More specifically, a process is provided for etching a multilayer structure to form a predetermined etched pattern therein. The subject process comprises providing the multilayer structure having a plurality of structural layers. The structural layers of the multilayer structure comprise a silicon dioxide outer layer on an underlying silicon nitride stop layer. Then, a chemical etchant protective layer is formed on a major surface of the multilayer structure having a predetermined pattern of openings, thereby exposing areas of the silicon dioxide outer layer corresponding to the predetermined pattern of openings. The exposed areas of the silicon dioxide outer layer are then etched down to the silicon nitride stop layer, at a high SiO.sub.2 etch rate and at a high level of selectivity of the SiO.sub.2 etch rate with respect to the Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 etch rate, with a fluorinated chemical etchant system. The fluorinated chemical etchant system includes an etchant material and an additive material. The additive material comprises a fluorocarbon material in which the number of hydrogen atoms is equal to or greater than the number of fluorine atoms. The etching step forms a substantially predetermined etch pattern in the silicon dioxide outer layer in which the contact sidewalls of said SiO.sub.2 outer layer are substantially upright.

This invention relates to a process for selectively etching a silicon dioxide layer deposited on a silicon nitride layer, and more particularly to a process for effectively and efficiently etching such silicon dioxide layer at a high etch rate and high selectivity of silicon dioxide with respect to silicon nitride, particularly in a multilayer structure.
It is known in the prior art that the manufacture of multilayer multilayer structures typically involves patterned etching of areas of the semiconductor surface which are not covered by a pattern of photoresist protective material. These etching techniques use liquid or wet etching materials, or dry etching with halogens or halogen-containing compounds, of certain layers of these devices. For example, one well known etching material is chlorine which can exist in the etching process as either chlorine gas or HCl, etc. Chlorine etches the semiconductor isotropically, i.e., in both a lateral and vertical direction. This results in an etched feature which has a line width which is smaller than the exposed resist image.
Etching of the multilayer structures can also be conducted in a gas phase using known techniques such as plasma etching, ion beam etching, and reactive ion etching. The use of gas plasma technology provides substantially anisotropic etching using gaseous ions, typically generated by an RF discharge. In gas plasma etching the requisite portion of the surface to be etched is removed by a chemical reaction between the gaseous ions and the subject surface. In the anisotropic process, etching takes place only or primarily in the vertical direction so that feature widths substantially match the photoresist pattern widths. Anisotropic etching is utilized when feature sizing after etching must be maintained within specific limits in order not to violate alignment tolerances or design rules. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,157 an elemental silicon-containing layer, such as a layer of polysilicon or silicide, is etched anisotropically employing a gas plasma comprising a gaseous chlorofluorocarbon, capable of supplying CF.sub.x and chlorine ions, and ammonia. Profile control of a silicon layer is controlled by the use of this etching mode.
Higher density multilayer structures such as 64 and 256 Megabit DRAM will require an additional amount of alignment tolerance which can not be addressed by photolithography means. In such applications, an etch stop technology could be used to supply the desired tolerance. In an etch stop system an etch stop layer is deposited on underlying structures. The outer layer is deposited over the underlying etch stop layer through which the desired patterns will be defined. The etch stop layer will then be used to terminate the etch process once the outer layer has been completely removed in the desired pattern locations. Thus the etch stop layer acts to protected structures underlying the etch stop layer from damage due to the outer layer dry chemical etch. The process used to perform this etch must have three basic properties, namely, (1) a high outer layer etch rate which (2) produces substantially upright sidewalls and (3) has a high selectivity of the outer layer being etched down to the etch stop layer. The preferred etch stop material is silicon nitride because it's properties are well known and it is currently used for semiconductor fabrication. The preferred outer layer is silicon dioxide.
With respect to etching of a multilayer structure including a silicon dioxide layer on an underlying silicon nitride layer, a problem which occurs and which must be overcome is profile control. Prior art methods of obtaining high oxide to nitride selectivity rely on pure chemical etching (such as hydrofluoric acid). Profile control using this method produced structures that do not have vertical sidewalls. Dry etch processing usually produces a more vertical profile because of the ion bombardment aspect of the process. However, the dry etch process can produce a contact wall that slopes out from the bottom instead of being 90 if the wrong mix of process parameters are used. These parameters can include, but are not limited to, CF.sub.4, CHF.sub.3, RF Power, and pressure.
The same ion bombardment aspect of the dry etch process used to produce straight sidewalls has a very negative effect on oxide to nitride selectivity. High energy ions needed to etch both oxide and nitride do so by disassociating a chemical bond at the oxide and/or nitride surface. However the disassociation energy needed for nitride is less than that required for oxide. Hence the addition of CH.sub.2 F.sub.2 to offset the disassociation properties of nitride as compared to oxide. The CH.sub.2 F.sub.2 produces a polymer deposition on the nitride surface that acts to passivate the nitride surface and thereby reduce the dry etch removal rate. However, the silicon dioxide etch rate is sustained at a much higher rate than that of silicon nitride.
Here is a discussion of various prior art processes for etching silicon dioxide and/or silicon nitride. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,789,560 to Yen, for example, a fusion stop method is provided for forming silicon oxide during the fabrication of integrated circuit devices. A diffusion stop layer of thermal silicon oxide is formed during the fabrication of integrated circuit device prior to the deposition of the poly layer to be oxidized. The nitride isolates the substrate from diffused oxygen within the poly layer during oxidation, permitting a non-critical oxidation time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,877,641 to Dory discloses a plasma CVD for forming silicon nitride or silicon dioxide films onto a substrate using a reactant gas including di-tert butylsilane and at least one other reactant gas.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,611 to Vogel et al. discloses a process and gas mixture for etching silicon dioxide and/or silicon nitride in a plasma environment in a planar reactor using a carbon fluorine gas comprising C.sub.2 F.sub.6, CF.sub.4, C.sub.3 F.sub.8, C.sub.4 F.sub.10, C.sub.4 F.sub.8, and combinations thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,912,061 to Nasr discloses a method of forming a salicided self-aligned metal oxide multilayer structure using a disposable silicon nitride spacer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,568,410 to Thornquist relates to the selective gaseous plasma etching with nitrogen fluoride and an oxygen source gas of silicon nitride in the presence of silicon oxide.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,479,237 to Bergh et al. discloses etching silicon oxide on silicon nitride using a hydrofluoric acid solution.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,655 to Stefano et al. discloses a method for protecting a refractory metal silicide during high-temperature processing using a dual-layer cap of silicon nitride on silicon dioxide.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,398 to Long et al. discloses a plasma etch process to anisotropically etch a sandwich structure of silicon dioxide, polycrystalline silicon and silicon dioxide "in situ", that is, in a single etch chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,046 to Chhabra et al. discloses a process for forming silicon dioxide, or silicon nitride layers on selected substrates employing C.sub.4 H.sub.12 Si and an O.sub.2 source.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,692 to Ide et al. discloses a process for preparing film for a semiconductor memory device which comprises forming a silicon nitride film over a substrate by a chemical vapor deposition technique, oxidizing the surface of the silicon nitride film to form a silicon oxide layer over the film, and removing the silicon oxide layer by etching to form an improved silicon nitride film.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,244,752 to Henderson, Sr. et al. discloses a method of fabricating an integrated circuit wherein a silicon oxide-silicon nitride layer is formed on the surface of a silicon wafer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,374,698 to Sanders, et al. relates to the etching of SiO.sub.2 or Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 with CF.sub.4, CF.sub.2 C.sub.12 or CF.sub.3 Br, and O.sub.2, while U.S. Pat. No. 4,581,101 to Senoue et al. etches the same materials with a fluorinated ether.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,790 to Butler uses upper and lower nitride layers in the formation of sealed self-aligned contacts. The upper non-conductive nitride layer is composed of silicon nitride which acts as an etch stop layer for an isotropic silicon dioxide wet etch. The lower nitride layer is a titanium nitride layer on a titanium silicide layer, both of which are conductive materials. The titanium nitride layer acts as an etch stop during an anisotropic dry etch of the silicon dioxide layer.
Current etch process technology for etching an SiO.sub.2 outer layer on an underlying Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer using a dry etcher, such as an RIE or MRIE etcher, cannot produce SiO.sub.2 -to-Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 selectivities above 3:1 with adequate profile and SiO.sub.2 etch rate characteristics. Therefore, a need exists for a process for etching a SiO.sub.2 layer on an underlying Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer, at a high SiO.sub.2 etch rate, and at a high selectivity of SiO.sub.2 with respect to the underlying Si.sub.3 N.sub.4, to form an etched multilayer structure at a controlled predetermined profile in which the sidewalls are substantially upright.

Process for selectively etching a layer of silicon dioxide on an underlying stop layer of silicon nitride


The present disclosure provides compositions and methods for making and using engineered killer phagocytic cells for immunotherapy in cancer or infection by expressing a chimeric antigen receptor having an enhanced phagocytic activity, the chimeric receptor is encoded by a recombinant nucleic acid.

