An apparatus for determining a trajectory of a directional drill includes two length measurement devices deployed along a surface of the drill string and a controller capable of determining the heading of the drill string from two lengths of the drill string measured by the two length measurement devices. A method includes determining at least two lengths along a surface of a drill string; and determining a heading of the drill string using the at least two determined lengths.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to directional drilling, and, more particularly, to determining a trajectory of a directional drill.
2. Description of the Related Art
Directional drilling involves the controlled drilling of a borehole from a first point to a second point. For example, directional drilling may be used to drill a borehole from a location on the surface of the earth to a location deep underground. For another example, directional drilling may be used to drill a borehole that begins at a first location on the earth's surface, travels underground for a selected distance, and the returns to the surface at a second location. Typically, in directional drilling, the second point is horizontally, or azimuthally, displaced from the first so that one cannot simply drill straight down from the surface.
In the past, high costs limited the use of directional drilling to oil field and mining applications, where the drilling costs could be offset by the value of the oil or minerals produced by the well or mine. However, improvements in drilling technology have reduced the costs of some directional drilling applications. In particular, so-called "trench-less" directional drilling, in which nearly horizontal boreholes are drilled just below the earth's surface, has become a cost-effective method of drilling boreholes for various utility services, such as telephone lines, electrical lines, water lines, sewer lines, and the like. Trench-less directional drilling is typically employed when surface level obstructions make traditional trenched utility access difficult or impossible. For example, trench-less directional drilling is often used to drill boreholes beneath rivers, roads, commercial and residential buildings, and the like.
The drill string used to convey the cutting element into the borehole may bend during the directional drilling process. The bending of the drill string may be intentional, such as when a drill operator changes the heading of the cutting element, e.g. a drill bit, which changes the trajectory of the drill string. For example, the drill operator may change the heading of the cutting element to avoid an obstruction or to correct the trajectory. Sometimes, bending occurs unintentionally. For example, changes in the media being drilled or unbalanced forces produced by the drilling process may cause the heading of the cutting element, and the trajectory of the drill string, to change unexpectedly. Consequently, the actual trajectory of the drill string may deviate from the expected trajectory. The drill string is not, however, visible to the drill operator during the trench-less directional drilling process. Thus, trench-less directional drilling processes typically include some method of determining the trajectory of the drill string from the earth's surface.
Two methods are traditionally used to determine the trajectory of the directional drill. The first method uses a magnetometer package including an inclinometer and a magnetometer. The inclinometer is used to determine the inclination or tilt of the drilling assembly by measuring the earth's gravity vector and the magnetometer is used to determine a compass, or magnetometer, heading. The inclination and heading are measured at known depth positions and used to calculate the trajectory of the drill string. The second method uses a gyro package that includes a gyro and an inclinometer, which are similarly used to measure heading and inclination to calculate the trajectory of the drill string. However, the high cost of survey-accuracy magnetometer or gyro packages has restricted their use in trench-less directional drilling as discussed above. Furthermore, magnetic materials are often used in directional drilling assemblies, which may limit, or prevent, the use of magnetometers.
In recent years, another method has been employed to determine the trajectory using an electromagnetic signal. Typically, the electromagnetic signal is either injected or generated near the directional drilling assembly. An operator on the surface then detects the electromagnetic signal using an electromagnetic measurement device. The operator then uses the detected signal to determine the location of the drilling assembly. However, this method is limited to near-surface trench-less directional drilling applications. Furthermore, surface obstructions may make it difficult, or impossible, for the operator to detect the electromagnetic signal.
A laser positioning apparatus for an earth boring apparatus is described in Tull, et al (U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,854), hereinafter referred to as the Tull patent. In the Tull patent, a pair of lasers and a pair of light-sensing elements, or targets, are coupled to each of a plurality of sections of drill pipe. The angular displacement of adjacent sections of the drill pipe may be determined using oppositely directed laser beams produced by the lasers and detected by the light sensing elements. However, the use of multiple lasers and light-sensing elements may be limited by the cost of these devices. Furthermore, exposing sophisticated lasers and light-sensing elements to the borehole environment would likely result in high maintenance and repair costs, as well as diminished reliability.

Method and apparatus for determining a trajectory of a directional drill


A method of bonding a connector to an electrical conductor. The conductor is applied to a glass substrate and the connector is placed over the conductor. An ultrasonic welding apparatus is used to oscillate the connector relative to the conductor to bond the connector to the conductor while maintaining the temperatures of the connector and conductor below the predefined melting points and without damaging the glass substrate. In addition, an electrically conductive foil can be disposed between the connector and the conductor for ensuring electrical communication between the connector and the conductor.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to window panes for vehicles and a method of bonding an electrical connector to an electrical conductor applied to the window pane.
2. Description of Related Art
Glass window panes for vehicles, such as windshields, backlites (rear windows), and side windows, frequently include electrical conductors applied to a glass substrate of the window pane. The electrical conductors are typically formed of a silver paste and include one or more pads with a number of leads extending from the pad. The electrical conductors can serve a number of purposes, such as heaters, radio or cellular phone antennas, or keyless entry circuits.
A connector is bonded to the pad to provide electrical communication between a device, such as a heater controller, radio, cell phone, etc., and the electrical conductors. The connector is adapted to receive an end of a wiring harness from the heater controller, radio, cell phone, etc. The connectors can be bonded to the pad by adhesives or can be soldered to the pad through the use of lead soldering techniques. As is known to those skilled in the art, lead soldering requires an external heating of the glass substrate which melts a lead solder and the connector to metallurgically bond the connector to the glass substrate. Traditionally, the connectors also include lead which minimizes mechanical stresses between the connector and the glass substrate during thermal expansion.
Although often effective, the prior art lead soldering is undesirable as lead is considered an environmental contaminant. The lead solder can also crack, which causes the connector to detach from the glass window. Further, the heating involved can cause cracking in the glass substrate.
The prior art has attempted to overcome the deficiencies with lead soldering by developing alternative techniques. One such alternative is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,735,446. The '446 patent utilizes a friction welding technique that rapidly rotates the connector and simultaneously applies pressure to the connector against the glass substrate. Portions of the connector and the conductor on the glass substrate melt and then re-solidify to create a metallurgical bond between the connector and the conductor. Although avoiding the issues with lead soldering, the friction welding technique of the '446 patent has a number of deficiencies. First, this rotating technique requires that the connector be symmetrical, which greatly reduces the design options for the connectors. Also, the melting of the connector and conductor is an undesirable affect in that the conductor can be completely removed from the glass substrate thereby creating a disconnect between the connector and conductor. Further, the rapid rotation and/or pressure can create undesirable mechanical and thermal shocks that could fracture the glass substrate.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop a method of bonding a connector to a conductor that eliminates the use of lead and avoids the deficiencies of the prior art methods.

Window pane and a method of bonding a connector to the window pane


A device for counting doses of substance issued by a dispenser for fluids or powders, the device being characterized in that it comprises a first count wheel (10, 110) and a second count wheel (20, 120), both count wheels being mounted to rotate about a fixed axis of rotation (3, 103), the first count wheel (10, 110) comprising a set of teeth (11, 111) extending circumferentially about the fixed axis of rotation (3, 103) and co-operating with a drive member (30, 130) for rotating the first count wheel about the fixed axis of rotation on each use of the dispenser, the first count wheel (10, 110) further including a drive tongue (14, 114) that is movable between a rest position in which it does not co-operate with the second count wheel (20, 120), and a drive position in which it does co-operate with the second count wheel (20, 120) to cause it to rotate about the fixed axis of rotation, said drive tongue (14, 114) being forced into its drive position by cam (8, 108).

The present invention relates to a device for counting doses issued by a substance dispenser, and more particularly by an inhaler of the kind used, for example, in the field of pharmacy.
In medical applications in particular, it is often necessary to spray some particular number of doses of substance contained in the dispenser, e.g. on a daily basis. To prevent mistakes in handling and/or dosage, it is desirable to provide means that serve to display the number of doses that have been sprayed, or that remain to be sprayed if the initial display gives the maximum number of doses that can be displayed (up-counter or down-counter).
Proposals have already been made, in patent EP-0 269 496 for a counter that counts actuation of the pushbutton and that comprises a count wheel mounted to rotate coaxially with the pushbutton and provided with a crown of axially extending peripheral teeth. A flexible blade secured to the pushbutton drives the wheel causing it to rotate when the pushbutton is actuated. That device is simple and cheap, but because it has only one wheel it is limited as to number of doses that can be counted.
Also, since that device transforms the axial motion of the pushbutton into rotary motion of the wheel, it is unsuitable for operating independently of the actuating pushbutton.
An object of the present invention is to provide a device for counting doses that is capable of counting an arbitrary number of doses (typically several tens to several hundreds of doses) and capable of being actuated by a member exerting movement in translation.


