A method for providing identificational coloration on a paper ply of a yarn tube or similar article, the invention comprises reverse printing of a dye onto a pervious paper which is coated on the outer surface with a transparent polymer coating, the coating being impervious to the dye. According to the invention, the dye penetrates through the paper but not through the polymer coating, the informational coloration and/or pattern of the dye being clearly visible through the polymer coating to allow ready identification of the yarn or other material carried on the tube.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to yarn tubes and similar articles, particularly such articles which are formed of multiple plies of paper or thin paperboard. The invention is further concerned with improvements in tube identification which are brought about by reverse printing of dyes in varying colors and/or patterns on a ply of the tube.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Yarn tubes formed of multiple plies of spirally wound strips of paper or thin paperboard have long been used as a base member onto which yarn or similar material is wound. Such yarn tubes are formed with a spirally wound outer ply which provides a generally smooth outer surface having surface characteristics which are compatible with the function of the tube, that is, to receive and discharge yarn in the usual applications. The outer surface of a yarn tube must be smooth and free of "fuzz" in order that yarn can readily be transferred to and from the tube. In order to provide desirable surface characteristics, polymer plastic coatings can be formed on the outer paper ply. However, standard practices in the industry now virtually require that yarn tubes be printed with color and pattern markings which identify the material wound on the tube. Tube outer ply papers which are coated on the outer surfaces thereof with polymer plastic coatings cannot economically be printed or marked permanently as the tube is being manufactured.
In order that the advantages of a polymer surface coating can be combined with a desired color or pattern in a manufactured tube, it has become standard practice in the art to use preprinted or predyed paper manufactured by first printing the dye onto a substrate paper and then coating the printed paper with a polymer coating. This practice results in a number of disadvantages, particularly the necessity for obtaining and maintaining large inventories of different colored and patterned coated papers. Coatings on innermost plies are also often necessary in order to protect the tube from wetting and/or to facilitate mounting of the tube on a mandrel. The present invention provides a method and article whereby identification codes or indicia can be applied to a paper ply of a yarn tube as the yarn tube is being manufactured, the identification coloration or pattern thus becoming integral with the tube itself at the time of manufacture and without the need for maintaining large inventories of preprinted papers which are either precoated or coated in-line with a polymer plastic. The article of manufacture produced according to the present method is a tube which is less expensively manufactured but which provides instant information relative to the source, destination and nature of the product which is carried by the tube.

Method for reverse printing on coated tube papers and tubes produced from the paper


A method of removing suspended solids from drilling fluid includes preparing a dilute solution of flocculant and water, delivering a batch of the drilling fluid into the solution and agitating the mixture. The solids flocculate and then separate readily leaving a generally clear water layer on top of a solids layer. The solids are removed from the mixture by delivering them to a solids-liquid separator such as a shale shaker where the solids are discarded and the water is reclaimed and reused. Preferably, drilling mud is treated to remove solids while a well is being drilled and the reclaimed water is used in subsequent drilling operations.

The technology of drilling oil and gas wells has evolved, and is evolving, in response to a variety of stimuli. It has manifestly become important to conduct drilling operations in a manner which is not substantially damaging to the environment. One aspect of this is to handle and dispose of spent drilling fluid and drilled solids.
In a conventional well drilled with a conventional water based mud, the spent drilling fluid and drilled solids accumulate in one or more pits near the drilling rig. Typically, after drilling operations are complete and the rig moved away, the earthen dike on the reserve pit is broken and the spent drilling fluid spread in the pasture where the well was drilled. The shale pit, containing largely drilled solids, is simply covered up. This technique was widely used, and is still widely used, in many areas.
There are some situations where it is necessary or desirable to dispose of drilled solids and spent drilling fluid in a more formal manner. For example, farmers often require drilled solids and spent drilling fluid to be hauled from the site so as not to diminish the agricultural productivity of the land. In offshore wells, or wells drilled in or near inland bays, fresh water lakes, rivers and the like, it is often necessary to haul drilled solids and spent drilling fluid from the site. Other situations, such as wells drilled near cities, require disposal of drilled solids and spent drilling fluid.
The original technique was to run the spent drilling fluid and drilled solids through a cyclone type separator or centrifuge providing one outlet stream having a high proportion of solids and another outlet stream having a high proportion of liquid. The volume of the solids, although high, is small compared to the volume of liquid. The liquid is mostly water but contains so much fine grained material or silt that it cannot be handled or treated like water. In other words, the liquid discharge from a cyclone separator still contains so much solids that it is disposed of as if it were a troublesome material.
In response to this dilemma, attempts have been made to add flocculants to drilling mud, spent drilling mud and the liquid discharge from running drilling mud or spent drilling mud through a cyclone separator. The concept is to flocculate the solids in the liquid to create larger sized particles that will drop out of suspension or which can readily be separated to leave a substantial volume of water that can be treated as simply water. The concept of adding a flocculant to a drilling mud for the purpose of dropping solids out of suspension is known as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,737,037; 4,127,482; 4,234,421; 4,353,803; 4,457,842; 4,913,585 and 5,093,008. It is this type approach that this invention most nearly relates.
The prior art approach is to add a flocculant to the drilling mud or to mix flowing streams of flocculant and drilling mud. The attempt has been to minimize the volume of the flocculant solution because a very dilute flocculant adds more water and thus more volume to the material being separated thereby compounding the disposal of the liquid fraction.
There are numerous difficulties with the prior art approaches. The prior applications are not effective when a drilling fluid is dispersed with lignosulfonates and other thinners or dispersants.
As the percentage of solids increases, the internal addition of flocculants into drilling mud tends to increase its viscosity. This makes separation of the liquid and solid phases much more difficult. One example of a very high solids drilling mud is the discharge from a mud cleaner, cyclone or centrifugal separator.
The same problem occurs with liquids that are highly viscous before the addition of flocculant. The internal addition of flocculant to a rather viscous drilling mud makes the mud even more viscous. As in the case of high solids drilling muds, this makes separation of the liquid and solid phases much more difficult.

Technique for separating solids from drilling fluids


An image display apparatus includes a first optical modulation device and a second optical modulation device configured to emit linearly polarized lights whose polarization directions are perpendicular to each other, first pixels and second pixels are arranged in each of the first optical modulation device and second optical modulation device, retardation layers are disposed on the light emission side of the first pixels or second pixels, the retardation layers configured to convert one linearly polarized light of the linearly polarized lights into the other linearly polarized light. Either arrangements of the first pixels and the second pixels or arrangements of the retardation layers is set so as to be the same in the first optical modulation device and the second optical modulation device, and the other is set so as to be the reverse in the first optical modulation device and the second optical modulation device.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus.
2. Related Art
Heretofore, an image display apparatus which synthesizes R (red), G (green), and B (blue) color lights modulated by three optical modulation devices each having a liquid crystal panel, and the like, using a color synthesis optical device, and projects the synthesized color light onto a screen, allowing an observer to view a projection image on the screen stereoscopically, has been known (for example, refer to JP-A-2001-174750).
With the image display apparatus described in JP-A-2001-174750, the three optical modulation devices carry out an alternate switching between a first period in which a left eye image light is formed and a second period in which a right eye image light is formed.
Also, with the image display apparatus, a polarizing filter or the like is provided on the optical path downstream side of the color synthesis optical device, whereby each image light emitted from the color synthesis optical device is converted into a predetermined polarization condition in the first period, and converted into a polarization condition differing from the predetermined polarization condition in the second period.
Then, the observer views the projection image stereoscopically by visually perceiving only each image light (left eye image light) in the predetermined polarization condition with the left eye, and visually perceiving each image light (right eye image light) in the polarization condition differing from the predetermined polarization condition with the right eye, through polarized glasses.
Meanwhile, a technology which, to synthesize each color light in a color synthesis optical device, controls a loss of the quantity of each color light utilizing the characteristics of an S polarized light and P polarized light has also been known (for example, refer to JP-A-2005-43913).
With the technology described in JP-A-2005-43913, a configuration is such that a G color light enters as the P polarized light, and each of R and B color lights enters as the S polarized light, on a pair of dielectric multilayer films crossing in an approximate X-shape in the color synthesis optical device.
That is, as the G color light enters on the pair of dielectric multilayer films as the P polarized light, it is effectively transmitted through the pair of dielectric multilayer films, reducing the loss of the light quantity. Meanwhile, as each of the R and B color lights enters on the pair of dielectric multilayer films as the S polarized light, it is effectively reflected by the pair of dielectric multilayer films, reducing the loss of the light quantity.
However, the image display apparatus described in JP-A-2001-174750 is configured on the assumption that the image lights emitted from the three optical modulation devices are of the same linear polarization.
For this reason, when the technology described in JP-A-2005-43913 is applied to the image display apparatus described in JP-A-2001-174750, the following problem will arise.
That is, as the image light emitted from one optical modulation device, among the three optical modulation devices, and the image light emitted from another optical modulation device are linearly polarized lights whose polarization directions are perpendicular to each other, even by converting the polarization conditions with the polarizing filter or the like, it is not possible to convert all the polarization conditions into the same polarization condition.
For example, in the first period, the left eye image light emitted from one optical modulation device is converted into the predetermined polarization condition, and the left eye image light emitted from another optical modulation device is converted into the polarization condition differing from the predetermined polarization condition, by the polarizing filter or the like. For this reason, in the first period, the observer, while visually perceiving the left eye image light emitted from the one optical modulation device with the left eye, visually perceives the left eye image light emitted from the other optical modulation device with the right eye, through the polarized glasses. The same also applies in the second period.