Cellular immunotherapy is a promising new technology for fighting difficult to treat diseases, such as cancer, and persistent infections and also certain diseases that are refractory to other forms of treatment. A major breakthrough has come across with the discovery of CAR-T cell and their potential use in immunotherapy. CAR-T cells are T lymphocytes expressing a chimeric antigen receptor which helps target the T cell to specific diseased cells such as cancer cells, and induce cytotoxic response intended to kill the target cancer cell. However, several limitations along the way has slowed the progress on CAR-T cells and dampened its promise in clinical trials.
Understanding the limitations of CAR-T cells is the key to leveraging the technology and continue innovations towards better immunotherapy models. Specifically, in T cell malignancies, CAR-T cells appear to have faced a major problem. CAR-T cells and malignant T cells share surface antigen in most T cell lymphomas (TCL), therefore, CAR-T cells are subject to cytotoxicity in the same way as cancer cells. In some instances, the CAR-T products may be contaminated by malignant T cells. Additionally, T cell aplasia is a potential problem due to prolonged persistence of the CAR-T cells.
Macrophages are cells derived from the myeloid lineage and belong to the innate immune system. They are derived from blood monocytes that migrate into tissue. One of their main functions is to phagocytose microbes and clear cellular debris. They also play an important role in both the initiation and resolution of inflammation. Moreover, macrophages can display different responses, ranging from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory, depending on the type of stimuli they receive from the surrounding microenvironment.
Newer avenues are therefore sought for using other cell types towards development of improved therapeutics, including but not limited to T cell malignancies.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Engineered phagocytic receptor compositions and methods of use thereof


A power supply and a method for compensating for a droop component in an output signal of the power supply. The power supply may include an error amplifier and an oscillator coupled to a pulse width modulation circuit. Outputs of the pulse width modulation circuit are connected to switching circuits that have outputs coupled to an output node. The power supply further includes a droop compensation circuit connected to the output of the power supply, the outputs of the switching circuits, and to an input of the error amplifier. The droop compensation circuit includes an amplifier coupled to a feed-forward network and a current source coupled to the feed-forward network. The current source sources a current to or sinks a current from the feed-forward network to generate a droop compensation signal that is transmitted to the error amplifier. The current source may be controlled by a digital-to-analog circuit.

Power supplies are used in a variety of electronic products including automotive, aviation, telecommunications, consumer electronics, portable electronic products such as laptop computers, personal digital assistants, pagers, cellular phones, etc. Generally power supplies are categorized as linear power supplies or switching power supplies. Linear power supplies are less complex than switching power supplies; however, they are typically larger, heavier, and less efficient than switching power supplies. FIG. 1 is a circuit schematic of a typical buck switching power supply 10 that includes a modulator 12, a switch control circuit 14, switching power transistors 16 and 18, diodes 17 and 19, and an error amplifier 20. Switching power transistors 16 and 18 deliver power to a load 22 through inductors 24 and 26, respectively. In operation, switch control circuit 14 generates switching signals that turn transistors 16 and 18 on and off to form output signals having a variable duty cycle that are transmitted through inductors 24 and 26 to a load 22 to generate the desired output voltage, VOUT.
Switching power supplies are used to provide power to processors such as central processing units and graphical processing units, thus it is desirable that they be able to increase or decrease their output voltages with fast slew rates. Switching power supplies may include Adaptive Voltage Positioning ("AVP") control schemes to further enhance the thermal performance of the switching power supplies and their loads. In switching power supplies that use AVP control, the output voltage is designed to droop linearly with increasing current and typically a droop amplifier is used for measuring the output current and controlling the output droop voltage. The slewing of the output in combination with the AVP control scheme slows the rate at which the output voltage changes because of the output capacitance charge or discharge current that is present in a droop amplifier. The droop signal causes the output voltage to position itself either lower or higher for charging or discharging the output when the voltage regulator is being changed to a higher or lower output voltage, respectively, thereby slowing the output response. One technique for increasing the output voltage slew rate in switching power supplies that use AVP control techniques is to include an error signal that compensates for the droop signal that slows or decreases the output slew rate. A drawback with this approach to increasing the slew rate is that including the error signal fails to address the root cause for the slowing of slew rate and it increases the complexity and area of the circuit design.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a method and circuit for increasing the slew rate of a power supply or removing the slowing effect that the AVP droop signal has on the output slew rate. In addition, it is desirable for the method and circuit to be cost and time efficient to implement.

Method for changing an output voltage and circuit therefor

Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC


The solar tracking arrangement enables a plurality of parallel arranged PTCs to be directed towards the travelling sun. The solar tracking arrangement comprises a drive means, a transmission means, and a plurality of conversion means. The transmission means are connected with the drive means and to each of the plurality of conversion means. The transmission means is configured to convey an operating movement caused by the drive means to the plurality of conversion means, and each of the conversion means is configured to convert the conveyed operating movement into a pivoting movement of a respective one of the plurality of PTCs about a focus line, such that each of the pivoting movements directs the respective PTC towards the travelling sun. One or more of the conversion means are adjustably connected with the transmission means in a direction along the transmission means.

In modern society energy is consumed by people and industries, e.g. for producing various products, for transport and production of food. Energy could be produced in several forms and from different energy sources. For instance, electricity is often produced from hydroelectric power plants, combustion of coal, oil, or gas. Traditionally, heat has been produced from local combustion or district heating power plants.
With an increasing population and demands for services, energy consumption strongly increases which negatively affects our environment significantly in a negative way. Combustion produces large amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Hydroelectric power plants require large territories to be drowned, etc.
In order to reduce our footprint and negative impression on our environment, demands have been raised for more clean and environmental friendly energy production. Today, renewable energy is produced from wind, sun, ocean waves, etc. The sun provides large amounts of energy to our planet in form of radiated sun beams. Solar radiation can be used by solar cells to generate electricity, e.g. in form of solar panels, or by solar collectors to generate thermal heat.
A concentrating solar collector uses mirrors, lenses, or combinations thereof, to focus the solar radiation in form of a point or a line. In trough-formed concentrating solar collectors a reflector is formed as a curved elongated mirror, which reflects the solar radiation on a receiver arranged along a focus-line of the reflector. The receiver is commonly a black tube filled with a transport fluid, such as water, glycol, or oil. The tube is heated by the concentrated solar radiation and the heat is transferred to the transport fluid that is circulated in a system where the hot transport fluid could be used. The heated transport fluid may be used both as process heat in industrial processes as in district heating.
The term "PTC" (Parabolic Trough solar Collector) will be used in this disclosure to denote a concentrating solar collector with a trough-formed reflector arranged to concentrate solar light onto a fluid tube. A PTC comprises an elongated reflector, which reflective surface in a cross-section describes a parabolic curve. The reflector focuses direct sunlight on a focus. In mathematical terms, such parabola has the properties "curve", "focus", "Latus rectum", and "optical axis of symmetry". The parabolic through's "optical plane of symmetry" is defined by extending the parabolas axis of symmetry along the longitudinal direction of the trough. With reference to FIG. 1, which is a schematic illustration in a perspective view, an existing thermal solar energy system 100 will now be described, according to an example.
The thermal solar energy system 100 comprises a plurality of PTCs 102 where each respective of the PTCs 102 comprises a parabolic reflector 122 and a fluid tube 124. The thermal solar energy system 100 further comprises a solar tracking arrangement. In FIG. 1, the solar tracking arrangement is illustrated as a motor 108 with transmission means 106a, 106b, and 106c. An operating movement caused by the motor 108 is conveyed by the transmission means 106a into a pivoting movement of the first PTC 102 about its pivot axis (dash-dotted line) to direct the first PTC 102 towards the direct sunlight from the sun. The further transmission means 106b, 106c are links arranged to link the first PTC 102 to further parallel arranged PTCs 102, such that the operating movement caused by the motor 108 is also conveyed to respective pivoting movements of the further PTCs 102 about their respective pivot axes.
The solar tracking arrangement enables one motor 108 to control a plurality of PTCs 102, by simultaneously pivoting the respective PTCs 102 toward the direct sunlight. Thereby, as well costs for installation and maintenance of drive means, i.e. motors, etc., could be reduced.
An example of a solar collector system is disclosed in the patent publication EP 2 466 225, A1.
It is a challenge to improve efficiency in solar energy production further.