A composition includes a polymer component including a first polymer having a first structural unit represented by a following formula (1), and a solvent. In the formula (1), R1 represents a hydrogen atom or a monovalent organic group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms. R2 represents a single bond or a divalent organic group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms. R3 represents a hydrogen atom or a monovalent organic group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms. RQ represents a perfluoroalkyl group having 1 to 5 carbon atoms. RX represents a hydrogen atom or a monovalent base-labile group.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a composition, a resist pattern-forming method, a compound, a method for production of the compound and a polymer.
2. Discussion of the Background
In the field of microfabrication typified by production of integrated circuit devices, chemically amplified resists have been conventionally used. In the chemically amplified resists, irradiation with, for example, a radioactive ray having a short wavelength such as an excimer laser beam generates an acid at light-exposed sites to cause a difference in rates of dissolution in an alkaline developer solution between light-exposed sites and light-unexposed sites by a reaction by way of the acid as a catalyst, thereby forming a resist pattern on a substrate.
In such chemically amplified resists, as a method for forming a finer resist pattern, utilization of a liquid immersion lithography process (liquid immersion lithography) is expanding in which exposure is conducted while allowing a space between a lens and a resist film to be filled with a liquid immersion media such as, for example, pure water or a fluorine-based inert liquid. The liquid immersion lithography process allows for an increase in numerical aperture (NA) of the lens, and further provides advantages that a depth of focus is hardly decreased and additionally a high resolution can be achieved even under increased NAs, and the like.
On the other hand, in the resist pattern formation by the liquid immersion lithography process, it is required to improve a scan speed, while inhibiting pattern defects attributed to elution of a component from the resist film and/or beads of a liquid remaining on the surface of the resist film. As a technique for meeting the requirements, it is proposed to provide an upper layer film for liquid immersion lithography between the resist film and a liquid immersion medium (see, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2006-91798 and PCT International Publication Nos. WO 2008/47678 and WO 2009/41270). These Patent Documents disclose that: the upper layer film for liquid immersion lithography is provided on the resist film using a water-insoluble and alkali-soluble polymer; during the liquid immersion lithography, inhibition of the elution of the resist film component and the like is achieved based on water repellency exhibited by the upper layer film for liquid immersion lithography; and additionally, in a subsequent step of development, the upper layer film for liquid immersion lithography is peeled from the surface of the resist film by dissolving the upper layer film for liquid immersion lithography in a developer solution.
In addition, recently, lithography in which an EUV, an electron beam or the like (hereinafter, may be also referred to as "EUV and the like") having a shorter wavelength than the excimer laser beam is used has been investigated as another method for forming a finer pattern (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication Nos. 2006-171440, 2011-16746 and 2010-204634). However, in the case of the lithography carried out using the EUV is the like, an exposure needs to be carried out under vacuum, and therefore a reduction of outgassing from the resist film is demanded. Accordingly, as a technique for meeting the demand, it has been proposed to provide an upper layer film for EUV and the like that covers the surface of the resist film. Also in the upper layer film of this type, suppression of outgassing or the like during, for example, an exposure to the EUV and the like is expected to be enhanced by the water repellency exhibited by the upper layer film; however, the upper layer film needs to be peeled from the surface of the resist film in a subsequent development step by dissolving the upper layer film in a developer solution.

Composition, resist pattern-forming method, compound, method for production of compound, and polymer


An aviation obstruction lighting system having a lamp mounted on the an aviation obstruction at an elevation sufficiently high to serve as a warning of the presence of the obstruction to pilots of approaching aircraft, a remote light source, and an optical waveguide connecting the lamp and the light source and conducting light from the light source to the lamp. The optical waveguide contains quartz glass fibers. The light source is mounted at an elevation to be manually accessible by a technician standing on, or on a platform less than two meters from, the ground. The lamp includes an optical waveguide end receiver, and a Fresnel lens surrounding a reflective element having a conical or frustoconical surface positioned to intercept and reflect light emanating from an optical waveguide, such that the reflected light is directed to an inner incident surface of the Fresnel lens.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the lighting of aviation obstructions (e.g., towers and other structures that may pose a danger to aircraft), and to an aviation obstruction lighting system and to an aviation obstruction equipped with such a lighting system.
2. Description of Related Art
Legal requirements exist for the lighting of aviation obstructions, which for example in Germany are described in the "General Administrative Regulation on the Marking of Aviation Obstructions." In describing the detailed technical stipulations concerning the design of such lighting systems, this administrative regulation refers to the US ICAO standard, Annex 14: "Aerodomes." Similar requirements are promulgated in the United States by the Federal Aviation Administration.
According to the German standard, outside of airports three types of lighting elements are usually used as obstruction lighting by day and by night, which are listed in the aforementioned ICAO standard with the following designations:
"Low Intensity, Type B" are lamps producing continuous red light of low intensity for obstruction lighting at night and in twilight, preferably for emphasizing the outer contours of obstructions;
"Medium Intensity, Type A" describes a white flashing light, which must emit a luminous intensity of >20,000 cd in daylight and >2,000 cd at night and, for example in Germany, is to be installed in individual cases on aviation obstructions with a height of 150 m and above. The color temperature of the white light must be between 4,000 K and 8,000 K;
"Medium Intensity, Type B" describes a red flashing light which, in individual cases, is used at night with a luminous intensity>2,000 cd as a hazard warning signal on aviation obstructions with a height of over 150 m.
In some embodiments, the lamps of the "Medium Intensity" types A and B are combined in a single lighting fixture.
Incandescent lamps (only for red light), xenon lamps, and increasingly LEDs are usually used as light sources. These lamps are supplied with energy via electrical supply cables laid on the aviation obstruction. In the case of LEDs, as well as the usual local mains voltage, low-voltage cables are also used which, if repairs or maintenance work are necessary, avoid the hazard of an electric shock for the persons carrying out the maintenance/repairs.
Autonomous voltage supply concepts involving solar modules and storage batteries are also increasingly used, at least reducing the hazards arising from high voltages and the costs of laying the connecting cables.
Due in particular to the regular lightning strikes on such aviation obstructions, it is frequently necessary to repair defective lamps, electrical circuits and supply cables at very great heights. The work involved considerably increases the maintenance costs of the aviation obstructions and presents not inconsiderable risks to the repair personnel working at great heights.


A method is disclosed for treating gaseous effluent from a hydrocarbon pyrolysis unit to provide steam cracked tar of reduced asphaltene and toluene insolubles content. The method is suitable for preparing reduced viscosity tar useful as a fuel blending stock, or feedstock for producing carbon black, while reducing or eliminating the need for externally sourced lighter aromatics additives to meet viscosity specifications. The method comprises drawing steam cracked tar from a separation vessel, e.g., a primary fractionator or tar knock-out drum, cooling the tar, and returning it to the separation vessel to effect lower overall tar temperatures within the separation vessel, in order to reduce viscosity increasing condensation reactions. An apparatus for carrying out the method is also provided.