An analytical method and test composition for determining whether an analyte is present in a test sample at a predetermined concentration level by measuring or observing a preselected level of indicator response, e.g., color generation. A subtractive reaction is carried out on the test sample prior to the indicator reaction in order to stoichiometrically and specifically consume a predetermined amount of analyte. The resulting indicator reaction generates the preselected level of indicator response only if the analyte is present at the predetermined concentration level or greater. The subtractive reaction is enzymatically specific for the analyte in the reaction mixture and the amount of analyte consumed can be closely controlled by the amount of a regulating coreactant present at initiation. The method enables the determination of analyte without the need for standards or comparators, e.g., color charts, and therefore is self-indicating. In another embodiment, there is provided a method and test composition for improving an otherwise suboptimal assay response due to oversaturation of the response, e.g., color, generated by an indicator reaction.

This invention relates to analytical methods for determining the presence of an analyte at a predetermined concentration in a test sample. More particularly, the invention concerns such a determination wherein the presence of the analyte at or above the concentration of interest is indicated by the appearance of a preselected spectrophotometric response, such as the appearance of color. Such determination is accordingly self-indicating because comparators or standards are unnecessary. In a further embodiment, the invention concerns visually read assays requiring optimization of color resolution of the indicator response over the range of analyte concentrations of significance.
Test methods are well known for determining the concentration of an analyte in a liquid test sample based on a spectrophotometric response produced by chemical reaction between the analyte of interest and an appropriate reagent/indicator system. The spectrophotometric response is usually a color change that is measured instrumentally or visually observed. Conventional tests provide quantitation of the amount or concentration of analyte in the sample by comparison of the test response to standard responses produced by known concentrations of analyte. Again, the comparison may be performed with a spectrophotometer or by visual comparison to a color chart.
Reagent strips are a common form of test device for performing these types of analyses. These devices have a handle or support means to which is attached a carrier member or matrix such as filter paper, polymeric film, or the like, which is incorporated with the reagent/indicator components in a dry state. Contact with the liquid test sample rehydrates the test composition and initiates the assay reaction. The spectrophotometric response generated from the carrier member is then related to standards to give an indication of analyte concentration in the sample tested.
These test methods and devices are useful in a variety of fields where the quantitative or qualitative measurement of substances in liquid samples is of importance. The testing of biological fluids for medical and veterinary purposes, foods and beverages, environmental and waste waters are representative. Reagent strips are particularly well-known as useful aids in medical diagnosis, from the self-monitoring of blood glucose levels by diabetic individuals to routine urinary metabolite screening and quantitative blood chemistry analysis in physician's offices and clinical laboratories.
While the test results provided by these prior art methods and devices provide sufficient quantitation to serve as useful means of analysis, and the reagent strip configuration is particularly attractive because of its simplicity and ease of storage and use, the precision of such tests is limited by the need to make comparisons to standards. Particularly where the response is a color change and the comparison is made visually, the limited ability of the human eye to resolve small differences in color can introduce an undesirable error factor into quantitation. Furthermore, where the colors generated by the indicator reaction over the range of analyte concentrations of interest are highly saturated in hue, visual resolution for quantitation purposes can be significantly below optimal levels.
There are a number of attempts in the literature to devise quantitative test systems that would be self-indicating. By this is meant a test system that would provide a relatively unambiguous yes/no response or indication at a prescribed analyte concentration. Thus, if the programmed indicator response is observed, such as visual detection of the appearance of color, the indication is that the analyte is present at the predetermined concentration or greater. While the principle of self-indication is well-known, the prior art is devoid of a practical approach to constructing a test system that would yield sufficiently unambiguous yes/no responses to be truly self-indicating.
One very early approach to making a self-indicating test system employed an antagonist substance in the composition which would act on the indicator to prevent color formation below a predetermined level of analyte (U.S. Pat. No. 2,893,844). Indicators that are susceptible to reaction with an antagonist substance will also be affected by a variety of nonspecific environmental factors such as interfering substances in the sample. Such systems therefore are not sufficiently reliable as quantitative tests. Other early approaches used the principle of limiting the amount of indicator in the test composition (U.S. Pat. No. 3,006,735) or physically limiting the amount of analyte reaching the test composition by semipermeable membranes (U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,064).
More recently a number of different approaches have been suggested. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,964,871; 4,042,329, and 4,059,407 reemphasize the desirability of self-indicating test devices wherein a plurality of test areas are arranged to give detectable responses to different levels of analyte. However, the reaction schemes offered for accomplishing self-indicating responses have notable shortcomings. The principal scheme proposed is based on the prior known use of indicator antagonist or titrant substances, which leads to the problem of sample interferences. The evolution of indicators has been towards compounds of greater and greater stability against environmental factors. As a result, the currently preferred indicators are essentially nontitratable by antagonist compounds as proposed in the subject references. Another approach offered is the complexation of analyte to prevent reaction with the indicator system. The systems proposed are relatively nonspecific for the analyte, some are reversible complexations, and some produce undesirable precipitates. No data is provided and the systems are quite unrefined.
Another more recent approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,313 which proposes the use of indicators that go from colored to colorless upon reaction with analyte. This approach has the key disadvantage of requiring the use of limited amounts of indicator because the complete consumption of indicator is required for the detectable color change to occur. As a result, the indicator reaction kinetics are slow. Further, assigning a colorless result to be a positive result is the reverse of what the typical technician is used to in the laboratory.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,310 proposes the use of a nonresponsive reaction that is competitive with the indicator reaction to effectively reduce the rate of indicator response at varying levels of analyte concentration. This reference teaches the use of a catalyst-controlled secondary reaction to effectively remove competitive amounts of analyte from the indicator reaction. Several test areas would be provided with varying amounts of the catalyst and excess amounts of the reactants of the secondary reaction so that the ability of the indicator reaction to produce a response, e.g., color, depends on the amount of analyte present. The most significant limitation of this approach is that since the indicator and secondary reactions kinetically compete for analyte, the slope of the indicator response curve is decreased with detrimental effects on the ability to discriminate indicator responses at all levels of analyte.
Accordingly, there continues to be a need for a self-indicating test system that is resistant to interferences in the test sample, that provides a stable, essentially irreversible indicator response, and that does not sacrifice resolution.
A further limitation of reagent strip test devices is their general lack of uniformly good instrumental or visual resolution over the entire range of analyte concentrations of analytical significance. While oftentimes resolution at the lower end of the concentration range can be quite good, quantitation by instrumental or visual means suffers at the upper end of the range. A common cause of this phenomenon is the oversaturation of the indicator response, e.g., color, at high analyte concentrations.
Accordingly, there is a further need for visually interpreted or instrumentally read test systems that can be adjusted to provide optimal resolution of the indicator response within the range of analyte concentrations of interest.

Self-indicating analysis employing stoichiometric chemical subtraction


A new Aubrieta plant named ‘ABRZ0004’ particularly distinguished by its burgundy flowers, a compact and mounding habit with strong vigor, and a good winter hardiness.

The present invention comprises a new Aubrieta, botanically known as Aubrieta hybrida and hereinafter referred to by the variety name 'ABRZ0004'.
'ABRZ0004' is a product of a planned breeding program. The new cultivar 'ABRZ0004' has burgundy flowers, a compact and mounding habit with strong vigor, and is good winter hardy.
'ABRZ0004' originates from a hybridization in a controlled breeding program in a greenhouse in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands. The female parent was an unpatented, proprietary plant identified as 'L2011-1' with deep red flowers and less branching compared to 'ABRZ0004'.
The male parent of 'ABRZ0004' was an unpatented, proprietary plant identified as 'M1882-3' with a deep purple flower color, more branching, and later flowering compared to 'ABRZ0004'. The resultant seed was sown in August 2010 in a greenhouse in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands.
'ABRZ0004' was selected as one flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross in March 2011 in a greenhouse in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands.
The first act of asexual reproduction of 'ABRZ0004' was accomplished when vegetative cuttings were propagated from the initial selection in June 2011 in a greenhouse in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands.