Solar tracking arrangement for controlling parabolic trough solar collectors, and a thermal solar energy system


A method and apparatus for use in determining the cardiac output. The method includes measuring a first parameter indicative of a patient's oxygen uptake and a second parameter indicative of the patient's fractional arterial oxygen concentration. The method also includes inducing a change in the patient's arterial oxygen concentration while taking these measurements to monitor the effects of the change in the patient's arterial oxygen concentration. The cardiac output is determined from the data collected regarding the effects of the change in the patient's arterial oxygen concentration.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a method and apparatus for determining the cardiac output of a patient, and, more particularly, to a method of determining cardiac output by analyzing the effect that an induced change in the patient's arterial oxygen concentration has on their oxygen uptake and fractional arterial oxygen concentration, and to an apparatus for use in implementing such a method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are several generally accepted techniques for measuring cardiac output (CO), which is the total volumetric flow of blood through the heart, and, thus, through the body at any given time. These techniques include: thermodilution, dye dilution, the direct Fick method, and partial CO2 rebreathing. Thermodilution involves injecting cold saline directly into the right atrium of the heart and measuring the temperature change downstream in the pulmonary artery using a temperature sensor placed in this artery. Cardiac output is determined based on this temperature change versus time. Dye dilution is similar to thermodilution except that a dye, rather than cold saline, is injected into the pulmonary artery. The amount of dye collected downstream is measured to determine the patient's cardiac output.
According to the direct Fick method, either the content of oxygen (O2) or the content of carbon dioxide (CO2) in both the arterial blood and mixed venous blood are measured. The Fick equation, written for oxygen, is: CO=O2 uptake/(the content of O2 in arterial blood−the content of O2 in mixed venous blood). The Fick equation, written for carbon dioxide, is: CO=CO2 excreted/(the content of CO2 in mixed venous blood−the content of CO2 in arterial blood). As noted above, the direct Fick method requires obtaining a mixed venous blood sample, which is only available in the pulmonary artery. See FIG. 1.
It can thus be appreciated that thermodilution, dye dilution, and the direct Fick method for determining cardiac output all require insertion of a catheter into the patient at, near, or through the heart. More specifically, in implementing these cardiac output measurements, a catheter is usually floated through the chambers of the heart in order to insert the saline or dye or to obtain the necessary blood sample at the correct location. For this reason, either of the above cardiac output measurement techniques is very invasive. Indeed, it is known that an arrhythmia may result from the placement of the catheter in or through the heart. Therefore, these cardiac output measurement techniques are typically only performed in the most critical of situations, where the need to know the patient's cardiac output outweighs the risk to the patient in taking this measurement.
The partial CO2 rebreathing technique for measuring cardiac output, on the other hand, is a noninvasive approach believed to have been developed by Novametrix Medical Systems, Inc. of Wallingford, Conn. (Novametrix). This method is implemented using a device referred to as a NICO™ sensor, which is distributed by Novametrix. The NICO sensor measures the flow of gas to and from the patient and the CO2 content in the patient's exhaled gas.
The partial CO2 rebreathing cardiac output measurement technique is based on the CO2 Fick equation in conjunction with what is called partial CO2 rebreathing. According to this partial CO2 rebreathing technique, cardiac output is measured by comparing the patient's CO2 excretion to the arterial CO2 content during normal breathing and during rebreathing, in which the patient rebreathes expired gases for a period of time. Cardiac output is determined as: CO=the change in CO2 excretion/the change in the arterial CO2 content.
Arterial CO2 is typically determined from a sample of arterial blood. However, in order to eliminate the need for a blood sample to measure the arterial CO2 content, the partial CO2 rebreathing technique substitutes end tidal CO2 (ETCO2) for the required arterial CO2 measurement. Therefore, the cardiac output equation becomes: CO=the change in CO2 excretion/the change in the ETCO2.
This partial CO2 rebreathing technique, however, has several disadvantages. Namely, the patient is preferably intubated or breathing through a trachea tube when taking the flow and CO2 measurements to capture the total volume of CO2. In addition, the patient must be heavily sedated or unconscious so that he or she is not breathing spontaneously. If the patient is breathing spontaneously, the increased CO2 level in the blood during the rebreathing phase would automatically trigger the patient's respiratory system to speed up or deepen the breaths to remove the excess CO2. It is well known that for most patient's the level of CO2 is more important than the level of O2 as a mechanism for triggering ventilation. Such a change in rate or depth of breathing prevents an accurate determination of cardiac output under this technique. It should also be noted that the use of end tidal CO2, as opposed to the arterial CO2 content, may introduce errors in determining cardiac output, because there are situations where the end tidal CO2 may not correlate with the arterial CO2 content. The partial CO2 rebreathing cardiac output measurement technique is also disadvantageous because it does not adequately account for shunt blood flow, which is blood that is not oxygenated during the respiratory cycle. This flow cannot be directly measured, but must be estimated when using this conventional cardiac output measurement technique.

Method and apparatus for determining cardiac output


A method of sending (321) a service utilization message in a communication system (100) includes the steps of forming (303 through 317) a service utilization message and sending (321) the service utilization message via a service port (109). The service utilization message includes a header, a service controller packet, and a service manager packet. The header includes a block source field (201), a block destination field (203), a block length field (205), and a block command type field (207). The service controller packet includes a block opcode field (209) and a controller packet (211). The service manager packet includes a manager packet (213) and a block sequence number field (215). The service utilization messages assist with call billing and call logging for communication systems (100). A service utilization linking message is similarly formed (503 through 517) and sent (521).

This invention relates to communications systems, including but not limited to tracking call information for radio frequency (RF) communication systems.
The basic operation and structure of a land mobile radio system is well known. Land mobile radio systems typically comprise one or more radio communication units and one or more repeaters that transceive information via the RF communication resources. These communication resources may be narrow band frequency modulated channels, time division multiplex slots, frequency pairs, and so forth. Land mobile radio systems may be organized as trunked communication systems, where a plurality of communication resources is allocated amongst a group of users by assigning the repeaters on a communication-by-communication basis with an RF coverage area.
Land mobile radio systems are useful for providing communications for many different types of users, including police agencies, fire departments, businesses with dispatch requirements such as ambulances and taxis, utilities, armed forces, trucking, and so forth. Often times, the system operators desire various methods of tracking the numerous phone calls placed on their systems throughout the day. Desired methods include billing and logging or recording of calls taking place on each system.
Accordingly, there is a need for providing call information to assist in tracking calls in a communication system.

Method and apparatus for sending and receiving service utilization messages


Methods and systems for producing a thermally converted product stream (and optionally heat and power) from a high value heat source using a plurality of circulating loops comprising a primary heat transfer loop, several substantially not recirculated process heater, reactor or separator systems and an intermediate heat transfer loop that transfers heat from the high-temperature heat transfer loop to the several process heater, reactor or separator systems. The intermediate heat transfer loop is arranged to eliminate to the extent practical the shell and tube heat exchangers especially those heat exchangers that have a very large pressure difference between the tube side and shell side, to eliminate shell and tube, plate type, double pipe and similar heat exchangers that transfer heat directly from the primary heat transfer loop to the several process heater, reactor or separator systems with very high differential pressures and to maximize the use of heat transfer coils similar in design as are used in a heat recovery steam generator commonly used to transfer heat from gas turbine flue gas to steam or other power cycle fluids as part of a combined cycle power plant.

