform-based profile from the measurements.
One approach would be to use the measurements as input to a typical ICC profile builder. There are several possible problems with this approach. First, it may be important to perform this conversion in an automated system without requiring user intervention. Second, the measurement-based profiles may not contain the specific measurement values needed for the profile builder. Third, it is desirable to provide users with as much consistency with the measurement-based CMS as possible. Fourth, it would be advantageous to use the device-specific expertise that hardware vendors use in creating device model plug-ins for the measurement-based CMS. It is also desirable that the solution be able to avoid the limitations of the print-centric ICC PCS. (By "print-centric," it is meant that the PCS gamut is shaped like that of a typical ink-jet printer, with the most chromatic values being dark. When transforming between two video displays, the print-centric gamut requires clipping colors to the PCS gamut that are actually within the gamut of both the source and destination devices.)
In the networked environment described above, it may be desirable to obtain color results that are as consistent as possible across all the computers, regardless of how their CMS works. This is difficult to achieve when some profiles are measurement-based and the intelligence is in the CMM and other profiles are transformed-based, with the intelligence in the profile builder.
Therefore, a need exists for a CMS that is capable of generating transform-based profiles from measurement-based profiles. The CMS should be capable of using as much device-specific information as is available to the CMS and the generation process should be capable of being automated. Various aspects of the present invention meet such a need.

Creation of transform-based profiles by a measurement-based color management system


A semiconductor laser device comprises a III-V group p-type compound semiconductor substrate, a mesa-shaped narrow and straight multilayer double heterostructure having an active layer therein and blocking layers formed on the lateral sides of said double heterostructure in a pnp layer arrangement, and the n-type layer of said blocking layers is kept away from the lateral sides of the double heterostructure having an active layer.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a semiconductor laser device to be suitably used for a light source of an optical telecommunication system or an optical data processing system.
2. Prior Art
As is well known, semiconductor laser devices realized by using III-V group compounds, InGaAsP-InP semiconductor laser devices in particular, play a vital role in modern optical telecommunication and data processing systems.
For instance, a III-V group compound semiconductor laser device comprising an active layer for laser oscillation surrounded by a heterojunction interface and a p-type substrate has remarkable advantages as described below.
Firstly, since a pnp interface having a large pressure resistance for the pn junction is used for the buried blocking layers of the device, the device will have an output capacity higher than that of a device comprising an n-type substrate and is operational at high temperature.
Secondly, since its p-type ohmic electrode is formed on a P-type semiconductor substrate containing impurities at a higher level, their contact resistance is rather low, making the device a low energy consuming one.
FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings illustrates a buried type semiconductor laser device comprising a p-InP substrates as disclosed in Laid Open Japanese Patent Application No. 61-190993.
This known semiconductor laser device may be prepared typically by a process as described below.
In the first crystal growth step, a p-InP clad layer 22, an InGaAs active layer 23 and another p-InP clad layer 24 are sequentially formed on the (100) surface of p-InP substrate 21.
In the following etching step, the upper surface of the p-InP clad layer 22 is covered with a 1.5 to 2.0 m wide dielectric mask along a center line of the clad layer 22 and thereafter the p-InP clad layer 22 is etched down to the p-InP substrate 21 except the masked area to produce a straight and narrow mesa.
In the second crystal growth step, a p-InP buried layer 25 is formed on each lateral side of the mesa, which is then sequentially covered by an n-InP buried layer 26 and a p-InP layer 27.
Then, the dielectric mask is removed.
In a third crystal growth step, another n-InP buried layer 28 is formed to cover the upper surface of the mesa as well as the p-InP buried layer 27 located on the lateral sides of the mesa, followed by an n-InP contact layer 29 formed thereon to produce a flat and smooth upper surface for the device.
Then, a p-side electrode 30 and an n-side electrode 31 are formed respectively on the lower surface of the substrate 21 and the upper surface of the n-InP contact layer 29.
Thus, a buried type semiconductor laser device as illustrated in FIG. 2 comprises a p-InP buried layer 25 formed on the lateral sides of the mesa and having a large electric resistance.
The pnpn layer arrangement of the semiconductor laser device yields so many blocking layers that reduce the leakage current.
A known semiconductor laser device of FIG. 2 can, however, show an increased rate of leakage current and hence a high oscillation threshold current if the p-InP buried layer 25 is made thick between the lateral sides of the mesa and the n-InP buried layer 26 as the layer 25 provides a path for the leakage current.
On the other hand, it is very difficult for a semiconductor laser device having a configuration as illustrated in FIG. 2 to exactly show a given distance between the lateral sides of the mesa and the n-InP buried layer 26 because the growth of the thickness of the p-InP buried layer 25 needs to be controlled as a function of the height of the mesa. It is noted that the oscillation threshold current of such a semiconductor laser device can be indefinable particularly when the layers are formed by a liquid phase epitaxial growth technique.
Additionally, if the mesa of the device of FIG. 2 is low, the n-InP buried layer 26 can easily become higher than the mesa such that the n-InP buried layer 26 can eventually reach the n-InP buried layer 28 in the third round of crystal growth to provide a broad way for the leakage current, which by turn can destructively damage the device.
In view of the above described technological problems of existing semiconductor laser devices, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor laser device that can effectively suppress the leakage current as well as a method for manufacturing such reliable semiconductor laser devices with a high yield and at low cost.


