A waste-water treatment and recycling process that reduce water, energy and chemical consumption in commercial laundry operations. A portion of the warm waste water from each wash cycle is first passed through a vibrating shaker screen to remove particles larger than 70 microns and then filtered through a 1-5 micron medium in a tubular filtration unit. The clear-water filtrate is then heated to operating temperature and recycled to the wash cycle of the process through the hot-water feed system. Only unheated fresh water is used for the rinse cycle, thereby also providing make-up water to the system. For operations requiring low total dissolved solids, a nanofiltration unit is added downstream of the tubular filtration unit.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the general field of water purification and recovery. In particular, it provides a new method and apparatus for the reclamation and reuse of waste-water effluent from wash cycle of laundry operations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Normally, water usage results in its contamination and the resulting waste water is no longer useful for most applications. Therefore, waste waters from domestic and industrial users have been the subject of treatment and purification for a long time in order to remove toxic contaminants, bad odors and suspended solids. The waste water is typically treated by various means of filtration and chemical reaction designed to accomplish specific purification goals, as needed by particular users. The most common systems involve passing the water through layers of filtering media to remove solid particles and through chemically active media to reduce the water's hardness, improve its pH, and extract undesirable contaminants.
Accordingly, water purification agents are generally categorized in terms of their function as filters, when designed to eliminate larger size suspended solids; clarifiers, when intended to remove smaller size particles and reduce opacity; softeners, to remove calcium and magnesium ions and reduce water hardness; and refiners, to extract chlorine, iron and organic compounds. Both anion and cation exchange resins are used to perform a multiplicity of these functions.
The separation of solutes from water by means of selectively permeable membranes is also an effective and economical method of water purification. The processes of reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and electrodialysis all involve the use of membranes that have the ability to prevent the migration of most dissolved and suspended solids while allowing the passage of water through their pores.
This invention is directed to the use of a novel combination of these known methods of water purification in a new application for treating waste-water effluents from commercial laundries. In particular, it discloses a closed-loop system for reusing the hot waste-water effluent from the washing cycle of a laundry operation.
During conventional laundry operations, the waste water from each cycle is typically disposed of to the sewer after use and fresh water is fed to the washer machines through cold and hot feed systems to completely replace each load. The cold water feed is drawn directly from a utility supply, while the hot water feed is first heated and stored in a tank at about 150 to 180.degree. F. As the washer machines process laundry, they call for both hot and cold water from these sources in order to provide the water utilized in the wash process. In most operations, the proportion of hot to cold water usage is about fifty/fifty. The resulting waste water is typically at 120.degree. F. and laden with detergent and softening chemicals, in addition to dirt and pollutants. Therefore, when waste water is drained to a sewage system or otherwise discarded, useful chemicals and valuable heat are also wasted with it. In addition, the contaminants left in the water often require downstream water treatment before the effluent can be released to the environment.
Thus, conventional laundry operations involve large water usage, high fuel consumption for water heating, and wasteful disposal of active chemical ingredients in the waste-water effluent, all of which affect the efficiency and operating costs of a laundry.
Therefore, it would be very desirable to improve commercial laundry processes by minimizing these problems.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,340 (1984), Kaplan discloses a system for recycling water from the rinse cycle of a commercial laundry. The water is combined with heated or fresh make-up water, as necessary to reach the required operating temperature, and is then used in the next wash cycle of the laundry system. By so doing, the invention also recovers the heat content present in the water after the rinse cycle is completed. Only rinse water is used because it is relatively clean and can, therefore, be reused as wash water maintaining the quality of washing during the second and subsequent cycles.
Since commercial laundries use relatively cold water for rinsing purposes, the heat recovery afforded by this invention is modest. In addition, no prior art system has been able to recycle wash water effectively and recover not only its energy content, but also its unused active chemicals. Thus, the purpose of this invention is to address this objective by reusing at least a portion of the hot waste water produced during the wash cycle of conventional laundry processes.

Laundry wash-cycle water recovery system


The present invention provides a compound of formula I or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof;

Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an inherited, clinically heterogeneous group of neuromuscular disorders characterized by degeneration of the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord. Patients suffer from symmetrical weakness of trunk and limb muscles, the legs being more affected than the arms and the proximal muscles weaker than the distal ones; diaphragm, facial and ocular muscles are spared. There are three forms of childhood-onset SMA (types I, II and III), and a relatively recently categorized adult-onset form IV, all of which can be distinguished on the basis of age of onset and severity of the clinical course assessed by clinical examination, muscle biopsy and electromyography (EMG) (Munsat T L, Davies K E (1992)).
Type I (Werdnig-Hoffmann disease) is the most acute and severe form, with onset before six months and death usually before two years; children are never able to sit without support. Symptoms of the disease can be present in utero, as reduction of fetal movements; at birth; or more often, within the first four months of life. Affected children are particularly floppy, experience feeding difficulties and diaphragmatic breathing, and are characterized by a general weakness in the intercostals and accessory respiratory muscles. Affected children never sit or stand and usually die before the age of 2; death is generally due to respiratory insufficiency.
Type II (intermediate, chronic form) has onset between six and eighteen months of age; muscular fasciculations are common, and tendon reflexes progressively reduce. Children are unable to stand or walk without aid. Feeding and swallowing problems are not usually present in Type II SMA, although in some patients a feeding tube may become necessary. Most patients generally develop a progressive muscular scoliosis which can require surgical correction. Like patients with type I disease, clearing of tracheal secretions and coughing might become difficult because of poor bulbar function and weak intercostal muscles. These patients have profound hypotonia, symmetrical flaccid paralysis, and no control of head movement.
Type III (Kugelberg-Welander disease, or Juvenile Spinal Muscular Atrophy) is a mild, chronic form, with onset after the age of 18 months; motor milestones achievement is normal, and deambulation can be preserved until variable ages. These patients often develop scoliosis, and symptoms of joint overuse, generally caused by weakness, are frequently seen. Life expectancy is almost normal but quality of life is markedly compromised.
Types I, II and III progress over time, accompanied by deterioration of the patient's condition.
Adult-onset type IV is characterized by weakness in the second or third decade of life, with mild motor impairment not accompanied by respiratory or nutritional problems. Adult SMA is characterized by insidious onset and very slow progression. The bulbar muscles are rarely affected in Type IV. It is not clear that Type IV SMA is etiologically related to the Type I-III forms.
Other forms of spinal muscular atrophy include X-linked disease, spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress (SMARD), spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (Kennedy's disease, or Bulbo-Spinal Muscular Atrophy), and distal spinal muscular atrophy.
SMA is due to mutations in the Survival of Motor Neuron (SMN) gene, which exists in two forms in humans (SMN1 and SMN2). Loss of SMN is deleterious to motor neurons and results in neuromuscular insufficiency, a hallmark of the disease. From a genetic point of view, SMA is an autosomal recessive condition, caused by disruption of SMN1 gene, located in 5q13 (Lefebvre S., et al. (1995) Cell 80: 155-165). More than 98% of patients with spinal muscular atrophy have a homozygous disruption of SMN1 by deletion, rearrangement, or mutation. All these patients, however, retain at least one copy of SMN2.
At the genomic level, only five nucleotides have been found that differentiate the SMN1 gene from the SMN2 gene. Furthermore, the two genes produce identical mRNAs, except for a silent nucleotide change in exon 7, i.e., a C→T change six base pairs inside exon 7 in SMN2. This mutation modulates the activity of an exon splicing enhancer (Lorson and Androphy (2000) Hum. Mol. Genet. 9:259-265). The result of this and the other nucleotide changes in the intronic and promoter regions is that most SMN2 are alternatively spliced, and their transcripts lack exons 3, 5, or 7. In contrast, the mRNA transcribed from the SMN1 gene is generally a full-length mRNA with only a small fraction of its transcripts spliced to remove exon 3, 5, or 7 (Gennarelli et al. (1995) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 213:342-348; Jong et al. (2000) J. Neurol. Sci. 173:147-153). All SMA subjects have at least one, and generally two to four copies of the SMN2 gene, which encodes the same protein as SMN1; however, the SMN2 gene produces only low levels of full-length SMN protein.
The SMNΔ7 protein is non-functional and thought to be rapidly degraded. About 10% of SMN2 pre-mRNA is properly spliced and subsequently translated into full length SMN protein (FL-SMN), and the rest being the SMNΔ7 copy. The efficiency of SMN2 splicing might be dependent on severity of disease, and production of a full length transcript of SMN2 could range from 10% to 50%. Furthermore, presence or absence of the SMN1 gene, roughly 90% of which becomes the FL-SMN gene product and protein, influences the severity of SMA by whether or not it can compensate for the truncated SMNΔ7 copies. A low level of SMN protein allows embryonic development, but is not sufficient to sustain the survival of motor neurons of the spinal cord.
The clinical severity of SMA patients inversely correlates with the number of SMN2 genes and with the level of functional SMN protein produced (Lorson C L, et al. (1999) PNAS; 96:6307-6311)(Vitali T. et al. (1999) Hum Mol Genet; 8:2525-2532) (Brahe C. (2000) Neuromusc. Disord.; 10:274-275)(Feldkotter M, et al. (2002) Am J Hum Genet; 70:358-368)(Lefebvre S, et al. (1997) Nature Genet; 16:265-269)(Coovert D D, et al. (1997) Hum Mol Genet; 6:1205-1214)(Patrizi A L, et al. (1999) Eur J Hum Genet; 7:301-309).
Current therapeutic strategies for SMA are mostly centered on elevating full length (wild type) SMN protein levels, modulating splicing towards exon 7 inclusion, stabilizing the wild type protein, and to a lesser extent, on restoring muscle function in SMA by providing trophic support or by inhibiting skeletal muscle atrophy.
The mechanism leading to motorneuron loss and to muscular atrophy still remains obscure, although the availability of animal models of the disease is rapidly increasing knowledge in this field (Frugier T, et al. (2000) Hum Mol. Genet. 9:849-58; Monani U R, et al. (2000) Hum Mol Genet 9:333-9; Hsieh-Li H M, et al. (2000) Nat Genet 24:66-70; Jablonka S, et al. (2000) Hum Mol. Genet. 9:341-6). Also the function of SMN protein is still partially unknown, and studies indicate that it can be involved in mRNA metabolism (Meister G, et al. (2002). Trends Cell Biol. 12:472-8; Pellizzoni L, et al. (2002). Science. 298: 1775-9), and probably in transport of proteins/mRNA to neuromuscular junctions (Ci-fuentes-Diaz C, et al. (2002) Hum Mol. Genet. 11: 1439-47; Chan Y B, et al. (2003) Hum Mol. Genet. 12:1367-76; McWhorter M L, et al. (2003) J. Cell Biol. 162:919-31; Rossoll W, et al. (2003) J. Cell Biol. 163:801-812).
In addition to the SMAs, a subclass of neurogenic-type arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (congenital AMC) has separately been reported to involve SMN1 gene deletion, suggesting that some degree of pathology in those afflicted is likely due to low levels of motor neuron SMN. (L. Burgien et al., (1996) J. Clin. Invest. 98(5):1130-32. Congenital AMC affects humans and animals, e.g., horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, and cats. (M. Longeri et al., (2003) Genet. Sel. Evol. 35:S167-S175). Also, the risk of development or the severity of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been found to be correlated with low levels of motor neuron SMN.
There is no cure for SMA available to date and therefore it would be advantageous to provide novel methods for modulating SMN in order to treat those afflicted with SMA, with neurogenic congenital AMC, ALS, or with other SMN-deficiency-related conditions. It would further be advantageous to provide novel drug targets that could be used as a basis for developing effective therapeutics or diagnostics for such neuronal conditions.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