The image processing apparatus includes a determining part configured to determine, from a difference between information on color of a first pixel in a first image and information on color of a second pixel corresponding to the first pixel in a second image, whether or not the first image includes color blur due to defocus, the first and second images being generated by an image-pickup system and whose focus states are mutually different. The apparatus further includes a correcting part configured to perform on the first image a correction process that corrects the color blur determined by the determining part.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing technique that corrects color blur of an image generated by image pickup.
2. Description of the Related Art
Images generated by image pickup performed by image pickup apparatuses such as digital cameras are often deteriorated by aberrations of an image taking optical system provided in the image pickup apparatus. In particular, longitudinal chromatic aberration of the image taking optical system causes color blur in a color image.
Since lights of mutually different wavelengths have mutually different refractive indices, these lights entering an image taking optical system form optical images at mutually different positions in an optical axis direction of the image taking optical system. Image-pickup elements each converting an object image (optical image) formed by the image taking optical system in the image pickup apparatus into electronic image information generally have a planar light-receiving surface, and only an optical image formed on the light-receiving surface is converted into sharp image information. Therefore, the longitudinal chromatic aberration generates, as the image information obtained by using the image-pickup element, an image including color blur generated by overlapping defocused color image components.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-85773 discloses a method for correcting color blur caused due to longitudinal chromatic aberration. This method obtains sharp (in-focus) images of respective wavelengths while changing a relative distance between an image taking optical system and an image-pickup element such that lights of the respective wavelengths form the sharp images on the image-pickup element, and combines these sharp images to obtain a color image in which the longitudinal chromatic aberration is corrected.
Moreover, so-called purple fringe also generates color blur, which deteriorates an image. The purple fringe is a phenomenon in which color blur of purple is generated near a high luminance area or the like in the image since point image distributions of respective wavelengths are mutually different due to longitudinal chromatic aberration, chromatic spherical aberration and chromatic comatic aberration. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-115039 discloses a method for correcting such purple fringe. This method performs the correction by determining an area where the purple fringe is generated based on a distance from a luminance saturated area and closeness to chroma and hue of a specific color, and by performing a predetermined spatial operation on the determined area. This method uses a fact that the purple fringe is easily generated near the luminance saturated area and easily becomes a specific color of purple.
The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-85773 combines the in-focus images of the respective wavelengths to correct the longitudinal chromatic aberration, which enables improvement of image quality. Moreover, the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-115039 supposes the area where the purple fringe is generated and corrects the purple fringe to some degree on the basis of the supposition.
However, there are actually some cases where the methods disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2008-85773 and 2006-115039 cannot correct the color blur well. For example, the methods cannot correct well color blur generated in an image obtained by image pickup for a three-dimensional object. Image pickup apparatuses generally focus on one plane (in-focus point) in an object space by an autofocus function or a manual focus operation and then perform image pickup. In such image pickup, in a case where an object including the plane is a three-dimensional object, object distances at respective angles of view are mutually different. In this case, a relatively sharp image of the in-focus point is obtained, but defocused images according to the object distances are obtained at out-of-focus points. Since the longitudinal chromatic aberration, the chromatic spherical aberration and the chromatic comatic aberration are varied according to the object distance, the color blur generated in the defocused image is varied according to a distance from the in-focus point. Such color blur being varied according to the object distance is hereinafter referred to as "color blur due to defocus". The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-85773 can correct the color blur due to the longitudinal chromatic aberration for only an in-focus image of an object located at a specific distance, but cannot correct the color blur due to defocus. The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-115039 cannot provide a sufficient effect to correct the color blur due to defocus since the method utilizes a tendency of generation of the color blur at the in-focus point.

Image processing apparatus, image pickup apparatus and image processing program for correcting color blur


A communication apparatus having a filter function of rejecting mail reception from an address that differs from a permitted address specified beforehand, includes: a transmission unit configured to transmit a mail to a predetermined mail address that differs from the permitted address; a first storage unit configured to store a mail address of a destination; a judging unit configured such that, when there is an incoming mail from a mail address that differs from the permitted address, the judging unit judges whether or not the mail address of the transmitter of this incoming mail matches a mail address thus stored; and a receiving unit configured such that, in a case in which the judging unit has judged that the mail address of the incoming mail matches that thus stored, the receiving unit receives this incoming mail.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus having an incoming mail rejection function, and is configured such that, in a case in which the user has transmitted a mail to a particular address for which a reception-permission has not been set, the communication apparatus permits the reception of the mail from this particular address.
2. Description of the Related Art
As communication apparatus such as cellular phones and so forth have come into widespread use, more and more services are coming to use the cellular phone. As one of such services, cellular phone providers provide a service called the cellular-phone blank mail system/cellular coupon. This service allows the user to receive a reply mail including a benefit from a predetermined address by transmitting a blank mail to the predetermined address via the cellular phone. Using this benefit, the user can receive a service such as a discount service or the like.
On the other hand, in order to prevent junk mail which is increasing today, in general, the user sets the configuration of the cellular phone or a network server using the incoming mail rejection function of the cellular phone so as to reject the reception of mail from particular mail addresses other than the mail addresses for which a reception-permission has been set.
However, such an arrangement leads to a problem as follows. That is to say, in a case in which the user has transmitted a blank mail to a particular address for which a reception-permission has not been set when the user desires to use a service of cellular-phone blank mail system/cellular coupon using the cellular phone, in some cases, such an incoming mail rejection function blocks this reply mail.
In order to solve such a problem, an e-mail transmission/reception system which is capable of delivering a replay mail in a sure manner for a blank mail from a cellular phone even if the configuration of the cellular phone has been set so as to reject e-mail from the Internet (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-113867). In the e-mail transmission/reception system, a first apparatus receives an e-mail via the Internet from the user apparatus which is a cellular phone. Then, the e-mail thus received is forwarded to a predetermined PHS e-mail address, following which a second apparatus acquires the transmission mail address of the user apparatus from the e-mail thus forwarded from the first apparatus, and an e-mail is transmitted to the transmission mail address from the PHS. In this case, the second apparatus transmits an e-mail which shows a Web page URL for use of only the transmission mail address.
Such a method in which a mail transmitted to the cellular phone is temporarily transmitted to another apparatus, following which the cellular phone receives the mail from this apparatus, has a problem as follows. That is to say, when the cellular phone receives a mail from a mail address for which an incoming mail rejection has not been set, such a mail reception operation involves such an additional apparatus in addition to the cellular phone, leading to complicated operations. It is preferable that, after the user transmits a mail via the cellular phone to a mail address for which a reception-permission has not been set, the user can receive a reply mail using the cellular phone alone.
The present invention has been made in order to solve the aforementioned problem. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a communication apparatus having an incoming mail rejection function, and is configured such that, in a case in which the user has transmitted a mail to a particular address for which a reception-permission has not been set, the communication apparatus permits the reception of the mail from this particular address without a need for the user to disable the incoming mail rejection function.

Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications Limited


A homing system is provided for guiding a missile (10) towards a metal target. The metal target is illuminated by a radar unit (12) with a transmitted RADAR signal of predetermined frequency. The target reflects the RADAR signal and produces HARMONIC signals having frequencies that are harmonic with the predetermined frequency. An antenna (14) is mounted in the missile for receiving signals, including the HARMONIC signals produced by the target. A wave guide bandpass filter (18) receives signals from the antenna and passes selected HARMONIC signals to a filter output. A detector (34) is responsive to selected HARMONIC signals passed by the filter (18) to produce STRENGTH signals proportional to the signal strength of the selected HARMONIC signals. The STRENGTH signals are received by an error circuit (48) that produces ERROR signals indicating the direction of the target relative to the missile (10).

Missile guidance systems using radar to track a metal target and to guide the missile towards the metal target are well known. In a typical guidance system, the target is illuminated with radar signals (electromagnetic radiation at a radio frequency). Reflected signals from the target are detected by the guidance system and used to determine the direction of the target, the distance to the target and/or the movement of the target. Although such conventional systems have performed adequately, they are subject to interference from radar signals reflected from objects other than the target. Natural background backscatter or surface clutter results from radar signals being reflected from objects such as foilage, earth, sea waves or other objects capable of reflecting radar signals. In order to achieve desired performance characteristics, a guidance system for a missile should be able to detect and track a target even in the presence of surface clutter or background backscatter. The ability of a missile guidance system to distinguish the target from background backscatter is particularly important during a terminal encounter when the missile is in close proximity to the target.
Thus, a need has arisen for a missile guidance system capable of tracking a metal target when illuminated by radar signals when the target is obscured by background backscatter. In particular, a need has arisen for a guidance system capable of guiding a missile during a terminal encounter with a target which is illuminated with radar signals and is obscured by the presence of natural background backscatter.

Homing system and technique for guiding a missile towards a metal target


A video camera having a plurality of solid-state image sensors in an imaging part uses two kinds of vertical drive signals different in the number of vertical transfer operations, to produce a time lag equal to one horizontal period between the output signals of the solid-state image sensors without changing the optical positional relation between the solid-state image sensors, thereby delaying the red and blue signals with respect to the green signal by one horizontal period based on the application of the two kinds of vertical drive signals.