Many countries around the world have made commitments to significantly reduce or eliminate Green House Gas (GHG) emission by 2050. With renewable power, such as photovoltaic solar (PV), solar concentrated power (SCP) and wind power, price reductions, a large reduction in the largest CO2 emission sector (power generation) will be possible but the second largest CO2 emission sector (industrial processes) has not had the technical breakthroughs to make significant CO2 emission reduction in this sector economically feasible. The costs for CO2 capture from these processes and/or refueling with hydrogen or other non-GHG fuels have not become economically viable.
Industrial furnaces are used to supply high temperature process heat. The adiabatic flame temperature for methane combusted in air is 1963° C. (3565° F.). Unfortunately, these furnaces produce 66 kg of CO2 (at 80% HHV combustion efficiency) for every MBTU/hr of heat absorbed. Therefore, since industrial furnaces are the second largest worldwide CO2 emissions producers, only one percentage point below the worldwide leading CO2 emissions sector (power generation), large reductions in GHG emissions will only occur if the emissions from industrial furnaces can be significantly reduced.
This invention describes a new novel process configuration that that utilizes renewable heat (molten salt or metals from a concentrated solar plant or nuclear reactor, for example) to provide the heat for to thermal process reactions. Much recent research has focused on new catalysts that can perform at lower temperatures to increase the thermal efficiency of these very endothermic reactions, however, many of these new catalyst only convert a portion of the feed into the desired end product. There has also been research and bench scale testing of membrane reactors that shift the equilibrium point and allow higher conversion rates at lower operating temperatures.
The present invention can be utilized with the currently available commercial catalyst and would also work with the new lower temperature catalyst as they are developed or even with the membrane reactors as they are commercialized.
This new process configuration can achieve total conversion rates equal to or even higher than that in the current state of the art processes. This is achieved by having multiple (more than one) conversion and separation steps in series. To better understand this new process configuration and as an example, consider the following description of its application for steam methane reforming (SMR). The production of hydrogen and the production of ammonia (which uses hydrogen as a feedstock) are some of the largest CO2 emission producers in the industrial sector.
For hydrogen production, this new process configuration could utilize molten salt from a concentrated solar receiver to heat (for example) the methane feed and generate steam for example and pass them over a currently available Ni based catalyst to generate a stream comprised of hydrogen, CO2, CO, unreacted methane that may be processed again in a further reaction stage. At the temperatures currently available with solar salts (up to 600° C.) the methane conversion rate would be about 50%. The effluent would be then cooled to 440° C. (to obtain 95% conversion of the CO to CO2 in the Water Gas Shift (WGS) reaction). The current state of the art uses a WGS reactor and CO2 adsorption in separate devices. These may be combined into a combined WGS and CO2 adsorption device with recent technology developmentsi.
When the absorbent is fully loaded, the vessel is taken out of service and regenerated either by pressure swing or a temperature swing to release a high purity CO2 stream for sequestration or for enhanced oil recovery. The heated feed is diverted to a regenerated vessel and this cyclical shift and CO2 capture process is able to run on a continuous basis. The effluent from the combined WGS and CO2 absorbent vessel is then sent to a hydrogen separation membrane and the high purity hydrogen product is removed. The effluent from the hydrogen separation membrane, which is mostly unconverted methane and steam (with small quantities of CO and the inert gases in the natural gas), is then reheated with solar salt and sent to the second methane conversion train. The total number of conversion trains in series is determined by an economic evaluation of the cost of the next conversion train compared to decreased cost by reducing the size of the recycle stream. In the final conversion train, the stream going to the WGS is cooled to about 220° C. to convert 99% of the CO to CO2. The unconverted methane and steam stream is recycled and combined with the fresh feedstock, in this example, that would be the methane and steam feed stream.
In 20190301309A1, Huntington et al disclosed systems and methods to transfer and convert heat energy to useful power at high efficiency wherein the high value heat is transferred to a recirculated power cycle using a plurality of heat transfer fluids, loops and heat exchange devices or systems. This disclosure provided the capability to increase the power cycle efficiency for concentrated solar power plants and other sources of high value heat by eliminating the restrictions imposed by direct heat transfer via shell and tube and similar heat transfer devices. Elimination of these restrictions facilitated increasing the operating pressures of the recirculated power cycle fluid (e.g. steam) to a supercritical and even ultra-supercritical pressures and temperatures with multiple reheats with a Rankine or alternative power cycle.
This heat transfer technology utilizes an intermediate heat transfer fluid (IHTF) to ensure there is no cross contamination of the salt and the high pressure power working fluid. This has been a major service factor problem in concentrated solar power plants. It also allowed the IHTF to be reheated several times. This patent would utilize similar heat transfer technology but would use it to heat and reheat the process feed for each conversion train.
The major difference is that in the power plant design, generally all the power cycle working fluid is recirculated and reheated for each step. While with this new invention, it is surprising and unexpected that efficient thermal conversion systems and methods can be created by replacing the recirculated power cycle fluid by a substantially not recirculated process feed stream, intermediate product streams, byproduct streams and unreacted feed stream with multiple heating, cooling, thermal conversion and/or separation steps that use the IHTF to simultaneously supply heat from high value heat sources and move energy among the several steps of the thermal conversion system. For the most part, the initial feed passes through the thermal conversion only one time to form the desired products and byproducts. However, in some process designs, a portion of unreacted feed or other byproducts may be returned to feed for further processing to improve conversion efficiency or for other process needs.
Another major difference is that when the process stream needs to be cooled that heat can be used to do some of the initial process stream heating (via heat integration with the IHTF). This makes the process more thermally efficient and reduces the amount of high-level solar heat required. If the process contains any exothermic reactions, that heat can also be used to heat the IHTF. In the example of Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), both the heat from cooling the process stream going to the WGS and the exothermic reaction heat from the WGS is used to reheat the IHTF. In the current state of the art SMR process that heat is used to produce steam. The current state of the art SMR produces more steam than it requires, and that steam must be exported or condensed reducing the thermal efficiency of the process. By integrating the exothermic heat to increase the temperature of the IHTF, the unexpected and surprising result is that excess steam production may be reduced or even eliminated.

System and method for thermal conversion of materials using multiple loops comprising a primary heat transfer loop, an intermediate heat transfer loop and a thermal conversion circuit


A metal cutting insert includes a cemented carbide body having a cutting edge and a hole therein for receiving a fastening screw. The hole includes female screw threads for being screw threaded to the fastening screw. The insert is made by a process involving injection molding and sintering steps.

The present invention relates to a cutting insert with an entirely or partly threaded central hole for receiving a locking screw.
The vast majority of the plurality of different cutting inserts existing today on the market have a central through hole. This hole is intended to accommodate a suitable locking screw for fastening the insert in a holder. If the cutting insert is intended for turning, the holder usually consists of a turning bar; if the cutting insert is intended for milling, the holder is, e.g., a milling cutter body, a long edge milling cutter or an end mill. The cutting insert may also be intended for boring and then it may be fastened by a screw in a boring shaft. Most commonly the cutting insert is an indexable cutting insert, which means that when a cutting edge has been worn out, the locking screw may be loosened and the insert turned by a half or quarter of a revolution, whereby a new cutting edge is placed or indexed into an operative position. Cutting inserts including indexable, cutting inserts exist with innumerous different geometries, in order to give a good chip breaking and chip control and a low energy consumption. The inserts are mostly made of coated or uncoated cemented carbide, but cutting inserts of different ceramic materials also exist. They usually have a square, triangular, rhombic, rectangular or hexagonal basic shape, but other basic shapes also occur. However, they usually have one thing in common, namely that they are all provided with a central through hole in the geometrical central point. These holes can have different hole designs, but they all have in common that the hole wall is substantially smooth. As mentioned, a threaded screw is inserted into this smooth hole and is threaded into a threaded hole in the holder per se, upon which the insert rests, and is fastened onto this holder. This basic configuration usually functions satisfactorily, but is nevertheless marred by some drawbacks, which it would be desirable to eliminate. For instance, the screw head must be countersunk into the insert's hole in order not to obstruct the chip flow, which brings about a further weakening of the cutting insert, which is already relatively fragile. Further, specifically because of this weakening of the insert's strength, the central hole cannot be made with too a large diameter, which means that the screw's diameter is relatively weak. Therefore, it sometimes occurs that the screw is broken when tightened with out care and/or too strongly. Seen from another aspect, the small maximum allowed screw diameter restricts the possible magnitude of the tightening strength.
Another disadvantage is that the requirement of accessability to the screw head sometimes constitutes a complicating and restricting factor for certain application e.g., for extremely close pitch cutters. Another case when good accessability is desirable is when a very large number of cutting inserts are to be screw-fastened by a power-driven screw tightener with a preset maximal torque. For instance, in some bar peeling operations the number of cutting inserts is very high and the accessability for such a screw tightener is poor.
Thus, one object of the present invention is to provide a cutting insert with a larger hole diameter in order to make possible larger tightening forces.
Another object of the present invention is to improve the accessability when tightening the locking screw.

Cutting insert with a threaded central aperture


A device for securing safety guards around machinery is described which includes a portable wedge clamp device which is inserted through both the safety guard and the post. The portable wedge clamp device includes a base wedge member and a corresponding drive wedge member. A set screw is used to prevent the drive wedge member from moving and becoming unlocked.

A. Technical Field
This invention relates to a device for securing safety guards around mining and industrial equipment.
B. Description of Related Art
Safety Guards are used to keep workers safe from mining and industrial equipment when they are in operation. These safety guards must be kept closed and locked and, by most provincial and state laws, must be locked in such a manner that a tool is required to remove the locking means.
The act of requiring a tool to remove the safety guard was enacted to force the worker that is required to work on the equipment behind the safety guard to make an additional effort to remove the safety guard. This additional effort will make the worker think about the hazard that is behind the guard and use a safe practice when servicing the area.
When the safety guard is locked using hardware, such as nuts and bolts, the worker must remove the nuts and bolts completely in order to gain access to the industrial equipment. There is a risk that the nuts and bolts will fall and become caught in the industrial equipment. If the nuts and bolts fall and become lost, there is a risk that worker might not properly secure the safety guard. Further, if the safety guard is located 100 feet in the air, losing nuts and bolts can be inconvenient.
One way of securing the safety guard is to use a wedge clamp with a tie wrap. However, many inspectors do not consider that a tie wrap is a sufficient means for locking the wedge clamp and for requiring a "tool" to be used.
It would be advantageous to have a better system for locking the wedge clamp which is easy to remove and reinstall.

Wedge clamp for securing safety guards around industrial equipment


A catheter arrangement and associated method provides for the application of a cell treatment agent, such as genetic material or drugs to be inserted within the cells of a patient in vivo. The catheter arrangement uses an optical fiber having a prism at its tip. Laser energy from the optical fiber is directed by the prism through a window portion on a side of the catheter. The window portion has a plurality of holes so as to divide the laser energy into a plurality of microbeams. The microbeams potate cell walls of the patient's cells. A treatment agent channel in the catheter allows the treatment agent to be provided directly to the same holes through which the microbeams pass such that the treatment agent is very efficiently applied to the porations in the cell walls.