1,4-disubstituted pyridazine analogs there of and methods for treating SMN-deficiency-related conditions

Abstract: a method for manufacturing the compounds of the invention, and its therapeutic uses. The present invention further provides a combination of pharmacologically active agents and a pharmaceutical composition.


A method and apparatus for determining presence of an object to be tidied in a washroom. A beam is supplied to a surface of the washroom at a first location. A reflected beam received from the surface of the washroom or received from an object in the path of the beam to the surface is detected. The presence of the object is determined from feedback from the beam based on a comparison of the feedback with a detection result when the beam reflects from the surface at the first location. An object to be tidied output signal is issued indicating that an object to be tidied is present based on the determination on the presence of an object.

WO2005/065509 discloses a system for controlling washroom dispensers. The system may include a first set of product dispensers in a first washroom and a second set of product dispensers in a second washroom that communicate respectively with first and second data communications units. The first and second data communications units in turn communicate with a central washroom monitoring station. The first set of product dispensers may be a first towel dispenser, a first tissue dispenser and a first soap dispenser, while the second set of product dispensers may be a second towel dispenser, a second tissue dispenser and a second soap dispenser. Each dispenser includes a dispenser sensor unit for detecting a product low condition. The dispenser sensor unit of the first set of product dispensers may communicate wirelessly with the first data communications unit and the dispenser sensor units of the second set of product dispensers may communicate wirelessly with the second data communications unit. The first and second data communications units communicate with the central washroom monitoring station to provide a product low warning message for any one of the dispensers so that a janitor or maintenance person can be dispatched to refill the product as necessary.
The communications between the dispenser and the data communications units and the washroom monitoring station can be wired or wireless. In some implementations, the data communications units can be left out and the dispensers can communicate directly with the washroom monitoring station. In one implementation, the maintenance personnel can inspect the dispensers by logging into an interface with the data communications units from the washroom monitoring station. This interface could be a website provided with data from the data communications units. The maintenance personnel could inspect such a website from an internet capable handheld device so that maintenance requirements can be inspected on site, but not necessarily in the particular washroom that has the dispenser in a low product condition. Alternatively, the washroom monitoring station can send an SMS or email to the relevant maintenance personnel of the low product condition and the location of the relevant dispenser.
Importantly, the maintenance personnel are informed of the requirement for product refills without having to physically inspect each dispenser in each washroom. The efficiency of use of the maintenance personnel can thus be improved.
WO 2005/065509 also discloses (reference is made to FIG. 34) a camera 1132 positioned for viewing the floor of a washroom. The camera is capable of viewing water 1134 from a water spillage on the floor or debris 1136 such as used paper towels thrown on the floor. In one implementation, a user monitors the washroom floor captured by the camera at a washroom monitoring station. That is, the video from the camera is transferred to the washroom monitoring station for viewing by maintenance personnel. Another proposal is for the camera or the washroom monitoring station to automatically alert on the presence of water or debris. WO 2005/065509 does not describe any way of implementing such automatic debris detection.
The camera based system of WO 2005/065509 for detecting the presence of debris suffers from at least two drawbacks. Disposing a camera in a washroom, even at floor level, may not be tolerable at some sites or for some clients for privacy reasons. Further, automatic detection of debris in the washroom from the video captured by the camera is non-trivial to implement in a working system.

Means and method for detecting the presence of at least one object to be tidied in a washroom


Control unit level reset operations in systems having switched point-to-point I/O interface topologies is accomplished by determining and storing channel path identification numbers (CHPID's) and control unit link addresses (CULA's) for each device in the system, scanning this stored data to find devices whose CHPID's and CULA's match the CHPID and CULA for a device or a control unit having a reported error, quiescing devices with such matching CHPID's and CULA's, issuing a control unit level reset command and reactivating the quiesced devices. For systems having both multidropped and switched point-to-point topologies, provision is made for preliminarily determining whether a given control unit reset can be performed on the control unit level.

Recovery operations, some requiring a reset, are generally performed today at the channel path level. Those skilled in the art are familiar with the need to conduct recovery operations upon the occurrence of certain error conditions. Two examples of these errors are: (1) the so-called "hot I/O" which is a hardware malfunction which occurs when a device repeatedly presents the I/O subsystem with unsolicited interrupts and (2) a reset event which is a hardware error condition which occurs when a control unit signals the I/O subsystem that a system reset has occurred. The reset event signal is generally given when the software attempts I/O operations on the interface where the reset previously occurred. Hot I/O and reset event conditions are conditions whose scope is limited to the control unit level. Since no method exists today to isolate control unit level errors to the control unit in error, it is necessary to perform recovery at the channel path level.
Programming systems such as IBM's MVS provide error detection logic to detect these conditions and the system architecture provides instructions that allow for various levels of error recovery. One of the options presently available for error recovery is the reset channel path (RCHP) instruction. This instruction is described in IBM publication SA22-7200 IBM Enterprise System Architecture/370. The RCHP instruction allows the program to issue a system reset signal on the channel path to which the control unit is attached. The system reset signal frequently causes special micro-code to be executed in the control unit (typically re-initialization) which has proven successful in recovering from these failures. During the channel path recovery operation, all devices connected to the channel path being recovered suffer a service outage. All I/O to the devices is suspended until recovery is complete and the paths to the devices have been reinitialized. Furthermore, if just one device is shared among multiple systems, there may be a need to stop all sharing processors in order to ensure that data integrity is maintained during the recovery. If recovery operations could be limited to the control unit to which the reporting device is connected, considerable processing time could be saved.
The introduction of I/O architecture and topologies permitting communications directly with individual control units presents an opportunity to reduce some of the disruption and other inconveniences associated with system resets. Unfortunately, there are no available methods for initiating control unit level recovery operations. Furthermore, the problem is complicated by the fact that many systems today employ both multidropped and switched point-to-point I/O interface topologies.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus for effecting control unit level reset operations which will not cause a disruption in the activities of other control units which may be connected to the same channel.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method and an apparatus for conducting reset operations in a more efficient way so that fewer of them will actually be required in the operation of a data processing system.
It is a further object of this invention to provide more granular error recovery from control unit/device failures, thus exploiting the switched point-to-point I/O topology such as that employed by IBM's ESCON I/O interface.
Finally, it is an object of this invention to provide a method and an apparatus for initiating either channel path recovery operations or control unit recovery operations as may be appropriate in systems employing both multi-dropped and switched point-to-point I/O interface topologies.