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a video camera using a solid-state image sensor, and more particularly to a video camera having an image enhancing circuit.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
An image pickup tube has hitherto been widely used as the imaging means of a video camera. The image pickup tube, however, has drawbacks such as an image lag, sticking, and cumbersome adjustment. It has been earnestly desired to overcome such drawbacks. With the advance of semiconductor technology, the performance of a solid-state image sensor such as a charge coupled device (CCD) has been rapidly improved. Thus, the solid-state image sensor has become the mainstream of an imaging device.
A video camera using a solid-state image sensor is usually made up of a driving part, an imaging part, a signal processing part, and an image enhancing part. In the imaging part, a solid-state image sensor converts a light signal indicative of an image into an electric signal, which is delivered from the solid-state image sensor. In a video camera required to form a high-quality image such as a broadcasting camera, the imaging part is made up of a color separation prism and three solid-state image sensors. For example, in the R-G-B method, red, green and blue components are separately taken out of the prism.
In order to take out a signal from each of the solid-state image sensors, the driving part produces a drive signal, and drives the solid-state image sensors. Since a solid-state image sensor used in a video camera is an area sensor, the solid-state image sensor is usually driven in two directions, that is, horizontal and vertical directions.
The signal processing part carries out various signal processing which includes signal amplification and .gamma.-processing. The image enhancing part amplifies a high-frequency region of a video signal, and thus can be regarded as a portion of the signal processing part. Owing to the above operation, the contour portion of an image is made clear, and a distinct image is obtained. Image enhancement is usually carried out in horizontal and vertical directions. In order to carry out the image enhancement in the vertical direction, not only the signal from a target pixel but also the signals from pixels adjacent to the target pixel on the upper and lower sides are required. Further, a delay circuit for delaying a signal by one horizontal period is required.
In order to simplify the image enhancing circuit and to carry out the effective enhancement, the out-of-green method is used. According to this method, a contour signal is produced only from the video signal of a G-channel, and is then added to the video signal of each of R-, G- and B-channels to carry out image enhancement. The video signal of the G-channel used for forming the contour signal is delayed by one horizontal period. Accordingly, it is necessary to delay the video signals of the R- and B-channels by one horizontal period.
In other words, even when the out-of-green method is used, a conventional video camera is required to have two 1-horizontal-period delay circuits for the G-channel and to have one 1-horizontal-period delay circuit for each of the R- and B-channels. That is, the video camera is required to have four 1-horizontal-period delay circuits. In an analog system, a glass delay line is used as the 1-horizontal-period delay circuit. In a digital system, a semi-conductor memory is used as the 1-horizontal-period delay circuit. In either case, the video camera will become large in power consumption and circuit scale. That is, the fact that there are not a few 1-horizontal-period delay circuits in the image enhancing circuit, will be a serious obstacle to the production of a camera head with a built-in, image enhancing circuit.
The number of 1-horizontal-period delay circuits included in the image enhancing part can be reduced by shifting the relative optical position of the solid-state image sensors in the vertical direction. In this case, on the output side of the signal processing part, the R- and B-channels are always delayed as compared with the G-channel, by one horizontal period. That is, it is unnecessary to use a 1-horizontal-period delay circuit for each of the R- and B-channels. This method, however, is not applicable to image enhancing circuits other than the image enhancing circuit for exclusive use of the above video camera. For example, in a case where desired coefficient matrix processing is carried out in the R-, G- and B-channels, and the-signal thus obtained is used for image enhancement, it is required that there is not any time difference among the R-, G- and B-channels. Therefore, the method of shifting the relative optical position of solid-state image sensors is not applicable to an image enhancing circuit used in the above case.

Video camera having image sensors driven by different vertical drive signals

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A pipe made of a synthetic resin and suitable for underground use which has an improved strength and reliability. In a first embodiment, a helical reinforcing rib is provided by extruding together with a band of resin material which forms the main body of the pipe a corrugated tube. By passing the corrugated tube through the extrusion die, the danger of the wall thickness of the main body of the pipe being reduced is eliminated. In a second embodiment, the reinforcing rib is formed by helically winding a reinforcing member having at least an outer coating of either the same material which forms the main body of a straight-wall pipe or a material having a high fusibility therewith. In this case also, the reinforcing rib can be made from a corrugated tube having a semicircular cross-section.

The present invention relates to a pipe made of synthetic resin and which is intended for underground use. Particularly, the invention relates to such a pipe having a high pressure resistance and which may be used for an underground water main, a sewer or drain pipe, a pipe for protecting electrical cables, or the like.
A conventional underground pipe of the same general type to which the invention pertains has been manufactured by a process illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 of the accompanying drawings. With reference first to FIG. 1, a reinforcing rib 02, used to form corrugations on the exterior surface of the pipe, is manufactured from a corrugated tube 03 having corrugations extending perpendicular to the corrugations of the completed pipe and which is covered with an extruded coating. To form the pipe, the rib 02 is wound around the main body 01 of the pipe in a molten state, pressing the rib 02 into the material of the pipe body 01.
A pipe so constituted is advantageous in that it has a good overall strength and a sufficient resistance to the pressure of the soil in which the pipe is buried. Also, the pipe is light in weight and can be readily handled. On the other hand, the pipe is disadvantageous in that it is difficult to control how far the rib 02 sinks into the material of the pipe body 01 when the rib 02 is being wound around and fused into the material of the pipe body 01. Accordingly, often the rib 02 sinks too far into the pipe body 01, making the pipe weak in such areas.

Synthetic resin pipe for underground use


Under compression by molds (31a, 31b), a wire (25), a covered area (27), and a crimping portion (5) are compressed and their cross-sectional areas decrease. Here, A1 is the cross-sectional area of the wire (25) after compression. That is, A1 is the sum of the cross-sectional area of the each strand after compression. Also, 131 is the cross-sectional area of the covered area (27) after compression. In the present invention, the compression rate for the wire (25) is set between 50% and 80%. Also, the compression rate for the covered area (27) is set between 40% and 90%. The amount of compression by the molds (31a, 31b) is set so that the compression rates are within these ranges. In the present invention, the compression rate is calculated by: (cross-sectional area after compression)/(cross-sectional area before compression). That is, 80% compression rate means that the cross-sectional area has decreased by 20% due to compression. That is, the relationships of 80%≥(A1/A0)≥50% and 90%≥(B1/B0)≥40% are satisfied.

Conventionally, crimp bonding, in which an electric wire is caulked and crimped by a terminal called open-barrel type, is usually used to connect an electric wire with a terminal in a wire harness for motor vehicles. In such a wire harness however, any moisture or the like attaching to the connection part of the electric wire and the terminal may cause progress of oxidization of the surface of a metal that is used for the electric wire and increase the resistance at the joint part. In addition, if different metals are used for the electric wire and the terminal, corrosion between different metals may progress. This progress of corrosion of the metal materials at the connection part causes cracks or contact failure at the connection part and its effect on product life is unavoidable. In recent years in particular, a wire harness having electrical wires made of aluminum alloy and terminals made of copper alloy has been in practical use, and the problem of corrosion at the joint part thereof has been noticed.
For instance, if moisture attaches to the contacting part of different metals, such as aluminum and copper, so-called electrolytic corrosion may occur due to difference in corrosion potential. Since the potential difference between aluminum and copper is large in particular, corrosion on the side of aluminum, which is an electrically base metal, progresses. Consequently, the connection between the conducting wires and crimp terminals becomes unstable, causing an increase in contact resistance or in electrical resistance due to decrease in wire diameters, and, furthermore, disconnection of the wires may occur which may result in malfunction or breakdown of the electrical components.
Disclosed is such a wire harness in which different metals are in contact with each other and resin material is filled to cover the connection parts of electrical wires and crimp terminals (Patent Document 1). Filling the resin material prevents moisture from attaching to the contact parts of electrical wires and crimp terminals.

Wire harness, connection method between covered conducting wire and terminal, and wire harness structure body


4(or 3)-(3,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)pyridine, a cardiotonic agent, is prepared by demethylating 4(or 3)-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)pyridine, preferably by heating with aqueous hydrogen bromide. 4(or3)-[3,4-di-(OR)-phenyl]pyridine, where R is hydrogen or methyl, or pharmaceutically-acceptable acid-addition salt thereof is disclosed as the active component in a cardiotonic composition for increasing cardiac contractility and in the method for increasing cardiac contractility in a patient requiring such treatment. The novel isomeric 2-[3,4-di-(OR)-phenyl]pyridine, where R is hydrogen or methyl, is shown for comparative purposes.

a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to dihydroxyphenylpyridines, intermediate dimethoxyphenylpyridines, their preparation and their use as cardiotonics.
b. Description of the Prior Art
4-(3,4-Dimethoxyphenyl)pyridine, inter alia, is shown in A. C. Ritchie U.S. Pat. No. 3,575,985, issued Apr. 20, 1971, as an intermediate in the preparation of 4-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-1-methylpyridinium iodide, which was heated with aqueous hydrogen bromide in acetic acid to form a mixture of 4-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-1-methylpyridinium iodide and bromide. The iodide-bromide mixture was treated with freshly prepared silver chloride to produce 4-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-1-methylpyridinium chloride. The pyridinium salts of U.S. Pat. No. 3,575,985 were said to have "an effect upon the cardiovascular and nervous systems for example possessing antihypertensive activity and able to block or stimulate antonomic ganglia".
4-(3-Hydroxyphenyl)pyridine is shown, inter alia, by Coates et al. [J. Chem. Soc. 1943, 406].
Ginos et al. [J. Med. Chem. 18, 1194 (1975)] show, as an intermediate, 2-(3,4-dihydroxybenzyl)pyridine.

