A momentary test mode enabling circuit capable of enabling the test mode using a negative pulse signal below the ground voltage level and of inputting normal operational inputs to the input pin even in the period of test mode, The circuit comprising a level detecting unit for detecting a level of an input signal being inputted to the input pin, a Schmitt trigger unit for stabilizing the level of the signal detected at the level detecting unit and outputting clock signals, and a toggle and latch section for outputting a test enabling signal upon the control of the clock signals from the Schmitt trigger unit. By use of the Schmitt trigger circuit, the input level detection signal is stabilized, thus increasing the noise margin and the test enabling and disabling operations may be easily carried out by the negative change of a momentary input signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an enabling-circuit for enabling a momentary test mode of integrated circuits and more particularly to, a momentary test mode enabling circuit for enabling a test mode by use of a negative pulse signal below a ground potential which makes it possible to input a normal operational signal to an input pin during the test mode so that momentary enabling and disabling operations may be carried out.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, test mode enabling circuits are used in memory devices and various types of test mode enabling circuits are well known in the art. One conventional test mode enabling circuit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,168(Blankenship et al.). The conventional test mode enabling circuit, as shown in FIG. 1, comprises a level detecting circuit 2 for detecting a level of an input pin 1, an inverter gate 3 for inverting and buffering the detection signal from the level detecting circuit 2, and a limiting circuit 4 for limiting a maximum and a minimum values of the level being inputted to the input pin 1.
The level detecting circuit 2 is constituted such that a source of an NMOS transistor M1 is connected to the input pin 1 through a resistor R1, the drain and gate of NMOS transistor M1 are connected in common to a source of an NMOS transistor M2, a gate of the NMOS transistor M2 is grounded, the drain of the NMOS transistor M2 is connected in common to an emitter of a bipolar transistor Q1 and a source of an NMOS transistor M3, the drain and gate of the NMOS transistor M3 are connected to a power source V.sub.DD, the base of the bipolar transistor Q1 is grounded, and the collector thereof is connected to a power source V.sub.DD.
The limiting circuit 4 limits the maximum and minimum values of a level being inputted to the input pin 1 so as to protect other peripheral circuits from a surge which may be applied to the input pin 1.
The inverter gate 3 inverts the level of an input signal which is detected at the level detecting circuit 2 so that the indefinite level detection signal of the level detecting circuit 2 may be outputted as a correct high level or low level signal.
Since the gate of the NMOS transistor M2 is grounded, an input signal of a level that threshold voltages 2 V.sub.T of the NMOS transistors M2 and M1 are subtracted from the ground potential has to be applied in order to turn on the NMOS transistors M1 and M2. Also, since the base of the bipolar transistor Q1 is grounded, the minimum value of the potential of a connection node N1 at the emitter side of the bipolar transistor Q1 is limited by the value obtained by subtracting a threshold voltage of the bipolar transistor Q1 from the ground potential.
When the basic conditions of the circuit are determined and the level of the input voltage V.sub.IN being applied to the input pin 1 is in a normal state, that is, the level of the input voltage V.sub.IN is between the ground potential and the Dower source voltage, the NMOS transistors M1 and M2 are in a turn-off state and a voltage of a level V.sub.DD -V.sub.TN is generated at the connection node N1 through the NMOS transistor M3 which is always in a turn-on state, and the voltage is applied to the inverter gate 3. Thus, the output signal of the inverter gate 3 comes to the ground level.
Meanwhile, the level of the input voltage V.sub.IN being applied to the input pin 1 drops down below ground level, the NMOS transistor M1 is turned on so that the electric charges at the connection node are discharged through the NMOS transistor M1.
In other words, when the input level V.sub.IN drops down below GND-V.sub.TN, the NMOS transistor M2 is turned on and the level at the node N1 drops down.
At this moment, when the level at the node N1 drops down to the ground level GND, the voltage between the drain and the source of the NMOS transistor M3 becomes equivalent to the voltage between its gate and source and thus the NMOS transistor M3 becomes saturated.
Accordingly, the level at the node N1 is maintained at the ground level GND and the output of the inverter gate 3 becomes a high level signal, thereby enabling the test mode.
In such a conventional circuit, a lot of power loss occurs due to a static current during the test mode enabling period, and since the high level at the node N1 which is an input of the inverter gates M4 and M5 becomes V.sub.DD -V.sub.TN, the noise margin is insufficient. Also, since the inverter gates are used to detect the level at the node N1, the switching characteristics of the connection node N3 are bad.


A drivable cleaning apparatus for textile machines has air lines that are connected to air hoses. The air hoses are connected to the air lines with swivel joints and are displaceable from a first into a second position by a rotary drive. The rotary drive is designed such that a rotation of the swivel joint past the initial pivoting movement from the first to the second position is possible, thus also allowing for a continuous rotary operation.

The present invention relates to a drivable cleaning apparatus for textile machines, especially for weaving machines, comprising a blower with air lines connected thereto to which air hoses, especially suction hoses are connected which are rotatable relative to the air lines by a drive device so that the openings of the air hoses are displaced from a first position into a second position, whereby the drive device operates transverse to a track of the cleaning apparatus on which the cleaning apparatus travels.
Such a cleaning apparatus is for example know from German Gebrauchsmuster 75 17 978. This cleaning apparatus allows for the pivoting of an air hose when obstacles are present beside a textile machine. Such an obstacle may, for example, be a operating device which is drivable along the side of the textile machine. According to the aforementioned Gebrauchsmuster the air hose is pivoted out of the travel path of the cleaning apparatus.
A further cleaning apparatus is known from German Patent 35 03 755. These cleaning apparatus designed for circular spinning machines have an S-shaped bent portion whereby this bent portion is provided below a swivel joint. By rotating the swivel joint a change of the distance between the textile machine and the end of the air hose can be obtained. A pivoting of the air hose of at least 90.degree., in practice of approximately 100.degree., is possible so that obstacles present within the pivoting zone can be circumvented.
The suggested known solutions are especially designed for circular spinning machines whereby especially the pivoting drive in these suggested devices must continuously be serviced in order to ensure proper functioning of the device. For example, there is a risk that when the suspended hose accidentally hits an obstacle that has not been detected, the respective end abutment of the pivoting drive is displaced. When, for example, blower hoses are used in such a pivoting device, the blowing direction is thus slightly displaced which initially may not be detected, but may result in severe disadvantages with respect to the cleaning effect and thus with respect to the reliability of the cleaning apparatus.
Furthermore, from U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,258 a cleaning apparatus for textile machines is known which operates with a plurality of robot arms that are pivotable and can be guided to a particular location of the textile machine which needs to be cleaned. This solution, however, requires a complicated control and is prone to breakdowns and disturbances.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning apparatus of the aforementioned kind which is substantially improved with respect to its reliability, whereby, however, a reliable and secure circumvention with respect to obstacles and, optionally, a greater cleaning effect over a greater area can be achieved.


A method and apparatus that reduce the complexity of motion estimation while providing better quality for a particular level of reduced resolution than previously available are described. The method and apparatus involve motion estimation quantization dithering to avoid quantization error effects when reducing the resolution, for example, from eight-bit pixel intensity values to two-bit pixel intensity values. Consequently, an embodiment of the invention provides efficient motion estimation using statistically accurate reduced resolution representations.