Method and apparatus for performing control unit level recovery operations

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention relates to a process for preparing a crosslinked gel of at least one polysaccharide or a salt thereof, comprising at least the steps consisting in: a) providing a solution formed from an aqueous medium comprising at least said polysaccharide(s) or a salt thereof in a non-crosslinked form, at least one difunctional or multifunctional epoxide crosslinking agent chosen from butanediol diglycidyl ether, diepoxyoctane, 1,2-bis(2,3-epoxypropyl)-2,3-ethylene, and mixtures thereof, and at least one phosphate salt; b) crosslinking the solution from step a) and, where appropriate; c) recovering said crosslinked gel formed.

The present invention is directed towards proposing a process for preparing hydrogels based on a crosslinked polysaccharide, preferably hyaluronic acid, or a salt thereof.
Hyaluronic acid, which is naturally present in the skin, is known for its viscoelastic properties and its immense water-absorbing capacity. Its properties contribute largely to the elasticity of the skin.
It is precisely with regard to these properties that this compound has been exploited for more than 10 years in numerous applications falling within the medical and cosmetic fields, such as cosmetic surgery, dental surgery, articular viscosupplementation or ophthalmology.
Thus, hyaluronic acid is especially used for filling wrinkles and for attenuating, or even eliminating, local collapse of the structure of the dermis in the form of a wrinkle, generally via direct injection into the dermis, at the site of the wrinkle concerned.
In point of fact, hyaluronic acid is used essentially in the form of a crosslinked gel, given the increased resistance of this particular form to heat-mediated degradation, and thus to sterilization.
These crosslinked hyaluronic acid gels may be obtained via various preparation processes. In general, these processes require two main steps, the first consisting in hydrating the hyaluronic acid to convert it into an aqueous gel and the second directed towards crosslinking said aqueous gel in the presence of an agent that is capable of inducing its crosslinking (also known as a "crosslinking agent").
As illustrations of these processes, mention may be made especially of those described in documents US 2006/0 105 022, WO 2006/056 204 or US 2007/0 036 745.
For obvious reasons, improving the mechanical properties of hydrogels, based on a crosslinked polysaccharide, this objective being liable to proceed via improving the processes for preparing these hydrogels, is an ongoing aim.
In this respect, FR 2 997 085 describes a process including the presence of an alkaline halide salt, especially of NaCl, during the implementation of the crosslinking reaction. This alkaline halide salt makes it possible to improve the rheo logical properties of the crosslinked gel.


A composition that sets to produce a concrete includes Portland cement; a polymerizable material having bubbles dispersed in the polymerizable material; an aggregate; and water in a sufficient amount such that the composition sets to a concrete. A method for making a concrete article uses a paste that includes Portland cement and a polymerizable material having bubbles dispersed in the polymerizable material. The paste is added to an aggregate to create a settable composition, and the settable composition is allowed to set to a concrete article.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to flexible Portland cement polymer concrete and methods for making flexible Portland cement polymer concrete.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional concrete is a dense hard hydrated mass produced from mixtures of Portland cement, coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, and water. Concrete mixtures generally use only sufficient water to make the mixture workable for placement and to yield hardened concrete having a compressive strength of at least 8.3 MPa (1200 psi) after 28 days. Portland cement is a well known cement that upon mixing with water binds or unites the other materials present in the mixture into concrete. The Portland cement is typically a Type I, II, III, IV and V Portland cement as defined in ASTM C 150. The coarse aggregate conventionally comprises particles such as gravel, quartzite, granite, limestone, shale, and other minerals having a particle size greater than 9.5 millimeters (0.375 inches). The fine aggregate employed in Portland cement concretes is most often sand comprised of particles less than about 0.375 inches (9.5 millimeters) in size, typically equal to or less than about 0.1875 inches (4.76 millimeters) in size. Typically, fresh concrete has mixing water exceeding the amount needed for hydration for purposes of workability, handling, and finishing.
There are many reasons for the popularity of concrete. It is relatively inexpensive, capable of taking on the shape of a mold, has exceptionally high compression strength and is very durable. However, as a building or construction material, concrete, whether it is reinforced or not, has certain disadvantages. One disadvantage is that concrete has relatively low tensile strength and therefore has little ability to flex without cracking.
A concrete road surface is a good example where concrete, under repeated loads and flexing due to vehicle traffic, eventually degrades, leading to cracks. This illustrates two primary limitations of Portland cement concrete. The first fundamental limitation is a relatively low tensile strength which primarily exhibits itself as cracks in concrete products. This limitation is addressed by adding reinforcement to the concrete typically in the form of steel fibers, steel bars or steel mesh and/or by controlling the cracking through predetermined crack locations. However, concrete structures can require large amounts of reinforcing material, thereby significantly increasing labor and material costs. The second fundamental limitation is that water intrusion into the concrete can cause both physical damage during freezing and thawing and chemical damage by instigating a series of secondary chemical reactions that can cause degradation of the concrete matrix. This type of behavior can cause surface scaling, cracking and crumbling of concrete much earlier than weather and age might be expected to cause similar degradation. Concrete that has a greater tensile strength, and is thereby able to flex more without failing, would result in surfaces and structures that are less susceptible to wear and cracking.
What is needed therefore is a method for making a concrete having greater tensile strength without requiring the addition of reinforcing materials.

Flexible polymer concrete and methods for making flexible polymer concrete


An endless spiralling screw for a snowblower comprising a rotatable elongated shaft, to be power driven; a first, elongated, rigid sheet, integrally mounted to the shaft at a radially inward edge of the sheet and spiralling along the lengthwise axis of the shaft, the main portion of the sheet having a substantially straight section, the external marginal portion of the sheet being folded relative to the main portion thereof, the plane of the main portion being located downstream relative to the direction of rotation of the endless screw; reinforcing struts being anchored to the spiral sheet and having a smaller external diameter than the spiral sheet, and being fixedly connected thereto short of but proximate to the radially outward edge of the spiral sheet and fixedly secured to the shaft at its radially inward edge at an area spaced from the securing area of the radially inward edge of the spiral sheet to the shaft; and counterweights, located inside the hollow of the spiral and integral to a portion of the reinforcing struts, wherein the counterweights are positioned at selected locations whereby dynamic axial balancing of the rotating spiralling screw is achieved.

Canadian patent No 704,837 issued in 1965 to the present assignee, discloses an automotive snow blower truck, provided with a front collector frame unit, defining a front mouth. When the truck moves forward, incoming ground-standing snow enters into the collector unit through the front mouth thereof. Two horizontal endless screws, superimposed over one another, are carried inside the collector unit for capturing and crushing incoming snow and ice, and for conveying the crushed snow and ice toward a snow-ejecting fan outlet made intermediately of the back wall of the collector unit. Each endless screw includes a power-driven shaft and two elongated sheet members, integrally mounted to the shaft and spiralling therealong. Additional spiralling sheet members are provided to reinforce the first sheet members. The claimed purpose of the reinforcing sheet members is to positively prevent structural deformation of the spiralling sheet members, when the rotating sheet members are operatively crushing the incoming snow and ice.
It is natural for (unloaded) one-entry endless spiralling screws of snow blower trucks not to be balanced, which means that these screws will vibrate and jump upon rotation thereof. To alleviate this problem, weight members are conventionally added to the exterior face of the spiralling screw, at selected locations, in order to compensate for the imbalance. However, such weight members, because they project exteriorly of the outer surface of the spiralling screw, do form physical obstructions to the free movement of the ice and snow conveyed by the spiralling screw. Such obstructions decrease the efficiency and durability of the spiralling screw.

Dynamically balanced screw with concealed loading weights


An integrated circuit receives as supply voltages a ground reference voltage, a logic supply voltage and a high voltage. A protection device is associated with at least one gate oxide circuit element. The protection device applies to a supply node of the circuit element either the logic supply voltage under normal conditions of operation of the integrated circuit, or the high voltage under abnormal conditions of operation of the integrated circuit for breaking down the gate oxide.