4(or 3)-(3,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)pyridines, their cardiotonic use and cardiotonic use of their methyl ethers


Methods for drawing an aligned rectangle or rotated rectangle on an electronic device are provided. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a first user input at a first location of a movable indicator in a graphical user interface includes an x-y axes, and determining whether the movable indicator has moved from the first location prior to receiving a second user input. The method also includes providing, for display, a rectangle based on coordinates of the first location and the second location and aligned to the x-y axes. The method further includes providing, for display, a first rotated rectangle, based on coordinates of the first location and a third location of the indicator, which is rotated about the x-y axes based on an angle calculated from the first location and the second location. Systems, graphical user interfaces, and machine-readable media are also provided.

1. Field
The present disclosure generally relates a display of information on an electronic device, and more particularly to graphical design on an electronic display.
2. Description of the Related Art
A common approach for creating a rectangle shape (e.g., for performing a selection of content or to draw the rectangle shape) in a graphical user interface on a computer is a click-and-drag tool that permits a user to create a rectangle shape aligned with the x-y axes of the graphical user interface. If a user seeks to create a rectangle shape that is not aligned with the x-y axes of the graphical user interface, the user takes an additional step of rotating the rectangle shape to a different x-y axes that is not aligned with the graphical user interface after the aligned rectangle shape has been created. It is often inconvenient for users to take the additional step after creating the rectangle. It is also difficult for users to adequately predict a needed size for a rectangle prior to rotating the created rectangle, with users often realizing upon rotation that their created rectangle is incorrectly sized for its intended purpose.


An apparatus for conveying granular material includes a first conveyor (such as an auger) feeding a second conveyor. In the improvement, the first conveyor feeds granular material into a cone-like converging member. Such converging member defines an area which generally decreases in the direction of material movement. Such converging member may have any of several shapes and a truncated cone shape is preferred for effectiveness, ease of fabrication and the like. In specific applications of the new apparatus on a grain combine, the volume of corn conveyed by the apparatus increased 15% or more when using the converging member.

Powered conveyors for moving granular material are configured in any of a wide variety of types. Examples include generally-flat belt conveyors (either horizontal or inclined), inclined ladder conveyors equipped with protruding paddle-like flights and auger conveyors, sometimes known as screw conveyors. Often, the area immediately above the conveyor is unobstructed and the material being conveyed need not pass through any type of restriction. However, not all coveyors function in such an operating environment.
An example is the conveying system on an agricultural machine known as a combine. A combine might be termed a "cutting-and-threshing" machine in that it cuts a plant stalk and then threshes such stalk to separate the desired grain from the associated stalk or plant portion. Combines are used to harvest, e.g., soybeans, corn, wheat and rice, and the leading manufacturer of such machines is Case Corporation of Racine, Wis.
Stalk threshing is by a rotating perforated drum and when the grain is separated, it falls through the openings in the drum onto an apron-like trough. An open-top conveyor (e.g., a screw-like auger conveyor) operates along the length of the trough to move the grain out of the trough and through a tube to another conveyor. The second conveyor deposits the grain in a bin on the combine for later transfer to a haulage wagon or the like.
While the foregoing arrangement generally works well, it is not without its problems. A significant problem arises from environment in which the first conveyor is required to operate. Such first conveyor is "open-topped" along much of its length so that grain falling through the threshing drum may fall freely onto and flow into such conveyor for grain movement. However, toward it discharge end, such conveyor is required to urge the grain into and through a restricting tubular guide portion which "focuses" the grain flow to the second conveyor.
The abruptness of the restriction impedes free movement of grain. Grain is thereby caused to "bunch" or deflect at that location and the smooth forward progress of grain movement is impeded. As a result, the efficiency of the conveying arrangement is adversely affected.
Increasing the speed of the conveying arrangement seems to do little if anything to improve conveying rate. In a specific embodiment, the drive speed of the arrangement was increased about 15% and the amount of corn conveyed thereby actually decreased slightly. (In other embodiments, an increase in drive speed did produce a modest increase in the rate at which grain was conveyed.)
An apparatus which resulted in higher conveyor output without increasing drive speeds, which is easy to fabricate, which is low in cost and which can be retrofitted to certain existing combines would be an important advance in the art.

Converging member and related apparatus for conveying granular material


The present disclosure relates to a manufacturing plant for high-pressure polymerization having a layered tubular reactor and a method for an emergency shutdown in said manufacturing plant. The present disclosure also relates to a process for manufacturing LDPE using said layered tubular reactor.

Ethylene polymers may be formed in high-pressure polymerization processes. Individual steps in such processes are the compression of the reaction mixture to the reactor pressure, introduction of an initiator in at least one stage, polymerization while removing exothermic heat of reaction, product separation and further processing. For said processes, different types of reactor design may be used. One class of reactors to form low density ethylene-based polymers are tubular reactors.
A common set-up of a plant for preparing low density polyethylene comprises, besides the polymerization reactor, further equipment. The reaction components may be pressurized by a combination of two compressors, a primary compressor and a secondary compressor. At the end of the polymerization sequence, a high-pressure polymerization unit may further include apparatuses like extruders and granulators for pelletizing the obtained polymer. Furthermore, such a polymerization unit may also comprise means for feeding monomers and comonomers, free-radical initiators, chain transfer agents or other substances at one or more positions to the polymerization reaction. A process and an apparatus for the manufacture of ethylene polymers and copolymers under high pressures are for example disclosed in WO 2007/018871 A1.
Because tubular rectors for manufacturing LDPE are too long to be constructed as one long straight tube, the tubular reactor has to be spatially arranged. A common arrangement is that the tubular reactor is helically constructed; that means, the compressed reaction mixture advances in a kind of spiraling movement. One possibility of implementing such a design is that the tubular rector is located within a rectangular chamber and the helically arranged reactor tubes are attached to the walls of the chamber. Another possibility is to erect a scaffold and have the tubular rector spiraling along the scaffold.
The polymerization process in a LDPE reactor may be carried out at temperatures from 100° C. to 350° C. and high pressures which can reach 350 MPa. Such high temperatures and pressures require special technology for the process to be handled in a safe and reliable manner. Technical issues in handling ethylene at high pressures are, for example, described in Chem. Ing. Tech. 67 (1995), pages 862 to 864. It is stated that ethylene decomposes rapidly in an explosive manner under certain temperature and pressure conditions to give soot, methane and hydrogen. This undesired reaction occurs repeatedly in the high-pressure polymerization of ethylene. The drastic increase in pressure and temperature associated therewith represents a considerable potential risk for the operational safety of the production plants.
A possible solution for preventing a drastic increase in pressure and temperature of this type involves installing rupture discs or emergency pressure-relief valves. U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,387 discloses a high-pressure tubular reactor containing a plurality of tubular sections interconnected in series by means of connection devices, which reactor contains one or more reaction zones. Within each reaction zone, a single rupture disc device is positioned from about 24 to about 40 feet downstream from the reaction zone inlet. WO 02/01308 A2, for example, discloses a specific hydraulically controlled pressure relief valve which allows a particularly fast opening of the pressure relief valve in case of sudden changes in pressure or temperature. It is technically possible to handle such thermal runaways or explosive decompositions of ethylene within the polymerization reactor, although these situations should be avoided since thermal runaways or explosive decompositions of ethylene within the polymerization reactor lead to a shut-down of the polymerization plant with a possible emission of ethylene into the environment and loss of production.
Nonetheless, since it is not always possible to prevent thermal runaways or explosive decomposition, the equipment of the manufacturing plant has to withstand the mechanical forces which occur when an emergency shut-down is carried out. Furthermore, the equipment should allow for compensating the forces which might apply when the plant is brought into operation or shut down; i.e. when pressure and temperature are changed between operational state and ambient conditions.
There is accordingly a need to provide an improved design for arranging a tubular reactor of a manufacturing plant for high-pressure ethylene polymerization. The tubular reactor should allow efficient preparation of ethylene polymers and the costs of building, installing and operating the manufacturing plant should be reduced. It has hence to be ensured that the parts of the manufacturing plant can withstand the forces which might apply with respect to putting into operation or shutting down the manufacturing plant, even in emergency situations, and to compensate and endure, for example, pressure fluctuations and vibrations which might occur during regular operation of the manufacturing plant.