The invention relates generally to video compression and, more specifically, to reducing the complexity of motion estimation.
Image information, for example, motion picture information, video information, animated graphics information, etc., often involves large amounts of data. Image information often includes data to represent coloring, shading, texturing, and transparency of every pixel in every frame of the image information. Each frame may include hundreds of thousands or even millions of pixels. The frames are often presented in rapid succession, for example, at a rate of 30 frames per second, to convey a sense of motion. Thus, without some form of data compression, such image information could easily involve hundreds of millions of bits per second.
To avoid the need to store and transmit such large amounts of data, data compression techniques have been developed. Some data compression techniques have been designed to compression image information. Video compression converts a sequence of digital video frames, each comprising an array of pixel values, into a smaller (in terms of number of bits used for storage and transmission) and more efficient representation.
One example is the type of encoding specified by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). MPEG encoding is widely used, and its uses include internet video transmission, DVD (digital video disks), and HDTV (high-definition television). MPEG encoding produces a stream of different types of frames. These frames include intra frames and non-intra frames. The intra frames include sufficient information to reconstruct a frame of unencoded image information without the need to reference other frames of encoded data. The non-intra frames, however, provide information that refers to other information encoded in intra frames or other non-intra frames. Unencoded frames represented by the non-intra frames may be reconstructed by applying the information contained in the non-intra frames to the information contained in the intra frames to which the non-intra frames refer.
Since the amount of information stored in non-intra frames is much smaller than the amount of information in the unencoded frames that the non-intra frames represent, the use of non-intra frames can help greatly reduce the amount of image information that needs to be stored or transmitted. One aspect of the non-intra frames that allows them to contain less information than the unencoded frames they represent is that the non-intra frames essentially recycle image information found in the intra frames. For example, an unencoded frame represented by an intra frame may depict several objects. The objects may be located in several areas of the frame. Since the advantage of moving images, such as motion pictures, video, and animated graphics, over still images is the ability of the moving images to convey a sense of motion, the objects located in several areas of the frame often move to different areas when they appear in subsequent frames.
Since the image information needed to represent the appearance of the objects is present in the intra frames, that information may be recycled in non-intra frames. The non-intra frames contain the information needed to update the location of the objects without having to contain all of the information needed to express the appearance of the objects. Therefore, to encode non-intra frames, the change in the position of the objects represented in the non-intra frames is determined relative to the position of the objects represented in the intra frames.
One technique that has been used to determine the change in the position of objects represented in non-intra frames involves dividing an image into image blocks (i.e., square blocks of pixels within the image). Then a determination is made as to where the block of pixels was located in the previous frame. This process is done by matching the pattern one block at a time.
In greater detail, the process includes several steps. First, the current (non-intra, or predicted) frame is divided into blocks. Then, for each block, a collection of potentially matching blocks is defined in the reference (intra or predicted) frame. Then, all of the pixel differences are added up using absolute differences to determine a score. The matching block that has the best score is then selected.
A motion vector is used to represent the change from the location of the matching block in the reference frame with the best score to the location of the block in the current frame. Motion estimation is a process for identifying the optimal values for motion vectors. Motion estimation is typically performed by considering many motion vectors in a search window and evaluating the quality of the matches represented by the motion vectors. Computing the quality of the matches to determine the best match typically requires a very large number of numerical operations. At the culmination of the motion estimation process, the motion vector is used to encode one or more non-intra frames for a sequence of images. The information encoded in the non-intra frames may then be used for motion compensation to reconstruct the sequence of images when the non-intra frames are decoded.
Since motion estimation is the most computationally taxing stage of typical video compression techniques, such as MPEG video compression, reducing the complexity of the motion estimation process reduces the processing capability needed to perform video compression, allows the video compression to be performed more quickly, and allows a greater amount of video information to be compressed in a given amount of time.
One approach to reducing the complexity of numerical operations for motion estimation is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,712,799, issued to Farmwald et al. and owned by the assignee of the present application. Farmwald et al. disclose a method and structure for performing motion estimation using reduced precision pixel intensity values. The pixel intensity values of the pixels in the current block are averaged to determine a first average pixel intensity value. The pixel intensity values of the current block which have a pixel intensity value less than the first average pixel intensity value are averaged to determine a second average pixel intensity value. The pixel intensity values of the current block which have a pixel intensity value greater than the first average pixel intensity value are averaged to determine a third average pixel intensity value. The first, second, and third average pixel intensity values are used to determine thresholded pixel intensity values for the current block pixels. and the search window pixels, thereby creating a thresholded current block and a thresholded search window.
Farmwald et al. provide a particular technique for reducing the precision of pixel intensity values, for example, to allow pixel intensity values to be expressed as two-bit representations rather than eight-bit values. By operating on the two-bit representations rather than on the eight-bit values, the complexity of certain block matching computations used for motion estimation is significantly reduced.
However, the teachings of Farmwald et al. do not guarantee that the best possible block match score estimate will be obtained. Thus, less than optimal motion vectors may be selected and the quality of the compressed video produced according to the motion estimation technique of Farmwald et al. may be compromised. Thus, a method and apparatus that reduce the complexity of the motion estimation process without compromising quality are needed.

Method and apparatus for motion estimation quantization dithering


A method for processing overheads in an optical communication system and a signal processing device are disclosed. The method includes: in a receiving direction, conduct an O/E and S/P conversion for the received optical signal, extract overheads necessary for overheads processing; transmit the overheads in serial; conduct an S/P conversion of the overheads, add fixed reserved overheads, and revert the parallel overheads for overheads processing; in a transmitting direction, generate parallel overheads, extract overheads necessary for overheads processing; transmit the overheads in serial; conduct an S/P conversion of the overheads, revert the overheads, synthesize the overheads with the payload data before the P/S and E/O conversion, and generate and transmit the optical signal. In accordance with the disclosed method and device, a serial bus is employed to transmit overheads, which reduces the number of buses on the motherboard and lowers the complexity of system design.

At present, SDH/SONET has been widely used in a backbone layer of a transport network. As advantages such as a perfect network equipment management function, a powerful networking ability, and a strong network self-healing ability possessed by an SDH/SONET system are all implemented via overheads in the frame thereof, transmission and processing of the overheads are of great significance for the transmission of SDH/SONET signals.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a signal processing device of an SDH/SONET system. As shown in FIG. 1, the SDH/SONET signal processing device includes the following modules:
a signal processing unit 200, for receiving or transmitting SDH/SONET optical signals, and implementing the separation and synthesis of payload data and overheads of an SDH/SONET signal;
a payload data processing unit 300, for receiving and processing the SDH/SONET payload data separated by the signal processing unit 200, or generating payload data to be transmitted, and transmitting the payload data to be transmitted to the signal processing unit 200; and
an overhead processing unit 400, for receiving and processing the SDH/SONET overheads separated by the signal processing unit 200, or generating the overheads to be transmitted, and transmitting the overheads to the signal processing unit 200.
It should be noted that, typically, the signal processing unit 200, the payload data processing unit 300, and the overhead processing unit 400 of an SDH/SONET signal processing device are deployed in different hardware daughter boards of a system device, and such hardware daughter boards are interconnected via a motherboard. Therefore, a payload data bus between unit 200 and unit 300 as well as an overhead bus between unit 200 and unit 400 are both implemented through buses on the system motherboard.
Internal structures of the signal processing unit 200 and the overhead processing unit 400 are further described hereinafter. Wherein, the signal processing unit 200 further includes:
an optical receiving module 201, for performing an O/E (optical/electrical) conversion of an SDH/SONET signal;
an optical transmitting module 202, for performing an E/O (electrical/optical) conversion of an SDH/SONET signal;
a serial/parallel conversion module 203, for performing a S/P (serial/parallel) conversion of an SDH/SONET electrical signal;
a parallel/serial conversion module 204, for performing a P/S (parallel/serial) conversion of an SDH/SONET electrical signal;
a signal processing module 205, for performing a separation or a synthesis of the overheads and the payload data;
a receiving overhead storage 207 and a transmitting overhead storage 208 for storing the overheads;
an overhead output module 209, for transmitting the overheads to the overhead processing unit 400; and
an overhead input module 210, for receiving the overheads from the overhead processing unit 400.
Wherein, the overhead processing unit 400 further includes:
a receiving overhead processing module 401, for processing received overheads; and
a transmitting overhead processing module 402 for generating overheads to be transmitted.
The full working flow of the above SDH/SONET signal processing device is described hereinafter in detail.
The signal processing procedure of the signal processing device in the receiving direction is as follows: after receiving an SDH/SONET optical signal, the optical receiving module 201 implements an O/E conversion first, and then transmits the electrical signal to the serial/parallel conversion module 203; After implementing an S/P conversion, the serial/parallel conversion module 203 transmits the outputted parallel SDH/SONET electrical signals to the signal processing module 205; the signal processing module 205 separates the overheads from the payload data of the parallel SDH/SONET electrical signals, submits the payload data to the payload data processing unit 300 for processing via the payload data bus, and outputs the separated Section OverHead (SOH) or Path OverHead (POH) to the receiving overhead storage 207; after extracting the stored overheads from the receiving overhead storage 207, the overhead output module 209 generates a frame header signal and a timing signal corresponding to the overheads, then the overhead output module 209 outputs the frame header signal and the timing signal via a parallel overhead bus on the system motherboard, to the receiving overhead processing module 401 of the overhead processing unit 400 for processing.
The signal processing procedure of the signal processing device in the transmitting direction by the signal processing device is as follows: when a signal is to be transmitted, the transmitting overhead processing module 402 of the overhead processing unit 400 outputs generated overheads as well as a frame header and a timing signal corresponding to the overheads to the overhead input module 210 of the signal processing unit 200 via the parallel overhead bus on the system motherboard; the overhead input module 210 transmits the received parallel overheads to the transmitting overhead storage 208; after extracting the parallel overheads from the transmitting overhead storage 208, the signal processing module 205 synthesizes the extracted overheads with payload data from the payload processing unit 300, generates a set of parallel SDH/SONET electrical signals, and then transmits the parallel signals to the parallel/serial conversion module 204; the parallel/serial conversion module 204 converts the parallel SDH/SONET electrical signals into a serial signal, and then transmits the serial signal to the electrical/optical conversion module 202; finally, the electrical/optical conversion module 202 conducts an E/O conversion for the received serial signal before sending the converted signal to an optical fibre.
As overheads of an SDH/SONET frame perform OAM (Operation, Administration and Maintenance) functions of the SDH/SONET system, it is of great significance to transmit the overheads from the signal processing unit 200 to the overhead processing unit 400 timely, safely and reliably. At present, no specific protocol has been put forward on the specification of this overhead bus while each manufacturer gives the definition of the overhead bus based on its own specifications. Moreover, as the volume of overheads of an SDH/SONET frame is large, a high-speed parallel bus on the system motherboard needs to be employed such that all the overheads in the frame structure of SDH/SONET could be transmitted to the overhead processing unit for processing. Meanwhile, in order to implement the receiving alignment of overheads on the high-speed parallel bus, it needs to insert channel associated system timing and frame-header signals in the parallel overhead bus. This, however, will result in numerous buses on the system motherboard, which increases the complexity and difficulty of system design. Moreover, it impossible to conduct bit error detection using the above signal processing device, which is unfavourable for locating system failures, thus the transmission safety of system overheads can not be guaranteed.