The present invention relates to the field of integrated circuits, and more particularly, to an integrated circuit comprising a protection device.
Many applications use data elements that have to be kept secret. This is the case especially with smart cards or data encoding/data encryption circuits which contain confidential codes, encryption keys, etc. These secret data elements are generally contained in programmable non-volatile memories, for example EEPROMs, EPROMs or flash EPROM type memories. For these applications, it is vital to prevent access to these data elements in all circumstances.
The possibilities for unwanted access are numerous. In particular, there is a prediction method using statistical analysis based on the consumption of current by the circuit. This method can be used for the bit-by-bit reconstruction of at least certain confidential data elements. There are also more direct methods, such as optical inspection after the deactivation of the integrated circuit, and modification of operating conditions, such as for example, temperature, supply voltages, etc.
Thus, integrated circuits containing secret data elements of this kind generally comprise a wide range of sensors associated with a device for protecting the operating conditions of the integrated circuit, and to generate an alarm signal once an anomaly is detected. An anomaly may be an abnormal variation in the ambient temperature, the luminosity, (the depassivation of the integrated circuit), an abnormal level of a supply voltage, several abortive read or write attempts, etc. This list is not exhaustive.
When an alarm signal is generated, this signal is generally used to interrupt the operation in progress and reinitialize the integrated circuit. Furthermore, means have long been known, such as encoding mask circuits, access protection circuits and secured software procedures for protecting access to the secret data elements.
In view of the foregoing background, it is an object of the present invention to improve the protection of secret data elements in an integrated circuit that receives, at external power supply pins, a ground reference voltage, a logic supply voltage and a high voltage normally used for the programming of the non-volatile memory elements.
This and other objects, advantages and features of the present invention are provided by using the available high voltage to destroy all or part of the logic circuitry of the integrated circuit so that it becomes unusable. The thoroughness with which the integrated circuit is destroyed makes it impossible to know the contents of the integrated circuit, and the secret data elements cannot be known.
In recent submicron MOS technologies, the gate oxides have a thickness of about 32 angstroms to 0.8 microns. They can therefore withstand no more than 1.8 volts at their terminals. The sudden application of high voltage to these oxides causes the irreparable destruction of the gate oxides. It is this characteristic that is used in the present invention.
Thus, according to the present invention, the activation of the alarm signal causes the application of the high voltage, instead of the logic supply voltage, to the elements of the logic circuitry. The gate oxides of these elements are then irreparably destroyed. In practice, these logic elements are chosen so that their destruction makes the integrated circuit unusable. The destruction may be the entire integrated circuit or only a part thereof, such as the microprocessor, the address selection logic, the data input/output registers, etc.
A power supply control device according to the present invention has two voltage selector switches, one to switch over the high voltage and the other to switch over the logic supply voltage to a power supply input node of at least one logic element of the integrated circuit.
These selection switches are controlled in a complementary manner by a voltage level translator connected between the high voltage and ground. This translator is controlled by a binary control signal generated internally by the integrated circuit. As long as the alarm signal is not activated, it is the logic supply voltage that is applied as a supply voltage for these logic elements. As soon as the alarm signal is activated, it is the high voltage that is switched over to the power supply input node of these logic elements, causing their irreparable destruction by the breakdown of the gate oxides.
As characterized, the present invention therefore pertains to an integrated circuit having, as power supply voltages, at least one logic supply voltage and one high voltage. According to the invention, the integrated circuit furthermore comprises a protection device associated with at least one gate oxide circuit element for the application, to a supply node of the element, of either the logic supply voltage under normal conditions of operation of the integrated circuit or the high voltage under abnormal conditions of operation of the integrated circuit for breaking down the gate oxide.

Integrated circuit with protection device


A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell unit, word lines, a driver circuit, and first transistors. The word lines are connected to the control gates of 0-th to N-th memory cells. The (N+1) number of first transistors transfer the voltage to the word lines respectively. Above one of the first transistors which transfers the voltage to an i-th (i is a natural number in the range of 0 to N) word line, M (M<N) of the word lines close to the i-th word line pass through a region above the gate electrode by a first level interconnection without passing over the impurity diffused layers.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a semiconductor memory device. More particularly, this invention relates to a semiconductor memory device with memory cells each including a charge accumulation layer and a control gate.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM) has been known as a nonvolatile semiconductor memory capable of rewriting data electrically. In addition, a NAND flash memory has been known as an EEPROM capable of high capacity and high integration.
In a NAND flash memory, it is necessary to apply a high voltage to a word line to write or erase data. Therefore, the NAND flash memory is provided with a row decoder including a transfer transistor for transferring a high voltage to the word line. Such a configuration has been disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appin. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-63795.

Semiconductor memory device with memory cells each including a charge accumulation layer and a control gate


Methods and devices are disclosed for sterilization of endoscopic instrument lumens. Diffuse ultraviolet radiation is employed to sterilize the inner surfaces of the instrument lumen. The ultraviolet radiation can be delivered via one or more optical fibers having a light-diffusing assembly coupled thereto. The instrument operates by delivering cytotoxic radiation to the inner lumen surface to sterilize any biological agents which may be present within the instrument lumen.

The technical field of this invention is medical instrumentation and, in particular, methods and apparatus for sterilizing medical instrument lumens.
Endoscopic instruments are complex and expensive medical devices, which permit the clinician to view the internal organs and structures of a patient's body. These instruments are typically reused and, therefore, must be sterilized after each use. Moreover, because many endoscopes are used repeatedly throughout a day, sterilization of the instruments must be performed rapidly in busy clinics.
Conventionally, endoscopes are sterilized using a chemical bath. The internal lumens of the instrument will either be soaked in a sterilizing liquid or flushed with the sterilizing liquid.
Unfortunately, conventional techniques can sometimes be less than totally effective. The sterilizing liquid may not penetrate the entire lumen or may not be sufficiently strong to achieve the desired antimicrobial effect. Moreover, the endoscope lumen may have accumulated cellular debris that cannot be simply flushed out and such debris may harbor microbes that are not destroyed in the cleaning process.
Accordingly, there exists a need for better methods and devices for sterilizing the inner lumens of endoscopic instruments. Methods and devices which could ensure more effective anti-microbial action and/or permit more rapid sterilization of instrument lumens, would satisfy a long-felt need in the art.

Ultraviolet sterilization of instrument lumens


A self-luminescent light source for a liquid crystal display watch characterized by comprising a fluorescent substance layer which has a light reflectivity and which contains radioactive element promethium (.sup.147 Pm) in at least a part thereof, a reflective layer which is disposed on one surface of the fluorescent substance layer and which serves to reflect and scatter fluorescence from the fluorescent substance layer, a case which is disposed on the side of the reflective layer remote from the fluorescent substance layer and which serves to perform shielding from Bremsstrahlung ascribable to beta rays given out from the promethium, a first cover which is disposed on the side of the fluorescent substance layer remote from the reflective layer and which serves to absorb the beta rays given out from the promethium and to transmit the light from the fluorescent substance layer, and a second cover which is disposed on the side of the first cover remote from the fluorescent substance layer and which serves to perform shielding from Bremsstrahlung ascribable to the beta rays given out from the promethium and to transmit the light from the fluorescent substance layer.

This invention relates to a self-luminescent light source which provides a night display of a liquid crystal display watch.
A field effect type liquid crystal display element displays a character pattern by reflecting light from the outside with a reflector plate. Accordingly, the display function is lost in the night when it is dark outside.
There has been proposed and already known a liquid crystal display watch wherein, in order to overcome such a disadvantage, a plurality of self-luminescence type tubes containing tritium (.sup.3 H) gas and having inner walls coated with a fluorescent material are arrayed underneath the liquid crystal display element, thereby to permit the display in the nighttime.
However, the technique of enclosing the tritium gas into a tube is very difficult (refer to U.S. Pat. No. 3,817,733). Even when the gas is effectively enclosed and the tube is sealed, the gas leaks in due time and is feared to incur radioactive contamination. In addition, since several tubes are arrayed, the brightness at the boundary area between the adjacent tubes becomes low, and the light source exhibits a nonuniform brightness as a whole. A transmission type light scattering member may be placed on the tubes in order to avoid the drawback, but this inevitably renders the self-luminescent light source thick.
To the end of overcoming such disadvantages, it is considered that promethium (.sup.147 Pm) with which the manufacturing stage of work is comparatively easy and which is not feared to leak because it is solid is applied as the self-luminescent fluorescent material. However, .sup.147 Pm gives out high-energy beta rays of 220 KeV. When a substance adapted to absorb the beta rays is interposed, bremsstrahlung is generated, and danger is sometimes involved in case of use in close contact with the human body as in a liquid crystal display wrist watch.

Self-luminescent light source for liquid crystal display watch


A screw-driven extrusion system includes a novel screw-drive extruder. The extruder includes a motor-driven screw. The screw moves solid pellets from a feed hopper into a section that is actively heated. The solid pellets fully liquefy as they pass through the heated section. A control system controls screw, heating, and optionally cooling, operations to selectively control flow of liquefied material from the extruder's tip. The dynamically-controlled can continuously adjust its feed speed and temperature to keep up with continuously changing demands of a larger control system involved in monitoring and running a corresponding 3-D printer in an additive manufacturing process. In contrast to wirefeed extrusion systems that rely on the rigidity of the material in “wire”-formed feedstock, this screw-driven extrusion system is well-suited to use of less-rigid thermoplastic elastomers for the manufacture of objects for use in soft robotics, medical and mold-making applications.