A method and apparatus for decomposing timing jitter on arbitrary serial data sequences. Specifically, in one embodiment according to the present invention, a method is provided of decomposing timing jitter on a signal under test (SUT) comprising an arbitrary serial data stream. The method comprises performing a statistical analysis on a group of measurements, where each measurement comprises a timing jitter value and an associated bit pattern representing the bits falling within an analysis window, said window being successively located at a plurality of positions within the data stream.

As tighter timing margins and rapidly ascending clock rates drive today's high-speed designs, timing jitter (hereafter referred to simply as "jitter") is becoming a more significant cause of system errors. Jitter can significantly reduce margin in an otherwise sound design. For example, excessive jitter can increase the bit error rate (BER) of a communications signal by incorrectly transmitting a data bit stream. In digital systems, jitter can violate timing margins, causing circuits to behave improperly. As a consequence, measuring jitter accurately is necessary to determine the robustness of a system and how close it is to failing.
In the field of serial data communications, the term "jitter" refers to the deviation of the significant edges in a sequence of data bits from their ideal locations in time. On serial data links, the data clock is typically not transmitted with the data, so the jitter can cause data errors at the receiving end.
Jitter can be divided into two generalized categories: deterministic jitter (DJ) and random jitter (RJ). These two categories of jitter accumulate differently in the serial data communications link, and it is desirable to be able to separate and measure each of the two categories of jitter. The deterministic jitter can further be divided into three components: inter-symbol interference (ISI), duty cycle distortion (DCD) and periodic jitter (PJ). It is again desirable to measure each individual component of the deterministic jitter as an aid in diagnosing the cause(s) of the jitter.
A number of methods have been developed for measuring jitter on data streams, and for decomposing this jitter into its various components. Signal acquisition devices such as digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs) can be used to facilitate real time jitter analysis of an SUT.
A weakness of several of the known methods is that they require a repeating pattern of known length in order to separate out one of the jitter components, namely, the ISI. In one of the known methods, the data sequence must consist solely of a repeating pattern of known length, even though the specific bit values need not be known. In another prior art method, a pattern for which the data bits are completely known must be repeated (possibly interspersed with other data).
Moreover, existing methods that provide analysis on an arbitrary data stream are not capable of fully decomposing the jitter, and require expensive, special-purpose equipment. Existing methods for fully decomposing jitter require that the data stream carry a repeating pattern with a known length, or a completely known sub-pattern that is frequently repeated.