Method for processing overheads of optical communication system and signal processing device


In a switching circuit for use in a mobile telephone device in controllably transmitting a speech signal to a radio transmission unit through an output terminal (312), a first switch (31) is controlled by a control signal which is supplied to a control terminal (32) with a high level and a low level of putting the first switch in a conductive and a non-conductive state when a second switch (36) is put in its off and on states. A capacitor (35) is connected between the control terminal and the output terminal in order to make the switching circuit have a low output impedance when the first switch is put in its off state.

This invention relates to a switching circuit which is for use in a mobile telephone device.
The mobile telephone device comprises a telephone unit and a radio transmission unit. The telephone unit comprises a first CPU and a first audio circuit. The radio transmission unit comprises a second CPU and a second audio circuit. A data line is connected between the first CPU and the second CPU. The switching circuit is connected to the first audio circuit. A speech signal transmission line is connected between the switching circuit and the second audio circuit.
A conventional switching circuit is an analog switch. The analog switch has an input terminal supplied with a speech signal from the first audio circuit and an output terminal for supplying the speech signal to the audio signal transmission line. When put in a conductive state, the analog switch switches each of the first and the second audio circuits to an active state. When put in a non-conductive state, the analog switch switches each of the first and the second audio circuit to an inactive state.
As will later be described more in detail, the speech signal transmission line is inevitably capacitively coupled to the data line. As a result, the conventional switching circuit is defective in that the switching circuit has an objectionably high output impedance when the analog switch is in the non-conductive state.
From a different point of view, a conventional switching circuit has an input terminal supplied with a speech signal and an output terminal connected to a speech signal transmission line. The switching circuit is for switching the speech signal transmission line to an active state and an inactive state. When put in the active state, the speech signal transmission line receives the speech signal. When put in the inactive state, the speech signal transmission line does not receive the speech signal.
In the manner pointed out hereinabove, the speech signal transmission line is inevitably subjected to capacitive coupling to the data line. Being a simple analog switch, the conventional switching circuit has an objectionably high impedance when put in a non-conductive state. In this state, the speech signal transmission line is undesireably supplied through the capacitive coupling with signals which are transmitted through the data line in the meantime.

Switching circuit having a reduced output impedance


A synchronization circuit for video clock generators, wherein in order to obtain a line synchronization simultaneous with a complete image synchronization, there is provided a follow-up control which delivers a clock frequency signal. The follow-up control has its reference input connected with the output of a line pulse-separation circuit, delivering an external horizontal pulse signal, and is further connected with the input of an external complete image characteristic or marker pulse-separation circuit. Both of the separation circuits have infed at their input side a mixed pulse signal. The external complete image-characteristic pulse-separation circuit is connected at its output side with the first input of a comparator, the second input of which has infed thereto the output signal of an internal complete image characteristic pulse-separation circuit. The output signal of the comparator is infed to the first input of a regulation pulse-switch means, whose output is connected with the clock input of a clock generator, delivering to a respective output an internal mixed pulse signal and an internal horizontal pulse signal. The latter is delivered to the comparator input of the follow-up control and the first input of the internal complete image-characteristic pulse-separation circuit, the second input of which receives the internal mixed pulse signal. The output of the follow-up control is connected with the second input of the regulation pulse switch means.

The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of synchronization circuit for video clock oscillators.
In order to superimpose video images upon a screen it is necessary that the video signals, arriving from different video camera devices, be mutually synchronized. For this purpose all of the video cameras can be conjointly synchronized with the aid of the synchronization signals from one and the same synchronization clock source, which delivers a mixed pulse signal or a horizontal pulse signal in conjunction with a vertical pulse signal.
This simple method of synchronization of video images has however been found to be impractical, if there is not used a video camera which is not externally synchronized or if the synchronization problem resides in synchronizing video images corresponding to two or more different standards.

Synchronization circuit for video clock oscillators


The invention is to a jig that may be either temporarily or permanently mounted for use on a simple, low cost, belt or drum sander. On a belt sander, the jig is placed over the fence on the sander and secured thereto by thumb screws, or may be bolted to the sides of some sanders. The jig is mounted adjacent to a drum sander. The jig is an adjustable guide under which a work piece is placed. When the work piece is sanded to the desired thickness, the attachment is stopped from further downward movement by set screws, and the work piece is not further sanded.

Sanders usually consist of a sanding belt traveling on power driven rollers. Some belt sanders have a fence which is attached to the frame of the sander and extends up, above, and across the sanding belt to provide a stop against which the work piece (wood or other material) is placed to prevent it from being moved with the sanding belt. The operator places the work piece on the moving belt and against the fence to sand the work piece. The work piece must be sanded and then measured several times to ensure that the work piece is of the proper thickness.

Sander attachment for attaching to an existing fence


A device and a method for canceling DC offset resulting from digital to analog conversion, wherein the device is coupled to a digital to analog comparator (i.e.--DAC), the device comprising of: an adder, coupled to the DAC, for adding a digital input signal IN(n) to a compensation signal CS(w-1), and sending the sum of IN(n) CS(w-1) to the DAC. An analog comparator, coupled to the DAC, for sampling the output signal OUT(t) of the DAC, for comparing the sampled signal ACS(n) to a first reference voltage VREF and for outputting a signal ACO(n) which represents the result of the comparison between ACS(n) and VREF. A DAC emulator, coupled to the DAC, for compensating for a time lapse between the appearance of a digital input signal IN(n) appearing at the input of the adder and an OUT(t), wherein OUT(t) resulted from IN(n). A digital comparator for receiving the output signals DES(n) of the DAC emulator, comparing DES(n) to a second reference value DREF and outputting a signal DCO(n) which represents the result of the comparison between DES(n) to DREF, and an offset calculation unit, coupled to the analog comparator and to the digital comparator for comparing ACO(n) and DCO(n) and sending to the adder, a compensation signal CS(n) which represents the result of the comparison between ACO(n) and DCO(n). The analog and digital comparator are driven by a clock signal which is not correlated to IN(n).

A digital to analog converter (i.e. --DAC) converts digital signals to analog signals. An analog output signal is comprised of two signals--the first signal is proportional to the digital input signal, and the second signal is an erroneous Direct Current (DC) offset (i.e.--offset). The offset varies when the temperature of the digital to analog converter varies, thus there is a need to compensate the offset constantly.
There is a need to compensate the DC offset in an efficient and fast manner.

Digital to analog convertor having a DC offset cancelling device and a method thereof


Disclosed are the processes of how to fabricate the microchannel plate for use in electron image intensifying by using a number of glass pipes, each consisting of glass material containing oxides of alkaline earth metals, i.e., magnesium oxide (MgO) or a mixture of magnesium oxide (MgO) and calcium oxide (CaO).