"Additive manufacturing" is a broad term that generally describes a manufacturing process whereby a three-dimensional model of an object to be fabricated is provided to an apparatus (e.g. a "three-dimensional printer" or a "3-D printer"), which then autonomously fabricates the three-dimensional object by depositing, or otherwise forming, constituent material in the shape of the object to be fabricated until it is fully formed.
There are various additive manufacturing techniques. One exemplary additive manufacturing technique is fused deposition modeling. Such a technique involves use of a fused filament fabrication printer, which is an extrusion-based printer, and is often commonly referred to as a 3-D printer. Such printers generally use a printhead that applies layers of thermoplastic, a metal or metal-containing carrier, or polymers and composites that are doped with a variety of secondary materials such as wood and carbon fiber to create models, prototypes, patterns, and production parts. Such fused filament fabrication works on an "additive" principle by laying down material in layers. This technique was described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,329, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Exemplary fused filament fabrication printing involves a plastic filament (or metal wire) that is unwound from a coil and supplies material to an extrusion nozzle that can start and stop material flow. The nozzle is heated to melt the material and can be moved in both horizontal and vertical directions by a numerically controlled mechanism which is often directly controlled by a computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software package. The model or part is produced by extruding small amounts of thermoplastic or other material to form layers as the material hardens immediately after extrusion from the nozzle.
Such 3-D printers typically rely upon a wirefeed system. In a wirefeed system, the filament or wire (hereinafter collectively referred to as "filament") is pushed by a drive motor into a heated nozzle within the print head. The heated nozzle melts the filament material before it is forced through a small diameter die of the print head. The heating of the nozzle is carefully controlled to manage the heating process so that a still-solid upstream portion of the filament material acts like a piston or plunger in a syringe to drive a melted downstream portion of the filament material out of the nozzle before itself melting, in a continuous-feed process. The wirefeed system is thus limited to materials that are sufficiently rigid to be pushed through the nozzle by the drive motor, and to act as a piston/plunger. By way of example, sufficiently rigid plastic materials such as ABS, HDPE, PLA, and PVA are typically suitable for use in such wirefeed systems.
Though such relatively-rigid materials are suitable in many applications, it has been found to be desirable in some applications to manufacture objects of materials that are less-rigid than materials that are sufficiently rigid for use in such wirefeed extrusion systems. By way of example, it may be desirable to use less-rigid materials such as thermoplastic elastomers for the manufacture of objects for use in soft robotics, medical and mold-making applications. Further, while less-rigid plastics or other materials cannot exert enough force on molten plastic below them to extrude in a wirefeed extrusion system, excessively brittle materials may also be unsuitable for such wirefeed extrusion systems. Excessively brittle materials are prone to snap, rather than compress effectively, as threaded through a wirefeed extrusion system.
In laboratory, bench top and industrial applications, large-scale screw-drive extrusion apparatuses are used. Such screw-drive extrusion apparatuses are significantly larger than is feasible for most 3-D printing applications, such apparatuses typically being large in scale (often measured in feet or yards) and sufficiently heavy (often measured in hundreds or thousands of pounds) to be suitable for rapid movement about a print bed of a 3-D printer to build a 3-D printed object. Further, such screw-drive extrusion apparatuses are typically designed to operate according to a single set of operative conditions. For example, they are often tuned to work at a specific temperature, with a specific feed rate, and with a specific extrudate material. This is not useful for a 3-D printer which, ideally, can be used with any plastic the user desires, and at various speeds.
Further, a common form of 3-D printing uses plastics as the extrudate. Unfortunately, plastics don't behave ideally with respect to a screw-drive extrusion process in that the liquid plastic tends to become more fluid as the screw is driven faster to feed move liquid plastic. This means that higher print speeds often require non-proportional increases in extruder speed. Additionally, the energy required to melt the feed material would vary with the extrusion flow rate/feed rate.
Improvements of fused filament fabrication printers requires an increase in printing speed, printing with multiple materials, and lower printer costs.

Dynamically controlled screw-driven extrusion


A particulate filter includes a housing having opposite ends, a pair of support walls adjacent respective opposite ends of the housing and defining therein an interior, and a pair of pure gas chambers defined at respective opposite ends of the housing at sides of the respective support walls outwardly of the interior. A plurality of elongated filter bodies are supported by the support walls to extend therebetween within the housing with longitudinal axes of the filter bodies extending parallel. The filter bodies define outwardly thereof within the housing a raw gas chamber in the form of a plurality of elongated raw gas compartments. Hollow interiors of the filter bodies define respective elongated pure gas channels. Each pure gas channel opens into at least one of the pure gas chambers. A raw gas supply inlet connection opens into the interior of the housing at a position between the pair of support walls such that raw gas is supplied to the exterior of the filter bodies in a direction transverse to the direction of elongation of the raw gas compartments and transverse to the longitudinal axes of the filter bodies.

The present invention relates to a particulate filter including a housing having therein a plurality of cylindrical, ceramic filter bodies that define within the housing a group of raw gas side channels and a group of pure gas side channels, with one group of channels formed by compartments within the housing and with the other group of channels formed by the interiors of the filter bodies.
A particulate filter of this type is disclosed in German DE 32 35 363 A1. In such known particulate filter, raw gas is delivered into the interiors of the filter bodies at one axial end of the filter. Thus, particulate matter such as soot that is filtered from the raw gas is deposited internally on the surfaces of the interiors of the filter bodies. Therefore, compressed clusters of soot are formed on the interior surfaces of the filter bodies, and such compressed clusters are difficult to clean or remove. Pure gas filters through the filter bodies and passes to the exterior compartments from which it is drawn off at an opposite axial end of the filter. In such an arrangement, the raw gas streams and the pure gas streams flow substantially parallel to one another and parallel to the longitudinal axes of the filter bodies. When viewed over the axial length of the filter bodies, this results in non-uniform gas flow conditions, and this can have a negative impact on the filtering function. Clusters that form in the interiors of the filter bodies not only are difficult to clean and remove, but also they increase zonally or locally resistance to gas flow.


A cathode-ray tube comprises an evacuated envelope with a substantially rectangular faceplate panel and implosion protection structure disposed around the periphery of the panel to apply a compressive force thereto. The implosion protection structure includes a tube-contacting portion and an overlapping portion extending at least partially along the tube-contacting portion to provide a double thickness of material to increase the effective cross-sectional area of the implosion protection structure. The implosion protection structure is improved by at least one opening formed through one of the portions thereof. Mounting lugs overlie the opening in the one portion of the implosion protection structure and are secured to the other portion of the structure bounded within the opening. A method of securing the mounting lugs also is disclosed.

A cathode-ray tube is evacuated to a very low internal pressure and, accordingly, is subject to the possibility of implosion due to the stresses produced by atmospheric pressure acting on all surfaces of the tube. This problem has been addressed in the art by providing the CRT with an implosion protection band. Such a band is used to apply a compressive force to the sidewall of a faceplate panel of the CRT to redistribute some of the forces. The redistribution of the forces decreases the probability of an implosion of the tube by minimizing tension in the corners of the panel. An implosion protection band is also beneficial because it improves the impact resistance of the tube. Glass in compression is stronger than glass which is in tension, and the band causes compression in panel areas which otherwise would be in tension. Additionally, in the event of an implosion, the redistributed stresses cause the imploding glass to be directed toward the back of the cabinet in which the tube is mounted, thereby substantially reducing the probability of someone in the vicinity of the imploding tube being injured.
The implosion protection band may be a so-called shrinkfit band, or a tension band which is applied either directly to the tube or to a pair of substantially U-shaped rimbands that overlie the sidewall of the faceplate panel.
As the size of color television tubes increase, the stress produced by atmospheric pressure acting on the larger tubes also increases, resulting in the need for implosion protection bands that can apply a greater compressive force to the sidewall of the panel. One method of increasing the compressive force is to increase the cross-sectional area of the implosion protection band. However, this adds additional cost to the tube. A cost efficient way to increase the effective cross-sectional area of the band is to fold over at least a portion of the metal strip used to make the band, to provide a double thickness of band material.
A disadvantage of forming a double thickness band in this manner is that in some tube configurations it is necessary to attach the mounting lugs, which are used to mount the tube within the television receiver, to the double thickness portion of the band. Welding is the preferred method of attaching the mounting lugs to the band; however, the double thickness of material may shunt a portion of the welding current, resulting in higher energy welding requirements and splattering of a rust-inhibiting layer provided on the band. Consequentially, a reduction in the reliability of the weld occurs.