Manufacturing plant for high-pressure ethylene polymerization and method for emergency shutdown


An initial location of a light pen (150) placed on the surface of an ac plasma panel (100) is determined by scanning the panel with a two-step finder mode. In the first step, the display sites of every seventh row of display sites of the panel are caused to flash in groups of sixteen until the pen signals that it has detected a flash. The sites in a 60-by-60 site region (306) of the panel are then caused to flash individually to determine the precise pen location (302). A second pen location (312) is determined by scanning the sites of a 32-by-32 scanning patch (311) centered around the initial pen location. Subsequent pen locations are then predicted based on the most recent and second most recent pen locations. Each predicted location (317) is used to determine where a subsequent 32-by-32 scanning patch (316) is to be positioned. The direction in which the pen is moving determines the order in which the sites of each patch are scanned. As each pen location is determined, a line (313,319) is generated in the displayed image connecting it to the previously-determined pen location. This creates the subjective impression of "writing" with the pen.

The present invention is directed to an improved technique for tracking the position of a light pen across a display surface such as the face of an ac plasma panel.
In many computer-based display systems, the computer is capable of "tracking" the location of a so-called light pen as it is moved across the display surface by a human operator. "Tracking" in this sense means identifying successive closely-spaced points along the pen's path of motion. A display system with this capability can be configured, for example, to provide the operator with the ability of moving a distinctive symbol "or cursor," across the displayed image--a particularly useful tool in such applications as computer-aided design. In other applications continuous curves may be drawn by connecting successive identified pen positions with straight line segments. As long as the distance between the successively-identified positions is small, a relatively smooth, continuous line is generated in the displayed image under the path followed by the pen. This creates the subjective impression that the line was "written" by the light pen.
The strategy employed to track the position of a light pen across the face of a display medium varies with the medium. In cathode ray tube (CRT) systems, for example, the light pen signals the computer the instant that refresh information applied to the CRT causes the phosphor adjacent to the pen tip to emit light. Data identifying the point on the CRT surface being refreshed at any given time is correlated with the light pen signal to identify the location of the pen on the CRT surface. Identification of the pen location in successive scans of the display surface allows the pen location to be tracked over time, and since the entire display surface is typically scanned at 30 frames/second, even very rapid movements of the pen can be followed. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,653,001 issued Mar. 28, 1972 to W. H. Ninke and 3,389,404 issued June 18, 1969 to R. A. Koster.
Other display media may require a different approach. The ac plasma panel, for example, is a display medium comprised of a matrix of individual display sites each of which resides at any given time in one of two possible states--ON (light-emitting, energized) or OFF (non-light-emitting, non-energized). In the ON state, a site emits a train of individual light pulses at a sufficient repetition rate, e.g., 50 kHz, that the site appears to be continuously light-emitting. In contradistinction to the sequential scan operation of a CRT, however, all ON sites of an ac plasma panel emit their light pulses at the same time. Thus, the normal ON site light pulses cannot be used to determine the particular site over which the pen is located. However, an individual site can be "excited," i.e., made to emit a light pulse, when the ON sites are not emitting light. In order to determine the pen location, then, the sites are excited in a predetermined "scanning" sequence. Once the light pen detects a light pulse at a nonstandard time, its location becomes known since the location of the last site to be excited is known. Such an arrangement is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,170 issued July 4, 1978 to S. R. Maliszewski et al.
Disadvantageously, it takes a relatively long time to scan all the sites of a plasma panel to search for the light pen. Thus, a light pen tracking arrangement based on such a scanning strategy (in analogy to the CRT arrangements) may be unable to smoothly track even moderate movements of the pen; successively identified pen locations are spaced too far apart, both temporally and spatially. One technique which goes a long way toward solving this problem is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,137 issued Feb. 10, 1976 to P. D. Ngo et al. Once an initial location of the pen is determined, e.g., by scanning the entire panel, subsequent scans are confined to a small area, or patch, centered at the last known pen location. The underlying theory of this approach is that the pen will not have moved outside of the scanning patch since the last scan. This technique does, in fact, enable the new pen position to be identified much more quickly than when the entire panel is scanned. However, our experience has been that it is still possible for a user to move the pen with sufficient rapidity to cause the pen to "outrun" the patch if the latter is fairly small. The entire panel must then be scanned again, resulting in slow reacquisition of the pen location. It is, of course, possible to simply use a larger patch. However, because more sites must be scanned, the average time needed to locate the pen is increased, resulting in inaccurate tracking of its path.

Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated


A partially coated blade for a gas turbine engine, including a fillet surface surrounding the airfoil section and connecting it to the platform section. A radially outermost portion of the pressure side and leading edge is covered by a thermal barrier coating. This portion extends radially from a first limit to the blade tip. The first limit is located at a radial distance from the platform of at most 21% of the maximum span. The fillet surface is free or substantially free of the thermal barrier coating. In another embodiment, a second portion of the pressure side and of the leading edge is free or substantially free of the thermal barrier coating, extending radially from the platform section to a second limit located a radial distance from the platform section corresponding to at least 5% of the maximum span. A method of applying a thermal barrier coating is also discussed.

It is generally known to provide thermal barrier coating on airfoils of a gas turbine engine, to protect the airfoils from relatively high temperature oxidizing and corrosive conditions during use. However, the addition of a thermal barrier coating to an airfoil surface increases the weight of the airfoil. Various configurations of partial coatings, or application of the thermal barrier coating to only some parts of the blade, have been tried to attempt to optimise the balance between the benefits of the application of the coating and the disadvantages caused by the presence of the coating.


A system. The system includes a first beam path configured to transmit a first light beam having a first optical wavelength and a second beam path configured to transmit a second light beam having a second optical wavelength distinct from the first optical wavelength. A first beam splitter disposed at an intersection of the first beam path and the second beam path. The first beam splitter is configured to superimpose the first and second light beams to form a third light beam, the third light beam impinging on a first window of a sample cell. The sample cell defines an interior volume and is configured to transfer the third light beam from the first window to a second window along a light path within the interior volume. The light path comprises a plurality of segments. The third light beam undergoes at least one reflection at an end of each segment, wherein the light path passes through a gas sample disposed within the interior volume.

Certain industries, such as the chemical and petroleum industries generate waste gases that need to be controlled. One means of disposing of such waste gases is to burn them in a technique commonly referred to as flaring. Measurement of the constituent gases present in flare vent gas is of importance in assessing the operation of a flare with respect to conformance with environmental regulations. However, there is no single practical method of measuring the components of a gas mixture that can identify all of the potential constituents of flare vent gas of interest in near real time. For example, homonuclear diatomic gas species, such as hydrogen, nitrogen and chlorine, cannot be detected using spectroscopic methods that rely on transitions between states in molecules having a permanent electrical dipole moment. Moreover, commonly used methods that do not rely on molecular dipole transitions such as gas chromatography, are not suited to rapidly changing gas compositions. Therefore systems and methods that address the measurement of flare vent constituent gases are of interest.

Dual spectroscopic system and method for gas sample analysis


In a pump or fluid motor (11, 11a, 11b) having a closed chamber (57) in which cylinders (38) orbit and reciprocate, leakage and cooling fluid which accumulates in the chamber (57) is formed into a rotating annular volume by centrifugal effects and exhibits a higher pressure in the region where the cylinders (38) move radially inward and closer together than in the opposite region where the cylinders (38) move outward and further apart. Power wastage from drag torque, turbulence and heat generation is reduced by scavenging the accumulated fluid from the chamber (57). Internal recirculation of the scavenged fluid from the high pressure portion of the annular rotating volume back to the low pressure portion is avoided by communicating the drain passages (68, 68a, 68b) with only a limited relatively high pressure sector of the rotating volume of fluid.

Radial piston fluid translating devices, including pumps and motors and devices which may function interchangeably as a pump or as a motor, often have a closed case in which a plurality of cylinders are disposed on piston spokes that extend radially from a rotor. The cylinders orbit within an eccentrically positioned race that forces radial reciprocation of the cylinders as the rotor turns.
In some devices of this kind the race or adjacent structure forms an annular chamber at the cylinder orbit which tends to accumulate leakage fluid. In some cases the device may include means for deliberately admitting a small flow of fluid into the cylinder orbit chamber for cooling and lubrication purposes. During operation, centrifugal force tends to trap a rotating volume of the fluid in the cylinder orbit chamber unless drainage or scavenging means are provided to remove such fluid.
If a sizable volume of leakage or cooling fluid remains trapped in the cylinder orbit chamber during operation, serious power wastages occur from increased drag torque or resistance to cylinder motion, from turbulence and from increased frictional heating of the fluid. Increased heating in turn requires higher cooling capacity. Aeration problems are also aggravated in systems where the leakage or cooling fluid, typically oil, is recovered and eventually recirculated through the device as working fluid.
These problems can be reduced by providing scavenging means for expelling fluid from the cylinder orbit chamber. While this is a relatively simple matter in some pump or motor configurations, complications are encountered in many others, most notably in devices designed to operate with a high working fluid pressure or at high rotational speeds or under both conditions.
One complication arises from the centrifugal force effect which acts to hold fluid in the annular chamber formed by the race or associated structure. Simple gravity drain passages are thus ineffective. In addition, the race and associated elements which define the cylinder orbit chamber in some devices are themselves rotatable and, to provide for displacement changes, are also translatable. Thus such elements do not offer fixed locations for drain passages.
At first consideration, it might appear that scavenging could be accomplished by providing a series of drain passages around the circumference of the cylinder orbit chamber to allow centrifugal force to expel fluid into a drainage collector channel. We have found that, at least in some forms of pump or motor, this does not provide a fully satisfactory scavenging action. Power losses remain high and the other adverse effects discussed above are still encountered to an unexpected degree. The prior art does not provide a truly efficient centrifugal scavenging means for radial piston fluid translating devices of the general type identified above.