Method for decomposing timing jitter on arbitrary serial data sequences


A process of making biodiesel from crude tall oil by reacting crude tall oil with a C1-C6 alkanol in the presence of an acid catalyst or by reacting crude tall oil with an acyl halide in the presence of a C1-C6 alkanol. The reaction product of either of these reactions is separated into a suspension liquid by the addition of a polar liquid. The biodiesel product is recovered from the suspension liquid by addition of an organic solvent which produces a polar liquid phase and an organic liquid phase. The biodiesel is recovered from the organic liquid phase by evaporating the organic solvent, which is recovered for use in subsequent separation processes, and vacuum distilling off the product biodiesel from the organic solvent-free organic liquid phase.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention is directed to a process for producing biodiesel from crude tall oil (CTO). More specifically, the present invention is directed to a process for producing biodiesel by acid catalyzed reaction with alcohol, or by acyl halide reaction of CTO. This alternate reaction step is followed by separation and purification of the biodiesel product by solvent extraction and vacuum distillation.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Biodiesel, which is a term encompassing lower alkyl esters of fatty acids, especially methyl and ethyl esters of fatty acids, is currently the subject of much attention because it is a clean, renewable and biodegradable replacement fuel for conventional diesel fuel. This interest is based on the capability of biodiesel to serve as a complete or partial, e.g. blending with conventional diesel fuels, replacement of diesel fuel.
At present, production of biodiesel is limited to that obtained from the processing of vegetable oils and animal fats in which triglycerides found in those materials are transesterified, by reaction with methanol or ethanol in the presence of a base catalyst, such as sodium or potassium hydroxide, an acid catalyst, such as sulfuric acid, or an enzyme, such as lipase. These processes of producing biodiesel provide an additional benefit, it also yields glycerin, a commercially important compound, as a by-product.
Biodiesel, produced by one of these prior art processes, yields inadequate volume given its effectiveness as a diesel engine fuel. The combustion of biodiesel results in significantly lower emissions of carbon dioxide, particulates and unburned hydrocarbons compared to the emissions resulting from the combustion of conventional diesel fuel. As such, the use of biodiesel provides improved air quality results. Moreover, biodiesel, being a potentially carbon-neutral fuel, aids in amelioration of the greenhouse effect.
Crude tall oil (CTO) is generated during the kraft pulping process. During this process reacted resins obtained from wood are decanted from black liquor before an evaporation process. The decant is denoted as crude tall oil soap. This tall oil soap is decanted from spent cooking liquor in a soap separator. The soap is treated, such as by reaction with carbon dioxide, to produce CTO.
The annual global production of tall oil is about 1.6 million metric tons. Indeed, tall oil supplies about two thirds of the fatty acids used in the United States for industrial purposes. This large production of tall oil is not readably marketable due to weak demand for the prior art products produced from CTO. As a result, there has been a increasing inventory build-up of CTO insofar as the specialty products, into which CTO is presently converted by chemical companies, cannot economically be transmitted to chemical processing plants which are usually located at considerable distances from kraft pulping mills. As such, CTO, which is very viscous, malodorous and sticky, finds itself to be a low value product. This is magnified by the availability of alternative raw materials to produce rosins and varnishes, the products into which CTO was principally converted in the past.
The above remarks emphasize the confluence of a strong need in the art for both a new source of biodiesel and a new utility for CTO.
As stated above, biodiesel is presently produced from vegetable oil (VO), waste vegetable oil (WVO) and fats. Biodiesel is presently produced from any one of these products either by base or direct acid catalyzed transesterification with an alcohol or by conversion to fatty acids and then to alkyl esters with an acid catalyst. Of these methods, base catalyzed transesterification is most common.
Ma et al., Bioresource Tech., 70, 1 (1999) report that the transesterification of glycerides in VO/WVO with an alcohol to produce biodiesel is affected by the glycerides to alcohol molar ratio, reaction time and temperature and the free fatty acid and water content of the vegetable oil or fat.
The prior art includes a series of studies wherein such vegetable oils as soybean oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, palm oil and WVO have been successfully employed in the production of biodiesel.
Additional studies have been conducted to characterize properties of biodiesel and engine emission tests utilizing biodiesel fuel. The conclusions drawn from these studies are that biodiesel serves as a very good substitute for conventional diesel fuel. Indeed, biodiesel is used in the same applications as diesel oil and has been found to have fuel properties similar to or even superior to traditional diesel oil. However, biodiesel provides the added benefits that its source is renewable and that it produces significantly lower emissions of pollutants.
There is very little prior art directed to the production of biodiesel from CTO. Liu et al., Petrol Sci. & Tech., 16 (5-6), 597 (1998) developed a process for producing a diesel oil additive, not biodiesel, from pine oil. That process produced a diesel oil cut which was blended with a base diesel fuel. That blended fuel was subsequently used in road and emissions tests.
The web site of Canadian Renewable Fuels Assn. mentions hydrotreating as a means of converting CTO into biofuels and fuel additives. However, this process is a hydrogenation process which produces hydrocarbon products rather than biodiesel.
Coll et al., Energy & Fuels, 15, 1166 (2001) describe the conversion of the rosin acid fraction of CTO by means of catalytic hydrotreatment into a diesel fuel additive. This process requires high hydrogen pressures of between 100 to 150 bars and elevated temperature of between 350° C. and 400° C. As such, this process is suitable for sophisticated oil refineries only. Although the process of Coll et al. does not employ an esterification process, it is believed to be the only prior art process that suggests the possibility of esterifying the rosin acid fraction of CTO. However, no specifics for such a process are provided.