Cathode-ray tube having implosion protection means with a structure and method to facilitate attachment of tube mounting means


The diaphragm modification includes providing ring segments having radial outward projecting tenons for reception in dovetail grooves of the diaphragm bore. Seal strips extend about the outer face of the segment rings for engaging the diaphragm bore and crush pins are disposed around the sides of the tenons to provide close tolerance fit between the dovetail hooks of the diaphragm, thus accommodating any out-of-roundness or eccentricity of the diaphragm extant through prior use. Bolts are applied in tapped openings of the segment rings and diaphragm to facilitate securement of the segment rings and diaphragm and the segments 34 are seal-welded to the diaphragm. New packing ring segments are provided in the dovetail grooves along the radial inner face of the segment rings to complete the stage sealing between the diaphragm and reduced diameter rotor.

When replacing existing turbine rotors, it is often necessary in the design of the new rotor to change the torsional frequency response. Various constraints, however, are often imposed requiring larger frequency windows with respect to a new rotor train. As a result, detuning of the rotor train may be required. Thus, material is frequently added to or removed from a rotor to achieve a certain frequency response and to move that frequency response to a desired frequency. The detuning process, however, may cause an increase or a reduction in the rotor LAN diameters. A reduction in the rotor LAN diameters is difficult to accommodate in existing diaphragms at the turbine installation site, especially in nuclear power plants because of the need for radiation protection. That is, upon reduction of the rotor LAN diameter, the stage sealing in the existing turbine would be lost unless measures are taken to restore the seal. A reduction in the rotor LAN diameter, for example, on the order of 2-4 inches, would result in a spacing of the existing packing ring segment from the rotor LAN, effectively forming an annular gap between the segment and the rotor LAN. The packing ring segment, of course, provides a seal between axial opposite sides of the stage and typically forms with the rotor LAN a labyrinth-type seal along its radially innermost surface. While the restoration of the stage seal can be accomplished by supplying a new stage diaphragm having an appropriately reduced diametrical bore, this is undesirable due to cost constraints and cycle time to manufacture and replace the old diaphragm with the new diaphragm. The existing stage diaphragm is therefore frequently modified under these conditions.
A typical modification to an existing turbine stage diaphragm includes building up weld material along the interior of the diaphragm bore. This technique is used where machinery can be brought to the installation site or the diaphragm can be transported to a facility capable of performing the modification. However, this technique is labor-intensive, contributes significantly to turbine outage time and costly.

Apparatus and methods for modifying a turbine diaphragm for use with a reduced rotor LAN diameter


A rope clamp is provided in the form of a hook to hang on a rail, ring or other object such as a ledge. The hook may be injection moulded plastics material. Rope is lodged in a channel around the hook. The channel is wider at its mouth than at its base so that rope may be wedged or clamped in the narrow part of the channel. Guides are provided for rope entering the channel and for rope leaving the channel to bias it into the narrow part of the channel. The rope may be easily manually moved into the wider part of the channel to allow adjustment of the rope on the clamp.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a rope clamp in the form of a hook which may be hung on a horizontal rail, ring or fixed hook, to clamp a bight of rope firmly.
2. Acknowledgement of Prior Art
When an object is suspended by a rope attached to a rail, ring, etc., it is usual to tie the rope to the support so that the object is suspended at the desired height. In many case it is necessary to make a number of attempts to tie the rope such that the object is suspended at exactly the right height. For some purposes, it may be desired to adjust the length of rope between the object and the knot quite frequently. For each adjustment various attempts may be made since it is not easy to gauge the exact amount of slack in the rope.
One example of a situation where frequent adjustments of height are required is that of boat fenders. Boat fenders are often suspended from a horizontal rail of a boat to dangle against the side of the boat so as to protect the side of the boat from damage when approaching a dock or other structure. Frequently the fenders will be untied and brought inboard when not required for use.


A method is disclosed for forming an integrally wound joint structure with filament wound composite structure at an adjacent end of the integrally wound joint structure and having means for attaching said integrally wound joint structure to another structure provided at other end of said joint structure. The joint structure includes filament winding over a joint tube or joint solid with appropriately sized and spaced grooves running circumferentially around the outer surface of the joint structure. A curable resin is employed in filament winding to complete an assembly which is placed in a conventional oven and allowed to cure.

The problem of joining composite cylinders or other tubular bodies to other structures is a recurring one in the design and manufacture of missile bodies, pressure vessels, and other load bearing structures.
In the past the conventional approach to the problem has been the use of pin joints and Ortman keys.
Pin joints, which enjoy the most widespread use, are typically heavy and complicated, requiring precision or match drilling and tedious hand work to remove burrs and sharp edges. In automated assembly lines these operations require extra machine steps.
Ortman keys require tight tolerances and are problematic in assembly. They cannot easily connect noncylindrical tubular bodies. In addition to this, Ortman keys are very difficult if not impossible to disassemble.
Ortman keys are well known and characteristically join tubular members or cylindrical bodies by means of a rectangular or similarly shaped member which fills a groove which the two members to be joined have in common.
Desirable would be a method for the joining of tubular composite structures without the complications or tight tolerances of pin joints and Ortman keys.
The primary object of this invention is to provide a method of joining a tubular composite structure to another structure.
Another object of this invention is to provide for the joining of a tubular composite structure to another structure in such a way as to form an assembly with adequate structural strength in tension, internal pressurization, bending, compression, and shear as to be useful in a wide variety of applications.
Still a further object of this invention is to provide for the joining together of tubular composite structures and other structures in such a way as to allow for easy assembly and disassembly, or alternately, for permanent assembly.

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army


A method for machine translation, comprising receiving a source string in a source language, an indication of a target language, and user identification information. The method includes using the user identification information to identify at least one memory with user-specific translation data. The method includes tokenizing the source string, using at least one processor, to produce a tokenized source string comprising any unique temporary textual elements associated with corresponding target textual elements during tokenization. The method includes obtaining a translated string from a translator, the translated string being at least a partial translation of the tokenized source string and including all of the unique temporary textual elements. The method includes generating an output string using at least one processor, the generation comprising replacing all of the unique temporary textual elements in the translated string with the associated target textual elements.

Existing machine translation systems produce translations in a variety of languages. Although many such translation systems leverage scale to provide high-quality translations, they provide only limited opportunities to customize translations or preserve customer-specific terminology and branding. Users of such systems may not be able to prevent, for example, the translation of brand names, or be able to customize the translation of difficult-to-translate phrases such as specialty terminology and idioms, that tend to be rich in metaphors and cultural nuances. As a result of these limitations, existing translation systems often produce the somewhat awkward or terminologically inaccurate translations that have come to be associated with machine translation.
Moreover, as existing translation systems are generally trained on text that is accurately spelled and grammatically sound, they are ill-equipped to translate text generated from the use of informal, real-time modes of communication such as Short Message Service (SMS) or Instant Message (IM). Consequently, when these systems encounter the inherently imprecise text resulting from such communications, they often produce translations that are replete with errors. These translation errors occur at least because machine translation systems are not presently designed to handle the use of slang, abbreviations, and non-standard punctuation, spelling, and grammar, commonly found in text resulting from real-time modes of communication.
Existing machine translation systems also present security challenges when used to translate information of a proprietary or sensitive nature. For example, by transmitting sensitive content over insecure communication channels, present systems routinely risk exposing such content to unintended parties. Some translation systems also transmit content to third-party translation providers or engines without retaining control over the provider's further use or dissemination of the transmitted content. As a result, once an end-user provides such systems with translation content that includes sensitive information such as credit card numbers, there is no guarantee that the information will not be made available to other parties or otherwise inappropriately used during or even after the end of the translation transaction.
Although some specialty translation systems attempt to provide some degree of customization and security, they nevertheless exhibit the drawbacks noted above, and are generally only able to support translation between a select few languages. Accordingly, there is a need in the art to develop machine translation methods and systems that overcome at least the above-identified limitations of prior art systems, and provide high-quality machine translations under a variety of use-conditions.

Methods and systems for multi-engine machine translation


A multi-beam generating element generates an even number of multiple beams having a uniform light intensity. The multi-beam generating element has a grating constructed by repeatedly arranging basic phase patterns, wherein the basic patterns are composed of at least two kinds of rectangular patterns having non-uniform widths and different phase heights. The basic phase patterns are fabricated by superposing rectangular patterns having non-uniform widths and single phase heights to form a multi-layer arrangement. In an optical printing apparatus having the grating, the multiple beams coming out of a multi-beam generating element are applied to a multi-channel acousto-optical element, a Dove prism rotating the angle of the aligned direction of the multiple beams having light intensities which have been modulated, and then the beams are scanned with a rotating polygonal mirror. By employing a grating generating multiple beams having uniformity in light intensities, a high speed and high resolution optical printing apparatus can be attained.