The production of light olefins (ethylene, propylene and butenes) from various hydrocarbon feedstocks utilizes the technique of pyrolysis, or steam cracking. Pyrolysis involves heating the feedstock sufficiently to cause thermal decomposition of the larger molecules. The pyrolysis process, however, produces molecules which tend to combine to form high molecular weight materials known as tars. Tars are high-boiling point, viscous, reactive materials that can foul equipment under certain conditions. Although not wishing to be bound by any particular theory, it is believed that the steam cracked liquid product, as first produced in the steam cracker furnace, contain free radical molecules, vinyl-aromatic molecules, and other reactive species, and is highly reactive at moderately high temperatures commonly found in the downstream processing of steam cracked liquid product. The unsaturated functional groups of such aromatic molecules include those selected from the group consisting of olefinic groups and acetylenic groups. More specifically, such unsaturated functional groups are selected from the groups consisting of indenes, acenapthalenes and other cyclopenteno-aromatics; vinylbenzenes, and other vinyl aromatics having one aromatic ring; divinylbenzenes, vinylnaphthalenes, divinylnaphthalenes, vinylanthracenes, vinylphenanthrenes, and other vinyl- and divinylaromatics having 2 or more aromatic rings. This reactivity of such aromatic molecules tends to lead to reactions which significantly downgrade the properties of the liquid product.
The formation of tars, after the pyrolysis effluent leaves the steam cracking furnace can be minimized by rapidly reducing the temperature of the effluent exiting the pyrolysis unit to a level at which the tar-forming reactions are greatly slowed.
One technique used to cool pyrolysis unit effluent and remove the resulting heavy oils and tars employs heat exchangers followed by a water quench tower in which the condensibles are removed. This technique has proven effective when cracking light gases, primarily ethane, propane and butane, because crackers that process light feeds, collectively referred to as gas crackers, produce relatively small quantities of tar. As a result, heat exchangers can efficiently recover most of the valuable heat without fouling and the relatively small amount of tar can be separated from the water quench albeit with some difficulty.
This technique is, however, not satisfactory for use with steam crackers that crack naphthas and heavier feedstocks, collectively referred to as liquid crackers, since liquid crackers generate much larger quantities of tar than gas crackers. Heat exchangers can be used to remove some of the heat from liquid cracking, but only down to the temperature at which tar begins to condense. Below this temperature, conventional heat exchangers cannot be used because they would foul rapidly from accumulation and thermal degradation of tar on the heat exchanger surfaces. In addition, when the pyrolysis effluent from these feedstocks is quenched, some of the heavy oils and tars produced have approximately the same density as water and can form stable oil/water emulsions. Moreover, the larger quantity of heavy oils and tars produced by liquid cracking would render water quench operations ineffective, making it difficult to raise steam from the condensed water and to dispose of excess quench water and the heavy oil and tar in an environmentally acceptable manner.
Accordingly, in most commercial liquid crackers, cooling of the effluent from the cracking furnace is normally achieved using a system of transfer line heat exchangers, a primary fractionator, and a water quench tower or indirect condenser. For a typical heavier than naphtha feedstock, the transfer line heat exchangers cool the process stream to about 1100° F. (594° C.), efficiently generating super-high pressure steam which can be used elsewhere in the process. The primary fractionator is normally used to condense and separate the tar from the lighter liquid fraction, known as pyrolysis gasoline, and to recover the heat between about 200° to 600° F. (93° to 316° C.). The water quench tower or indirect condenser further cools the gas stream exiting the primary fractionator to about 100° F. (38° C.) to condense the bulk of the dilution steam present and to separate pyrolysis gasoline from the gaseous olefinic product, which is then sent to a compressor. Sometimes an intermediate boiling range stream known as steam cracked gas oil boiling, say, within the range of about 400° to about 550° F. (204° to 288° C.), is also produced as a sidestream.
Moreover, despite the fractionation that takes place between the tar and gasoline streams in a primary fractionator, both streams often need to be processed further. Sometimes the tar needs to be stripped to remove light components, whereas the gasoline may need to be refractionated to meet its end point specification. An additional concern relates to providing steam cracked tar having characteristics which make it suitable for high value use.
Steam cracker tar is the heaviest material made in the steam cracking process, comprising essentially all the product that boils above about 500° F. (260° C.). Such tar contains a high concentration of aromatic compounds produced by chemical reactions which lead to molecular weight growth of steam cracked liquids, e.g., condensation and/or polymerization reactions in the cracking process. These reactions can occur to a large extent in the primary fractionator or quench tower at the temperatures that normally prevail in steam cracker primary fractionator towers. These molecular weight growth reactions leading to asphaltene formation are rather fast and are not as easily reversed as they are prevented.
The yield of tar depends primarily on the cracker feed type, e.g., about 1 wt % from naphtha and 30% or more from very heavy gas oil. The value of tar is generally based on its use as a fuel or fuel blend stock. Sometimes it can be used as a feedstock for making carbon black. Tar can also be fed to a partial oxidation process where it is converted to synthetic fuel gas.
Molecules in tar containing more than about seven aromatic rings are insoluble in heptane and are known as asphaltenes. Asphaltenes are high molecular weight, complex aromatic ring structures and may exist as colloidal dispersions. With their aromatic ring structure, asphaltenes are not soluble in straight chain alkanes (hexane, heptane). They are soluble in aromatic solvents like xylene and toluene. Asphaltene content can be measured by various techniques known to those of skill in the art, e.g., ASTM D3279.
The heavier molecules in tar that are not soluble in toluene are known as toluene insolubles, or TI. Toluene Insolubles (coagulated/uncoagulated) are the solids remaining after oxidation resins, or pentane insolubles, have been diluted with toluene. Insoluble resins are the difference in weight between the pentane insolubles and the toluene insolubles. Toluene insolubles can be measured by methods well known to those skilled in the art, e.g., ASTM D-893, ASTM D4312-05(a)2005, Standard Test Method for Toluene-Insoluble (TI) Content of Tar and Pitch (Short Method), or ASTM D4072-98(2003)el, Standard Test Method for Toluene-Insoluble (TI) Content of Tar and Pitch.
Asphaltenes and TI affect the quality and resulting value of the tar in several ways. They make steam cracker tar incompatible with many other fuel oils. For example, asphaltenes tend to precipitate when tar is mixed with paraffinic stocks, such as residua from paraffinic crude oil. This limits the potential marketability of tar into the fuel oil market. Moreover, asphaltenes and TI are not desirable components when tar is used in the manufacture of carbon black. Carbon black producers generally prefer feeds with lower asphaltene and TI concentrations, and they set upper limits on acceptable concentrations of these components.
Because asphaltenes and TI make tar more viscous, it often becomes necessary to mix a lighter aromatic material such as steam cracked gas oil with the tar, in order to meet product viscosity specifications. For crackers that feed naphtha or highly paraffinic gas oil, the amount of light blend stock required can exceed the quantity of co-produced steam cracked gas oil, which renders the steam cracking process "out of quench balance" inasmuch as the quantity of light blend stock produced in the cracker is insufficient to thin produced steam cracker tar to its desired viscosity. In such cases, an external source of light, highly aromatic material must be added, and this can be difficult to obtain and costly. Alternately, cracking severity must be reduced which imposes yield and conversion restrictions on the steam cracking process.
In view of the foregoing, it would be useful to provide a method for treating pyrolysis unit effluent, particularly the effluent from the steam cracking of hydrocarbonaceous feeds include naphtha and heavier feeds which yield greater amounts of steam cracker tar than lighter feeds. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a steam cracking process which produces steam cracker tar having a reduced asphaltenes and/or toluene insolubles content, particularly where the process can be carried out in the presence or absence of a primary fractionator tower and its ancillary equipment, e.g., in processes utilizing a tar knock-out drum.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,279,733 and 4,279,734 propose cracking methods using a quencher, indirect heat exchanger and fractionator to cool effluent, resulting from steam cracking.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,150,716 and 4,233,137 propose a heat recovery apparatus comprising a pre-cooling zone where the effluent resulting from steam cracking is brought into contact with a sprayed quenching oil, a heat recovery zone, and a separating zone.
Lohr et al., "Steam-cracker Economy Keyed to Quenching," Oil Gas J., Vol. 76 (No. 20) pp. 63-68 (1978), proposes a two-stage quenching involving indirect quenching with a transfer line heat exchanger to produce high-pressure steam along with direct quenching with a quench oil to produce medium-pressure steam.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,092,981 and 5,324,486 propose a two-stage quench process for effluent resulting from steam cracking furnace comprising a primary transfer line exchanger which functions to rapidly cool furnace effluent and to generate high temperature steam and a secondary transfer line exchanger which functions to cool the furnace effluent to as low a temperature as possible consistent with efficient primary fractionator or quench tower performance and to generate medium to low pressure steam.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,921 proposes transfer line exchangers having multiple tube passes of different tube diameters. U.S. Pat. No. 4,457,364 proposes a close-coupled transfer line heat exchanger unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,923,921 proposes a naphtha steam cracking process comprising passing effluent through a transfer line exchanger to cool the effluent and thereafter through a quench tower.
WO 93/12200 proposes a method for quenching the gaseous effluent from a hydrocarbon pyrolysis unit by passing the effluent through transfer line exchangers and then quenching the effluent with liquid water so that the effluent is cooled to a temperature in the range of 220° to 266° F. (105° to 130° C.), such that heavy oils and tars condense, as the effluent enters a primary separation vessel. The condensed oils and tars are separated from the gaseous effluent in the primary separation vessel and the remaining gaseous effluent is passed to a quench tower where the temperature of the effluent is reduced to a level at which the effluent is chemically stable.
EP 205 proposes a method for cooling a fluid such as a cracked reaction product by using transfer line exchangers having two or more separate heat exchanging sections.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,347 proposes that in ethylene manufacturing plants, a water quench column cools gas leaving a primary fractionator and that in many plants, a primary fractionator is not used and the feed to the water quench column is directly from a transfer line exchanger.
JP 2001-40366 proposes cooling mixed gas in a high temperature range with a horizontal heat exchanger and then with a vertical heat exchanger having its heat exchange planes installed in the vertical direction. A heavy component condensed in the vertical exchanger is thereafter separated by distillation at downstream refining steps.
WO 00/56841; GB 1,390,382; GB 1,309,309; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,444,697; 4,446,003; 4,121,908; 4,150,716; 4,233,137; 3,923,921; 3,907,661; and 3,959,420; propose various apparatus for quenching a hot cracked gaseous stream wherein the hot gaseous stream is passed through a quench pipe or quench tube wherein a liquid coolant (quench oil) is injected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,215,649 teaches a method for upgrading steam cracker tars by injecting hydrogen donor diluent into a hot cracked product stream at a point downstream of a point where high temperature cracking is stopped by cooling.

Method for processing hydrocarbon pyrolysis effluent


A touch sensor panel includes vertical & horizontal electrodes each respectively including a repeat of first & second basic shapes connected to one another in a vertical & horizontal directions, the first & second basic shapes each including a fine wire, respectively provided on vertical & horizontal electrode surfaces, and arranged at intervals; and a plurality of linear devices at respective intersections of the electrodes. A method includes driving the vertical electrodes in parallel on a basis of code sequences di for each of the linear devices so as to output, along the horizontal electrodes, linear sums of respective outputs corresponding to the linear devices; and estimating respective values of the linear devices along the horizontal electrodes on a basis of an inner product operation of (i) the linear sums outputted along the horizontal electrodes and (ii) the code sequences di.