This invention relates to a cell treatment apparatus and method. More specifically, this invention relates to a treatment apparatus and method using at least one laser beam to porate (create a pore or poration) in a patient's cells in vivo.
Various techniques have been used, at least experimentally, for transfection of cells (i.e., insertion of new genetic material into the DNA structure of cells).
One technique for transfection of cells has used laser poration. This approach has been performed in vitro using a laser beam to porate a single cell at a time under a specially adapted microscope. The microscope allows the direct puncture of the cell membrane in the presence of the gene. Specifically, an operator directs the laser beam towards an individual cell and the puncture of the cell membrane allows genetic material on the same slide as the cell to enter into the cell. This approach is labor intensive and not practical to use in vivo. This laser poration technique is described in the article by Tao et al. entitled "Direct Gene Transfer Into Human Cultured Cells Facilitated By Laser Micropuncture of Cell Membrane" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in 1987; 84:4180-4184.
Other approaches to transfection of cells have included chemical methods or electrical poration used in a cell culture, but such methods are not readily applicable in vivo. In other words, such methods may allow treatment of cells which have been removed from the patient, but do not allow treatment of cells remaining with the patient (human or animal).
The Nabel et al. article entitled "Site-Specific Gene Expression in Vivo by Direct Gene Transfer Into the Arterial Wall" in Science in 1990; 249(4974):1285-1288 discloses a technique for transfecting genes in vivo which has been used in the arteries of pigs. This technique uses a catheter with a dual balloon system at the tip of the catheter. The two balloons are inflated to create a temporary chamber which allows the exposure of the arterial wall to a viral transporting agent in solution. This has been used successfully to transfect the arterial wall with a DNA-plasmid having a viral carrier. However, this double balloon method requires 30 minutes to bathe the arterial wall with the DNA-plasmid to be effective. This is not feasible in certain applications such as in the coronary circulation. Moreover, the time required for such a technique to work may pose severe problems even at other locations within the arteries of an animal or human.
The Lim et al. article entitled "Direct In Vivo Gene Transfer Into the Coronary and Peripheral Vasculatures of the Intact Dog" appearing in Circulation, volume 83, no. 6, June 1991, pages 2007-2011, discloses a technique where endothelial cells are removed from the test animal and then transfected prior to reintroduction into the animal. In addition to that in vitro technique, the article describes in vivo transfection of arteries of dogs using catheters placed in peripheral vessels of the dogs. Proximal and distal lumens of the vessels were occluded with removable ligatures. In somewhat similar fashion to the dual balloon system, a temporary chamber is established and a transfection solution is supplied into that temporary chamber within the vessels of the animal. The article describes allowing the transfection solution to remain in the vessel for one hour.
Apart from the problems in developing medically effective techniques for using cell transfection, medical techniques for applying drugs to a patient have encountered problems. Specifically, a drug must be given in sufficient dosage that it will have the desired effect when a portion of it reaches the area of the body which the drug is supposed to treat. However, the dosage must not be so high that the portion of the drug which reaches other parts of the body causes unacceptable side effects. In other words, it has been difficult to introduce a drug into a patient without having significant portions of the drug reach portions of the body other than the portion where one wanted the drug to act. If one lowers the dosage of the drug, it may fail to reach the desired location within the body in sufficient quantity to have the desired effect. However, if one raises the dosage, the unintended consequences of the drug may increase in magnitude.
Various techniques have been developed to cause drugs to concentrate within a certain desired site of the body of a patient. Although such techniques have been quite useful, they still fail to give the desired control over the application of drugs that is necessary or desirable for certain conditions and circumstances.


The method for the quantification of EEG waveforms along the alertness continuum involves collecting and transforming EEG signal data, identifying and rejecting or decontaminating epochs containing various artifacts, and classifying individual EEG patterns along an alertness-drowsiness continuum. The results of the multi-level classification system are applied in real-time to provide feedback to the user via an audio or visual alarm, or are recorded for subsequent off-line analysis.

This invention relates generally to analysis of electroencephalograms, and more particularly concerns a method for quantifying and monitoring human alertness.
2. Description of Related Art
An electroencephalogram (EEG) measures electrical activity of the brain. Since the electrical activity of the brain first started to be recorded, efforts have been made to identify how the EEG data correlates with behavior, mood, mental performance, attention, and vigilance. However, classifying changes in the state of alertness, drowsiness, mental performance, or attention has proven difficult due to the significant variability of the EEG for an individual and between individuals, even under controlled conditions.
The frequencies of the waking EEG have generally been organized into three bands (or bandwidths): the theta band (4 to 7 Hertz (xe2x80x9cHzxe2x80x9d)), the alpha band (8 to 13 Hz) and the beta band (14 to 24 Hz). When a person is fully rested and undertakes a cognitive task, the EEG amplitude is relatively small overall, power in the alpha band is suppressed, and the power in the frequencies above 13 Hz (i.e., beta band) tend to increase. As a person becomes tired, the overall amplitude of the EEG and the power in the frequencies below 13 Hz increase (i.e, alpha and theta bands). As sleep onset approaches, first dominant alpha activity followed by distinct theta become apparent. Momentary fluctuations between states are observed in the EEG when a person is tired or sleep deprived and is trying to remain awake.
The real-time quantification of an individual""s state of alertness has a number of commercial applications. Shift workers, truck drivers, train operators and other individuals who work during normal hours of maximum sleepiness could be notified when they become too drowsy. In addition, these workers could be notified when a short-nap would be most beneficial in managing their fatigue. Pilots, air traffic controllers and other workers who perform monotonous tasks could be notified when they begin to daydream or are not maintaining an acceptable level of alertness. The EEG of adults and children with Attention Deficit Disorders or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders could be monitored to assist them in maintaining a normal state of alertness. The recording and subsequent off-line analysis of the EEG to assess alertness over wider time intervals can be used to assess treatment outcomes for patients with sleep disorders, to titrate dosages of prescription drugs, and to measure the effects of new pharmacological substances on alertness.
The quantification of states of alertness, drowsiness, mental performance, and so on, are complicated by significant differences in the EEG observed between individuals during similar tasks, in addition to changes within individuals as a result of circadian rhythms and other fluctuations. One approach to overcome the issue of variability between individuals in the amplitude and distribution of the EEG power has been to develop paradigms whereby the individual can be used as his or her own control. For example, Gevins et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,166) monitors neurocognitive workload based on the individual""s normative neurocognitive calibration function acquired during a specific battery of tasks. The present inventors have realized that this normalization technique is limited, however, when conditions are not highly controllable. For the monitoring of alertness across the multitude of activities and conditions common to daily living, for example, users would need to be measured during multiple sessions to acquire baseline values representing the continuum from highly alert to sleep onset.
An alternative approach has been to develop a classification model using EEG variables which have been transformed to minimize individual differences. The most common transformation technique standardizes the EEG variables for each observation or time period of data analyzed (i.e., epoch) relative to the mean and standard deviations for the particular session or a baseline session (i.e., Z-scores). This normalization technique is limited, however, when monitoring the continuum from fully alert to sleep onset, because there is no single session or activity that best categorizes the diversity in patterns of distribution of power across the EEG frequency bins, individuals, and tasks. Standardizing the EEG based on the amplitude and distribution of power during sessions where the individual is awake with eyes closed, for example, reduces variability in the alpha range across subjects. However, the present inventors have recognized that this approach does not normalize population differences with respect to increased beta power during cognitive tasks. Misidentification of the state of alertness will inevitably occur along the alertness-drowsiness continuum unless techniques are developed to first identify individual patterns in the distribution of the EEG, and then adapt the model to overcome these differences. The methods of the present invention solve these problems.
Another problem complicating the monitoring of the EEG and classifying the state of alertness along the alertness-drowsiness continuum is the contamination of the EEG recording by artifacts resulting from eye blinks and ocular movements. These artifacts are problematic because the power resulting from eye artifacts cannot be readily differentiated from power contributed by theta activity in the frequency domain. As mentioned previously, the onset of sleep is categorized by increased or dominant activity in the theta range of power between 4-7 Hz. Fast blinks that rewet the eyes typically range from 0.20 to 0.30 seconds in duration and cause contamination by increasing the power in the 3 to 5 Hz bins. Slower eye blinks or closures that occur when a subject becomes tired, range from 0.30 to 1 second in duration and cause contamination by increasing the power in the 1 to 4 Hz bins. Frequency bins above 5 Hz can also be affected, depending on the amplitude and duration of the blink.
Epochs with eye artifact in the EEG can be identified and automatically rejected from the analysis by monitoring significant variations in EEG amplitude. This approach, however, as the present inventors have recognized, results in an excessive amount of data being rejected when eye movements are detected. Alternatively, the power below 5 Hz can be high-pass filtered to eliminate both the eye artifact and the theta activity. The present inventors have recognized that this approach results in the exclusion of variables that are highly correlated with alertness. A number of methods have been developed to remove the eye artifact from the EEG in the time-domain based on comparison with signals acquired simultaneously from electro-oculographic (EOG) recording or eye motion sensors. For applications that acquire EEG during activities of daily living, however, placement of EOG electrodes near the eye(s) would be uncomfortable and cosmetically unacceptable. The use of an eye motion sensor would only be appropriate when the user""s movement is limited, such as when seated in the cockpit of an airplane or vehicle. In the acquisition of EEGs during activities of daily living, additional artifacts are typically encountered which can result in a failure to correctly identify the individual""s state of alertness. Electromyographic (EMG) activity, spikes and amplifier saturation can cause a substantial increase in power that distorts the entire EEG band. Gross head, eye or body movements result in artifacts that increase the power in the slower frequencies (i.e, less than 4 Hz). Procedures should be developed which automatically detect, as well as monitor, the occurrence of these artifacts in order to maximize the amount and quality of data acquired real-time or off-line analysis.
Another problem encountered when analyzing the EEG in the frequency domain is the non-stationary effects (i.e., momentary fluctuations) of the EEG itself. One approach to reduce the variability of the EEG power on a second by second basis is to average several seconds of data. However, if the EEG data are averaged across too many seconds, fluctuations that are predictive of a changing state of alertness may no longer be apparent. Accordingly, a method is needed to improve the resolution of the averaged EEG data across a shorter period of time. The present invention meets these and other needs.
Briefly, and in general terms, the present invention provides for a method for the quantification of EEG waveforms along the alertness-drowsiness continuum. A preferred method comprises the steps of:
1) Collecting and transforming dataxe2x80x94EEG signals are acquired at 256 samples per second from a plurality of electrode sites, but preferably from Cz, Pz and Oz according to the International 10-20 system. A linear transform is applied to eliminate contribution in the power from DC offset. A Kaiser xcex1=6.0 windows for power calculations provides superior spectral resolution compared to commonly used windows for EEG data processing, including Blackman, Cosine Taper, Boxcar or Hanning. The data are zero-padded and a 1,024 point fast Fourier transform (FFT) is applied to each one second epoch to generate power results at 0.25 Hz intervals. A 50% overlapping window is utilized to smooth the between-epoch power attributed to non-stationarity of the EEG. The power is then computed for 1 Hz bins between 1 and 24 Hz., as well as median frequencies for the conventional EEG bands (i.e., theta, alpha, beta) to optimally identify changes in the EEG that correlate with alertness and drowsiness.
2) Identifying and rejecting or decontaminating epochs containing various artifacts such as amplifier saturation, spikes or excursions, electromyographic (EMG) activity, and/or gross head, eye or body movement.
3) Identifying and eliminating eye artifacts. Eye blinks, or eye artifacts are identified using discriminant function analysis and eliminated using only the EEG signal as the input, in real-time or off-line, without the aid of additional eye monitors or the like.
4) Classifying individual EEG patterns along the alertness-drowsiness continuum, preferably using discriminant function analysis to implement a multi-level classification model. The first level classifies the state of alertness for each one second epoch as High Vigilance, Low Vigilance, Eyes Closed, or Sleepy. The second level provides sub-categorization or further refinement of the first level classifications. The third level applies a multi-dimensional time-series analysis, using the results from the initial classification and sub-categorization analyses from multiple epochs, to further define states of alertness that correlate with performance.
5) Applying the results of the multi-level classification system in real-time to provide feedback to the user via an audio or visual alarm. Alternatively, EEG data could be recorded and the multi-level classification system applied off-line to provide information pertaining to the number and duration of drowsy episodes. These results could be used to assess treatment outcomes from sleep disorder patients, monitor children and adults with attention deficit or hyperactivity disorders, and/or assess the effects of pharmacological drugs. Other applications are also possible.
Accordingly, one or more of the following are objects of a method of the present invention:
to provide a method for the analysis of the EEG which identifies and rejects or decontaminates epochs containing artifacts such as EMG activity, movement activity, amplifier saturation, spikes or excursions, in real-time or off-line;
to provide a method for the analysis of the EEG which monitors epochs containing artifacts such as EMG activity, movement activity, amplifier saturation, spikes or excursions in real-time and notify the user when certain thresholds are being crossed;
to provide a method for the analysis of the EEG which identifies and decontaminates eye blink artifacts from the EEG data using only the EEG signal as the input, in real-time or off-line;
to provide a method for the analysis of EEGs which implements discriminant function analysis to obtain a multi-level classification model along the alertness-drowsiness continuum, in real-time or off-line;
to provide a method for the application of classified EEG data to real-time monitoring of alertness and notifying the user when certain thresholds are being crossed;
to provide a method for recording EEG data for subsequent analysis.
These and other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings, which illustrate by way of example the features of the invention.