The present invention relates to a multi-beam generating element and an optical printing apparatus to be used therewith, and more particularly to a multi-beam generating element and an optical printing apparatus which a laser beam is branched into a plurality of beams, which are processed in parallel to realize a high speed processing.
A laser beam incident upon a grating element is branched into multiple diffracted light beams. There have been a lot of proposals which use this phenomenon is as a multi-beam generating element, and there have been some applications developed as well. However, it has been difficult to increase the number of branched beams and to efficiently make the intensity distribution of the branched beams uniform.
As a countermeasure against this problem, a method which uses a grating element for converting a single beam into multiple beams has been proposed in Technical Digest on The 3rd Microoptics Conference, page 84 (1991). The method, however, includes a complicated fabricating process where the intensity of an electron beam needs to be accurately controlled using many intensity levels to irradiate a material to be exposed by the electron beam since the material is formed to have a multi-level phase pattern. Further, there are limitations in the number of the branched beams, the efficiency of light utilization and the uniformity in the light intensity distribution of the branched beams, since the number of levels in the multi-level phase pattern is limited due to a limitation in the fabrication process.
The inventors have proposed a grating element for converting a single beam into multiple beams where the basic phase patterns composing the grating are formed in fractionized rectangular patterns having non-uniform widths and have the phase height of a single level. In this method, by optimizing and determining the non-uniform widths in the rectangular patterns, it is possible to obtain an odd number of multiple beams having an excellent uniformity and a high efficiency of light utilization. The grating according to this method can be easily fabricated, since the pattern is formed of a single layer coating material.
The method according to the above invention, however, cannot generate an even number of multiple beams. A electronic control circuit used together with an optical apparatus is constructed on the basis of information composed of 1 byte or 8 bits, that is, an even number. Further, a flip-flop circuit and/or a counter circuit frequently used in a control circuit have a basic operation for converting the number of electric pulse signals into twice or a half as many as the original electric pulse signals. For these reasons, it is frequently required that the number of multiple beams used in an optical apparatus is an even number.
On the other hand, it is well known that scanning by use of a plurality of laser beams is an effective method for a high speed laser printer. For example, in a laser printer which the inventors have proposed, a plurality of laser beams generated by a grating are converted into parallel multiple beams using a lens and are inputted to a multi-channel acousto-optical modulator. Then, a plurality of the laser beams modulated by the multi-channel acousto-optical modulator are scanned on a photosensitive drum using a rotating polygonal mirror.
To form a beam spot array at an oblique angle on the photosensitive drum in the optical system described above, the grating and the multi-channel acousto-optical modulator need to be accurately adjusted so as to have a tilt at a given angle to a horizontal plane. It is theoretically possible to adjust the two units together, but practically it has been extremely difficult. Especially for the multi-channel acousto-optical modulator, in order to efficiently diffract the primary degree diffracted beam among all of the incident multiple beams, the angle adjustment in the plane diffracting the beams, that is, the adjustment in that Bragg angle, requires an extremely high accuracy. In addition to this, it has been very difficult to effect an adjustment to form the beam spot array an oblique angle on the photosensitive drum.

Multi-beam generating element and optical printing apparatus therewith


In one embodiment, a network device may participate in an election process to elect one of two or more Provider Edge devices of a Redundancy Group to be a Designated Forwarder for the Redundancy Group, where the Redundancy Group is in a Service Provider network, and where the Redundancy Group serves a Customer Edge device of a customer network. The network device may forward multi-destination traffic to the Customer Edge device according to whether the network device is elected to be the Designated Forwarder for the Redundancy Group. Multi-destination traffic may include multicast traffic, broadcast traffic, or destination unknown unicast traffic.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the election of a Designated Forwarder in a communication network and more particularly, to the election of a Designated Forwarder on a per-Redundancy Group basis.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Service Provider network typically provides service to customer networks via Provider Edge (PE) devices (e.g., routers) at the edge of the Service Provider network. More particularly, each PE device may be connected to a Customer Edge (CE) device (e.g., router) at the edge of a customer network.
Unfortunately, each PE device is subject to failure. Similarly, a link between a PE device and a corresponding CE device could fail. As a result, it is desirable to build redundancy into the Service Provider network.

Designated forwarder election for VPLS with BGP-based MAC learning


A super high resolution rotary optical encoder having as its disk an optical disk, i.e., a disk employing the optical principle of non-contact readout based on diffraction theory. The encoder is adapted to be coupled to a device of which it is desired to measure the rotational motion thereof. The encoder includes an optical disk having, at a fixed radial distance, at least one track of pits and lands; a coupler for coupling the optical disk to the device such that rotary motion of the device results in a corresponding rotary motion of the optical disk; and an optical disk pick-up for generating an output in response to the pits and lands indicative of the rotary motion of the device.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to encoders and more particularly to rotary encoders having an encoder disk which employs optical disk technology.
2. Background of the Invention
FIG. 1 shows a conventional rotary encoder 10. While the manufacture of this encoder refers to it as an "optical" encoder, such terminology will not be used herein. Rather, herein the term "optical" shall solely refer to a disk/readout system employing the optical principle of non-contact readout based on diffraction theory such as compact disks. In contrast, encoders of the type shown in FIG. 1 typically employ a conventional light emitting diode/photodetector combination as described below. The encoder 10 includes a shaft 12 and an output terminal 14. This particular encoder is a Model 35 incremental rotary encoder manufactured by Dynamics Research Corporation.
In typical operation, the shaft 12 is attached to a device (not shown) of which it is desired to measure the rotational motion thereof. In response to rotation of the device attached to shaft 12, output signals are generated via the output terminal 14 indicative of the motion. As known by those skilled in the art, to track this rotary motion, a disk internal to the rotary encoder 10 is provided. A typical disk 20 is shown in FIG. 2. The disk 20 is attached to the shaft 12 of encoder 10 so that it rotates with the shaft 12. The disk 20 is typically glass engraved via conventional IC lithography techniques to include a plurality of lines 22 (the arrows indicate that the lines 22 and 24 extend entirely around the circumference of the disk 20). A light emitting diode (not shown) is arranged on one side of the disk 20 and a photodetector (also not shown) is positioned on the other side. The light emitting diode/photodetector combination is fixed and does not rotate with the disk 20. As the device attached to the shaft 12 is rotated, the disk 20 also rotates and the lines 22 successively pass between the light emitting diode and photodetector inducing output signals indicative of the lines passing therebetween. Each line is equivalent to one cycle. With regard to the encoder shown in FIG. 1, a disk of 3.5 inches in diameter is designed for use therewith. Although disks can be provided with a various number of lines, the maximum number of lines available for this size and type of rotary encoder is in the range of 9000 lines (the lines 22 and 24 in FIG. 2 not being to scale). This is also referred to as the "count" of the encoder and results in a maximum of 9000 cycles per shaft revolution.
FIG. 3 shows the typical outputs for the rotary encoder 10. Although various output configurations can be provided, channels A and B (as well as their complementary channels) provide the primary outputs of the encoder 10 and can alternatively be generated in a sine wave form. Output A is generated by the lines 22 in FIG. 2 as described above. Output B is generated by a second light emitting diode/photodetector combination sensing a second set of lines 24 shown in FIG. 2. This second set of lines 24 is identical to the first set of lines 22 except that it is 90.degree. out of phase from the first set of lines 22. Accordingly, output B is simply output A shifted by 30.degree. or a quadrature wave form of output A. By having two output wave forms of the same frequency which are 90.degree. out of phase, it is possible to determine the direction of motion of the disk 20 (FIG. 2) and, therefore, the device attached to disk 20. This is conventionally accomplished by providing the A and B signals as the "D" and "CLOCK" inputs, respectively, of a D-flip flop. As a result, if the Q output line is high, the disk is being rotated clockwise, if the Q output line is high, the disk is being rotated counterclockwise. Since the output on channels A and B provide 9000 cycles per shaft revolution, one cycle can be provided every 0.04.degree. of rotation.
As known by those skilled in the art, internal and/or external cycle interpolation can be added to increase the number of counts per revolution. With regard to the specific rotary encoder shown in FIG. 1, for example, so-called external four times circuitry can be added to provide 36,000 counts per revolution, and internal ten times circuitry and external four times circuitry can be added to provide 360,000 counts per revolution. This type of circuitry, which can conventionally be added to any type of encoder including that described herein, of course, adds considerable expense and complexity to the encoder.
In certain fields such as compact disk manufacturing, super high resolutions, in the area of hundreds of thousands of counts per shaft revolution, are required. For instance, in the compact disk field, so-called Red Book requirements mandate that dimensions such as where lead-in starts and stops and track pitch, which is in the order of 1.5-1.7 microns, be measured. Conventional rotary encoders are simply not suitable for this type of measurement absent additional circuitry. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a super high resolution rotary encoder not requiring additional external or internal circuitry to obtain such resolutions.