The present invention relates to the processes of how to fabricate the microchannel plate for use in the image intensifier, UV ray detector, ion detector or charge particle detector.
The assignee of the present invention already filed a patent application in Japan, which was published as Japanese Patent Publication No. 25934/1982, entitled "Process of how to fabricate the microchannel plate". The summary of this published application is given as follows:
A glass core, which can be dissolved by acid, is covered with a glass cladding, which cannot be dissolved by acid, so as to make a single glass fiber. A plurality of the glass fibers are arranged in parallel and bound to form a bundle of glass fibers. These fibers are heated until the surfaces of these fibers are sintered to form a single bound structure.
After the process abovementioned, the glass fiber bundle can be sliced along the direction perpendicular to its optical axis so as to make a plate. The glass core can then be solved by acids, to form a bundle of pipes.
The glass clad, which cannot be dissolved by acid, contains 35 to 50 weight percents of silicon di-oxide (SiO.sub.2); two to ten weight percents of one or more of sodium oxide (Na.sub.2 O), potassium oxide (K.sub.2 O) and lithium oxide (Li.sub.2 O); 30 to 55 weight percents of lead oxide (PbO) and 0.5 to 7.0 weight percents of one or more of titanium di-oxide (TiO.sub.2) and zirconium di-oxide (ZrO.sub.2).
The inner surfaces of the microchannel plate are activated by the other process and then a pair of electrodes are formed at both sides of the plate. This activated state is called the initial state. The initial microchannel plate is heated within a vacuum to exhaust gases therefrom during baking process.
The microchannel plate fabricated, activated and baked in accordance with the procedures mentioned above has a gain much lower than the value which can be obtained before the baking process. If we define the total output charge as an integral of the output current till the end of life, the microchannel plate has a total output charge of 1.times.10.sup.-1 coulomb/cm.sup.2, if the end of life is defined the time point when the gain becomes 50% of the gain immediately after the baking process.
FIG. 4 shows the gains of the microchannel plate in the respective steps of the fabrication processes in the above referred-to Japanese publication. The gain obtained after the baking process is 20 to 30% of the initial state microchannel plate.
Scrubbing process is that of actually operating the microchannel plate, after the baking process, and to strike electrons to the inner surface of the microchannel plate. After the scrubbing process, the gain of the microchannel plate decreases a little. The X-axis of the graph in FIG. 4 indicates the voltage across the micro-channel plate electrodes.
The objective of the invention is to present the processes of how to suppress the decrease of the gain after the microchannel plate is baked within a vacuum and how to elongate the life of the microchannel plate.


A novel garment pocket, and method for making said pocket, for the rapid extraction and deployment of a weapon concealed therein. One or more edges of the pocket are reversibly attached to the garment proper by means of quick release, easily disengaged, readily releasable, or break away fasteners. Said edge or edges being located and positioned to permit said weapon to be extracted from said pocket by means of a substantially forward thrust of the hand grasping the weapon through said edge or edges attached by said fasteners. Said hand being the one on the arm that is on the same side of the body as said garment pocket. The pocket of the present embodiments enables the weapon to be extracted from the pocket with a reduced chance of snagging and danger to the garment wearer.

1. Prior Art
The following is a tabulation of some prior art that presently appears relevant:
Pat. No.Kind CodeIssue DatePatenteeU.S. patents8,307,465B2Nov. 13, 2012French et al.7,743,430B2Jun. 29, 2010Jennings et al.7,631,368B1Dec. 15, 2009Samson6,986,164B1Jan. 17, 2006Morales6,760,922B1Jul. 13, 2004Morales6,131,198—Oct. 17, 2000Westrick5,692,237—Dec. 2, 1997BennettU.S. patent application Publications20090025117A1Jan. 29, 2009French
2. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of concealed carry of a weapon and, more specifically, to a garment pocket for the rapid extraction and deployment from the pocket of a weapon concealed therein.

Garment pocket for rapid extraction and deployment of a concealed weapon


A communication system (1000) includes a communication apparatus (100) and a communication control apparatus (200). The communication apparatus (100) includes a packet receiving unit (101) for receiving a packet, a packet processing unit (105) for processing the packet matching with a predetermined condition by a method associated with the condition, and a Packet-in transmission unit (103) for transmitting a first notification when the packet does not match with the condition. The communication control apparatus (200) includes a packet-in receiving unit (201) for receiving the first notification, and a communication limit instruction unit (205) for limiting the reception of the packet at the packet receiving unit (101) when an index based on the number of times of reception of the first notification satisfies a first condition.

A network control technique which is called Software Defined Networking (SDN) is known. For example, OpenFlow (registered trademark) is a typical technique of the SDN, and enables software to realize flexible network management by separating a network route controlling function from a packet transferring function. More specifically, OpenFlow is composed of a control application, a controller which performs network route control, and a switch which performs packet transfer processing according to an instruction of the controller.
Meanwhile, securing network safety is an important task for network administrators. In recent years in particular, DoS (Denial of Service) attacks transmitting a large amount of traffic to a target server by operating multiple terminals have been increasing. A network under the DoS attack causes problems such as a decrease in processing performances of a router and a firewall, a decrease in processing performance of a target server, and significant consumption of disk resources due to enormous logs. Further, attackers usually spoof transmission source addresses, and therefore network administrators generally have difficulty in accurately specifying the attackers. Therefore, it is not possible to take effective measures for excluding the attackers.
When there are a large number of accesses such as DoS attacks on a network including the dynamic route controlling function such as OpenFlow in particular in a short time, a switch generates a great number of new flow inquiries (Packet-in) to a controller in a short time. In this case, if no countermeasure is taken, an excessive processing load is applied to the controller or a packet transfer destination server, and the controller or the packet transfer destination server is thus likely to become unable to perform processing.
In this regard, a method has been proposed for suppressing loads applied to a switch by causing a controller to authenticate (accessibility determination) a packet distribution source user and to determine and discard unauthorized packets based on a defined pattern when a DoS attack on a system which controls a network by using the OpenFlow technique occurs (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).

Communication system, communication method, and non-transitiory computer readable medium storing program


An apparatus 5 for applying a creasing setting agent in order to achieve a permanent crease in a textile article such as pants, sheets or the like. The apparatus comprises a support member 12, having a guide member 24 for receiving the textile article to be creased. The support member 12 is mounted on another support or plate 10. There is also included a detachably mounted applicator 31 having a nozzle 34 the applicator being mounted at the one end 50 of the plate member 10 so that the nozzle 34 may be inserted into the opening 32 in the guide member 24. Also a stop member 40 is provided on the guide member 24 and between the opening 32 and the end 50 to substantially preclude hand operation of the applicator as the textile article is being finished.

The invention contemplated herein relates to an apparatus for applying a crease setting agent to a preformed crease in a textile article such as a pair of pants, a shirt or sheets, pillow cases and pleated items.
The application of such crease setting agents to a formed crease in a pair of pants takes place after the item is manufactured and a crease is pressed on the front and back of each leg. It is customary when applying such agents to reverse the garment or textile article to expose the inside of the preformed crease.
Similarly sheets, pillow cases and shirts could be made up and a crease preformed where desired whereupon the crease setting agent would be applied and then allowed to cure in a position where the crease is maximized or at its optimum. In a pair of pants this is accomplished by laying them out flat or in bundles on what is known in the industry as a pants horse. To form creases in pillow case, sheets and pleated items it is customay to make such items up into panels or portions of the finished item and crease these.
Early techniques at obtaining a crease comprised applying a pressing fluid to the garment before pressing and before it was creased. This concept was shown in French Pat. No. 852,737, corresponding German Pat. No. 683,680 and corresponding British Pat. No. 527,598.
Also Chemical Week of Jun. 20, 1973 includes an article titled "Sewing Up A New Market For Glue" wherein there is shown an adhesive hardener which permeates the fabric being joined. A crease like structure results.
A more current attempt to obtain a crease through the application of a crease setting agent is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,182,264 relating to an apparatus for forming a permanent crease by introducing an agent into a preformed crease.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,793 reexamined and Certificate No. B1 4,191,793 issued also is a similar effort at achieving a durable crease by applying a crease setting agent in a preformed crease.
In both of these U.S. Patents much attention is given to the applicator and providing same with various means for regulating the flow of agent but I have found that there are deficiencies in both these last mentioned systems.
Some of these deficiencies relate to the inefficiencies of the applicator as it takes a substantial time to dispense crease setting agent and it is difficult for the operator of the apparatus to align the temporary crease in the longitudinal slots or channels in the legs or rods fashioned to hold the textile article. If alignment is not accurate the formed crease is unacceptable, and the item is usually discarded as an irregular with a much lower sales price.
British Pat. No. 1,580,192 shows a method of forming a crease in a textile article where a stand includes a surface having a channel or slot adapted to receive the article to be creased. This Patent also has the drawbacks mentioned above.
British Pat. No. 1,472,852 relates to creasing a textile article but the technique is accomplished in a slightly automated fashion.
This last mentioned concept requires the use of an applicator having an indented peripheral surface which carries air back into the dispenser which can cause an air bubble to be deposited on the article thusly resulting in an uneven or unacceptable crease. A doctor member is thusly required and this adds to the complexities of the apparatus.
Finally a deficiency common to many of the above systems is the lack of constant application of the crease setting agent and the inability to control the direction of the agent, in a longitudinal direction as it is being applied to the preformed crease to thereby provide a textile article that is unacceptable. The result is a crooked crease either having too much or too little agent.
In order to overcome this deficiency and other drawbacks in the creasing arrangements known to me I have devised a system which fixes the applicator relative the rod and relative the inverted formed crease to provide an apparatus which would permit an operator to achieve a straight and uniform crease of a predetermined dimension.
This concept was the subject matter in my U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/188,136 filed Apr. 26, 1988 now abandoned. The problem that resulted from this system was due to the general need to provide an applicator which was detachably mounted on a support and could be detached easily and therefore manipulated manually for touch up purposes.
I have found that with such a system there is a tendency for the operator to at times manually attempt to apply a creasing agent to the crease and you were then presented with the problems of the older type systems outlined hereinabove.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an apparatus for creasing textile articles which is efficient, compact and economical to manufacture and lacking in the above mentioned deficiencies and others.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for creasing textile articles which permits adjusting width and straightness of the creasing agent to optimize the size of the crease to a highly acceptable degree and in an arrangement which permits both manual manipulation of the applicator and fixing said applicator so as to allow the operator to utilize the most efficient technique.
For a more complete understanding of the invention reference should be made to to the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment and to the accompanying drawings.