Method for the quantification of human alertness


A gate-keeping message broker spanning a firewall to provide interconnected message brokering services spanning the firewall. The gate-keeping message broker provides for the creation of an international business transaction information system (“IBTIS”) for a user having service needs regarding the relocation of purchased goods across international borders. The IBTIS is configured to work with a plurality of internal service engines and reference servers that are present on both sides of the firewall. The gate-keeping message broker also provides form and syntax validation for messages that it brokers. It further provides content verification and completion services on the content of the messages, the verification being based on business-logic specific to the type of message being brokered.

International business transactions frequently lead to the international transportation of goods. The transactions can take place between either related or unrelated business entities, any of whom could be barred from international trade by certain countries or with their citizens and corporations. These goods can be finished products for the consumer market or components for use in manufacture. They likewise can be environmentally sensitive or toxic goods, goods restricted for security reasons, and/or can be packaged in ways that are not acceptable in certain countries. The goods can be subject to export license requirements, import duties, and customs regulations. These issues can arise with each international border crossed by the goods, even goods that are simply in transit through a jurisdiction.
A typical commercial shipment could involve nine different participants, 20 separate documents, 35 customer-vendor interactions and four modes of transport. It could require weeks or months to complete, and can cross numerous international borders. Thus, an elaborate supply chain including manufacturers, distributors, retailers and transportation service providers including freight forwarders, carriers and customs brokers has developed around the world. The resulting global transportation industry is a large and highly complex one, requiring a high level of expertise in a variety of issues that vary from legal jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
In this complex marketplace of services, buyers and/or sellers are frequently relatively inexperienced, lacking knowledge of the wide variety of legal requirements placed on international trade by each country. As a result, a large corporation with thousands of buyers and sellers world wide can have extreme variation in its practices. This potentially leads to noncompliance or inconsistent compliance with the laws of the countries involved in the transaction, excessive delivery times, additional expenses in customs, shipping and brokering, and a failure to recover available tax credits. Furthermore, because transportation procedures are not consistently maintained, little quality control can be exercised in following preferred procedures and hiring better-performing providers. Noncompliance with national laws is a matter of particular importance, as it can lead to both extreme financial penalties and the arrest and incarceration of people ignorantly conducting the transactions violating the laws.
Presently, interaction between importers, exporters and their service providers is primarily conducted via paper, phone and facsimile. The industry lacks industry-based universal formats and standards, and customers use different sets of processes with each service provider. Information from global logistics typically remains disconnected from enterprise systems designed to drive efficiencies across global supply chains.
In attempting to automate and standardize processes, numerous transportation service providers have developed automated processes within their areas of expertise. Such efforts have produced tax services, shipment tracking services, customs invoicing services, duty calculation services, customs classification services, import regulation services, export regulation services, and a large host of other applications. For a customer to take advantage of these applications, each customer (e.g., buyer, seller or related service provider) must realize they have a need to use the package, purchase access to the package, learn to use the package, and provide all relevant information for the package to use. Additionally, because these solutions can be regional in applicability, and because these solutions can be inferior for some types of transactions or locations, while superior for others, their consistent use can be limited in effectiveness.
Related applications are sometimes bundled into a package offering a set of services regarding related subjects. These bundles combine specific point solutions, and therefore adopt their limitations and weaknesses. They each commonly operate without consideration of factors from numerous other areas. For example, packages for estimating costs cannot typically consider the incremental costs incurred in export (e.g., license requirements and restricted party limitations), import (e.g., duties and environmental limitations), logistics (e.g., shipping costs that vary based on a particular customer's pricing agreements), taxes (e.g., customer preferences for claiming "assists," rights in drawbacks, and other tax related activities) and other such issues. Furthermore, even presuming that all customers could be trained and educated on the use of each such bundle, separate business arrangements and technology connections need to be established and maintained for each bundle, adding to the overall cost of conducting international transportation of goods.
Any automation of the process by a corporation using a firewall is hindered by the complexity of the required interactions. The wide array of automated processes offered by different service providers are not standardized, either in function or communication format. To automate the process, large numbers of holes would need to be programmed into the firewall, which is not desirable from either a cost or security standpoint. Additionally, for each application-to-application interaction, software interfaces would need to be programmed, adding significant time and resource costs. This would be true both for the initial development of such an automated system, and for each modification or update to the system. Furthermore, because these applications all have different standards for the form and format of data, significant risk would exist that data would be mishandled or erroneous data would be passed in at least some of the numerous application-to-application interactions.
Accordingly, there has existed a need for an improved system for interfacing the wide variety of automated processes available for the conduct of international business transactions. Such a system would preferably provide for improved speed, accuracy, legality, consistency and legal compliance. Preferred embodiments of the present invention satisfy these and other needs, and provide further related advantages.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


In particular situations it may be desirable to follow, trace or otherwise localize specific (groups of) objects or animals, in particular people. The invention relates to a localization system. The invention also relates to a method for localizing objects or animals using such a localization system.