Absolute and directional encoder using optical disk


A method of reducing ringing artifacts in image data that has been filtered with a high frequency emphasis filter. For each filtered data value, a local variance is calculated from data values at neighboring filter taps. This variance is compared to a threshold, and if the threshold is exceeded, the filtered data value is limited between local minimum and maximum values. A method of reducing noise, also using the local variance, is also described.

Fixed resolution display devices require the display data to have a certain vertical and horizontal resolution, in terms of the number of rows and columns of pixels in each frame. Incoming images, if not already in the correct resolution, must be scaled (resized) to the resolution of the display device.
Scaling the original image means generating a new image that is larger or smaller than the original. The new image will have a larger or smaller number of pixels in the horizontal and/or vertical directions than the original image. A larger image is scaled up (more new pixels); a smaller image is scaled down (fewer newer pixels). A simple case is a 2:1 increase or decrease in size. A 2:1 decrease could be done by throwing away every other pixel (although this simple method results in poor image quality). For a 2:1 increase, new pixels can be generated in between the old by various interpolation methods.
The scaling process is implemented with various scaling algorithms, also called "filters", which treat the rows and columns of the image as discrete time-domain signals. When the original image is analog, the image signal is a sampled version of the original analog image and has an inherent sample rate that results in a fixed number of pixels in the image. To rescale the image, it is resampled at some new, predetermined rate to provide the desired number of pixels. This is done by convolving the rows and columns of the original image with various low-pass filter functions to provide sample values at each of the output image pixel locations. Scaling is performed in two passes. Typically, the rows are rescaled first (horizontal scaling), then the new rows are used for resealing the columns (vertical scaling).
A feature of some vertical and horizontal scaling filters is a high frequency emphasis. These scaling filters have stronger gain, greater than unity, in the high-frequency region of their passband than in the low-frequency region of their passband. Although this emphasis can be useful for sharpening the image, it can result in artifacts. High frequency emphasis filtering can also be used for image data that does not require scaling, to achieve image sharpness.

Image processing with minimization of ringing artifacts and noise


A five-piece optical lens system comprises, in order from the object side to the image side: a first lens element with a negative refractive power having a convex object-side surface; a second lens element with a negative refractive power having a concave image-side surface; a third lens element with a positive refractive power having a convex object-side surface; a stop; a fourth lens element with a positive refractive power having a convex image-side surface; a fifth lens element with a negative refractive power having a concave object-side surface, each of the second, third, fourth and fifth lens elements has at least one aspheric surface. Thereby, such a system has a wide field of view and can improve the yield rate when being applied to biomedicine, car recorder, camera or other electronic products.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical lens system, and more particularly to a five-piece optical lens system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The electronic sensor of a general digital camera is typically a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) or CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensor. Due to advances in semiconductor manufacturing, the pixel size of sensor has been reduced continuously, and optical lens systems have increasingly higher resolution. Therefore, there's an increasing demand for an imaging lens system with better image quality.
However, as to the optical lens systems used in biomedicine, car recorder, camera or other electronic products, the requirement for high pixel and big stop needn't be stringent, but the problems of field of view and yield rate are needed to be solved. Conventional lens systems used in the electronic products in the above-mentioned fields mostly consist of four lens elements, however, such lens systems have some defects, such as, the field of view is small, the yield rate is low and so on.
The present invention mitigates and/or obviates the aforementioned disadvantages.


Projection lithographic systems relying on radiant energy such as electrons and ion beams are substantially affected by the distance between the projection mask and the substrate. In particular, to avoid undesirable limitation of the obtainable resolution, this distance should be a meter or less.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to projection lithography processes and in particular electron projection lithographic processes.
2. Art Background
In device processing, an energy sensitive material, denominated a resist, is coated on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer (e.g., a silicon wafer), a ferroelectric wafer, an insulating wafer, (e.g. a sapphire wafer), a chromium layer supported by a substrate, or a substrate comprising some combination of such materials. The resist is exposed by subjecting it to radiation in the desired image. This image is then developed to produce a patterned resist generally by immersing the resist in a suitable solvent or subjecting it to a plasma to remove selectively either the exposed or unexposed regions. The developed pattern is employed as a mask to process, e.g., etch, the underlying layer. The resist is then removed (for many devices), subsequent layers are formed, and the resist process is repeated to form overlying patterns in the device. In such repetition of the resist process, the pattern in the resist being processed is typically aligned (registered) relative to underlying patterns by using fiducial marks.
Various approaches have been proposed for the exposure of a resist with charged particle beams, e.g., electron beams, in the manufacture of submicron devices. (Submicron devices in the context of this invention is a body having a pattern with either lines or spaces smaller than 1 .mu.m). Electron beam exposure has been extensively used for the making of lithographic masks where the resist overlies a chromium layer that in turn overlies a quartz substrate. The image is produced by raster scanning an electron beam over the resist material in a single cycle and shuttering the beam at appropriate positions to produce the desired exposure image. This single cycle, raster process is capable of producing extremely fine features, but is generally too slow for making devices other than masks.
Alternative approaches have been proposed for exposing devices other than masks in suitable times. (Generally lithographic processing at least 30-60 wafers per hour is considered desirable where a wafer is a substrate typically from two to ten inches in diameter that is ultimately subdivided after fabrication into a plurality of devices). These exposure approaches are generally divided into proximity and projection procedures. In the former, a mask defining the image by absorptive/reflective regions and transmissive regions for the exposing energy is placed in close proximity to the resist. An electron beam is scanned over the mask or light is flooded onto the mask to expose the underlying resist in regions corresponding to transmissive areas of the mask.
In a projection approach, a lens is interposed between the mask and the resist. The mask is either the absorptive/transmissive type previously described or, alternatively, of a type that scatters in one set of regions to a greater extent than in a second to produce the desired image. The fluence traversing the mask is focused by the lens onto the resist to produce an image corresponding to the mask pattern.
In one specific approach to projection lithography, schematically illustrated in FIG. 3, (described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,112 dated Jan. 7, 1992, which is hereby incorporated by reference) a mask 20 is employed which scatters and/or reflects incident electrons 10 in a first set of regions 30 and scatters to a lesser extent, e.g., transmits, in a second set of regions 40. The electrons 10a traversing mask 20 are caused to converge at one or more convergence points by an electron optic projection lens 50. An area more transmissive, e.g., aperture 70, than the surrounding area 80 is positioned at such convergence point. Scattered electrons, 10b and 10c, do not converge at this point and are blocked while unscattered electrons 10a do converge at aperture 70 and emerge to expose resist on substrate 90.
Typically, in an electron exposure proximity printing procedure the electron beam is scanned electronically, i.e., by use of magnetic and electric fields over the mask. In one study published in Proc. 8th Syrup. on Electron and Ion Beam Science and Technology, 406-419 (1978), it is suggested that a very rapid line scan, i.e., faster than 0.2 ms, with repeated exposure of each portion of the resist to effect the desired dosage is useful to avoid localized heating, and thus localized expansion of the mask. In contrast, expansion of the entire substrate due to uniform heating is electronically compensated for during exposure. (See W. M. Moreau, Semiconductor Lithography, Plenum Press, New York, page 435 (1988)). Localized deformations produce errors (called overlay errors) in the placement, i.e., registration, of a resist pattern relative to an underlying pattern. Instead of scanning at a sufficiently slow rate to expose fully each region during one scan cycle, the rate of scanning is substantially increased and exposure is accomplished through a plurality of rapid scan cycles. Despite such precautions, higher acceleration potentials, although yielding enhanced resolution, nevertheless lead to rapidly increasing overlay errors.
For projection light lithography other schemes such as a step and scan procedure have been proposed. In this procedure, a portion of the mask is illuminated over a strip. The image of the entire mask is then projected on the resist by moving the mask and the wafer in opposite directions at a relative rate of speed that depends on the demagnification of the system. For example, if the system has a 4:1 demagnification (meaning a unit length of the mask is projected onto a corresponding one quarter unit length on the substrate) the mask is moved at a rate four times faster than the substrate.
The distance between mask and substrate in an electron projection lithographic system has, with progressing development, become significantly greater. This trend toward longer columns, i.e., longer distances between mask and substrate, has been driven by various optical considerations. Typically, a larger image field is available with lenses having longer focal lengths. Additionally, such longer focal lengths tend to reduce error associated with curvature of field. However, a longer focal length, depending on the extent of demagnification used, requires a longer column. (Demagnification is the degree of reduction of mask dimension of a feature to corresponding substrate size of the same feature). As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, as the demagnification becomes greater for a conventional projection lens, the distance between the substrate and the mask increases. Thus, in such systems as shown in FIG. 1, for 1:1 demagnification the distance, 5, between the mask, 1, and projection lens, 3, (represented by a diagrammatic single lens) is approximately the same size as the distance, 7, between the projection lens and the substrate, 9. Similarly, in a corresponding 4:1 projection system, the proportion of these two distances is correspondingly 4 to 1. As a result, the desire for longer focal lengths and increasing demagnification yields increasing column size.