Radial piston fluid translating device with power conserving scavenging means


A centrifugal fan with a noise suppressing arrangement includes a fan, a motor for rotating the fan and a scroll casing for accommodating the fan, the scroll casing is formed of a first scroll casing member covering the fan and a second scroll casing member forming the bottom part of the scroll casing, the second scroll casing member being provided with at the center thereof a cylindrical housing for holding the electric motor, and further includes a porous sound absorbing member having elasticity sandwiched and secured between the first scroll casing member and the second scroll casing member whereby the combination of the porous sound absorbing member and an air layer formed between the porous sound absorbing member and the inner bottom wall of the second scroll casing member suppresses noises caused by rotation of the fan.

The present invention relates to a centrifugal fan which includes vanes, for example, forward curved vanes, radial curved vanes or backward curved vanes and, in particular, relates to a centrifugal fan with a noise suppressing arrangement suitable for house-hold use and for cooling business machines, computers and, particularly, air conditioners in motor vehicles.
A conventional centrifugal fan, such as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 48-63305 (1973), is constructed by a fan, a scroll casing accommodating the fan and a motor for driving the fan. In such a construction, the fan suctions air from the axial direction and discharges the air in the radial direction of the fan. Namely, the centrifugal fan is constructed to discharge the air in a centrifugal direction. This scroll casing gradually restores the dynamic pressure caused by rotating the fan to a static pressure within the scroll casing.
However, in such structure, no counter-measure is taken for reducing an air pulsating sound caused by the fan, a vortex sound caused by wind separation from the vanes and a turbulent sound within the scroll casing.
Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 57-24566 (1982) discloses an air conditioner for use in an automobile wherein an inner and outer air changeover box is modified so as to indirectly reduce such noises.
Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-90415 (1988) discloses an air conditioner for use in an automobile, wherein a sound absorbing member which is formed by adhering a thin elastic nonporous member on a surface of a thick elastic porous member is attached to the bottom wall of the scroll casing of the centrifugal fan for reducing noise.
In the conventional centrifugal fan disclosed above, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 48-63305 (1973), the air pulsating sound caused by the fan, the vortex sound caused by wind separation from vanes and the turbulent sound within the scroll casing are not specifically suppressed, resulting in a total noise level from the centrifugal fan which is comparatively high.
With regard to the air conditioner for use in an automobile as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 57-24566 (1982), the modification of the inner and outer air changeover box results in a complex structure, and the production cost increases; and the mounting condition thereof lowers the versatility.
Further, in the scroll casing of the centrifugal fan disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-90415 (1988), the sound absorbing member adheres to the bottom of the scroll casing to reduce the noise. However, a soft polyurethane foam which is generally used as a sound absorbing material particularly absorbs sounds having high frequency components of more than 1000 Hz and generally does not absorb sound having low frequency components, for example, less than 1000 Hz. In the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-90415 (1988), the elimination of the above problems of the sound absorbing member is disclosed by adhering a thin plate of an elastic nonporous material such as chloroprene rubber plate on one of the surfaces of a thick plate of an elastic porous material such as soft polyurethane foam. With the use of such sound absorbing member, the vibrating energy of the sound waves covering a broad range of the frequency components can be absorbed by the two kinds of sound absorbing materials adhered having different sound absorbing characteristics. With such a sound absorbing member, it is possible to absorb the vibrating energy of low frequency sound waves because of the use of the elastic non-porous material on the surface of the combined sound absorbing member; however, the unabsorbed sound waves can not reach the lower elastic porous material; quite the contrary, the unabsorbed sound waves are reflected at the interface such that the substantial benefit of the elastic porous material disposed in the lower side is lost compared with the effect obtainable by a mere provision of the thick elastic porous material. Therefore, the sound waves of the high frequency components can not be reduced.
Further, for maximizing the effect of the sound absorbing member, it is necessary to provide the sound absorbing member over the entire inner wall surface of the scroll casing such that the thin plate is difficult to adhere to curved surfaces which increases the production cost; further there is a problem that the sound absorbing member such as the thin plate, which is always subject to the wind flow, may peel off if no countermeasure are taken.

Centrifugal fan with noise suppressing arrangement

Hitachi Automotive Engineering Co., Ltd.


A system, method, and computer program product for accessing web pages on a network are provided. In use, different users are provided access to a plurality of sections of a document selected by the different users based on a community value for at least one community dimension assigned to each section of document selected by the different users. In particular, a user is conditionally provided access to a section of a document selected by the user, based on a comparison of a user value indicating a community with which the user is associated to the community value for the at least one community dimension assigned to the section of the document selected by the user.

The present invention relates in general to the transfer of data in computer 25 networks and more specifically to a system for publishing, organizing, accessing and distributing information in a computer network.
Accessing information, and publishing information for others to access or obtain, are important features of computer networks. However, although the trend is to make information access and publishing easy for users of computers and computer networks, many of the mechanisms available are not easy for an average user to master. For example, publishing a web document not only requires a user to have some knowledge about where to publish, and to what audience to publish, but the user may have to publish the document to several "sites" or locations to make the document readily available to a desired number of users. This is the case, for example, when a company uses the company's network, or intranet, that has different web sites associated with different departments, regions, etc.
The lack of structure or organization of web pages, and documents, on networks can be both good and bad. Lack of structure can allow easy publishing of documents without placing a burden on the publisher to comply with a predefined organization. This also lets each web site developer, online business, database, etc., to create a customized organization that is best suited to the specific type of information. However, lack of structure and organization also creates difficulties for a user of the network to efficiently search for documents. Often a user has to perform many searches and access different websites and utilities to look for the document. This involves much typing and mouse (or other user input device) manipulation, is time-consuming and can be frustrating and counter-productive.
An analogy can be made to a newspaper which has an effective and well-known organization. A reader of the newspaper can quickly obtain information from the newspaper by going to a subject section such as "Business," "Sports," "Travel," etc. The newspaper also provides an index or table of contents. Articles are organized in order of importance with "links" to other sections of related news, such as the continuing text of an article. However, to achieve this level of organization means that considerable time must be spent on editing, page layout, paste-up, etc. Also, writers, editors, and other people must work in a concerted effort to produce the organized information. The approach of computer networks has been to allow each writer/publisher to throw an article into a haphazard network "bin" and to rely on loose organization mechanisms such as keyword searching, folder organization, hyperlink organization or criteria organization.
An example of a web site structure that a typical company might provide on its internal intranet is to have different web sites for functions, or departments, such as "Human Resources," "Marketing," and "Finance." If the company is large, there may be different regional offices, each having these functions. If, for example, the company has offices at locations in the U.S., Europe and Asia, this amounts to 9 different intranet sites for information. Also, there will typically also be a main site for each regional office, a main site for each department or organization, and a main site for the overall company.
Thus, we find 16 possible sites in all for the example discussed above. The typical organization for documents associated with these sites is to have the documents pointed at by links. The links can be organized into categories at each site's web page. Not only does this make publishing information extremely difficult when it is desired to mike information available to more than one site; but any person interested in searching and obtaining information may have to visit several sites. Also, the task of publishing documents to the various intranet sites is usually handled by a different person than the writer/publisher. Not only can this become a huge task, given the number of documents and sites, but mistakes in classification are likely.
Some traditional methods for accessing documents in computer networks include keyword searching. This allows a user to make a relational query such as "movie review." The search will return documents that include the term "movie review" somewhere in the document. The documents can be at any number of sites. A search can be further narrowed by for example, including a relational term such as "AND" and the name of a movie reviewer. Also, a specific date, or period of time, can be specified. However, because of the huge volume of information on most intranets (and certainly the worldwide Internet) the number of documents that match basic keyword searches is very large. Unless the user is very familiar with the terminology, and type, of documents relating to the subject in which the user is interested, the user's keyword search will most likely turn up many documents in which the user is not interested. These must be further filtered by refining the query until the proper documents are identified. With this approach it is often impossible to obtain a list of only relevant documents in which the searcher is interested. The scope of the keyword search can not be set by the user but is determined by the entity running the search engine and compiling the search engine database.
Besides the large volume of information, another difficulty in obtaining desired documents is that documents are created and "published" to the networks with few, or no, restrictions as to their form and organization. In other words, a web page can be created and published by a user that includes text, images, etc. with an arbitrary organization. A document might or might not have a title, author's name, publication date, etc. The text of a document can be arranged in columns, paragraphs, one-liner separated by images or graphics, etc. Often a document may not have any short identifying features, or any way to tell where one field, such as the subject of the document, begins and ends so that the subject may be indistinguishable from the body of the document at least insofar as a keyword search is concerned.
One approach to overcome some of these problems is to hand-annotate documents found on networks. Typically, this is done after document creation (sometimes long after document creation) by a person who was involved in the creation of a document, web page, etc. Not only does this require substantial amounts of manual labor and time by persons having some skill and knowledge in the area to which the documents relates, but, by attempting to organize and summarize aspects of the document, mistakes can be introduced, thereby compromising the degree of accurate, searchable information.
Another approach is to use "folders" or sub-directories in programs such as email programs or web browsers. However, organizing information in this way is usually done manually by the viewer of the information (i.e., the email or web documents). There is no provision for publishing to a user's private organization as these folders are hidden from publishers. Where a public organizational hierarchy is implemented with folders, such a hierarchy often becomes large and complex, requiring much time to navigate. Also, this approach does not provide flexible security or access control.
Some web sites, such as www.yahoo.com, accumulate information such as documents, web pages, etc., from various sources and categorize, summarize and annotate the documents. This multicriteria organization defines categories which are presented to a user searching the Internet as a hierarchy of web pages. Each successive web page in the hierarchy (i.e., web pages progressively lower in the hierarchy) contain a new sub-category of selections that further narrow the category. At some point, the user decides that the category is the one desired and clicks a control. A collection of information that fits the category is then presented to the user.
However, this approach often requires that documents be interpreted and classified by a person other than the author so that errors can be introduced. Also, a considerable amount of work is required to do the classifying, write an abstract, etc. Another drawback is that the navigation through web pages can be slow. Also, a user does not have an awareness of the overall classification scheme being used. In other words, the user does not know how many sub-category levels there are in the hierarchy, or what types of classifications are used, until the user has done a substantial amount of investigating into the hierarchy "tree" classes.
Still other drawbacks of the prior art include the inability to index to individual pages, sections, or portions of a document. This means that text that would otherwise be maintained as a single document must be broken into several documents if it is desired to only allow certain groups to have access to different portions of the original text. Current network organizations do not provide a very flexible security and access system. Usually a website is restricted to user's with a certain account or password. Each user wishing to access the site, and all of the site's documents must enter the password. The use of passwords is difficult to maintain since accounts must be set-up, user's can forget the passwords, etc. Also, the granularity of password protection is very coarse as an entire website is usually either open or closed to a particular user.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a computer network-based system that overcomes some or all of the problems in the prior art and provides an efficient system for publishing, organizing, accessing and distributing information in a computer network.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method, system, and computer program product for searching documents in a computer network