1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a localization system. The invention also relates to a method for localizing objects or animals using such a localization system.
2) Description of the Prior Art
In particular situations it may be desirable to follow, trace or otherwise localize specific (groups of) objects or animals, in particular people. When determined objects go missing, such as for instance vehicles, jewellery, articles of sports equipment, or other types of possibly valuable products, localization of these objects may be desired, for instance to enable return of these objects to their rightful owner. In addition, it may also be desired to track down or follow particular animals, with humans as species. For instance in the case children are missing in a determined area, such as an amusement park, or in the case of persons missing while under suspicion of a crime, it is generally of great importance to track down these missing persons as soon as possible. It may also be desired to monitor (a group of) animals, for instance from a scientific or safety viewpoint. Diverse prior art techniques are known for localizing objects or animals. In the prior art it is for instance known to provide animals with a chip, which chip can be traced using radio waves. The animal can thus be localized. A drawback of this technique is however that it is generally relatively difficult—because of the relatively low accuracy and limited range of the known system—to localize the chip, and therefore the animal, using the known system.
The invention has for its object to provide an improved system with which objects or animals, in particular persons, can be localized in relatively simple and accurate manner.

Localization system and method for localizing objects or animals using such a localization system


Method for fabricating a structure in the form of a plate, and structure in the form of a plate, in particular formed from silicon, including at least one substrate, a superstrate and at least one intermediate layer interposed between the substrate and the superstrate, in which the intermediate layer comprises at least one base material having distributed therein atoms or molecules termed extrinsic atoms or molecules which differ from the atoms or molecules of the base material, and in which a heat treatment is applied to said plate so that, in the temperature range of said heat treatment, the intermediate layer is plastically deformable and the presence of the selected extrinsic atoms or molecules in the selected base material causes the irreversible formation of micro-bubbles or micro-cavities in the intermediate layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of fabricating multi-layered plates, and to fabricating thin wafers.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
In the microtechnology field, in particular in micro-electronics and opto-electronics, it is normal to use silicon wafers joined to an insulating layer, and more particularly structures comprising an insulating layer interposed between a substrate formed from silicon and a superstrate formed from silicon.

Method of producing a plate-shaped structure, in particular, from silicon, use of said method and plate-shaped structure thus produced, in particular from silicon

S.O.I.Tec Silicon on Insulator Technologies


A signal selecting circuit is disclosed which outputs a first and a second digital signals by converting a first and a second analog signals into digital signals, the first and the second analog signals being the same or different signals selected from a plurality of analog signals, the signal selecting circuit comprising: an analog signal selection circuit that, based on an analog selection signal, selects the first and the second analog signals from the plurality of analog signals; a first AD converter that converts the first analog signal outputted from the analog signal selection circuit into a third digital signal to output the third digital signal; a second AD converter that converts the second analog signal outputted from the analog signal selection circuit into a fourth digital signal to output the fourth digital signal; a digital signal selection circuit that, based on a digital signal, selectively outputs one or both of the third and the fourth digital signals as the first and the second digital signals; and a control circuit that, based on an output selection signal for selecting the first and the second digital signals, outputs the analog selection signal and the digital selection signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a signal selecting circuit and a recording medium having a program recorded thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent car audio systems, music or voices from different sound sources have come to be outputted separately to front speakers and rear speakers (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2005-223505). In such car audio systems, an analog selector has often been used for selecting sound sources to be outputted separately to the front speakers and the rear speakers from among a plurality of sound sources (analogue signals) such as a CD, an MD, and a radio.
FIG. 14 depicts a common example of the configuration of the analog selector for selecting sound sources to be outputted separately to the front speakers and the rear speakers. An analog selector 201 serves to select a sound source outputted to the front speakers and includes switches 211 and 212, resistors 213 to 215, and an operational amplifier 216. An analog selector 221 serves to select a sound source outputted to the rear speakers and includes switches 231 and 232, resistors 233 to 235, and an operational amplifier 236. Input signals A and B are fed as selectable sound sources to each of the analog selectors 201 and 221. For example, by turning the switch 211 on and the switch 212 off, the switch 231 off, and the switch 232 on, the input signal A is provided as output (analog output 1) to the front speakers and the output signal B is provided as output (analog output 2) to the rear speakers.
In this manner, use of the analog selectors 201 and 221 enables music or voices from different sound sources to be outputted separately to the front speakers and the rear speakers.
In the configuration of FIG. 14, however, when the same sound source as being selected by one of the front and the rear is selected by the other, the one not changing the sound source undergoes occurrence of a switching noise. Assume for example that the switches 211, 212, 231, and 232 are on, off, off, and on, respectively, so that the input signals A and B are provided as the analog outputs 1 and 2, respectively. It is further assumed that the switches 231 and 232 are turned on and off, respectively, to switch the signal provided as the analog output 2 to the input signal A provided as the analog output 1. At that time, a switching noise occurs due to the switch 231 on and propagates to the switch 211. Therefore, when the rear selects the same sound source as the front does, a nose will occur in the analog output 1 provided to the front speakers though the front does not change the sound source. Similarly, when the front selects the same sound source as the rear does, a nose will occur in the analog output 2 provided to the rear speakers though the rear does not change the sound source.

Signal selecting circuit and recording medium having program recorded thereon


In a method for communicating in a computing environment, a first computer establishing communication with a first virtual computer through a first virtual port using a primary port name for the first virtual port, wherein the first virtual computer is executing on a second computer. The first computer acquires an alternate port name for the first virtual port from the first virtual computer executing on the second computer. The first computer determines that the first virtual computer is not accessible using the primary port name for the first virtual port, wherein the first virtual computer is migrated to execute on a third computer. The first computer establishes communication with the first virtual computer executing on the third computer using the alternate port name of the first virtual port.

System virtualization creates multiple virtual systems from a single physical system. The physical system can be a stand-alone computer, or alternatively, a computing system utilizing clustered computers and components. Virtual systems are independent operating environments that use virtual resources made up of logical divisions of physical resources such as processors, memory and input/output (I/O) adapters. System virtualization is typically implemented through hypervisor technology. Hypervisors, also called virtual machine managers, use a thin layer of code in software or firmware to achieve fine-grained, dynamic resource sharing.
The hypervisor provides the ability to divide physical system resources into isolated logical partitions (also referred to as LPARs). Each logical partition operates like an independent system running its own operating environment (i.e., a virtual system). The hypervisor can allocate dedicated processors, I/O adapters, and memory to each logical partition. The hypervisor can also allocate shared processors to each logical partition. More specifically, the hypervisor creates virtual processors from physical processors, so that logical partitions can share the physical processors while running independent operating environments.
In addition to creating and managing the logical partitions, the hypervisor manages communication between the logical partitions via a virtual switch. To facilitate communication, each logical partition may have a virtual adapter for communication between the logical partitions, via the virtual switch. The type of the virtual adapter depends on the operating environment used by the logical partition. Examples of virtual adapters include virtual Ethernet adapters, virtual Fibre Channel adapters, virtual SCSI adapters, and virtual serial adapters.
Virtual adapters are often implemented through a Virtual I/O Server (VIOS). A VIOS manages physical I/O adapters (Fibre Channel disks, Ethernet, or CD/DVD optical devices). Other logical partitions controlled by the hypervisor are considered "clients" or Virtual I/O Clients (VIOCs) to the VIOS. The VIOS provides virtual Fibre Channel adapters and shared Ethernet capability to client logical partitions. The VIOS allows logical partitions to access SAN disks (or resources) using virtual Fibre Channel adapters mapped to a physical adapter which supports N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV).
A storage area network (SAN) is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes, access to servers so that the devices appear like locally attached devices to the operating system. A SAN typically has its own network of storage devices that are generally not accessible through the local area network by other devices.
One of the activities in a complex environment is the transfer of a migration of one logical partition to another logical partition. Two reasons for a migration include: resource balancing and a logical partition does not have enough resources while another system does.

Using alternate port name for uninterrupted communication

International Business Machines Corporation


A method and apparatus for power glitch detection in IC's is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes a detection circuit in an IC detecting a voltage transient wherein a value of a supply voltage has at least momentarily fallen below a reference voltage value. Responsive thereto, the detection circuit may cause a logic value to be stored in a register indicating that the detection circuit has detected the supply voltage falling below the reference voltage. The IC may include a number of detection circuits coupled to the register, each of which may provide a corresponding indication of detecting the supply voltage falling below the reference voltage. The detection circuits may be placed at different locations, and thus reading the register may yield information indicating the locations where, if any, such voltage transients occurred.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure is directed to integrated circuits, and more particularly, to the detection of power transients within integrated circuits.
2. Description of the Related Art
Integrated circuits (IC's) are typically tested at the end of the manufacturing process in order to verify their correct operation and to identify parts that are faulty. In addition, IC's may be tested during the design phase in order to find flaws in the design that are not apparent before it is committed to silicon.
Many different failure mechanisms may cause a particular instance of an IC to fail a test. In some cases, the failures may be hard failures. Examples of hard failures include faulty or inoperative transistors, unintentional short circuits, unintentional open circuits, and so forth. In other cases, failures may be soft failures. A soft failure may be defined as a failure that occurs in the operation of a circuit even though the components themselves are not faulty.
One source of soft failures is transients on supply voltage nodes. For example, the switching of a large number of circuits simultaneously can cause a momentary drop in the supply voltage (sometimes referred to as a droop, a glitch, or a di/dt event). As a result of the momentary drop in the supply voltage, some transistors may switch states when they are not intended to, while others may not switch states even though such switching is intended. Thus, even though the actual transistors of the IC meet specifications, a glitch in the supply voltage may nevertheless cause the IC to fail a test or otherwise enter an inoperative state from which the IC cannot recover.