Process for making biodiesel from crude tall oil

The Research Foundation of State University of New York


An acrylonitrile solution of maleimide manifesting transparency, precluding coloration and opacification during the course of handling, and excelling in stability, a method for the preparation of the acrylonitrile solution, and an acrylonitrile based copolymer obtained by using the acrylonitrile solution are provided.. The acrylonitrile solution of maleimide is such that, when it is subjected to a forced coloration test, the differences .DELTA.L, .DELTA.a, and .DELTA.b values (invariably as absolute values) each between L, a, and b values before and after the test are respectively not more than 5, not more than 5, and not more than 10. The acrylonitrile solution of maleimide is prepared by lowering the water content in the acrylonitrile solution to a level of not more than 0.1% by weight, or causing the acrylonitrile solution to permit coexistence therein of at least one member selected from the group consisting of alkyl-substituted hydroxybenzenes and hindered phenols and at least one member selected from the group consisting of phosphorous esters, phosphoric esters, phosphine, and phosphoric acid amides, or lowering the water content in the acrylonitrile solution to a level of not more than 0.3% by weight and causing the acrylonitrile solution to permit coexistence therein of at least one member selected from the group consisting of alkyl-substituted hydroxybenzenes, hindered phenols, phosphorous esters, phosphoric esters, phosphine, and phosphoric acid amides.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides, a method for the preparation thereof, and acrylonitrile based copolymers obtained by the use of the acrylonitrile solutions.
The maleimides represented by N-phenyl maleimide and the like are used as a heat resistance enhancer for such acrylonitrile based copolymers as acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resin, acrylonitrile-acrylic rubber-styrene (AAS) resin, acrylonitrile-styrene (AS) resin, and acrylonitrile-chlorinated polyethylene-styrene (ACS) resin.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The maleimides which are in a solid state at room temperature have been heretofore handled generally in such forms as powder, flakes, and tablets. The maleimides in these solid forms, however, undergo gradual comminution and yield minute particles copiously during the course of transportation and consequently give rise to numerous problems such as deterioration of the work environment. For the solution of these problems, a method for enabling the maleimides to be handled securely in the form of acrylonitrile solutions obtained in advance by dissolving the maleimides together with a polymerization inhibition in acrylonitrile (JP-B-03-12,057) has been proposed. Since this method which permits the maleimides to be handled in the form of acrylonitrile solutions is excellent in having solved the problems mentioned above, it has been finding growing acceptance for industrial applications.
Since the acrylonitrile as the solvent for the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides constitutes itself the source of the acrylonitrile component of the acrylonitrile based copolymers, the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides, after being handled as for transportation, are used in their unmodified form for the production of the acrylonitrile based copolymers mentioned above.
The maleimides are yellow and the acrylonitrile solutions obtained by dissolving the maleimides in acrylonitrile are yellow and transparent. So long as the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides are as yellow and transparent as they were when they were fresh from the production line, the acrylonitrile based copolymers as finished products using the solutions pose no particular problem concerning the color characteristics. In other words, the acrylonitrile based copolymers as the finished products cannot induce such coloration as tends to impair their marketability.
On no occasion, however, the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides which are fresh from the production line are used immediately for the production of acrylonitrile based copolymers. Generally, the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides after their production are transported by tank lorries and the like, stored in tanks and the like, or conveyed by the pipeline including pipe, valves, and nozzles (such as, for example, the polymer-feeding line from the storage tank for the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides) before they are used for the production of acrylonitrile based copolymers. In the present invention, the transportation as by tank lorries, the storage as in tanks, and the conveyance as by the pipeline including pipe, valves, and nozzles (such as, for example, the polymer-feeding line from the storage tank for the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides) will be referred to collectively as "handling."
After the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides have been handled over a specific period, they possibly change color from the inherent yellow color to a brown color, for example, gain in the degree of yellowness (namely, darken the yellow color), or occasionally opacify. In this invention, these phenomena will be referred to collectively as "discoloration."
The acrylonitrile based copolymers obtained as finished products by using the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides which have been discolored as described above are colored and have markedly impaired marketability. For the purpose of improving these finished products in marketability, the standards or demands imposed on the color of the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides have been decisively gaining in exactitude in recent years. In the circumstances, such acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides as are appropriately used for the production of acrylonitrile based copolymers which sparingly incur discoloration due to aging during the course of handling, consequently preclude coloration, and excel in the color characteristics are strongly demanded.
Hereinafter, the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides will be occasionally referred to simply as "acrylonitrile solutions."
An object of this invention, therefore, is to provide such acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides as are appropriately used for the production of acrylonitrile based copolymers which preclude coloration and excel in the color characteristics.
Another object of this invention is to provide a method for the production of the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides mentioned above.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide acrylonitrile based copolymers of excellent color characteristics and high marketability which are obtained by using the acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides mentioned above.