There has been known a device for detecting linear device values distributed in a matrix. Patent Literature 1, for example, discloses a touch sensor device (contact detecting device) for detecting distribution of capacitance values of a capacitance matrix Cij (i=1, . . . , M and j=1, . . . , L) formed between M drive lines and L sense lines. The touch sensor device operates in accordance with a scanning detection method; specifically, the touch sensor device sequentially selects one of the drive lines and thus detects respective values of linear devices connected to the drive line selected.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a capacitance detecting circuit which (i) in driving a plurality of drive lines, switches between a first drive line group and a second drive line group on the basis of a time series code sequence, (ii) outputs a measured voltage obtained by converting, into an electric signal, a sum total of respective currents across capacitances, connected to sense lines, at a plurality of intersections of driven drive lines with the sense lines, and (iii) performs a product-sum operation of such a measured voltage and the code sequence for each sense line so as to find a voltage value corresponding to a capacitance at each intersection.
The description below deals with an arrangement of vertical electrodes and horizontal electrodes in a conventional capacitive touch sensor panel. FIG. 41 is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of vertical electrodes 91 and horizontal electrodes 92 in a conventional capacitive touch sensor panel. FIG. 41 corresponds to FIG. 3 of Patent Literature 1.
This conventional capacitive touch sensor panel disclosed in Patent Literature 1 includes (i) a plurality of vertical electrodes 91 provided on a vertical electrode surface and arranged at predetermined intervals in a horizontal direction and (ii) a plurality of horizontal electrodes 92 provided on a horizontal electrode surface, which is parallel to the vertical electrode surface, and arranged at predetermined intervals in a vertical direction.
Each vertical electrode 91 includes a sequence of a repeat of diamond-shaped quadrangular sections 93 and 94 connected to each other in the vertical direction. Each horizontal electrode 92 includes a sequence of a repeat of diamond-shaped quadrangular sections 95 and 96 connected to each other in the horizontal direction.
The vertical electrodes 91 and the horizontal electrodes 92, each including diamond-shaped sections, are so provided that the vertical electrodes 91 cross the horizontal electrodes 92 to constitute a capacitive touch sensor panel. In the case where such a capacitive touch sensor panel is to be placed on a display device for use, the vertical electrodes 91 and the horizontal electrodes 92 are normally each formed of a transparent conductive film made of, for example, ITO (indium tin oxide). Recent years have also witnessed research on the use of graphene as a substitute for ITO.
In the case where the diamond-shaped sections as illustrated in FIG. 41 are made of, for example, ITO and arranged on a plane, each diamond-shaped section, having both center-line symmetry and center-point symmetry, exhibits a similarly symmetric capacitance change when touched by an object, such as a pen, that has a small touch area. Utilizing this symmetry in a capacitance change allows a symmetric position correction to be carried out during a touch-position detection, and thus increases the position detection precision.
FIG. 42 is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of vertical electrodes 81 and horizontal electrodes 82 in another conventional capacitive touch sensor panel, which is disclosed in Patent Literature 2. Both the vertical electrodes and the horizontal electrodes 82 are arranged at predetermined intervals. The vertical electrodes 81 extend in a direction orthogonal to the direction in which the horizontal electrodes 82 extend. The vertical electrodes 81 and the horizontal electrodes 82 are arranged in the shape of a grid. The vertical electrodes 81 and horizontal electrodes 82 themselves individually include fine wires, which form a mesh.
(a) of FIG. 43 is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of vertical electrodes 71 in yet another conventional capacitive touch sensor panel, which is disclosed in Patent Literature 3. (b) of FIG. 43 is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of horizontal electrodes 72 in that capacitive touch sensor panel.
(a) of FIG. 43 illustrates an array of vertical electrodes 71 each including sections that each have a shape similar to a diamond shape and that are connected to one another in a vertical direction. (b) of FIG. 43 similarly illustrates an array of horizontal electrodes 72 each including sections that each have a shape similar to a diamond shape and that are connected to one another in a horizontal direction.
(a) of FIG. 45 is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of vertical electrodes in still another conventional capacitive touch sensor panel, which is disclosed in Patent Literature 4. (b) of FIG. 45 is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of horizontal electrodes in that capacitive touch sensor panel.
The capacitive touch sensor panel disclosed in Patent Literature 4 is a capacitance-type touch panel switch including (i) an electrically conductive X pattern group 61 including a plurality of conductive X sequences 62 arranged at slight intervals in the X direction and (ii) an electrically conductive Y pattern group 66 including a plurality of conductive Y sequences 67 arranged at slight intervals in the Y direction.
Each conductive X sequence 62 includes (i) a plurality of conductive X pads 63 that each have a substantially rhombic outline and that are arranged in the Y-axis direction and (ii) conductive X pads 63a that each have a substantially isosceles-triangular outline and that are arranged in the Y-axis direction to sandwich the conductive X pads 63. Adjacent conductive X pads 63 and 63 are connected to each other by a conductive X line 64, while adjacent conductive X pads 63 and 63a are also connected to each other by a conductive X line 64.
The conductive X pads 63 and 63a each include a mesh of (i) fine wires extending in the X direction and (ii) fine wires extending in the Y direction. Each conductive X line 64 is thin and includes three straight lines 65 extending in the Y direction and arranged at predetermined intervals in the X direction.
Each conductive Y sequence 67 includes (i) a plurality of conductive Y pads 68 that each have a substantially rhombic outline and that are arranged in the X-axis direction and (ii) conductive Y pads 68a that each have a substantially isosceles-triangular outline and that are arranged in the X-axis direction to sandwich the conductive Y pads 68. Adjacent conductive Y pads 68 and 68 are connected to each other by a conductive Y line 69, while adjacent conductive Y pads 68 and 68a are also connected to each other by a conductive Y line 69.
The conductive Y pads 68 and 68a each include a mesh of (i) fine wires extending in the X direction and (ii) fine wires extending in the Y direction. Each conductive Y line 69 is thin and includes three straight lines 60 extending in the X direction and arranged at predetermined intervals in the Y direction.
The X pattern group 61 and Y pattern group 66 arranged as above are so placed on top of each other as to extend orthogonally to each other in a planer view. The conductive X lines 64 of the conductive X sequences 62 and the conductive Y lines 69 of the conductive Y sequences 67 are stacked on top of each other to form a light-transmitting region having a light-transmitting property substantially identical to that of the conductive X pads 63 and the conductive Y pads 68.

Linear device value estimating method, capacitance detecting method, integrated circuit, touch sensor system, and electronic device


An apparatus includes a display control unit, including a processor, configured to control a display to display a plurality of objects and receive a selection of one of the plurality of objects by a user as a selected object. The display control unit is configured to control the display to move the selected object when a move command is received from the user. The display control unit is configured to control the display to group additionally selected objects with the selected object when additional objects are selected by the user and a group command is received from the user. The display control unit is configured to control the display to independently move the additionally selected objects with respect to the selected object until the additionally selected objects are grouped with the selected object.

The present disclosure relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and an information processing program that are suitable in application to the graphical user interface (GUI) of information processing apparatuses.
Recently, GUI is installed on many information processing apparatuses. For example, information processing apparatuses having a touch panel have a GUI corresponding to operations that are done through the touch panel.
To be more specific, an information processing apparatus displays an icon (also referred to as a file icon) on a screen thereof corresponding to each of files stored in a storage block thereof. When a user touches a file icon on the screen, a file corresponding to the touched icon is selected (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2010-245593 for example).
In addition, many information processing apparatuses having a GUI are configured to classify and sort files on a folder basis.
To be more specific, the information processing apparatus is configured to copy a file corresponding to a file icon on the screen on which the user executes a copy operation. In response to the user operation, the information processing apparatus displays a window (also referred to a folder window) corresponding to a folder onto the screen and, when the user executes a paste operation, pastes the copied file to this folder.
Executing the above-mentioned processing allows the information processing apparatus to group desired files by copying these files to desired folders, for example.

Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and information processing program


A communication node determines that radio link failure occurred during connected state mobility of an access terminal and reports the radio link failure to another communication node. For example, a target access point may determine that radio link failure occurred during handover of an access terminal and send a radio link failure report message to the access point that was previously serving the access terminal or to some other node (e.g., a network node). In the first case, the serving access point may adjust mobility parameters based on this radio link failure information and, optionally, other reported radio link failure information. In the second case, the other node may send a radio link failure report message to the serving access point, or the other node may adjust mobility parameters based on this radio link failure information (and, optionally, other reported radio link failure information) and send the adjusted mobility parameters to the serving access point.