Method and apparatus for power glitch detection in integrated circuits


The present disclosure provides coating compositions and cured products formed from the coating compositions. The cured products can be formed at high cure speeds from the coating compositions and feature low Young's modulus, high tear strength, and/or high tensile toughness. The cured products can be used as primary coatings for optical fibers. The primary coatings provide good microbending performance and are resistant to defect formation during fiber coating processing and handling operations. The coating compositions include an oligomer, an alkoxylated monofunctional acrylate monomer, and preferably, an N-vinyl amide compound.

The transmittance of light through an optical fiber is highly dependent on the properties of the coatings applied to the fiber. The coatings typically include a primary coating and a secondary coating, where the secondary coating surrounds the primary coating and the primary coating contacts the glass waveguide (core+cladding) portion of the fiber. The secondary coating is a harder material (higher Young's modulus) than the primary coating and is designed to protect the glass waveguide from damage caused by abrasion or external forces that arise during processing and handling of the fiber. The primary coating is a softer material (low Young's modulus) and is designed to buffer or dissipates stresses that result from forces applied to the outer surface of the secondary coating. Dissipation of stresses within the primary layer attenuates the stress and minimizes the stress that reaches the glass waveguide. The primary coating is especially important in dissipating stresses that arise when the fiber is bent. The bending stresses transmitted to the glass waveguide on the fiber needs to be minimized because bending stresses create local perturbations in the refractive index profile of the glass waveguide. The local refractive index perturbations lead to intensity losses for the light transmitted through the waveguide. By dissipating stresses, the primary coating minimizes bend-induced intensity losses.
To minimize bending losses, it is desirable to develop primary coating materials with increasingly lower Young's moduli. Primary coating materials with a Young's modulus below 1 MPa are preferred. As the Young's modulus of the primary coating is reduced, however, the primary coating is more susceptible to damage in the fiber manufacturing process or during fiber installation or deployment. Thermal and mechanical stresses that arise during the fiber coating process or during post-manufacture fiber handling and configuration processes (e.g. stripping, cabling and connecting operations) may lead to the formation of defects in the primary coating. The defect formation in the primary coating becomes more problematic as the Young's modulus of the primary coating material decreases.
In the manufacture of optical fibers, a fiber is drawn from a glass preform, thinned to an appropriate diameter (e.g. 125 μm), coated with primary and secondary coatings, and wound on a spool for storage. There is currently a desire to increase draw speed to improve the efficiency of fiber manufacturing. One factor that limits draw speed is the speed of forming the coatings on the fiber. The primary and secondary coatings are typically formed by first applying primary and secondary coating compositions to the glass fiber and then reacting the coating compositions to form primary and secondary coatings. Typically, the primary and secondary coating compositions include photoinitiators and radiation-curable monomers and/or oligomers, and the reaction to form primary and secondary coatings is induced by curing with radiation. As draw speed increases, the need for coating compositions having faster cure speeds becomes more pressing. In particular, there is a need for coating compositions with fast cure speed that can provide primary coating materials with a low Young's modulus that are resistant to stress-induced defect formation during fiber manufacture and handling.

Fiber coating compositions with high cure speed


A system for harvesting of natural power of the heart movement to be deployed entirely inside or outside human heart. The means and the method for the system deployment/extraction are provided. The system is implemented as storage “satellite” container/housing/carrier unit for piezoelectric power generator, power storage and spare volume for transported cardio stimulator devices. The piezoelectric power generator comprises embedding circuits containing the diode bridge, controller, capacitor and a number of piezo-electric elastic ceramic rods—“leaflets”, originally strained asymmetrically with accordance to the heart 3D geometry in order to obtain high energy conversion efficiency and high sensitivity to the heart movement. The innovative construction of the piezoelectric generator is applied to piezoelectric transformer based on cantilever bending vibrations.

There are known numerous attempts to deploy in a human heart a piezoelectric source of energy harvesting electrical power in response to the heart movement in order to provide the power supply for pacemakers and other implantable devices.
Already in 1969 a piezoelectric converter of body motion into electrical energy for driving implants in the form of a completely encased piezoelectric cantilever beam was introduced in U.S. Pat. No. 3,456,134, though no way to deploy the container with the beam was described. An obvious disadvantage of this system is the insufficiency of the energy collected by a piezo-element encapsulated in a container to drive a pacemaker as it reacts only on its own derived movement and not on the muscle's. Another difficulty was the requirement for it's implantation inside the heart.
In 1972 it was suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,615 to use a piezoelectric bimorph encapsulated and implanted in the chest cavity or adjacent to the left ventricle of the heat, with flexing in reaction to muscular movement used to generate electrical power. The patent is mainly devoted to epicardial devices and to their coverage with synthetic or natural materials. A main disadvantage of such an approach is the great surgical impact resulting from the surgical intervention. Also, the life time of epicardial leads is very short, requiring additional surgical interventions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,690,143 discloses a self-contained power source mounted in a pacing lead in order to generate electrical power for operating the pacing lead. A distinguishing feature of the technology described in this patent is the mounting of the power generation device in a pacing lead comprising a catheter which is inserted intravenously into a human heart. The power is collected while the lead is bending during the heart muscle contraction. The main disadvantages of the system include insufficient power generation for the overall pacemaker functioning by the piezo-element encapsulated in the lead because it reacts only to the derived movement of the lead and not on the muscle itself. Moreover, any movements of objects mounted inside the heart relative to the heart itself are potential sources of thrombus formation.
Further application of piezo-electric power generation to pacemakers was to connect a piezoelectric transformer to power a lead-based sensor, see U.S. Pat. No. 7,203,551 and an energy transmission system, containing a piezo-electric transducer, from an external unit generating magnetic field or acoustic waves to recharge a pacemaker battery, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,909. Also, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,694 a bio-operated piezo-electric generator in the form of a flexible sheet of poled polyvinylidene fluoride attached in surface-to-surface contiguity with a skeletal number, is proposed to be connected to a pacemaker. The generated AC is rectified to C, which is supplied to the battery on demand. Needless to say that these architectures only make the artificial in body structures and surgical interventions more complicated.
The further progress of piezoelectric technologies, see for example patents U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,996, U.S. Pat. No. 6,655,035B2, US 2005/0052097A1, US 2005/0082949A1, permits one to build highly efficient piezoelectric generators. For the development of piezoelectric transformers, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,707,235 patent and the literature cited there.
The latest state of the art technologies are presented in the following patents:                WO 2010/070650 A1 discloses a piezoelectric generator for low frequency based on a standard bimorph piezoelectric bending energy generator scheme, but does not produce enough energy for in-body appliances. Also, the use of a cantilever beam with a mechanical energy harvesting unit together encapsulated into a closed box, possess the drawbacks of the same kind as described above for U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,456,134 and 4,690,143        US 2010/0076517A1 presents a technology based on a bundle of piezo-electric fibers arranged around a core conductor. The authors state that, when the bundle is deformed, at least one fiber will be deformed sufficiently to generate sufficient energy for the pacemaker or other selected device. This idea does not differ from that behind U.S. Pat. No. 4,690,143. Consequently, it is not possible to get 20 mW and not more then 50-100 μW can be harvested using such a configuration.        WO 2007/1068284 A1 contains a broad description of the possible applications of the energy harvesting technologies inside and outside the heart. The piezo-electric part is under-developed and is citing the work of Roundy, 2003 where 200 μW were produced from 1 cm cube of the cantilever beam at 120 Hz frequency, considerably less than the 20 mW at 1 Hz needed from, at maximum, a 0.3 cm cube. Consequently, the drawback is of the same kind as in the technology described in WO 2010/070650 A1.
Modern batteries can supply the power for pacemakers for 5-7 years and thus there is no real need for additional energy sources inside the heart, however the two-fold architecture containing a pacemaker itself, with the battery implanted outside the heart and pacing leads inserted intravenously into the heart propose certain inconveniences.
The present invention addresses a widely recognized need to eliminate complicated two-fold or even three-fold in-body structures, which cause obvious problems to patients, thus minimizing surgical procedures and providing patients with a lifetime source of energy feeding a pacemaker.

Medical system, piezoelectric kit, related methods and medical procedures