Acrylonitrile solutions of maleimides, method for preparation thereof, and acrylonitrile based copolymers obtained by use of the solutions


A drug for curing/ameliorating the concomitant syndrome of tumor which comprises a compound represented by the following general formula (I) as the active ingredient: ##STR1## wherein R.sub.1 represents an alkyl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms and optionally substituted by one or more hydroxyl groups; and R.sub.2 represents a hydrogen atom or a hydroxyl group; is disclosed.. This drug can be efficaciously employed in the treatment for the concomitant syndrome of tumor, in particular, cachexia or in the amelioration of the symptoms thereof.

The term "concomitant syndrome of tumor" means symptoms accompanying various malignant tumors other than the direct symptoms, for example, cachexia, abnormalities in blood such as leukocytosis, failures in the homeostasis of bodily fluids typically exemplified by electrolyte abnormality, metabolic error such as hypoglycemia and diabetes, skin lesion, neurologic manifestation, serum protein abnormality, renal disorders, osteoarticular disorders, hyperenergia in association with the excessive secretion of adrenal cortex hormone, etc. These symptoms frequently arise in series. Among these symptoms, cachexia and electrolyte abnormality are the major ones which are known as the serious causes of the death of patients with cancer similar to respiratory failure, circulatory failure, digestive diseases, hemorrhage, systemic infection, etc.
The term "cachexia" means a systemically depressed state due to a chronic disease and its main symptoms include serious weight loss, inappetence and anemia. As typical examples of cachexia, there have been known cancerous cachexia, infectious cachexia, thyroid cachexia, etc.
Among all, it is considered that cancerous cachexia is a hindrance in the treatment for cancer, since it depresses the tolerance to chemotherapy or radiotherapy [Johanna T. Dwyer, Cancer, 43, 2077 (1979); Sarah S. Donaldson et al., Cancer, 43, 2036 (1979), etc].
To treat the concomitant syndrome of tumor, it has been a practice, for example, to administer various replenisher solutions and bone resorption inhibitors in the case of electrolyte abnormality. However these treatments are symptomatic ones which cannot suppress the production of causal substances originating in malignant tumors. Thus it is impossible to sufficiently cure the concomitant syndrome of tumor thereby.
Regarding the treatment of cachexia, on the other hand, it has been a practice to improve the nutritional status of patients by the administration of a high fat diet or a high saccharide diet, high caloric fluid therapy, blood transfusion, etc. However, these treatments serve merely as symptomatic therapy and can scarcely achieve any sufficient effect. Further, antitumor agents employed at present frequently induce serious side-effects and none of them is efficacious in the amelioration of cachexia. Accordingly, it has been urgently required to develop drugs for curing and ameliorating cachexia.
By the way, it has been known in general that some vitamin D derivatives show various physiological activities, for example, regulation of calcium metabolism, inhibition of the multiplication of tumor cells, induction of the differentiation of tumor cells, immunomodulation, etc. It is known that 22-oxa-vitamin D derivative having an oxygen atom at the 22-position, from among these vitamin D derivatives, exhibits only an extremely weak side-effect of inducing hypercalcemia which is commonly caused by other vitamin D compounds. Thus it is reported that this 22-oxa-vitamin D derivative is effective against psoriasis, secondary hyperparathyroidism, etc. (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Sho 63-183534 and Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 6-86382). It is also known that this 22-oxa-vitamin D derivative has an antitumor effect. However, it has never been reported that this compound is effective against the concomitant syndrome of tumor such as cachexia.
An object of the present invention is to provide a drug which can cure the concomitant syndrome of tumor, in particular, cachexia or ameliorate the symptoms thereof.