1. Field
This application relates generally to wireless communication and more specifically, but not exclusively, to improving wireless mobility.
2. Introduction
A wireless communication network is deployed over a defined geographical area to provide various types of services (e.g., voice, data, multimedia services, etc.) to users within that geographical area. In a typical implementation, access points (e.g., corresponding to different cells or sectors) are distributed throughout a network to provide wireless connectivity for access terminals (e.g., cell phones) that are operating within the geographical area served by the network. In general, at a given point in time, the access terminal will be served by a given one of these access points. As the access terminal roams throughout this geographical area, the access terminal may move away from its serving access point and move closer to another access point. In this case, the access terminal may be handed-over from its serving access point to be served by the other access point to maintain mobility for the access terminal.
An example of how an access terminal may be handed-over follows. The access terminal may regularly perform radio frequency ("RF") measurements and determine that the signals being received from a neighbor access point (e.g., a so-called target access point) are stronger than the signals being received from the current serving access point by a certain margin. As a result, the access terminal sends a measurement report with this information to the network (e.g., to the serving access point). The serving access point (i.e., the source access point for the handover) then performs backhaul communication with the target access point to negotiate resources for the access terminal on the target access point. Here, the serving access point may send context information for the access terminal to the target access point. In addition, the serving access point sends a handover command to the access terminal, wherein the handover command identifies the resources assigned to the access terminal on the target access point. The access terminal may then connect to the target access point using these resources.
Under certain circumstances, radio conditions between an access terminal and its serving access point may deteriorate to the point where the access terminal experiences radio link failure with the serving access point. In such a case, after the access terminal declares radio link failure, the access terminal may attempt to access a target access point. During this access the access terminal provides its own identification and the identity of the prior serving access point to the target access point. In the event the target access point was prepared for the handover by the serving access point (e.g., as discussed above), the target access point may be able to serve the access terminal since the target access terminal may have context information and other data for the access terminal. On the other hand, if the target access point had not been prepared, the target access point may reject the access terminal whereupon the access terminal may go to idle mode. Alternatively, the target access point may perform a forward handover procedure, whereby the target access point fetches the context information for the access terminal from the prior serving access point.

Mobility management based on radio link failure reporting


A packet forwarding device equipped with a statistics collection device and statistics collection method for high speed ports at a low cost while maintaining the required statistical accuracy for each flow. In order to collect a statistic flow with the required accurate statistic information this device contains a high speed flow table, a flow table made up of many flow entries, a search decision table to decide whether to search the high speed flow table or large volume flow table; and the table to be searched is decided when a packet is received. The accuracy of the statistic information for the flow requiring accurate statistic information is guaranteed by the high speed flow table. Further by setting the large volume flow table and sampling rate as needed, statistic information for many flow entries can be collected with a sufficient flow of sampled statistic information, without lowering packet forwarding performance.

The Internet has become established as an important part of our social infrastructure and besides conventional Best_Effort type data communications, starts to communicate data needed to ensure communication quality such as transaction data for mainstream business operations and audio-video. The volume of data being communicated is also increasing along with the spread of lines for accessing broadband communications by way of technology such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and FTTH (Fiber To The Home).
In order to acquire the communication status on the network in the environment described above, the carrier and ISP (Internet Service Provider) require a network monitoring function for collecting and analyzing statistics on the communication data volume on the network. Among this communication data, there is also a large need for a function for collecting and analyzing statistic information for each data group (hereafter flow) categorized into the data source and address, application and quality level, etc. By utilizing statistic information on each flow, the carrier and ISP can verify the quality assurance status when a communication quality assured service is provided. The carrier and ISP can also use limited network resources effectively to handle increased data volume using Traffic engineering (hereafter abbreviated to TE) technique. The carrier and ISP can also offer provisioning service which provides network resources speedily and timely to meet customer requests (bandwidth, quality of services), and can also detect and analyze network attacks, and can also carry out billing, etc.
A flow statistics collection method in the technology of the related art for example is the cache method (related technology 1). The related art 1 technology is made up of multiple statistics collection devices distributed within the network and a collector device for collecting statistic information periodically reported from these multiple statistics collection devices and analyzing traffic over the entire network. One example of a statistics collection device is a router that performs packet transfer in the network. Hereafter the processing by the statistics collection device in the related art is described using a router as an example.
When a packet is received, the router incorporating a statistic collection function searches a flow table in which one or more combinations (hereafter called flow conditions) of packet headers are stored (or registered) for identifying the flow. If the packet matches the stored flow conditions, then a 1 is added to the packet number stored for that matching flow conditions. The byte count of the received packet stored for that matching flow condition is also increased in the same way. If results from the search of the flow table show no matching flow condition, then the received packet header information combination is newly stored in the flow table. A search is made at fixed periodic intervals of each flow condition stored in the flow table and aging processing is performed to delete flow conditions whose statistic information is unchanged from the previous search. To delete a flow condition, a packet with the corresponding statistic information is generated and the packet sent to the collector device.
The number of bits for the search key in the flow table search is usually large compared to the number of bits of the search key for the destination search made when the router forwards a packet. Therefore, shortening the time needed for the flow table search is difficult compared to the destination search. This fact signifies that flow table search time takes up a large part of the router's packet processing time. The flow table search process therefore causes packet forwarding performance to deteriorate when flow table search time is larger than the required packet forwarding processing time.
In the related art technology 2, in order to alleviate the drop in packet forwarding performance due to the flow table search, routers containing high speed lines (ports) perform sampling of packets for flow table searches, according to a predetermined sampling rate and only make a flow table search of the sampled packets.
Though not a flow table search technology, a technology for making routing table searches was disclosed in JP-A No. 208945/2002 (Related technology 3). The related technology 3 utilizes a stored path table capable of spanning a first memory made up of high speed memories such as a Content Addressable Memory (CAM), and a second memory with a slower search speed than the first memory but possessing a higher degree of entry integration. The related technology 3 is capable of making entry searches requiring a larger number of bits than can be set in the CAM at higher speeds than when utilizing only a RAM (Random Access Memory).
[Patent document 1] JP-A No. 208945/2002
The above described related technologies 1 and 2 have the following problems when handing ever-increasingly large amounts of data, and in quality assurance of important data.
The search key for flow table that is a combination of multiple fields within the packet header has a larger number of bits compared to the search key for destination searches that is made up of only one field within the packet header or combinations of two fields. The number of flow conditions (hereafter, number of flow entries) stored in the flow table must also be several times larger than the number of entries in the destination table.
One method for searching tables comprised of multiple entries is a method (hereafter, Tree method) for storing flow tables in a tree structure in the memory by utilizing Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) or Static Ram (SRAM) having an inexpensive cost per bit. Using the Tree method has the advantages that only a small number of memory chips are needed when storing information in a table made up of a large number of entries, the device has a low cost, and little installation space is needed in the device. However, multiple memory access lines are usually needed during a search so the search performance falls to only a fraction (less than a fifth or sixth) of that of the CAM method described next. So when search a flow table made up of a large number of entries, a device with a high line (circuit) speed will have a longer flow table search time than the allowable packet transmit time, due to time required for making the flow table search. The related art technology 1 that searches all received packets in a flow table, therefore cannot provide the required packet transmit performance.
The related art technology 2 provides the required packet transmit performance needed holding lines (port) with a high line speed by lowering the number of times flow table searches are made according to a preset sampling rate. This method performs packet sampling and is capable of finding statistical trends of each packet flow. However this method cannot acquire an accurate number of received packets or a received byte count. This method performs TE and provisioning, network facility planning, and attack detection by finding the statistical flow data size using the sample statistical value. Yet this method has problems because of use of sampling (sample statistical value) in cases for example where utilizing information shown by the network administrator to the network user regarding whether quality assurance is actually being performed on a network for a flow where quality assurance is needed, or when billing, where utilizing an accurate packet count or byte count is important.
One method for making high speed searches where the search key has a large number of bits is a search method using CAM (hereafter, called the CAM method). The CAM method is capable of high speed searches of search key bit patterns and bit patterns recorded in the memory. However, the cost per bit is high compared to typical memories. Other problems with the CAM method are that the number of CAM chips increases when dealing with large numbers of entries so that the device cost becomes higher, and the available mounting surface area inside the device is inadequate, etc. Yet another problem is that power consumption is high since all bit patterns registered in the memory and the search key bit pattern are compared in parallel.
The related art technology 3 discloses a method for high speed router searches of routing table. However it does not discuss flow table searches. In methods utilizing CAM and RAM, the time needed for accessing the RAM is added on to the time for the CAM method. Also, the same as with the Tree method when searching flow tables made up of a large number of entries in devices having lines (ports) with a high line speed, the time needed for searching the flow table becomes longer than the allowable packet forwarding processing time. In the related art technology 1 that searches all received packets in a flow table search, achieving the required packet processing performance is difficult

Packet forwarding device equipped with statistics collection device and statistics collection method


With structure comprising a cylinder, a magnetic circuit to exert a mountain-shaped thrust, and a feeding spring to exert an urging force to a plunger during a feeding process, fuel is sucked by movement of the plunger and energy is accumulated in the feeding spring during a powering state, the fuel is fed by movement of the plunger by the urging force of the feeding spring during a non-powering state, a spring constant of the feeding spring is set to generate an urging force larger than a thrust in an early range of the mountain-shaped thrust, and a second spring is disposed to exert an urging force in a direction against the urging force of the feeding spring to make the urging force smaller than the thrust, at least in the early range. In this manner, with an electromagnetically driven type plunger pump of a non-powering feeding type, an effective stroke is enlarged and a feeding amount is increased.