Apparatus for applying a creasing agent to a formed crease in a textile article


A draw frame for a spinning machine is provided with roving blocking mechanism associated with its inlet rollers actuable on rupture of the remittant thread to arrest movement of the roving and is further provided with a sensor for detecting the continuity of the roving being fed from a source of supply and a roving clamp situated between the sensor and the blocking mechanism. The blocking mechanism and the roving clamp are arranged to be simultaneously operated in response to a signal from the sensor or in response to rupture of the thread.

The present invention relates to apparatus for arresting and controlling a ruptured roving during operation of the draw frame of a textile spinning machine.
In U.S. application Ser. No. 387,193, filed June 10, 1982, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,114 (corresponding to German GE-OS31 23 476) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,376 issued on Nov. 27, 1984, (corresponding to German DE-OS P 31 00 049) both assigned to the assignee of the present application, a spinning machine is depicted in which each draw frame has a blocking device for arresting the ruptured roving. The blocking device may be activated by a sensor detecting the continuity of the roving being fed directly into the infeed rollers of the draw frame and/or by a sensor detecting the continuity of the thread discharged therefrom. Also, a second roving material incorporated into the basic thread after spinning can also be sensed.
When the blocking device is actuated by either one of the sensors noted, the roving is clamped and held at its entry into the first of the drawing rollers, resulting in the creation of a fiber tuft projecting from there toward the remaining drafting belts. When the blocking device is actuated by a sensor, arranged relatively prior to the entry to the rollers, the remainder of the roving, e.g., a piece broken off the roving supply or the end of the roving run off the supply spool, may still run completely into the draw frame with the result that the actuated blocking device runs idly, and does not secure a fiber tuft. Processing of material can, however, be stopped by actuation through the other sensors.
Although the blocking device known from the aforesaid application is provided with a handle which allows the deactivation of the blocking device, and resetting of the draw frame for operation, manual manipulation and several steps are still required for restarting of the spinning, i.e., providing a continuing roving supply, which are not dealt with by the aforementioned application. For example, when a blockage is caused by rupture or run out of the roving being fed from the supply spool through the draw frame, a connection to the roving supply must be first reestablished at a position outside of the draw frame, generally after the prior insertion of full supply spool. Thus, as previously mentioned, if the roving has completely run beforehand into the draw frame, or even if it is completely run beforehand into the draw frame, or even if it is projected out by only a slight degree, to the rear of the blocking site, connection with the forward end from the supply spool is impossible. It, therefore, becomes necessary to lift the upper rollers from contact with the lower rollers in order to insert the supply roving between the drawing rollers along the entire length of the draw frame.
The object of the present invention is directed to simplifying the task required for rejoining the roving within the draw frame to the roving supply and of assuring effective connection of the roving regardless of whether the rejoining is executed manually or with the aid of some mechanical apparatus.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement suitable for use on latterally coupled draw frames equipped with double upper rollers held in a support and load arm whereby rejoining of the roving and restarting of the spinning on one side has no influence or effect on the spinning rollers on the other side.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention are set forth in the following disclosure.

Roving blocking mechanism on draw frames of spinning machines


Subsurface apparatus and method for using same in a hydrocarbon producing well to enable retrieval of a full opening subsurface safety valve mounted in the well tubing without disturbing the major portion of the well tubing located below the safety valve. The apparatus includes a subsurface tubing hanger below the safety valve from which the major portion of the well tubing is suspended and through which tubing the hydrocarbons flow to the surface. Disposed above the safety valve is a tubing holddown apparatus and a controllable safety joint. The holddown apparatus provides a lower anchor for the portion of the tubing disposed above the tubing hanger and the stinger which is received in and seals with the tubing hanger. The safety joint is controlled to provide a full strength connection when installing the apparatus and a designed separation point when installed in order that damage to the portion of the tubing above the apparatus would not disturb the subsurface safety valve and thereby affect its ability to shut in the well in the event the wellhead is destroyed or damaged. The apparatus is installed in a single trip and thereby reducing the need for "spacing out" during installation.. In the event of damage or malfunction of the full opening safety valve, the valve may be retrieved with only the upper portion of the well tubing. A replacement valve may then be easily installed.

This invention relates to the field of surface controlled subsurface safety systems for use in wells producing hydrocarbons.
Perhaps the earliest surface controlled subsurface safety valve system is disclosed in Knox U.S. Pat. No. 2,518,795. Numerous improvements have occurred since that time, but certain problems have remained. In general, well operators have desired a full opening surface controlled subsurface safey valve that can be easily replaced upon failure. These two criteria in the past have led to differing patterns of development which have not been resolved until the present invention.
To achieve the easily replaceable feature, through the tubing bore movable or wireline installed and retrievable surface controlled subsurface safety valve have been developed. See, for example, the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 3,078,923; 3,157,233; 3,642,070; 3,675,720; 3,747,682; 3,763,933.
While those subsurface safety valves had the advantage of easy replacement, they did severely restrict flow through the subsurface safety valve. This not only limited production but often caused flow erosion of the tubing above the valve. This problem was partially solved by my development of a larger diameter ball element as disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,870,102. Another drawback was the need to remove these valves in order to conduct well servicing operations below the valve.
Full opening subsurface valves, i.e., valves having a flow opening through valve housing substantially equal to the well tubing bore possessed neither of these drawbacks. Flow erosion is reduced and no restriction is presented to running other well tools through the valve when in the open position to perform various operations below the valve. For example, see Keithahn U.S. Pat. No. 2,998,077.
To achieve the full opening, it was necessary to run a tubing retrievable type valve (i.e. retrievable with the tubing from the well) and which formed a portion of the well tubing. This frequently required a larger, expensive casing program to provide clearance for the enlarged outer diameter of the valve housing. In addition, this presented the problem of pulling the entire well tubing string which necessitated killing the well with possible permanent damage to the hydrocarbon producing formation. Since the entire tubing string was required to be supported and manipulated for releasing any packers or other downhole seals and then reinstalling same, expensive workover rigs were required to replace tubing retrievable safety valves.
In weighing the business risks, the operators have tended to prefer wireline retrievable surface controlled subsurface valves. However, the capability of installing a wireline retrievable valve in a tubing retrievable valve, such as disclosed in my patent application Ser. No. 72,034, filed Sept. 14, 1970 (now abandoned after filing continuation application Ser. No. 256,194, filed May 23, 1972) offered the compromise of installing a wireline retrievable valve in a locked open tubing retrievable valve. This concept was further refined in Mott U.S. Pat. No. 3,744,564 which disclosed that when tubing retrievable valve failure occurred a wireline retrievable valve could be installed and operated by the controls of the tubing retrievable valve.
Another concept of using a full opening tubing retrievable valve is retrieving only the portion of the tubing above the safety valve. Examples of such concept are found in the following U.S. Pat. Nos: 3,842,913; 3,870,104; 3,844,346.
A drawback to such concept was that it required the well to be cased and completed in a manner that limited the well operator's flexibility in maintaining the well.
A similar arrangement has been the installation of a full opening surface controlled subsurface safety valve in a tubing hanger suspended below the mudline. For example, see Crowe U.S. Pat. No. 3,771,603, which discloses such a tubing hanger with the full opening surface controlled subsurface safety valve installed in the tubing hanger.
These subsurface safety systems generally require the use of an installation tool for setting the tubing hanger which was followed by the installation of the subsurface safety valve. An example of such a running tool is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,388. Because of the necessity to "space out" during the second trip installation time was often lengthy with this equipment. Removal operations were the same in that the safety valve was removed by pulling the stinger of the valve from the tubing hanger and thereafter using a retrieving tool to retrieve the tubing hanger and the production tubing secured in the well below the tubing hanger. Such operations were very lengthy and as the workover equipment necessary to perform installation and retrieval is generally rented, such operations were extremely costly to the operator and therefore extremely undesirable.
The Model TA tubing hanger anchor manufactured by Brown Oil Tools, Inc. enables the installation of a full opening subsurface safety valve in a single trip. The subsurface tubing hanger is hydraulically set and the setting mechanism remains exposed to well fluid pressure during production. This creates an additional risk of tubing leakage. In addition, the safety joint disposed in the tubing above the safety valve limited the weight of the equipment that could be installed on the single trip.
Despite such drawbacks, such tubing hanger systems are desirable in that the full opening valve may be retrieved and replace without the need for a workover rig. Offshore platforms are usually equipped with cranes and by proper location of the tubing hanger, the cranes could be used to lift the upper portion of the tubing to replace the safety valve. In view of the cost as well as availability of workover rigs, this was extremely desirable.