Drug for curing/ameliorating concomitant syndrome of tumor


A demand prediction method using a computer includes calculating an error between a prediction value of an amount of a past demand and a measurement value of the amount of the past demand, the prediction value of the amount of the past demand being calculated by inputting a measurement value of a past explanatory variable to a prediction model that is constructed in accordance with a measurement value of an amount of a demand at a predetermined location and an explanatory variable that serves as an external factor that affects an increase or a decrease in the amount of the demand at the predetermined location, determining whether the calculated error is an abnormal value, acquiring a new explanatory variable if the error is determined to be the abnormal value, updating the prediction model in accordance with the acquired new explanatory variable, and newly predicting an amount of a future demand using the updated prediction model.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a demand prediction method, a demand prediction apparatus, and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a demand prediction program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Techniques for numerically modeling a relationship between an amount of a demand and an external factor (explanatory variable) that affects an increase or a decrease in the amount of the demand are disclosed to predict an amount of a future demand. Such techniques include the multiple regression model and the neural network. Reference is made to Miguel Rocha, Paulo Cortez, and Jose Neves, "Evolution of Neural Networks for Classification and Regression", NeuroComputing, Vol. 70, Issue 16-18, 2007 (pp. 2809-2816).
A variety of types of explanatory variables are available, and the type of an explanatory variable used in a model is determined according to the experience and knowledge of a user. Each user has not necessarily learned every relationship as to which and how explanatory variable affects the amount of the demand. There is a possibility that the model lacks an explanatory variable needs to be used. The accuracy level of the prediction thus largely depends on the experience and knowledge of a user about a prediction target.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-101947 discloses a time-sequence prediction method that is based on a computer that computes an amount of sales of a product during a prediction period of time. If an abnormal value is caused, an interactive system is set up between a planner and generating factors of an abnormal value, based on factor candidate information concerning a variety of factors occurring at the same time the abnormal value is caused. The prediction accuracy of the sales amount is thus increased.

Demand prediction method, demand prediction apparatus, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA


The disclosure is directed to an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) comprising a monoclonal antibody, or an antigen-binding fragment thereof, directed against B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) conjugated to a cytotoxin. The disclosure also provides compositions comprising the antibody-drug conjugate and methods of killing multiple myeloma cells (including multiple myeloma stems cells) that express BCMA by contacting multiple myeloma cells with the ADC.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignancy characterized by an accumulation of clonal plasma cells (see, e.g., Palumbo et al., New England J. Med., 364(11): 1046-1060 (2011), and Lonial et al., Clinical Cancer Res., 77(6): 1264-1277 (2011)). Current therapies for MM include chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, biophosphonates, and autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT). While these therapies often cause remissions, nearly all patients eventually relapse and die (see, e.g., Lonial et al., supra, and Rajkumar, Nature Rev. Clinical Oncol, 5(8): 479-491 (2011)).
B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) is a tumor necrosis family receptor (TNFR) member expressed on cells of the B-cell lineage (Laabi et al., Nucleic Acids Research, 22(7): 1147-1154 (1994)). BCMA expression is highest on terminally differentiated B cells. BCMA is involved in mediating the survival of plasma cells for maintaining long-term humoral immunity. The expression of BCMA has been linked to a number of cancers, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases. BCMA RNA has been detected universally in multiple myeloma cells, and BCMA protein has been detected on the surface of plasma cells from multiple myeloma patients by several investigators (see, e.g., Novak et al, Blood, 103(2): 689-694 (2004); Neri et al., Clinical Cancer Research, 73(19): 5903-5909 (2007); Bellucci et al., Blood, 105(10): 3945-3950 (2005); and Moreaux et al., Blood, 703(8): 3148-3157 (2004)). As such, BCMA has been investigated as a possible therapeutic target for multiple myeloma.
There remains a need for compositions that can be used in methods to treat multiple myeloma. This invention provides such compositions and methods.