A conventional electromagnetically driven type plunger pump of a non-powering feed type comprises, for example, a plunger which is disposed in a cylinder (a cylindrical body) and being free to reciprocate, a pair of springs which exert specific urging force to the plunger from both ends thereof while having consistent contact therewith, a solenoid coil which exerts thrust (electromagnetic force) to the plunger to suck a liquid, a magnetic circuit including a yoke and various check valves.
The pair of springs is disposed to have consistent contact with the plunger, and dampen a vibration of the plunger while retaining it at a specific resting position during a non-powered resting state with energy of the springs released, or perform together as feeding springs to accumulate energy for feeding.
Further, as shown in FIG. 7, the thrust (electromagnetic force) generated by the magnetic circuit has a characteristic that it is maximum when plunger 3, which is urged by pair of springs 2, is located at the vicinity of yoke 1 which forms the magnetic circuit. In other words, this obtained thrust shows a mountain-shaped characteristic as being small in an early range and a later range, and being large in a middle range.
Additionally, as shown in FIG. 8, with the electromagnetically driven type plunger pump, a threshold F0, which is determined by a target discharging pressure (a feeding pressure) and a diameter (area) of the plunger, is present. Here, the plunger 3 cannot be moved towards a feeding direction when the urging force of spring 2 does not exceed the threshold F0.
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 8 with a two-dot chain line, it is ideal to obtain an effective stroke Si as large as possible with spring constant ki of the spring 2 set relatively small, so that a feeding liquid amount (discharged amount) is increased with a moving stroke of the plunger 3 increased as large as possible. However, in this case, as shown in FIG. 8 with oblique lines, the urging force of the spring 2 exceeds the thrust in the early range. Consequently, even if power is supplied during a sucking process, the plunger 3 cannot be operated and compression of the spring 2, namely accumulation of the energy, is not performed.
Therefore, as shown in FIG. 8, when a liquid discharging pressure (feeding pressure) is set relatively high (200 kPa˜300 kPa, for example), and also with restrictions of size of a product and the like, spring constant k of the spring 2 is set relatively large, resulting in that effective stroke S of the plunger 3 is small. Accordingly, a discharging amount (feeding amount) cannot be increased, and an increase of power consumption or upsizing of the solenoid coil is needed to obtain a necessary discharging amount.
The present invention is accomplished in the light of the above-mentioned points, and a purpose is to provide an electromagnetically driven type plunger pump which has a highly efficient discharging (feeding) performance with an effective stroke of the plunger being large, while being in a quest of simplifying structure, downsizing, reducing power consumption, reducing noise, and the like.


Processes for converting a wide variety of aromatic hydrocarbons, such as polyalkylaromatics, into commercially useful para-substituted aromatics such as para-xylene are disclosed. The aromatic hydrocarbon feed stream is first partially converted into toluene which is then subjected to a highly para-selective methylation process. The present invention therefore provides novel processes and catalysts for increasing the para-selectivity in the selective production of para-substituted aromatic compounds. From the description provided herein, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the catalysts and processes of the present invention provide greater para-selectivity at conversion rates unattained by previously known methods.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a process for the regioselective production of para-substituted compounds, e.g. para-xylene. A feedstock including aromatic hydrocarbons is converted to toluene which is subsequently converted to p-xylene.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Para-xylene is a very valuable commercial product useful in the production of polyester fibers. The catalytic production of para-xylene has received much attention in the scientific community and various methods for increasing catalyst para-selectivity have been described.
The synthesis of para-xylene is typically performed by methylation of toluene over a catalyst under conversion conditions. Examples are the reaction of toluene with methanol as described by Chen et al., J. Amer. Chem. Sec. 1979, 101, 6783, and toluene disproportionation, as described by Pines in "The Chemistry of Catalytic Hydrocarbon Conversions", Academic Press, N.Y., 1981, p. 72. Such methods typically result in the production of a mixture including para-xylene, ortho-xylene, and meta-xylene. Depending upon the para-selectivity of the catalyst and the reaction conditions, different percentages of para-xylene are obtained. The yield, i.e., the amount of feedstock actually converted to xylene, is also affected by the catalyst and the reaction conditions.
Previously known toluene methylation reactions typically provide many by-products such as those indicated in the following formula:

Process for the regioselective conversion of aromatics to para-disubstituted benzenes


The invention is a conveying wire (2) with disc-shaped conveying members (8) for use in endless tube conveyor systems. The wire (3) consists of a number of twisted strands (4) that each are made of thin threads or fibers, and including an outer jacket (6) to which the conveying members (8) are fastened directly by injection molding, where the outer jacket (6) consists of a polymer with a melting temperature which is lower than the melting temperature of the plastic material from which the conveying members are injection molded. The wire (3) is, for example, made as a balanced (torsionally neutral) wire consisting of at least three strands that each are made of very thin synthetic fibers which are individually surface treated with a polymer, providing great bending wearability to the fibers and good adhesion to the outer jacket (6) which consists of a polymer. The fact that the melting temperature of the disc material is higher than the melting temperature of jacket material produces a local softening of the outer jacket locally at the conveying members, so that an almost optimally good connection between the conveying members and the wire via the outer jacket is established.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a conveying wire with disc-shaped conveying members for use in endless tube conveyor systems, the wire consisting of a number of twisted strands that each are made of thin threads or fibers, and including an outer jacket to which the said conveying members are fastened directly by injection moulding.
2. Description of the Prior Art
EP-AI-0 659 661 describes a conveying cable made of polyester fibers, and which is intended for use by transporting material in tube conveying systems, where disc-shaped conveying members of polyurethane are fastened directly on an outer sheath which also consists of polyurethane.
The use of materials with the same melting temperature (same material) for both outer jacket and the disc-shaped conveying members has the drawback that sufficient adhesion via the jacket between conveying members and the fibers of the conveying wire is not achieved. This results in that the conveying members are having too inferior adhesion during use and are therefore displaced under load so that the jacket is destroyed also.


Air and ammonia gas are introduced into a subterranean formation during the in-situ combustion to increase the mobility of hydrocarbons in a subterranean formation and facilitate recovery of the hydrocarbons from the subterranean formation. The air supports in-situ combustion of a portion of the hydrocarbon within the subterranean formation to form water and establish a combustion front. The ammonia gas contacts the hydrocarbons ahead of the combustion front and reacts in-situ with naphthenic acid in the hydrocarbon to form a surfactant. The hydrocarbons, water and surfactant then form an oil-in-water emulsion that drains more freely through the formation. A production well, in fluid communication with the hydrocarbons ahead of the combustion front, may be used to remove the oil-in-water emulsion from the subterranean formation.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hydrocarbon recovery from a subterranean formation using in-situ combustion.
Background of the Related Art
Heavy hydrocarbons are often too viscous to be produced using only the formation pressure. One method of lowering the viscosity of heavy hydrocarbons in subterranean formations is to flood the formation with steam. Steam increases the temperature of the hydrocarbons in the formation, which lowers their viscosity, allowing the hydrocarbons to drain or be swept towards a producer well. Steam also condenses into water, which can then act as a low viscosity carrier phase for emulsified oil, thereby allowing heavy hydrocarbons to be more easily produced.
An alternative to adding steam generated on the surface is to generate steam and other hot gasses downhole by burning a portion of the heavy oil reserve. This method of recovering heavy oil via in-situ combustion is often referred to as "fire flooding." One of the more advanced in-situ combustion techniques, known as "toe to heel air injection" ("THAI"), combines horizontal producing wells with vertical air injector wells. The process begins by circulating steam in both wells so that the oil between the wells is heated enough to flow to the lower, horizontal production well. The steam chamber heats and drains oil as the steam fills in the formerly oil-bearing pores between the wells. Steam circulation in the production well is then stopped and air is injected into the vertical injection well only. Oxygen in the air ignites the oil, generating heat and combustion gasses: CO and/or CO2 (carbon oxides), and H2O (steam). A combustion gas chamber now begins to develop outwards from the injection well. As the hot gases permeate the formation, more oil is heated and cracked, reducing its viscosity and allowing it to flow downward along the combustion front boundary into the production well by way of gravity.
In-situ combustion offers a number of advantages in comparison with alternate thermal recovery methods such as "steam flooding" or "steam assisted gravity drainage" (SAGD). For example, in-situ combustion does not require an ongoing external source of fuel to heat water to steam, or an ongoing source of water to heat into steam. This results in dramatic reductions in energy and water treatment costs.
However, the in-situ combustion process is not entirely without drawbacks. For example, as heavy oil or bitumen is heated by gasses ahead of the advancing combustion front, individual droplets or pockets of oil can melt, flow, and fuse into an oil-continuous layer. Initial, incomplete combustion of the oil also forms oxygenates, like alcohols and organic acids, which adsorb onto the formation minerals, oil-wetting them, and thus promoting an oil continuous layer. Hot combustion gases follow the path of least resistance, divert around this oil continuous layer, and heat only the surface of the oil continuous layer that is facing the flame front before exiting through the producing well.
Heating the oil surface that is facing the flame front causes the oil at this surface to fractionate into lighter distilled hydrocarbons that are driven ahead, and heavier residual hydrocarbons that are left in place. For example, in Athabasca oilsand bitumen, in-situ distillation up to 370° C. leaves as much as 70% of the bitumen behind as a viscous tar. At this temperature, the alkyl side chains on the polynuclear aromatic cores of the bitumen molecules crack off and leave behind semi-solid asphalt. The heaviest asphaltic material forms between 525° C. and 565° C. This is an amorphous, sticky material that continues to crack, condense, and dehydrogenate into a hard, glassy, non-porous wall of coke. Iron compounds in the oil can act as powerful catalysts to accelerate this coking.
This wall of coke, once formed, can impede the flow of heat so much that temperatures in excess of 500° C. on the fire side produce less than 27° C. on the production side. Moreover, the wall channels most of the injected air directly into the producing well, slowing the burn rate to a small fraction of that needed to economically advance the fire flood. Unfortunately, there is no known method to dissolve or disperse this wall of coke once formed. It is often necessary to drill a new injector well, either into the coke to burn it off or on the other side of the coke to bypass the wall. However, drilling another well is expensive and does not prevent the formation of a further wall.