A pin-on-disk type wear testing device which has a non-contact type displacement gauge that moves integrally with the pin type testpiece sliding against the disk type testpiece, so that the said pin-on-disk type wear testing device of the present invention can accurately measure the displacement of the pin type testpiece with respect to the disk type testpiece without being affected by the waving motion of the disk type testpiece, the thermal expansion of the whole device, and other factors, thus making it possible to accurately measure the amount of wear of the pin type testpiece.

1. Field of the invention:
The present invention relates to a wear testing device used for measuring the amount of wear of a sliding material, and more particularly, to a pin-on-disk type wear testing device in which a pin type testpiece is in contact with a rotating disk under a constant load for measuring the amount of wear of the pin type testpiece.
2. Description of the prior art:
As a wear testing device for measuring the amount of wear of a sliding material, a pin-on-disk type wear testing device is known in which a pin type testpiece to be measured for wear is stationarily in contact with a rotating disk type testpiece for measuring the rate of wear of the pin type testpiece with respect to time. With the pin-on-disk type wear testing device, the following two kinds of methods for measuring the wear rate have been used: Method "A" in which the rate of weight loss from the pin type testpiece which slides against the rotating disk type testpiece is measured with respect to time to calculate the rate of wear with respect to time; and Method "B", as shown in FIG. 3, a rotating disk type testpiece 13 is mounted on a disk type testpiece table 12 that is supported in a base 11 to which a contact or noncontact type displacement gauge 18 is fixed for detecting the progressive amount of displacement between the base 11 and a pin type testpiece 14 in contact with the disk type testpiece 13 under a constant load, and the amount of wear of the pin type testpiece 14 is measured by the amount of displacement.
In method "A", since the pin type testpiece must be dismounted from the wear testing device at specified intervals of time for measurement of its weight and then refitted to the wear testing device for continued testing, the test efficiency is greatly sacrificed. Moreover, when the pin type testpiece once dismounted is refitted to the wear testing device, the pin type testpiece cannot be positioned to contact the disk type testpiece at the same position where it had been in contact with the disk type testpiece before the removal therefrom, with a resultant change in the condition of the wear debris existing between the pin type testpiece and the disk type testpiece, hampering accurate measurement of the wear of the pin type testpiece with respect to time. Furthermore, at the time of the weight measurement, if the pin type test-piece absorbs moisture with a resultant change in its weight, it is not possible to accurately measure the amount of wear of the pin type testpiece.
On the other hand, method "B" allows continuous measurement of the wear rate of the pin type testpiece with respect to time. However, since the displacement gauge 18 is fixed to the base 11 of the wear testing device, the amount of displacement measured by the displacement gauge 18 represents the absolute displacement with respect to the base 11. This means that the amount of displacement measured by the displacement gauge 18 includes not only the wear loss .DELTA.h of the pin type testpiece but also the error .DELTA.h' caused by the displacement of the disk type testpiece with respect to the base 11. The cause of the error .DELTA.h' includes the displacement caused by an axial positional change of the disk type testpiece 13 due to its rotational motion, a circumferential waving motion of the disk type testpiece 13, and the thermal expansion of whole device due to thermal changes such as heat generation through the friction between the pin type testpiece and the disk type testpiece, all of which combine to prevent accurate measurement of the wear rate of the pin type testpiece 14 with respect to time.


The present invention is directed to a golf ball having a non-planar parting line about non-circular dimples on its spherical surface. The parting line comprises non-concentric arcs having straight connecting line segments between the arcs. Each arc maintains a tangency with its connecting lines and a relief distance greater than or equal to 0.003 inches when measured from an average non-circular dimple diameter to one of the non-concentric arcs and an absolute relief distance of at least 0.001 inches when measured from all points on the non-circular dimple perimeter to one of the non-concentric arcs. The sum of the lengths of the non-concentric arcs relates to the sum of the straight connecting line segments according to the equation:(0.15)ΣLARCS≤ΣLLINES≤(0.50)ΣLARCS.

The usual golf ball manufacturing techniques include several different steps, depending on the type of ball, such as one, two, three or even more than three piece balls. According to the traditional method, a solid or composite elastomeric core is made, and an outer dimpled cover is formed around the core.
The two standard methods for molding a cover over a core or a core and inner layers are compression molding and injection molding. Compression molding is accomplished by using a pair of hemispherical molds each of which has an array of protrusions machined or otherwise provided in its cavity, and those protrusions form the dimple pattern on the periphery of the golf ball during the cover molding operation. A pair of blanks, having a hemispherical shape, are placed in diametrically opposed positions on the golf ball body, and the body with the cover blanks thereon are placed in the hemispherical molds, and then subjected to a compression molding operation. The combination of heat and pressure applied during the molding operation results in the cover blanks being fused to the golf ball body and to each other to form a unitary one-piece cover structure which encapsulates the golf ball body. In addition, the cover blanks are simultaneously molded into conformity with the interior configuration of the hemispherical molds which results in the formation of the dimple pattern on the periphery of the golf ball cover. When dimple projections are machined in the mold cavity they are typically positioned below the theoretical parting line of the resulting mold cavity. The parting line is typically machined after the dimple forming process.
For ease of manufacturing the parting line on the cavity is machined flat and perpendicular to the dimpled surface as to provide a positive shut off preventing flowing cover material from leaking out of the mold. This dimple positioning and flat parting line results in a great circle path on the ball that is essentially void of dimples. This is commonly referred to as the equator, or parting line, or seam of the ball. Over the years dimple patterns have been developed to compensate for cosmetics and/or flight performance issues due to the presence of the seam.
As in all molding operations, when the golf ball is removed from the hemispherical molds subsequent to the molding operations, it will have molding flash, and possibly other projecting surface imperfections. The molding flash is located at the fused circular junction of the cover blanks which forms the parting line of the molds. The molding flash will therefore be on the "equator" of golf balls not having a staggered parting line.
The molding flash and possible other imperfections projecting from the surface need to be removed and this is normally accomplished by one or a combination of the following: cutting blades, sanding belts, or grinding stones, and the like. These types of processes tend to enhance the obviousness of the seam. Alternative finishing processes have been developed to minimize this effect. These processes include tumbling with media, stiff brushes, cryogenic de-flashing and the like. Regardless of the finishing process, the result has been a flat parting line in an area substantially void of dimple coverage.
When flashing is removed by grinding, it is desirable that the molding operation be accomplished in such a manner that the molding flash is located solely on the surface of the golf ball and does not extend into any of the dimples. In other words, a grinding operation may have difficulty reaching into the dimples of the golf ball to remove the molding flash without ruining the golf ball cover. Therefore, prior art hemispherical molds are primarily fabricated so that the dimple-forming protrusions formed therein are set back from the circular rims, or mouths of their cavities. The result is that the equator of a molded golf ball is devoid of dimples and the molding flash is located solely on the smooth surface provided at the equator of the golf ball.
It is well known that the dimple pattern of a golf ball is a critical factor insofar as flight characteristics of the ball are concerned. The dimples influence the lift, drag and flight stability of the golf ball. When a golf ball is struck properly, it will spin about a horizontal axis and the interaction between the dimples and the oncoming air stream will produce the desired lift, drag, and flight stability characteristics.
In order for a golf ball to achieve optimum flight consistency, its dimples must be arranged with multiple axes of symmetry. Otherwise, it might fly differently depending upon orientation. Most prior art golf balls include a single dimple free equatorial parting line, which inherently limits the number of symmetry axes to one. In order to achieve good flight consistency, it is often necessary to compensate for this limitation by adjusting the positions and/or dimensions and/or shapes of certain dimples.
For maximum performance and consistency, it is preferable to use a dimple arrangement that eliminates or hides the equatorial parting line, and it is best that it be done by including dimples that intersect the equator. Some U.S. patents that seek to place dimples upon the equator of the ball include U.S. Pat. No. 6,632,078 to Ogg et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,200,232, 6,123,534 and 5,688,193 to Kasashima et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,840,351 to Inoue et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,653,758 to Solheim. These patents introduced "stepped" and/or "zig zag" parting lines. While this could potentially improve compliance with the symmetry, they did not sufficiently improve dimple coverage, since the parting lines included straight segments that did not permit interdigitation of dimples from opposite sides of the equator. A stepped path often results in a greater loss of dimple coverage than a straight path because it discourages interdigitation for a larger number of dimples. U.S. Pat. No. 6,936,208 to Ogg teaches the formulation of a partial or continuous tab created by overlapping of adjacent concave and convex tabs to reduce the dimension of the seam about the ball.
Therefore, a need exists for a mold to create a new and improved golf ball having a parting line configuration providing sufficient relief to minimize dimple damage during flash removal, improve symmetry performance, increase surface coverage, minimize the visual impact of the equator, and reduce the amount and effort for removing flash.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Golf ball having non-planar parting line with non-circular dimples