A servo motor is equipped with a rotary shaft, a rotor rotated integrally with the rotary shaft, a stator that is separated a predetermined distance from and disposed in confronting relation to the rotor, and an angle detecting device that detects an angle of rotation of the rotary shaft. On a counter-load side end, which is opposite to a load side end of the rotary shaft, an operating member is provided, which enables the rotary shaft to be rotated manually from an exterior location.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a servo motor having an operating member, by which a rotary shaft of the servo motor is capable of being rotationally operated by hand (manually) from a location outside of the servo motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A servo motor has been utilized, for example, as a drive source for a robot or an actuator or the like. In this type of servo motor, a detecting device for detecting an angle of rotation of a rotary shaft is provided, together with a rotor that rotates integrally with the rotary shaft, and a stator, which is separated a given distance and arranged in confronting relation to the rotor. (See, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-332180.)
Normally, such a servo motor is driven by being electrically energized from an external power source. However, in the event that electricity is interrupted as a result of abnormal stoppage of the apparatus on which the servo motor is mounted, it becomes difficult to operate (actuate) the servo motor. Consequently, in such a state, methods have been considered for actuating the servo motor by application of an external force at the side (load side) of the apparatus that is driven by the servo motor.
However, generally, a servo motor is constructed such that the gear ratio thereof is elevated, whereby the rotational torque of the servo motor is increased, so that the thrust force provided by a feed screw can be enlarged. Owing thereto, in many cases, manual operation of the apparatus side, or even carrying out fine positional adjustments, is quite difficult, and cases can also be presumed in which manual operations of the servo motor are completely impossible. In the case that manual operations from the apparatus side cannot be performed, an operation is required by which electrical energy is applied temporarily to the servo motor. However, such an operation is burdensome, and naturally, cases also exist in which the supply of electrical energy may be impossible.


A ballast system is provided for a compacting machine, which operate on their own weight (static weight) and is propelled on rollers or wheels. A plurality of identical, modular, ballast boxes are mounted to the median extension of the machine which is located between the front and rear wheel axel assemblies. In order to facilitate adjustment of a static compacting load to ideal operating conditions; each ballast box can receive a variable amount of a flowable material.

The compacting machines operating by their own weight (static weight) have their weight increased by the addition of water, sand or scrap in spaces defined inside the compacting cylinders or rollers, or also inside the chassis, which is constructed in order to define a reservoir in the space existing between the front and rear wheel-axle assemblies.
These known ballast systems require the handling of bulk materials and do not allow the easy control or adjustment of the mass of the material supplied to the ballast spaces, in order to adapt the weight of the compacting machine to the needs of the operation to be carried out. In these prior art solutions, the ballast control requires the use of a scale, which is hardly ever available in the working yard.
Besides the inconvenience cited above, the density of the bulk material fed into the ballast reservoirs or spaces requires the creation of considerable volumes in the equipment design, so as to accommodate the necessary amount of ballast material.
Another inconvenience of the known technical solutions results from the fact that the difficulties for charging and removing the bulk materials usually avoid the adjustment of the equipment, in terms of ground load, to the ideal conditions of each application and of the material to be compacted.
In the particular case of the wheeled compacting machines, the load per wheel is a determinant factor for obtaining a desired compacting level, because it directly influences the pressure value resulting from the contact of the tire with the material to be compacted.
It should also be observed that the space, which is necessary for providing the usual ballast of humid sand, avoids the achievement of high loads per wheel and therefore limits the compacting capacity of the equipment. In general, the most common wheeled compacting machines provide a load per wheel from about 3,000 Kg to about 3,500 Kg. Nevertheless, it has been more and more frequent the need for compacting applications requiring a load per wheel of about 4,000 Kg, which load has been obtained up to now only through very heavy equipments, which are very costly and with limitations concerning transportation, visibility and maneuverability.