Hydrocarbon mobility and recovery through in-situ combustion with the addition of ammonia


An image forming apparatus comprising a seamless intermediate transfer belt, and methods for making the same. The seamless intermediate transfer belt comprises a carbon black dispersion and a mechanically robust polymer material having very high molecular weight.

The presently disclosed embodiments relate generally to a seamless flexible belt that is useful in imaging apparatus members and components, for use in electrophotographic, including digital printing, apparatuses. More particularly, the embodiments pertain to electrophotographic printing apparatus utilizing an improved and flexible toner image transfer member comprising a composition used to form an image transferring member component, namely, a flexible-single layered seamless intermediate transfer belt. The composition comprises a carbon black dispersed film forming polydimethyl phenylene ether which forms a flexible intermediate transfer belt with numerous beneficial properties, such as, flexibility, high temperature stability, and superior mechanical robustness to effect the service life extension of the prepared intermediate transfer belt in the field.
In electrophotography, particularly the electrophotographic printing, the charge retentive surface, typically known as a photoreceptor, is electrostatically charged, and then exposed to a light pattern of an original image in a master copy to selectively discharge the retentive surface in accordance therewith. The resulting pattern of charged and discharged areas on the photoreceptor surface form an electrostatic charge pattern, known as a latent image, conforming to the original image. The latent image is developed by contacting it with a finely divided electrostatically attractable powder known as toner. Toner is held on the image areas by the electrostatic charge on the photoreceptor surface. Thus, a toner image is produced in conformity with a light image of the original being reproduced or printed. The toner image formed on the photoreceptor surface may then be transferred by either: (1) directly onto a receiving substrate (a support member such as paper) or (2) by first through the use of an intermediate transfer member, and the image affixed thereto to form a permanent record of the image to be reproduced or printed followed by transferring it to the receiving paper for fussing into copy printout. Subsequent to development, excess or residue toner left on the charge retentive surface is cleaned from the surface. The process is useful for light lens copying from an original or printing electronically generated or stored originals such as with a raster output scanner (ROS), where a charged surface may be imagewise discharged in a variety of ways.
The foregoing generally describes black and white electrophotographic printing machines. Electrophotographic printing can also produce color images by repeating the above process for each color of toner that is used to make the color image. For example, the photoreceptive surface may be exposed to a light image that represents a first color, say black. The resultant electrostatic latent image can then be developed with black toner particles to produce a black toner layer that is subsequently transferred onto a receiving substrate. The process can then be repeated or a second color, say yellow, then for a third color, say magenta, and finally for a fourth color, say cyan. When the toner layers are placed in superimposed registration the desired composite color toner image is formed and fused on the receiving substrate.
The color printing process described above superimposes each image of the color toner layers directly onto a substrate to give color printout copy. However, in other electrophotographic printing systems, they use intermediate transfer belts. In such systems, the sucessive toner image layers are then electrostatically transferred in superimposed registration from the photoreceptor surface onto an intermediate transfer belt. Only after the composite toner image is formed on the intermediate transfer belt is that image transferred and fused onto the receiving substrate. Indeed, some electrophotographic printing systems use multiple intermediate transfer belts, transferring toner to and from belts as required to fulfill the requirements of the machine's overall architecture.
In operation, an intermediate transfer belt is brought into contact with a toner image-bearing member such as a photoreceptor belt or drum. In the contact zone an electrostatic field generating device such as a corotron, a bias transfer roller, a bias blade, or the like creates electrostatic fields that transfer toner onto the intermediate transfer belt. Subsequently, the intermediate transfer belt is brought into contact with a receiver. A similar electrostatic field generating device then transfers toner from the intermediate transfer belt to the receiver. Depending on the system, a receiver can be another intermediate transfer member or a substrate onto which the toner will eventually be fixed. In either case the control of the electrostatic fields in and near the transfer zone is a significant factor in toner transfer.
Typical seamed intermediate transfer belt of prior art may be formed in a number of ways. In such embodiments, a long sheet of material for the belt is made from the formulation as described in prior arts. After cutting the sheet to a specified length, the two opposite ends of the cut sheet are joined by any conventionally known method. Alternatively, for example, the intermediate transfer belt may be formed by ultrasonically welding the opposite ends of the cut sheet to give a seamed belt. Otherwise, the two opposite ends of the cut sheet may be bonded by butt-joints through soluble solvent fusion to give a seamless intermediate belt of present disclosure. A butt-joint is a joint formed by two surfaces that meet without overlap or complex intersection. In essence, intermediate transfer belts often take the form of seamed belts fabricated by fastening two ends of a web material together, such as by welding, sewing, wiring, stapling, or gluing. Belts, sheets, films and the like are important to the xerographic process. Belt function is often significantly affected by the seam of the belt. For example, belts formed according to known butting or overlapping techniques provide a bump or other discontinuity in the belt surface leading to a height differential between adjacent portions of the belt, for example, of 0.010 inches or more depending on the belt thickness. This increased height differential leads to performance failure in many applications. When overlapping the opposite ends of a rectangular cut sheet and ultrasonically welded into a seamed intermediate transfer belt, the seam of the flexible intermediate transfer belt may occasionally contain undesirable high protrusions such as peaks, ridges, spikes, and mounds. These seam protrusions present problems during image cycling of the belt machine because they interact with cleaning blades to cause blade wear and tear, which ultimately affect cleaning blade efficiency and service life.
Another major disadvantage of having a seam in the flexible intermediate transfer belt is that the seam is a non imageable area due to physical/morphological discontinuity and electrical variation from the bulk of the belt, so it causes print defects in copy image printout.
To avoid the above mentioned problems, seamless intermediate transfer belts are preferred instead. In addition, the entire belt surface of the seamless intermediate transfer belt is imageable area without the complications caused by the seamed region of seamed belts. However, these seamless require manufacturing processes that are more involved and/or expensive than similar seamed intermediate transfer belts. This is particularly true when the intermediate transfer belt is long.
Due to the usage demands on the imaging member systems, the component parts are subject to significant wear which negatively impacts performance and service life. Thus, there is a constant need for improving such systems and parts, such as intermediate transfer belt in particular, to provide good performance and extended service life. In particular, there is a need for an efficient method of providing a seamless belt with improved properties and low cost.
Prior conventional intermediate transfer belts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,101,360, 6,044,243, and 8,404796 which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. The term "photoreceptor" or "photoconductor" is generally used interchangeably with the terms "imaging member." The term "electrophotographic" includes "electrophotographic" and "xerographic." The terms "charge transport molecule" are generally used interchangeably with the terms "hole transport molecules."


A computing services grid. The grid can include a service desk coupled to one or more computing service instances. Each service instance can conform to an interface which is common to all service instances in the grid. A routing component can be disposed in the grid. Specifically, the routing component can route individual service requests to individual ones of the service instances. An instance selection service is used to satisfy QoS characteristics associated with the requester of the service. The grid further can include a service instance monitoring component. The monitoring component can monitor the performance of individual service instances charged with processing individual service requests. Fail-over logic can be configured to re-route service requests from selected service instances to others of the service instances where the monitoring component detects a fail-over condition in the selected service instances. In that regard, fail-over conditions can include error conditions and a performance deficiency conditions in which the performance of a selected service instance lags behind guaranteed levels of performance.