Disclosed herein are a stretchable triboelectric generator, a stretchable electricity storage device and a wearable electronic device. The stretchable triboelectric generator comprises a first stretchable triboelectric generation part comprising a first fabric layer and a first friction layer on the first fabric layer and a second stretchable triboelectric generation part comprising a second fabric layer and a second friction layer on the second fabric layer. The stretchable electricity storage device comprises at least one of a stretchable battery or a stretchable supercapacitor. The stretchable electricity storage device may be connected to the stretchable triboelectric generator and may store electricity generated by the stretchable triboelectric generator. The wearable electronic device comprises the stretchable triboelectric generator, the stretchable electricity storage device and a sensor connected electrically to at least one of the stretchable triboelectric generator or the stretchable electricity storage device to sense vital signs, bio signals, or body's movement changes.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a stretchable triboelectric generator, a stretchable electricity storage device and a wearable electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently wearable electronics have attracted great attention for various reasons such as convenience. However, all energy related components, for example, triboelectric generators and batteries, were not yet seamlessly integrated with sensors, wireless communication units, and controller in one wearable platform.
In order to easily apply energy related components to the wearable electronic device, stretchability is needed for the components.

Stretchable triboelectric generator, stretchable electricity storage device, and wearable electronic device

SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY R&DB FOUNDATION


The present invention relates to a new method and apparatus for improvement of High Frequency Reconstruction (HFR) techniques using frequency translation or folding or a combination thereof. The proposed invention is applicable to audio source coding systems, and offers significantly reduced computational complexity. This is accomplished by means of frequency translation or folding in the subband domain, preferably integrated with spectral envelope adjustment in the same domain. The concept of dissonance guard-band filtering is further presented. The proposed invention offers a low-complexity, intermediate quality HFR method useful in speech and natural audio coding applications.

Schemes where the original audio information above a certain frequency is replaced by gaussian noise or manipulated lowband information are collectively referred to as High Frequency Reconstruction (HFR) methods. Prior-art HFR methods are, apart from noise insertion or non-linearities such as rectification, generally utilizing so-called copy-up techniques for generation of the highband signal. These techniques mainly employ broadband linear frequency shifts, i.e. translations, or frequency inverted linear shifts, i.e. foldings. The prior-art HFR methods have primarily been intended for the improvement of speech codec performance. Recent developments in highband regeneration using perceptually accurate methods, have however made HFR methods successfully applicable also to natural audio codecs, coding music or other complex programme material, PCT patent [WO 98/57436]. Under certain conditions, simple copy-up techniques have shown to be adequate when coding complex programme material as well. These techniques have shown to produce reasonable results for intermediate quality applications and in particular for codec implementations where there are severe constraints for the computational complexity of the overall system.
The human voice and most musical instruments generate quasistationary tonal signals that emerge from oscillating systems. According to Fourier theory, any periodic signal may be expressed as a sum of sinusoids with frequencies f, 2f, 3f, 4f, 5f etc. where f is the fundamental frequency. The frequencies form a harmonic series. Tonal affinity refers to the relations between the perceived tones or harmonics. In natural sound reproduction such tonal affinity is controlled and given by the different type of voice or instrument used. The general idea with HFR techniques is to replace the original high frequency information with information created from the available lowband and subsequently apply spectral envelope adjustment to this information. Prior-art HFR methods create highband signals where tonal affinity often is uncontrolled and impaired. The methods generate non-harmonic frequency components which cause perceptual artifacts when applied to complex programme material. Such artifacts are referred to in the coding literature as "rough" sounding and are perceived by the listener as distortion.
Sensory dissonance (roughness), as opposed to consonance (pleasantness), appears when nearby tones or partials interfere. Dissonance theory has been explained by different researchers, amongst others Plomp and Levelt ["Tonal Consonance and Critical Bandwidth" R. Plomp, W. J. M. Levelt JASA , Vol 38, 1965], and states that two partials are considered dissonant if the frequency difference is within approximately 5 to 50% of the bandwidth of the critical band in which the partials are situated. The scale used for mapping frequency to critical bands is called the Bark scale. One bark is equivalent to a frequency distance of one critical band. For reference, the function
                              z                                (            f            )                          =                              26.81                          1              +                              1960                f                                              -                      0.53                                                              [            Bark            ]                                              (        1        )            can be used to convert from frequency (f) to the bark scale (z). Plomp states that the human auditory system can not discriminate two partials if they differ in frequency by approximately less than five percent of the critical band in which they are situated, or equivalently, are separated less than 0.05 Bark in frequency. On the other hand, if the distance between the partials are more than approximately 0.5 Bark, they will be perceived as separate tones.
Dissonance theory partly explains why prior-art methods give unsatisfactory performance. A set of consonant partials translated upwards in frequency may become dissonant. Moreover, in the crossover regions between instances of translated bands and the lowband the partials can interfere, since they may not be within the limits of acceptable deviation according to the dissonance-rules.

Spectral translation/folding in the subband domain


A vertically carrying apparatus comprising a carrying capsule that has a space for accommodating an object which is to be carried, the capsule incorporating a horizontal superconducting coil, and armature coils that are vertically arranged side by side outside the carrying capsule, wherein upward thrust force is obtained by a correlation between a persistent current that flows in the superconducting coil and magnetic fields that are produced around the armature coils.. The vertically carrying apparatus further comprises a coil support device which includes the superconducting coil, a coil support member that supports the superconducting coil, a helium vessel that accommodates the superconducting coil and the coil support member and that also supports the coil support member through an oscillation preventing member, and a vacuum vessel that accommodates and supports the helium vessel.

The present invention relates to a vertically carrying apparatus that carries an object vertically by use of a superconducting coil and armature coils.
In conventional vertically carrying apparatuses, for example, elevators, lifting devices, etc., an object is carried vertically by winding or unwinding a wire (or chain) by means of a rotational prime mover, for example, an electric motor.
Since the conventional vertically carrying apparatuses are designed to carry an object vertically by winding or unwinding a wire (or chain) by means of a rotational prime mover, e.g., an electric motor, as described above, when vertical conveyance for a long distance is to be effected, the wire lengthens, so that the wire's own weight that acts on the wire as a load may exceed the tensile strength of the wire. In such a case, it becomes impossible to perform vertical conveyance. If the cross-sectional area of the wire is enlarged in order to increase the tensile strength, the wire's own weight increases by an amount corresponding to an increase in the cross-sectional area of the wire, so that it also becomes impossible to effect vertical conveyance. Thus, in this type of vertically carrying apparatus, the distance for which an object can be carried vertically is limited by the wire's (or chain's) own weight.
If a superconducting coil and armature coils are used, it is possible to carry an object vertically without using a wire or chain. However, the conventional apparatuses of this type are adapted for horizontal conveyance, and if such an apparatus is applied to vertical conveyance, problems which will be stated below arise. One example of the conventional horizontally carrying apparatuses that carry an object horizontally by use of a combination of superconducting and armature coils will first be explained with reference to FIG. 13. A vacuum vessel 04 is attached to a carrying capsule (not shown). A helium container 012 is accommodated and secured in the vacuum vessel 04. A superconducting coil 03 is accommodated and secured in the helium vessel 012. Reference numeral 014 denotes bands that are used to secure the vacuum vessel 04 to the carrying capsule. In operation, the current value of each of the armature coils (not shown) that are horizontally arranged side by side outside the carrying capsule is controlled in accordance with the movement of the carrying capsule so that magnetic fields B that are produced around the armature coils intersect vertically to a persistent current I that flows in the superconducting coil 03, thereby obtaining horizontal thrust force F at the portions A and C of the superconducting coil 03 and further obtaining carrying capsule levitating force at the portion B. If this horizontally carrying apparatus is applied to vertical conveyance, the arrangement may be such as that shown in FIG. 14. In this figure, reference numeral 01 denotes a carrying capsule that accommodates an object to be carried. A vacuum vessel 04 is secured to the carrying capsule 01 through bands 014, and a helium vessel 012 is accommodated and secured in the vacuum vessel 04. In addition, a superconducting coil 03 is accommodated and secured in the helium vessel 012. The vacuum vessel 04, the helium vessel 012 and the superconducting coil 03 are directed vertically, and armature coils are vertically arranged side by side, surrounding the carrying capsule 01. In this case, upward thrust force F is obtained at the portions A and C of the superconducting coil 03, shown in FIG. 13, but no upward thrust force F is obtained at the portion B. Therefore, it has heretofore been necessary in order to obtain large upward thrust force F to increase the overall size of the vertically carrying apparatus, resulting in a rise in the construction cost.