A refrigerator includes a refrigerator main body configured to define an outer shell of the refrigerator and a door configured to open and close an internal space of the refrigerator main body. The refrigerator further includes an ice-making unit provided in the door and a cold air generation unit configured to circulate a refrigerant so that a cold air is supplied to the internal space. The refrigerator further includes an ice-making pipe installed within the ice-making unit so that the ice-making unit makes heat exchange with the refrigerant, a refrigerant pipe installed in the refrigerator main body so as to receive the refrigerant from the cold air generation unit, and a soft pipe disposed around a folding portion of the refrigerator main body and the door and configured to interconnect the ice-making pipe and the refrigerant pipe in a stretchable manner.

A refrigerator is an apparatus for use in storing food at a low temperature and may be configured to store food in a frozen state or a refrigerated state depending on the kinds of food to be stored.
The interior of the refrigerator is cooled by a continuously-supplied cold air. The cold air is continuously generated by a heat exchange action of a refrigerant which goes through a freezing cycle consisting of compression, condensation, expansion and evaporation. The cold air supplied into the refrigerator is uniformly transferred to the interior of the refrigerator by convection and is used to store food at a desired temperature within the refrigerator.
The refrigerator includes a main body having a rectangular parallelepiped shape with a front surface thereof opened. A refrigeration compartment and a freezing compartment may be provided within the main body. A refrigeration compartment door and a freezing compartment door for selectively shielding opening portions may be provided on the front surface of the main body. Drawers, racks, storage boxes and the like for storing different kinds of food in an optimal state may be provided in the internal storage spaces of the refrigerator.
In general, top-mount-type refrigerators each having a freezing compartment positioned at the upper side and a refrigeration compartment positioned at the lower side constitute the mainstream of refrigerators. In recent years, there are commercially available bottom-freeze-type refrigerators in which a freezing compartment is positioned at the lower side in order to enhance the user convenience. In the case of the bottom-freeze-type refrigerators, the frequently-used refrigeration compartment is positioned at the upper side and the less-frequently-used freezing compartment is positioned at the lower side. This provides an advantage of enabling a user to conveniently use the refrigeration compartment. However, in the bottom-freeze-type refrigerators, the freezing compartment is positioned at the lower side. Thus, the bottom-freeze-type refrigerators are inconvenient to use because a user should bend the body in order to open a freezing compartment door and to take out ice pieces.
In order to solve this problem, there is commercially available a bottom-freeze-type refrigerator in which a dispenser for taking out ice pieces is provided in a refrigeration compartment door positioned at the upper side of the refrigerator. In this case, an ice-making device for producing ice pieces may be provided in the refrigeration compartment door or the interior of the refrigeration compartment.
In the case of the bottom-freeze-type refrigerator in which an ice-making device is installed in a refrigeration compartment door, an air (cold air) cooled by a evaporator is divisionally discharged into a freezing compartment and refrigeration compartment. The cold air discharged toward the freezing compartment flows toward the ice-making device along a cold air supply duct embedded in a sidewall of a refrigerator main body. Then, the cold air cools water into ice pieces while flowing through the interior of the ice-making device. Thereafter, the cold air existing within the ice-making device is discharged into the refrigeration compartment via a cold air return duct embedded in the sidewall of the refrigerator main body, thereby lowering the internal temperature of the refrigeration compartment.
However, in the case of the refrigerator of the related art, the cold air supply duct, the cold air return duct and a structure for insulating the ducts need to be added to the left or right wall surface portion of the refrigeration compartment. Thus, the volume of the refrigerator may be reduced and the internal pipe arrangement structure of the refrigerator may be complex.
Furthermore, the production of ice pieces in the refrigerator door is performed by an indirect cooling method using the cold air flowing through the cold air supply duct. Thus, the water existing in the refrigerator door is not directly cooled by a refrigerant. This may reduce the ice-making speed.


The electromagnetic valve includes a magnetic housing (11, 12, 13), an electromagnetic coil (15) received in the magnetic housing and a plurality of movable parts including a movable magnetic armature (23,36) and a movable valve stem device (58) for valve opening and closing. To provide a damping of the motion of the movable parts, at least one of the movable parts (23, 36, 58), advantageously a part of the armature, is provided with a hollow compartment (72) and a damping mass (74) at least partial filling the hollow compartment (72). The volume of the hollow compartment (72) is greater than the volume of the damping mass (74) so that motions of the magnetic armature and other parts are damped by the frictional and impact losses occurring in the damping mass (74).

The present invention relates to an electromagnetic valve and, more particularly, to a pressurized medium regulating valve for an automatic transmission of a motor vehicle.
An electromagnetic valve is known comprising a magnetic housing, a electromagnetic coil received in the magnetic housing and a plurality of movable parts including a movable magnetic armature and a movable valve stem means for valve opening and closing.
Numerous embodiments of this type of electromagnetic valve are known and are, among other applications, used as a pressurized medium regulating valve in an automatic transmission of a motor vehicle. This type of pressurized medium regulating valve is described, for example, in German Published Patent Application 41 32 816. In order to damp the motions of the armature in this type of valve, its armature compartment must be already filled during assembly with a pressurized medium (oil). This type of hydraulic and/or viscous damping of the armature and/or the valve movable parts has however considerable disadvantages. A uniformly invariant filling of all valves during the manufacture of a number of electromagnetic valves in series with the pressurized medium can be guaranteed only by considerable effort and expense. Moreover a considerable number of steps are required for sealing the armature compartment. Since the gap height to a very large extent (to the third power) influences the damping in the hydraulic and/or viscous damping, already reduced manufacturing tolerances lead to a considerable variation in the valve characteristic curve. Furthermore hydraulically damped electromagnetic valves of this type are to a large extent sensitive to dirt and/or contamination, since dirty or contaminated pressurized medium can be forced into the armature compartment by a required volume or pressure balancing. Particularly that can lead easily to valve failure, because of contamination by ferromagnetic particles. The hydraulic and/or viscous damping effects the valve characteristic curve to a particularly large extent because of the large changes in the viscosity of the pressurized medium with temperature change. If the electromagnetic valve is used, for example as a pressurized medium regulating valve in an automatic transmission of a motor vehicle, the standard operating temperature range of the valve is from 230.degree. to 420.degree.K. The viscosity of the pressurized medium used for damping changes to a great extent in this temperature range. The viscosity of the pressurized medium can be changed in this range by as much as a factor of 3000. Because of that, it is nearly impossible to produce electromagnetic valves of this type with a nearly constant valve characteristic curve and uniform dynamics.