1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of Web services, and more particularly to binding Web services through the operation of a grid mechanism.
2. Description of the Related Art
Web services have become the rage of distributed computing and are viewed as the foundation for developing a truly universal model for supporting the rapid development of component-based applications over the World Wide Web. Web services are known in the art to include a stack of emerging standards that describe a service-oriented, component-based application architecture. Specifically, Web services are loosely coupled, reusable software components that semantically encapsulate discrete functionality and are distributed and programmatically accessible over standard Internet protocols.
Conceptually, Web services represent a model in which discrete tasks within e-business processes are distributed widely throughout a value net. Notably, many industry experts consider the service-oriented Web services initiative to be the next evolutionary phase of the Internet. Typically, Web services can be defined by an interface such as the Web services definition language (WSDL), and can be implemented according to the interface, though the implementation details matter little so long as the implementation conforms to the Web services interface. Once a Web service has been implemented according to a corresponding interface, the implementation can be registered with a Web services registry, such as Universal Description, Discover and Integration (UDDI), as is well known in the art. Upon registration, the Web service can be accessed by a service requestor through the use of any supporting messaging protocol, including for example, the simple object access protocol (SOAP).
Electronic utilities (eUtilities) extend the concept of Web services beyond the basic distributed computing infrastructure of WSDL, SOAP and UDDI. eUtilities refer to the offering of metered, continuous, on-demand access to computing services across a distributed computing infrastructure. Unlike the computing services of the past, eUtilities can be closely intertwined with underlying infrastructure inasmuch as different users of eUtilities can receive varying levels of responsiveness from a selected eUtility according to the terms and conditions of a negotiated service level agreement (SLA). In particular, an SLA for an eUtility can describe guaranteed performance in terms of functionality, availability, resources and availability. Thus, quality of service (QoS) remains of paramount concern in the deployment and distribution of eUtilities.
In a service-oriented application environment supporting both Web services and eUtilities, locating reliable services and integrating those reliable services dynamically in realtime to meet the objectives of an application has proven problematic. While registries, directories and discovery protocols provide a base structure for implementing service detection and service-to-service interconnection logic, present configurations neglect QoS and SLA issues in binding any one located service to a service requestor. Notably, the physiology of a grid mechanism through the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) provides protocols both in discovery and also in binding of Web services and eUtilities across distributed systems.
Still, known grid mechanisms lack technology able to support the automatic, dynamic collaboration and integration of Web services and eUtilities across heterogeneous business application systems. Rather, as described in Ian Foster, Carl Kesselman, Jeffrey M. Nick and Steven Tuecke, The Physiology of the Grid, <http://www.globus.org/research/papers/ogsa.pdf> (Feb. 17, 2002), at best the collaboration and integration of Web services and eUtilities can be viewed as a manual process.
Notably, at present there exists limited sharing of comparable, albeit not necessarily identical Web services and eUtilities provided by and consumed by different providers and consumers, respectively. Moreover, service-oriented applications which rely upon the performance of a Web service or eUtility can become exposed to unwanted risk where an unreliable Web service or eUtility cannot be controlled and managed in real time—even where the performance has been specified according to the terms of an SLA.

Dynamic binding and fail-over of comparable web service instances in a services grid

International Business Machines Corporation


An electronic safety circuit for a portable gas heater includes a transformer and half wave rectifier connected in parallel with a fan motor for charging a capacitor, and a solid state switching circuit, which may be either a pair of cascaded transistors, an SCR, or a Darlington switch, for applying a reverse polarity voltage across the solenoid of a solenoid operated gas valve to immediately turn off the gas valve in the event of loss of power to the combustion fan motor. The electronic safety circuit may be conveniently mounted on a PC board and enclosed in the combustion fan motor.

There are many different kinds of gas heaters and other gas appliances which utilize an electric fan motor for providing air to a combustion chamber in an appropriate amount such that the fuel/air mixture is at the desired ratio to produce a clean-burning efficient blue flame. Secondarily, the fan may also provide air flow around and over the combustion chamber which is heated thereby, as desired These appliances, including especially space heaters, typically include a gas valve which has a manually operated opening plunger which is mechanically biased by a return spring into the closed position, and an electromagnetic solenoid coil which, when energized, overcomes the force of the spring to hold open the gas valve to permit gas flow therethrough. To turn on the gas appliance, or heater, the gas valve plunger must be manually pushed and held open to permit gas flow therethrough as an operator manually ignites the flame with a piezoelectric igniter, for example. After ignition, the plunger must be held down for some time period, typically 30 seconds, until a thermocouple located in the combustion chamber is heated to a sufficient temperature in order to generate a sufficient current to hold the solenoid coil energized or latched in and thereby hold the gas valve open. As the thermocouple achieves this minimum temperature, the operator may release the plunger on the gas valve which will then remain in the open position permitting continued automatic operation of the heater. In order to turn the heater off, the proper sequence of operation requires that a main valve in the gas line be turned off which permits the residual gas in the line to flow through the solenoid operated gas valve and continue to burn until the gas is exhausted therefrom. As the flame self-extinguishes, the thermocouple temperature drops thereby reducing the amount of current produced thereby until the manual return spring on the gas valve overcomes the holding power of the solenoid coil and thereby manually closes.
Presuming the correct sequence of operation is followed, the gas line is self-exhausting and no unsafe or hazardous conditions are experienced. However, there are opportunities for improper operation, or for equipment difficulties to cause an unsafe condition. For example, if the operator disconnects the electrical power to the fan motor before shutting off the solenoid operated gas valve, or if the power to the fan motor is interrupted for any reason such as through an overload condition, accidentally turning the fan motor off by the operator, or inadvertently tripping over or otherwise pulling the power plug from its receptacle, the fan motor will cease to provide appropriate air for combustion to the combustion chamber but the gas will continue to flow through the solenoid operated gas valve. This fuel/air mixture typically will produce a significantly sized but weak, yellowish, inefficient flame to create a possible fire and fume hazard. This may typically continue for 30-40 seconds as the incomplete combustion and reduced temperature flame allows the cooling of the heat sensing thermocouple to a temperature where insufficient current and electrical power is generated to the solenoid holding coil to maintain the gas valve in an open position. After the thermocouple cools, as previously explained, the mechanical return spring finally overcomes the solenoid coil to close the gas valve and thereby extinguish the flame.
In the prior art, some gas appliances, including especially space heaters, are supplied with a normally open relay as an attempt at eliminating this unsafe condition. In this prior art solution, the relay coil winding is connected in parallel with the fan motor windings and its normally open switch contacts are connected in series with the thermocouple. Therefore, if power is interrupted to the fan motor, the relay coil de-energizes which opens its normally open contact to thereby electrically disconnect the thermocouple from the solenoid coil which will, ideally, permit the mechanical return spring to close the gas valve and thereby extinguish the flame. However, in application, these relays suffer several drawbacks. As the potential generated by the typical thermocouple utilized in these space heaters ranges between 7 and 20 millivolts, any appreciable increase in the contact resistance of the relay's normally open contact, as might be caused by contact oxidation or the contamination often experienced in these applications, prevents the flow of current to the gas valve even after the thermocouple reaches its appropriate temperature In this condition, the potential generated by the thermocouple will never be sufficient enough to hold the solenoid coil in an energized condition to overcome the mechanical return spring for the gas valve. Thus, an operator will remove his finger from the gas valve after the appropriate 30 second interval but the gas valve will turn off thereby preventing operation of the heater entirely In frustration, an operator may decide to short around the relay contacts in order to get the heater to work which will completely eliminate any protection provided by the relay.
In still another failure mode, the relay contact may become permanently closed in the event of a failure in the relay, such as through breakage of the armature return spring. The relay contacts may also become permanently bridged through the presence of metallic contamination. In either event, with the relay contacts remaining closed, the protection presumed to be afforded by the relay is not provided and an operator may be unaware of this unsafe condition. Additionally, an electromagnetic relay may be momentarily jarred open with any appropriate shock or impact which will result in a nuisance flame-out of the heater. Still another potential failure includes the chance for improper electrical connection to the fan motor which could result in connecting the relay directly to the fan motor coils and not in circuit with the thermo-protector. In this event, the thermoprotector could open to turn off the fan motor but yet the relay would remain energized to thereby create the conditions for a poorly burning flame as described above.
In order to solve these and other problems in the prior art, and to provide a safe and certain turnoff of a solenoid operated gas valve in a gas appliance, such as a space heater, the inventors herein have succeeded in designing and developing an electronic gas valve control circuit which may be conveniently mounted on a PC board and provided inside the fan motor itself such that a pair of leads may be conveniently connected in circuit with the solenoid coil for the gas valve. The electronic control circuit of the present invention includes a half wave rectifier circuit and capacitor for building up a DC potential, and a solid state switching circuit for sensing the loss of AC power to the fan motor and for applying the voltage from the charged capacitor to the solenoid coil in a reversed polarity which immediately turns off the solenoid coil to permit the immediate closing of the gas valve by the mechanical return spring. Several embodiments of this solid state circuit are disclosed, all of which are effective in applying an opposing flux to the solenoid coil instead of merely interrupting the current to the solenoid coil as in the prior art. In this manner, a safe and reliable safety circuit achieves immediate turn-off of the gas valve, eliminates the "hard starting", nuisance flame-out, and various other failures experienced by the safety relay of the prior art, and virtually eliminates any potential for misconnection by an operator or manufacturer which might otherwise defeat the safety feature expected by an operator. The present invention is relatively inexpensive, may be self-contained in the fan motor as mentioned above, and reliably eliminates the hazardous conditions experienced due to a gas valve which remains open while the thermocouple cools upon loss of an adequate air supply to support an adequate combustion in the combustion chamber
While the principal advantages and features of the present invention have been described above, a more complete and thorough understanding of the invention may be attained by referring to the drawings and description of the preferred embodiment which follow

Electronic gas valve power interruption switch