Vertically carrying superconduction motor


A sheet discharge device has a sheet discharge port, a conveying guide, discharge roller pairs, corrugation members, and first biasing members, and discharges sheets onto a discharge tray sequentially. The corrugation members are arranged between the discharge roller pairs to protrude beyond a nip portion in them and stiffens the sheet by pressing one side of the sheet. The first biasing members bias the corrugation members in the protruding direction. Each of the corrugation members has, in a region extending from the upstream side to a downstream-side end part of the discharge roller pairs in the sheet discharge direction and including the nip portion, a first pressing part making contact with one side of the sheet and, in a region further on the downstream side of the downstream-side end part of the discharge roller pairs, a second pressing part making contact with one side of the sheet.

The present disclosure relates to a sheet discharge device which is used in image forming apparatuses such as copiers, printers, and facsimile machines and which discharges blank sheets or documents in the form of sheets, and to an image forming apparatus incorporating a sheet discharge device.
In image forming apparatuses using electrophotography, toner is attached to an electrostatic latent image formed on an image carrying member such as a photosensitive drum, and thereby a toner image is formed. The toner image is transferred to a recording medium in the form of a sheet, such as a blank sheet, and then the toner image on the sheet is fixed by a fixing device (fixing portion).
In such an image forming apparatus, a sheet heated and pressed by the fixing device can, depending on conditions, curl greatly. A curled sheet can obstruct a sheet discharge port and greatly humper sheets from being discharged onto a discharge tray in a neat, aligned stack, and can also push a previously stacked sheet in the discharge direction and cause it fall off from the discharge tray.
To avoid that, there have been proposed various methods for decurling a sheet. For example, there is known a sheet conveying device provided with a stiffening member which extends from a nip portion in a discharge roller pair to the upstream side in the sheet discharge direction and which stiffens a sheet by making contact with and pressing it.

Sheet discharge device and image forming apparatus therewith


A test strip for allergy testing the skin includes a support lamina having at least one aperture extending therethrough and a lance device positioned on one surface of the support lamina so that the sharp lance of the device extends into the aperture. A removable strip is releasably sealed to the opposite surface of the support lamina and overlies the aperture to prevent entry of foreign material into the aperture. Upon removal of the strip an allergen can be applied through the aperture to the lance. A second strip overlies the lance device and is removably sealed to the support lamina. Upon removal of the second strip the lance device is also removed from the support lamina so that the second strip and the lance device can be applied to the skin.

Testing the skin of a patient for an allergic reaction to any of a variety of allergens is a known technique involving penetration of the allergen into a small area of the skin and subsequently visually observing the reaction, if any, of the skin to the allergen. Known procedures for applying the allergen include the scratch test, the prick test and the intradermal test. The scratch test is carried out by applying a few drops of the allergen to the skin and slightly abrading the skin by scratching at that location. The prick test is similar except that abrasion of the skin is effected by making a plurality of pricks with a sharp needle. The intradermal test is carried out by injecting the allergen into the skin.
U.S. patents relating to the introduction of biochemical substances into the skin include U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,304,817, to Grozin, 2,817,336, (and Re. 25,637), to Kravitz et al, 2,893,392, to Wagner et al, 3,062,212, to Kravitz et al, 3,072,122, to Rosenthal, 3,136,314, to Kravitz, 3,556,080, to Hein, 3,814,097, to Ganderton et al, 3,964,482 to Gerstel et al, and 4,304,241 to Brennan.

Reston Medical Bldg., 1712 Club House Rd.


An implement for cleaning leaves and other debris from overhead gutters or eaves of a building by a single operator with a to-and-fro motion while standing on the ground has a cleaning tool of one-piece construction and composed of a substantially U-shaped center section from the ends of the legs of which coplanar channel-like blades extend perpendicularly in opposite directions with the blades having outer open ends. A U-shaped supporting bracket has the outer end portions of its legs fixedly attached to the outside of the legs of the center section and the bracket extends upwardly and outwardly at approximately a 45.degree. angle so that when the tool is placed in the bottom of a gutter, the bracket extends upwardly and outwardly over and beyond the gutter with an elongated handle being attached to the bracket at its outer bight portion and depending vertically therefrom to be held by the operator for moving the tool in a back-and forth motion within a gutter.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to improvements in cleaning implements or tools and, more particularly, appertains to a new and novel apparatus or implement for remotely removing leaves and other debris from the overhead or elevated eaves or gutters of a building.
(2) State of the Prior Art
In order to eliminate the need for a person to climb on a ladder or work from the roof of a building so as to gain access to leaves and other debris which become collected in overhead or elevated roof gutters or eaves, many cleaning devices have been provided which can be manipulated and controlled by a single person standing on the ground alongside the side of the building. However, such known devices are rather complicated in mechanical structure and difficult to use or are inefficient in purpose and operation. And some of such known devices require the use of water under pressure.
With regard to such devices, there are some that have gripping jaws or arms that are mounted on the upper end of a pole and are adapted to be spring biased or otherwise merged together in a clamping relation so as to clamp onto and grasp a group of leaves and hold them in such condition for physical removal from the gutter. Such clamping or gripping jaw-type devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,743,339, 4,057,276; and 4,114,938. Such devices are mechanically very complicated and are expensive for manufacture. In addition, they are not easily used. Nor are they entirely efficient since some leaves and debris always tend to fall away from the clamped pack as the jaws or arms are lifted up and out of the gutter by upward and outward manipulation of the supporting pole.
Other types of gutter cleaning devices, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,023,971 and 3,041,655, are composed of scrapers that are mounted on the upper end of elongated handles and are moved in the gutters to scrape them while water under pressure is discharged into the gutters in front of the scrapers as they are moved along the gutters to loosen the compacted leaves therein with the water being supplied by means of hoses carried by the handles. Devices of this type are primarily for the purpose of washing the leaves along the gutters and down the vertical pipe and out the discharge spout with the scrapers being provided to loosen the leaves so that they can be washed along the gutters by the water under pressure.
In addition, there are blade-type gutter cleaners, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,267, wherein a flat thin blade is mounted on the upper end of an elongated handle so that it is positionable perpendicularly within a gutter and moved in a manner like a plow so as to pack the leaves in a solid mass at one end of the gutter. Another type of gutter cleaning tool is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,542, wherein a rake-like tool is held by a pole within a gutter and is used in the manner of an ordinary lawn rake.
None of such known cleaning implements or devices, as afore-described, are of a simple and inexpensive construction and are not easily and efficiently used for thorough cleaning of roof eaves or troughs.


A disposal or waste apparatus for used or waste injection syringes including a housing with a power transformer, a fan, a deodorant cartridge and a scrap containing box, and a cartridge type electrode plate unit detachably provided to the housing. Cartridge type electrode plate unit has two insertion holes for injection syringes, and two pairs of electrodes separated from each other and cross each other in order to electrically contact with contact terminals of the electrode plates in the housing. The used syringes inserted through the insertion holes respectively come into contact with one pair of electrodes and melt by short circuit current flown between the electrodes and turn on the fan so that any odor gas generated is blown through the deodorant cartridge. The apparatus further includes a switch rod actuated by sliding of said scrap containing box to open a primary winding of said power transformer.

The present invention relates to a disposal apparatus for melting waste injection syringes or needles used in medical organizations such as hospitals.
Nowadays, in order to save hand works such as biling and sterlizing and make sure of safety on disinfection and the like, disposable injection syringes are widely employed in the medical organizations.
If the disposable injection syringes attached to the injection bodies are wasted, they may hurt medical people such as stinging people's fingers and hands while these injection syringes are detached from the injector bodies or put into a rubber bag and the like and conveyed to a waste depot or yard, resulting in heavy accidents such as infections of aids virus and virus hepatitis and the like.
In order to solve such problems, the conventional apparatus has been used which has a pair of electrodes separated from each other and contained in a housing of the apparatus, and waste injection syringes are inserted through injection syringe insertion holes and contact with the electrodes resulting in melting of the syringes by flash short-current between the electrodes.
According to the conventional apparatus, the electrodes are installed and secured in the housing, so that it is necessary to detach the electrodes and change them with new ones in narrow space of the housing when the electrodes fail to have good conductivity after they have been used for a long period causing worn-away or damage, or after they are melted and attached to the electrode surfaces. Further, according to the conventional apparatus, the distance between the electrodes separated from each other and fixed in the housing is previously determined. Consequently, it is necessary to use different apparatus when injection syringes of different size, for example thick syringes No. 18 (diameter: 1.8 mm) through No. 14 (diameter: 2.1 mm), are melted and disposed in the disposal apparatus or syringer destroyer. It is impossible to adopt only one apparatus treating waste syringes and destroying them. It has been a problem in the medical field.
The present invention has been accomplished after considering such problem and studying the present situation of the field.

Electrical disposal apparatus of used injection syringe

Eda-higashi, Midori-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken

Mominokidai, Midori-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken