A device for applying salt and melted butter into popcorn which comprises a perforated straw-like component having a sealed lower end. A funnel component is integral with an upper end of the perforated straw-like component. When the perforated straw-like component is inserted into the popcorn, salt and melted butter will be poured into the funnel component and flow out through the perforated straw-like component into the popcorn.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a food applicator, and more particularly, a device for applying salt and melted butter into popcorn.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous innovations for condiment dispensers have been provided in the prior art that will be described. Even though these innovations may be suitable for the specific individual purposes to which they address, however, they differ from the present invention.
A FIRST EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 3,428,460, Issued on Feb. 18, 1969, to Ely teaches a container adapted for stirring a beverage including an elongated member defining cavities containing beverage additives. The cavities are closed by a cover strip allowing selective mixing of an additive with the beverage.
A SECOND EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,506, Issued on Mar. 10, 1987, to Campbell teaches a package with spreader that is hermetically sealed for storing relatively stiff spreadable materials such as butter until ready for use. The package includes a base having a relatively stiff spreader blade partially defined by a blade spread side surface and an opposed base supply side. The base also includes a deformable blister for holding the spreadable material. The blister is open through the blade to its spread side surface and extends outwardly from the blade on the supply side of the base. A peelable membrane initially seals the butter inside of the blister by being in sealing relation to the spread side surface of the blade. A portion of the membrane is manually peelable from sealing relation with respect to part of the blade and uncovers a portion of the blister to provide a butter delivery opening through which the butter can be forced by digital pressure on the outside of the blister. The butter can then be immediately spread using the sealing side surface of the blade.
A THIRD EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,927, Issued on Nov. 19, 1991, to Wahl et al. teaches an apparatus for dispensing melted butter into a container of popcorn having a mechanism in which the melted butter will be sprayed evenly throughout the popcorn.
A FOURTH EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 5,263,255, Issued on Nov. 23, 1993, to Watson teaches an elongated, trough-like utensil for eating buttered popcorn by scooping it from a container. Long enough to reach into a deep container, one end of the utensil includes a finger stop which can be held between the middle and index fingers. The finger stop also forms a dam to prevent grease or melted butter on the popcorn from coming into contact with the fingers. Distal from the stop, the trough has a rounded end which provides a smooth surface to facilitate thrusting the trough into popcorn. Near the rounded end, the bottom of the trough defines an aperture of sufficient size to allow unpopped kernels of corn to escape from the trough before they can slide down it and into a user's mouth.
A FIFTH EXAMPLE, U.S. Patent Office Document No. 2005/0244549 A1, Published on Nov. 3, 2005, to Ling teaches a disposable prefilled food condiment dispenser that includes an elongated hollow agitator having an openable end and another end connected to a reservoir filled with a food condiment, such as popcorn topping. A food container clip may extend from the agitator or the reservoir to removably attach the dispenser to a food container. The openable end of the elongated hollow agitator preferably has an opening and a removable cap or seal to close the opening. Popcorn topping, e.g. butter, can easily be distributed throughout a popcorn bag, box or bucket, all at once, or periodically, depending upon the preferences of the user. The dispenser is portable, and it does not require the shaking of the container and associated spilling of popcorn. Also, different flavors and different caloric choices may be provided.
It is apparent now that numerous innovations for condiment dispensers have been provided in the prior art that are adequate for various purposes. Furthermore, even though these innovations may be suitable for the specific individual purposes to which they address, accordingly, they would not be suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.

Device for applying salt and melted butter into popcorn


Systems and methods for discriminating among volatile compounds is provided using a semiconductor junction structure or sensor device. Sensor devices of the present disclosure employ a combination of hole carriers (p-type) and electron carriers (n-type) metal oxides deposited, for example, on a gold microspring array designed so that it has several leads that are at different distances from each other.

The present disclosure relates to sensor arrays. More particularly, it relates to sensor arrays for sensing and identifying analytes, for example identifying an ambient gas.
Sensor arrays find extensive use in electronic noses for detection of a large variety of volatile compounds. Typically, these sensor arrays consist of a finite number of sensors (e.g., ˜10) with each sensor producing a slightly different response to the analyte (or mixture of analytes). Often the arrays are based on measuring resistance, and materials for the sensor array include, for example, metals, metal oxides, and/or polymers. Metal oxide semiconductors (MOS)-based sensors (n-type: SnO2, ZnO2, TiO2, WO3, etc.; p-type: CuO, TeO2, etc.) may be used to detect volatile compounds (such as acetone, propanol, ethanol) or toxic gases (such as CO, NO, NO2, etc). In general terms, MOS sensors incorporate a sensing layer formed of material selected for a targeted gas. When the targeted gas interfaces with the sensing layer material, the target gas molecules are adsorbed and react on the crystal surface, resulting in a change in conductivity of the sensing layer. By measuring the change in conductivity (e.g., resistivity), the presence and amount (often in ppm or ppb) of the targeted gas (or other compound or analyte of interest) can be estimated. Sensitivity/selectivity to a particular gas depends on the intrinsic properties of the MOS material, and can be modulated by doping to alter the electrical properties or by introducing catalysts such as Au, Pt, Pd to alter the chemical properties. Operating temperature is also a key parameter to optimize sensitivity.
Cross sensitivity to interfering gases is an issue of MOS based sensor devices that remains unresolved. Many strategies have been reported to reduce interferences, including the use of catalysts, and adsorptive or catalytic filters.

Obtaining selectivity in gas sensors via a sensor array system composed of P and N type material


A dustproof plate fixture for an electrical connector having a housing with multiple pins and a cover connected to the housing includes a recess, a pair of cutouts in opposite sides of a dustproof plate, a pair of retainers each having a base plate and a through hole for alignment with one of two opposite combining holes in the housing and extension legs, pressing elements each having a pressing plate received in one of the cutouts to engage with a corresponding one of the base plates, a sleeve extendable into one of the combining holes and one of the connection holes, and two securing elements each extendable into one of the connection holes and into one of the sleeves to threadingly engage with the corresponding sleeve, engagement of the pressing elements, the retainers, the dustproof plate, the housing and the cover is secured.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dustproof plate fixture, and more particularly to a dustproof plate fixture adapted to securely connect the dustproof plate to a back of an electrical connector.
2. Description of Related Art
It is found that dust and moisture can penetrate to the interior of electrical connectors, whereby performance of the connector is impaired. To try to prevent this a dustproof plate is mounted on a back of a connector so as to isolate the dust, moisture etc. A conventional dustproof plate is shown in FIG. 6, wherein the dustproof plate (3) has a wedge (32) formed on a top edge of the dustproof plate (3) and two steps (31) respectively formed on opposite sides of the dustproof plate (3). An electrical connector (2) has a cutout (231) defined in a rear side face of the connector (2) to correspond to the wedge (32), and two tracks (21) respectively formed on two opposite sides of the connector (2) to correspond to the two steps (31).
When the conventional dustproof plate (3) is to be mounted on the connector (2), the steps (31) of the dustproof plate (3) are first slid into the corresponding tracks (21). After the steps (31) are inserted and slid into the tracks (21), the wedge (32) is securely received in the cutout (231) so that the dustproof plate (3) is able to prevent dust and moisture from going into the interior of the connector (2) to influence the electrical performance of the connector (2).
From the structure of the dustproof plate (3) and the corresponding structure of the connector (2), it is to be noted that the dustproof plate (3) has constant friction with the connector (2) when mounting and de-mounting the dustproof plate (3) to the connector (2). That is, a friction is generated between the steps (31) and the side walls defining the tracks (21) and it will gradually reduce the tightness between the dustproof plate (3) and the connector (2). When small rifts happen due to the friction between the dustproof plate (3) and the connector (2), the electrical performance is greatly hindered.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention tends to provide an improved dustproof plate fixture to mitigate and obviate the aforementioned problems.

Dustproof plate fixture for an electrical connector


A method and apparatus enhancing software catalog manageability, providing abstract software configuration, and desired state management. A first mechanism enhances software catalog manageability. The first mechanism includes a software model that separates metadata of software from actual binaries of the software. A second mechanism abstracts software configuration for automation. The second mechanism includes a hierarchical software resource template structure that specifies parameters, dependencies between parameters, features, options, and parameters that cannot be predefined. A third mechanism provides for desired state management and patch compliance assessments. The third mechanism checks against a server template or software resource in a data center model against what is installed on actual machines to determine compliance.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a data processing system. In particular, the present invention relates to enhancing software catalog manageability for provisioning applications. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to enhancing manageability of a software catalog, abstracting software configuration, and desired state management.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, data center administrators have to organize, install, and configure a large number of software products in a data center. These software products have different variations, for example, different locale, different operating system specificity, etc. Some of the variations may or may not be relevant. The relevancy is often handled at the time of installation by administrators. In addition, there may be common attributes across these software products that are replicated for each application definition.
Since the configurations of these software products are complex, it is difficult to achieve a desired outcome of an installation with the proper configuration without post-installation adjustments. The more complex a software product is, the harder it is to coherently specify all configuration parameters for the required elements to be created at installation time.
To alleviate the complexity of software products, response files are used. A response file comprises responses of an installation much like a wizard used during installation, except that the response file is predefined by an administrator with configuration settings of the software product. Thus, a response file comprises a list of name-value pairs that are predefined before installation. While the response file is useful in automatic deployment of software, it is limiting in that the response file is textual and it lacks the flexibility for change. In addition, the response file fails to capture everything a software product needs during post installation configuration.
Furthermore, the response file fails to handle dependencies between configuration settings. For example, a J2EE Web module running on a Web server on machine X may depend on a database module running on a database server on machine Y. Currently, the user has to define the IP address of the database server in which the database module resides at installation time in order to invoke the module.
For complex software, such as, for example, DB2®, multiple instances may need to be created with one instance as a default installation. Each instance running on the same machine may have its own configuration parameters. With response files, these configuration parameters are specified after the software is installed. Post-installation adjustments are time consuming and error prone. Thus, with the above limitations, an automated solution without the use of response files is desired.
Once the software products are installed, the state of a machine is mostly monitored using a manual inventory process. This manual process requires significant time and effort by the Administrators. A need exists for a mechanism that automatically accesses the state of a machine and determines compliance of the machine's current state with a desired state. In addition, in cases of non-compliance, a need exists for a mechanism that automatically applies approved patches to the machine.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a mechanism that eases catalog management and provides a flexible mechanism that abstracts software configurations for automation. Furthermore, it would be advantageous to have a mechanism that automatically manages compliance of machines to a desired state.

Method and apparatus for managing software catalog and providing configuration for installation

International Business Machines Corporation


Various embodiments include a camera system. The camera system can receive a command to photograph an environment utilizing a camera. The camera system can identify a plurality of flash settings for a flash system of the camera. The camera system can drive the flash system in a sequence of flashes respectively corresponding to the plurality of flash settings. The camera system can then capture consecutive images utilizing the camera. The capturing of the consecutive images can be synchronized against the sequence of flashes such that a device can later combine the consecutive images to generate a composite image that represents a virtual photograph of the environment.

A "flash" is a device used in photography that produces a flash (e.g., typically for 1/1000 to 1/200 of a second) of artificial light at a color temperature of about 5500 Kelvin to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene. Other uses include capturing quickly moving objects or changing the quality of light. A "flash" can refer either to a flash of light or the electronic flash unit discharging the flash of light. Most current flash units are electronic, having evolved from single use flashbulbs and flammable powders. Modern cameras can activate flash units automatically. However, the illumination of a flash unit is generally static, and does not provide consistent results across different photography context.


Methods for the design of microwave filters comprises comprising preferably the steps of inputting a first set of filter requirements, inputting a selection of circuit element types, inputting a selection of lossless circuit response variables, calculating normalized circuit element values based on the input parameters, and generate a first circuit, insert parasitic effects to the normalized circuit element values of the first circuit, and output at least the first circuit including the post-parasitic effect circuit values. Additional optional steps include: requirements to a normalized design space, performing an equivalent circuit transformation, unmapping the circuit to a real design space, performing a survey, and element removal optimization. Computer implement software, systems, and microwave filters designed in accordance with the method are included.

Frequency selective electrical filters for communications applications were developed beginning around 1910, for telegraphy and telephony uses, particularly for multiplexing and de-multiplexing of communication signal channels carried on long distance cables and wireless links. Later they were used for many other applications. Filter design methods, named "image" or "image parameter" design methods, were developed by G. A. Campbell (Campbell 1922) and A. Zobel (Zobel 1924) of Bell Telephone Laboratories, among others. These filter circuits utilized circuit elements including inductors, capacitors, and transformers. In the 1920's, a new circuit element began to be used in some electrical signal filters, the acoustic wave (AW) resonator, specifically the quartz bulk acoustic wave resonator; whose electrical circuit equivalent was first described by Van Dyck (Van Dyck 1928); its equivalent circuit has two resonances closely spaced in frequency, the "resonance" and the "anti-resonance". The image filter design methods were applied to filter circuits utilizing these quartz resonators, and two acoustic wave filter circuit types resulted, "ladder" and "lattice" acoustic wave filter designs (Mason 1934). Beginning ˜1990 thin film surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators and bulk acoustic wave resonators (BAW) were developed and began to be used in microwave AW ladder filter designs. The image designed acoustic wave ladder bandpass filter in SAW and BAW implementations is often used for microwave filtering applications in the RF frontend of mobile communications devices. These filters meet the demanding requirements: microwave frequencies (>˜500 MHz), low insertion loss, high selectivity, small circuit area, high power handling, high linearity, and low cost. The traditional AW ladder filter is often preferred because it satisfies these requirements (Morgan 2007). Minor variations to the traditional AW ladder have also been considered for these applications (Taiyo Yuden 2011 etc.), which typically add one or more circuit elements (capacitor, inductor, AW resonator) to the ladder design to enhance a particular circuit feature. This can be done when the influences to the basic AW ladder circuit are minor enough that common computer optimization tools converge. This is a stringent requirement for any circuit containing closely spaced series and parallel resonances like the AW ladder filter, and thus permits only very minor variations to the basic AW ladder design and function.
In the 1920's and 1930's another approach was developed for the design of frequency selective electrical signal filters for communications applications—"network synthesis". This new filter circuit design method was pioneered by Foster and Darlington (Foster 1922, Darlington 1938) in the U.S. and Cauer (Cauer 1933 and 1940) in Germany, among others. In "network synthesis" the desired filter response is translated into a ratio of polynomials, termed a rational function, and a filter circuit is "synthesized" from this function. Neglecting losses, which are kept small in practice, the "synthesized" circuit matches the desired response function. In the 1950's and 1960's, network synthesis was successfully applied to the design of microwave filters for communications and other applications. These new filters utilize high Q (low loss) electromagnetic resonators and electromagnetic couplings between these resonators as circuit elements. (Matthaei 1964, Cameron 2007).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Network synthesis design of microwave acoustic wave filters


A random noise generation module for generating noisy LLRs for testing an error correction circuit of a nonvolatile memory storage module. The random noise generation module includes a coefficient generator for generating one or a plurality of coefficients, each of the plurality of coefficients associated with one region of a plurality of regions defining a linear space proportionately divided according to an area under a probability distribution curve for a nonvolatile memory storage module. The random noise generation module further includes a linear random number generator for generating a linear random number and a comparator for comparing the linear random number to one or more of the plurality of coefficients to identify the region of the plurality of regions of the probability distribution curve in which the linear random number belongs to generate a noisy LLR for testing an error correction circuit of a nonvolatile memory storage module.

A solid state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that utilizes solid-state memory to retain data in nonvolatile memory chips. NAND-based flash memories are widely used as the solid-state memory storage in SSDs due to their compactness, low power consumption, low cost, high data throughput and reliability. SSDs commonly employ several NAND-based flash memory chips and a flash controller to manage the flash memory and to transfer data between the flash memory and a host computer.
While NAND-based flash memories are reliable, they are not inherently error-free and often rely on error correction coding (ECC) to correct raw bit errors in the stored data. One commonly employed error correction code for nonvolatile memory storage modules, such as SSDs, is the low-density parity-check (LDPC) code. An LDPC code is a linear error correcting code having a parity check matrix with a small number of nonzero elements in each row and column. Soft-decision message passing algorithms are known in the art for decoding data encoded with LDPC error correction codes, such as the sum-product algorithm (SPA) and the min-sum algorithm. These soft-decision message passing algorithms are iterative in nature and attempt to decode the encoded data by assigning probability metrics to each bit in an encoded code word. The probability metrics indicate a reliability of each bit, that is, how likely it is that the bit read from the memory is not in error. These probability metrics are commonly referred to log likelihood ratios (LLRs) in the case of LDPC decoding. These LLRs values are often stored in LLR look-up tables, which are accessible by the NAND flash controller. To read the LDPC encoded data from the memory storage, a set of reference voltages are selected based upon the number of reads required and the number of bits used to represent the LLR value. The set of reference voltages selected determines the LLR values selected from the LLR look-up table.
The ability of an error correction circuit, such as an LDPC error correction circuit, to correct errors in a noisy channel is a critical performance parameter of a nonvolatile memory storage system. It is known in the art to test the performance of error correction circuits under an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel by generating AWGN samples that are used to access the LLR look-up tables of the nonvolatile memory storage system. However, noise generation circuits and techniques currently known in the art are very complex, requiring extensive mathematical functions to implement in logic gates. The noise generation circuits known in the art require a large area of space and the size of the circuitry increases as the number of required noise samples per clock cycle increases. As a result of the size and complexity of the noise generation circuits currently known in the art, it is commonly necessary to implement the AWGN generation circuitry in a dedicated FPGA (field-programmable gate array) or ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) that is distinct from the encoding and decoding circuitry of the nonvolatile memory storage system.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved system and method for generating random noise samples for testing the error correction code circuitry of a nonvolatile memory system.

System and method for random noise generation


A support seal for use with a catalytic converter having a housing, which includes an inlet end cone, an outlet end cone, and a shell forming an internal chamber, and catalytic substrate disposed within the internal chamber. The support seal has an “L” shaped cross-section including a radial portion and an axial portion, at least one portion for supporting and retaining the catalytic substrate within the internal chamber. The axial and radial portion of the “L” shaped seal can be preloaded to provide support to the substrate in the axial and radial directions.

1. Field of the Invention
One aspect of the present invention generally relates to a catalytic converter, and more specifically, to a support seal for a catalytic converter.
2. Background Art
Catalytic converters are utilized in vehicles for reacting with hot vehicle exhaust gases and for purifying such gases. The catalytic converter typically includes a substrate, often times referred to as a brick. The substrate is often constructed of a ceramic material. The substrate may include channels or other fluid conduits, such as honeycombs, for the passage of the hot exhaust gases. A catalyst is added to the substrate for carrying out the catalytic function.
The catalytic converter also includes a housing having a chamber, an inlet for receiving gas, and an outlet for exhausting gas. In many applications, the brick is positioned within the chamber for performing the gas purifying function. A support member, for example, a mat or a wire mesh, is often wrapped around the substrate for supporting the brick with respect to the housing. As non-limiting examples, the mat can be made from intumescent or non-intumescent material. An example of an intumescent material is the INTERAM product, available from 3M of Minneapolis, Minn. The wire mesh can be made from stainless steel wire drawn from rod which is woven or knitted. The substrate support member which is placed between the substrate and the shell exerts pressure radially to hold the substrate in place. This pressure prevents the substrate from movement, thus preventing damage during service. The support member can also absorb shock caused when the vehicle is driven over uneven road surfaces, for example pot holes or dirt roads.
In certain circumstances, when a wire mesh type support member is used, the support member does not effectively limit the leakage of untreated gas through the catalytic converter chamber. As such, seals have been utilized to reduce the leak rates to tolerable levels. A seal is commonly fixed to the inlet and/outlet ends of the chamber and is disposed between the substrate and the chamber. In many applications, these seals can be particularly effective and economical for use with catalytic converters. The seal compensates for surface irregularities and/or voids on or between the substrate and/or chamber caused by the flexibility of the support member. The seal can be constructed of wire such that it can withstand relatively high temperatures typical of the catalytic converter environment. Knitted wire elements can be used as the seals. The seal sometimes can be covered with fiberglass fabric. Filler materials can also be added to reduce leakage rates.
One proposal provides a seal with a V-shaped configuration. The seal can be formed such that the apex of the V-shape is disposed on one side of the seal and the legs of the V-shape diverge from the apex to define interior and exterior surfaces of the seal. The legs of the seal can have an angle of divergence of about 60 degrees for substantially the entire length of the seal.
Current catalytic converters with or without seals are designed such that there is some space left on either side of the substrate along the length of the inside surface of the chamber. As such, the substrate is held in place by forces generated by the support member around the surface of the substrate in a radial direction only. As a result, the brick can experience movement in the axial direction when the radially restraining force level deteriorates over a period of time in use. This radial movement of the brick can be detrimental to the brick, and may eventually cause brick failure.
In light of the foregoing, what is needed is a support seal for providing support in the axial direction of a catalytic converter housing. What is also needed is a catalytic converter having a support seal with a mechanical design with relative high durability and/or robustness.

Support seal for positive retention of catalytic converter substrate and method therefor


Aluminum phosphate compositions are provided which are characterized simultaneously by high porosity and phosphorous-to-aluminum ratios of approximately 1.0. The high porosity of these compositions is a function of high pore volume coupled with low surface area, resulting in high average pore diameter. These materials have excellent properties as catalysts and catalyst supports. Methods of making the compositions are also provided.

This invention is for aluminum phosphate compositions which are characterized by having both high porosity and phosphorus-to-aluminum (hereinafter "P/Al") ratios near unity. The high porosity of these compositions is characterized by a combination of high pore volume and low surface area, resulting in high average pore diameter. These compositions are useful as cracking catalysts, supports for ethylene polymerization catalysts, flatting agents, carriers, adsorbents and thickeners.
Synthetic aluminum phosphates are known and the utility and properties of various compositions have been discussed extensively in the literature. For example, Kearby, 2nd Int'l Congress and Catalysis, "New AlPO.sub.4 Gels As Acid Catalysts," pp. 2567-79 (1960, Paris) and Moffat, Catal. Rev.--Sci. Eng., "Phosphates As Catalysts," Vol. 19, pp. 199-258 (1978) discuss the properties of various aluminum phosphates, reporting surface areas of about 200.0 to 500.0 m.sup.2 /gm and pore volumes (hereinafter "PV") of about 0.45 to 0.78 cc/gm.
Aluminum phosphate-containing compositions also have been described, as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,550 (Pine) which discloses a catalyst support comprised of alumina and aluminum phosphate with P/Al=0.54 and PV=1.34 cc/gm; U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,560 (Kehl) which discloses magnesia-alumina-AlPO.sub.4 catalyst supports with P/Al=0.21 and PV=1.11 cc/gm or with P/Al=0.69 and PV=0.72 cc/gm; and Marcelin et al., J. of Catal., "Alumina-Aluminum Phosphate As Large-Pore Support and Its Application to Liquid Phase Hydrogenation," Vol. 83, pp. 42-49 (1983) which discloses alumina-aluminum phosphate supports with P/Al=1.0 and PV=0.32 cc/gm or with P/Al=0.5 and PV=0.64 cc/gm.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,364,842 and 4,444,965 (McDaniel et al.) disclose aluminum phosphate-containing catalyst bases in which P/Al=0.7-0.9 and in which the highest PV disclosed was 0.84 cc/gm (for P/Al=0.80).
Many of the prior art compositions share the same limitation. As the P/Al approaches unity, the pore volume of the prior art compositions decreases. Typically, aluminum phosphate compositions were not prepared with both these characteristics: a P/Al near unity and a high pore volume (i.e., PV of at least 1.0 cc/gm). High pore volume is very desirable for aluminum phosphate compositions used as polymerization catalysts due to their polymerization characteristics.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,342,750 (Kearby) discloses aluminum phosphate gels with PV of 1.39-156 cc/gm and surface area (hereinafter "SA") of 427-523 m.sup.2 /gm, resulting in average pore diameters of 65-114 Angstroms. Kearby teaches a high PV composition which also has a P/Al near unity, but it can be seen that the high PV is achieved at the expense of pore diameter, which is low. It is taught, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,429 (Furtek), that high average pore diameter is a very desirable characteristic for polymerization catalysts.
In providing catalyst supports with high PV and low SA, the compositions of the invention achieve this combination of properties and provide aluminum phosphate catalyst supports having high average pore diameters. Moreover, these unique characteristics of the present catalyst supports dramatically affect the characteristics of the reaction products (e.g., polyethylene). Use of the catalyst supports of this invention yields polyethylene products having different and advantageous properties, such as melt index (MI) and hiqh load melt index (HLMI) (see Example V below), as compared with products made using the prior art catalyst supports. For example, EP 56 164 (Phillips Petroleum) (McDaniel et al.), teaches in Table 1 that MI is 0 and HLMI is far below 1 unless an additive such as triethyl borane or hydrogen is used. By contrast, the high porosity supports of this invention achieve HLMI of 8.9 in the absence of any additive.

High pore volume and pore diameter aluminum phosphate and method of making the same


A conversation-sentence generation device according to the invention of this application includes: an input unit that receives, as input information, a conversation sentence given from a user to an agent, and clue information based on which a physical and psychological state of the agent is estimated; an agent state storing unit that stores the physical and psychological state of the agent as an agent state; an agent state estimating unit that estimates a new agent state based on the input information and the agent state; an utterance intention generating unit that generates, based on the input information and the agent state, an utterance intention directed from the agent to the user; a conversation sentence generating unit that generates, based on the input information, the agent state, and the utterance intention, a conversation sentence given from the agent to the user; and an output unit that outputs the conversation sentence generated by the conversation sentence generating unit.

A human has a desire to communicate with somebody, and gain somebody's sympathy. The communication target in this case is not limited to a certain human, but may be all possible types of targets such as a machine and an animal. Up to the present time, various types of dialogue systems have been proposed as systems capable of realizing interaction between a human and a machine.
Patent Literature 1 is an example of such dialogue systems. According to a dialogue system disclosed in PTL 1, which is a system for realizing a smooth dialogue between a human and a machine, an ego-state estimating unit estimates an ego-state through transactional analysis (for example, Mineyasu SUGITA, "Transactional Analysis", Nihon Bunka Kagakusya Co., Ltd., 1985), and a dialogue control unit outputs a response text based on the estimated ego-state.

Conversation-sentence generation device, conversation-sentence generation method, and conversation-sentence generation program


A method for reducing a need for physical memory includes compressing a sub-region of an intermediate histogram to obtain a compressed result, and storing the compressed result in a physical or virtual file.

The present invention relates generally to medical imaging, and more particularly to a histogrammer for a medical imaging device such as a positron emission tomography scanner.
A positron emission tomography (PET) scanner detects gamma rays which emanate from the patient. In a PET scan, the patient is initially injected with a radiopharmaceutical, which is a radioactive substance such as FDG ([18F] fluorodeoxyglucose) which emits positrons as it decays. Once injected, the radiopharmaceutical becomes involved in certain known bodily processes such as glucose metabolism or protein synthesis, for example. The emitted positrons travel a very short distance before they encounter an electron, at which point an annihilation event occurs whereby the electron and positron are annihilated and converted into two gamma rays. Each of the gamma ray has an energy of 511 keV, and the two gamma rays are directed in nearly opposite directions. The two gamma rays are detected essentially simultaneously by two of the detector crystals (also commonly referred to as "scintillators" or "scintillator crystals") in the PET scanner, which are arranged in rings around the patient bore. The simultaneous detection of the two gamma rays by the two detector crystals is known as a "coincidence event." The millions of coincidence events which are detected and recorded during a PET scan are used to determine where the annihilation events occurred and to thereby reconstruct an image of the patient.
Part of the data acquisition and image reconstruction process involves generating a data structure known as a histogram. A histogram includes a large number of cells, where each cell corresponds to a unique pair of detector crystals in the PET scanner. Because a PET scanner typically includes thousands of detector crystals, the histogram typically includes millions of cells. Each cell of the histogram also stores a count value representing the number of coincidence events detected by the pair of detector crystals for that cell during the scan. At the end of the scan the data in the histogram are used to reconstruct the image of the patient. The completed histogram containing all the data from the scan is commonly referred to as a "result histogram." The term "histogrammer" generally refers to the components of the scanner, e.g., processor and memory, which carry out the function of creating the histogram.
As PET scanner technology advances, e.g., as detector crystals become faster and as PET scanners include greater numbers of detector crystals, the desired data acquisition bandwidth increases. This increase places greater demands on the histogrammer. In general terms, the function of a histogrammer is to segregate and count events of a multi-type event stream, providing individual counts for each unique event type. For each event in the event stream, the histogrammer reads the current count value in a cell of the histogram, modifies the count value by incrementing or decrementing it, and writes the modified value back to the cell. In current PET scanners, the histogrammer may be required to process millions of events per second. Next generation PET scanners will likely place even higher demands on the speed and memory utilization of the histogramming function. The present invention addresses these needs.
Additionally, it is conjectured that high resolution Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Time Of Flight (TOF) information can be used to improve the image quality of images produced from PET acquisitions. Time of Flight refers to the time difference in detection of the two gamma rays that were produced from a given positron annihilation. TOF is relative to the detector ring diameter and the location of the positron annihilation within the scan field of view. PET detector and acquisition electronics timing resolution have progressed such that sub-nanosecond resolution time of flight difference measurement is achievable and argumentatively clinically cost effective.
PET raw data is nominally collected in sinogram/projection based Line Of Responses (LORs) histograms to compress the acquired data and enhance the performance of the image reconstruction process. The conventional non-TOF PET sinogram/projection based raw data can routinely exceed 64 megabytes per acquisition (frame) and hundreds of megabytes per scan in the Dynamic and/or Gated scan modes. TOF PET adds another dimension to the sinograms/projections, and consequently the sinogram raw data size produced in the Dynamic and/or Gated scan modes would scale by the TOF dimension width (minimally anticipated to be in the range of 32-64) and exceed hundreds of gigabytes and require significant increase in physical memory if current deployed techniques were continued for TOF acquisitions. This could add substantial cost for physical memory to the PET acquisition subsystem and result in an order of magnitude increase in reconstruction processing.
Due to the anticipated reconstruction processing hit and costly increase of Random Access Memory (RAM) projected for TOF sinogram/projection based live event stream histogramming, alternative acquisition methods and raw data formats are being considered industry-wide. Unlike the methods and apparatus disclosed herein, the proposals made to date will most likely have the negative affect on reconstruction time and/or increase the time from end of acquisition until images are presented for medical diagnosis.
The methods and apparatus described herein to produce Compressed Time Of Flight Sinograms for a live or unlist PET TOF coincidence event stream can greatly reduce the amount of physical memory required, and furthermore present the raw data to the image reconstruction process in a LOR ordered format that would significantly reduce the processing time from end of acquisition to presentation of the corresponding images.

Method and apparatus for PET time of flight generation of compression sinogram and image reconstruction


A plastics injection-molding machine is to be equipped with a more compact drive that undergoes less wear. For this purpose, it is envisaged to integrate the direct rotational drive into the direct linear drive. Accordingly, the electric linear motor has a pot-shaped external rotor (13), in the inner space of which the main part of a hollow-cylindrical stator (16) of the linear motor is arranged and which is firmly connected to the output shaft (10). The rotary drive has a stator (18), which is mounted on the inner wall of the hollow-cylindrical stator (16) of the linear motor, and a rotor, which is firmly coupled to the output shaft (10) within the stator (18) of the rotary electric motor. This direct drive produces a very compact type of construction and it is possible to dispense with easily wearing threaded spindles.

The present invention relates to a plastics injection-molding machine with an electrical rotary drive and electrical linear drive.
As a drive, in particular as an injection and metering system, in a plastics injection-molding machine or in similar machine applications, it is necessary to provide a rotary movement and a linear movement on the drive shaft. It must be possible to produce these movements on the one hand independently of one another, or else superimposed.
Until now, a movement such as this with two degrees of freedom has been achieved by the use of two separate, rotary drives. FIG. 1 shows a cross section through one such drive. A threaded spindle 1 is driven via a first spindle nut 2 by a first rotary drive 3 and via a second spindle nut 4 by a second rotary drive 5. The threaded spindle 1 is used to convert the rotary movement to a linear movement. The functional principle can be explained with the aid of FIG. 2, which schematically illustrates the output drive shaft or threaded spindle 1 and the spindle nuts 2, 4. When the spindle nuts 2, 4 are driven in the same direction and at the same rotation speed, this results in a purely rotary movement. If, in contrast, the two rotary drives are driven at the same rotation speed in opposite directions then this leads to a pure linear movement of the threaded spindles. If the rotary drives are operated at different rotation speeds and/or in different rotation directions, this results in a combined rotary-linear movement. This drive has the disadvantage on the one hand of the relatively complicated control system, since the threaded drive mechanism must also be taken into account in the operation of the two rotary motors in order to achieve a linear movement. Furthermore, two motors must always be controlled in synchronism for simple movements. The control loop for the linear drive is also relatively complex. A further major disadvantage is that the threaded drive mechanism as well as the bearings are subject to a relatively large amount of wear. This is because these components have to absorb large axial forces. A further disadvantage is that the entire drive is physically relatively large.

Plastics injection-molding machine with integrated, linear-rotary direct drive


A process is provided by which addition of water is used to enhance the production of any hydrochlorocarbon feedstock through the use of Kharasch chemistry, i.e. the combination of a polychlorinated alkane with an olefin to produce a chlorinated or hydrochlorinated alkane with the use of a transition metal compound in homogeneous solution as catalyst. Preferably, water is added to increase the production of 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane by the reaction of carbon tetrachloride and vinyl chloride in the presence of a catalyst mixture of organo phosphate solvent, iron metal and ferric chloride.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for the manufacture of 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Montreal Protocol of 1987 placed a ban on certain substances that deplete the ozone layer, especially chlorofluorocarbons (CFC""s). To hasten the elimination of CFC production and use, the Protocol allowed for certain fluorocarbon products (HCFC""s) to be used as xe2x80x9cbridge replacements.xe2x80x9d Although these bridge replacements are considerably more ozone friendly than CFC""S, they are intended to be transitional and not permanent replacements. Fluorocarbon producers are actively pursuing replacement candidates known as xe2x80x9cthird generation fluorocarbons.xe2x80x9d These third genera-tion fluorocarbons will require hydrochlorocarbon feedstocks.
The second largest U.S. fluorochemical end-use market, next to refrigeration, is for blowing agents utilized in the manufacture of various synthetic plastic formed products. CFC-1 1 was the dominant product in this market, however, it has been replaced by the bridge-fluorocarbon HCFC-141b. Because foam manufacturers must transition away from HCFC-141b by 2003, new third generation fluorocarbon products must be developed and commercialized.
Several fluorochemical producers have targeted fluorocarbon 1,1,1,3,3-pentafluoropropane, utilizing 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane as the hydrochlorocarbon feedstock, as the primary replacement product for foam blowing applications. Zil""bennan et.al. (xe2x80x9cSynthesis of liquid telomers of vinyl chloride with carbon tetrachloridexe2x80x9d, J Org. Chem. USSR (English Transl.), 3:2101-2105,1967)prepared 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane in a 58% yield by the reaction of carbon tetrachloride and vinyl chloride using ferrous chloride tetrahydrate in isopropanol. In addition, Kotora et.al (xe2x80x9cAddition of tetrachloromethane to halogenated ethenes catalyzed by transition metal complexesxe2x80x9d, J Mol. Catal., 77(1):51-60,1992) prepared 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane in high yields using either CuCl/C4H9NH2 or Ru(Ph3P)3.
European Patent Application No. 131561 describes a very general process for the addition of a haloalkane to an alkene or alkyne compound in the presence of iron metal and a phosphorus(V) compound. While EP 131561 is very general in nature, several examples are set forth on the batch reaction of ethylene and carbon tetrachloride to produce 1,1,1,3-tetrachloropropane. However, EP 131561 does mention a wide variety of olefins and alkynes, including vinyl halides. EP 131561 also mentions that the batch process could be made continuous, but does not include any specifics on how this would be carried out.
Despite the known processes, improvements are needed in the manufacture of 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloro-propane. The present invention is directed to such an improved process. More particularly, the present invention relates to the addition of water to enhance production of 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved process for the production of chlorinated or hydrochlorinated alkanes. More particularly, a process is provided by which addition of water is used to enhance the production of any hydrochlorocarbon feedstock through the use of Kharasch chemistry, i.e., the combination of a polychlorinated alkane with an olefin to produce a chlorinated or hydrochlorinated alkane.
In one aspect, the invention provides a process for the production of a chlorinated or hydrochlorinated alkane by the reaction of a polychlorinated alkane and an olefin in a reactor, wherein water is added in an amount sufficient to increase the rate of the reaction.
In another aspect, the invention provides a process for the production of 1,1,1,3,3-pentachloropropane by the reaction of carbon tetrachloride and vinyl chloride in a reactor, wherein water is added in an amount sufficient to increase the rate of the reaction.

Water-enhanced production of 1,1,1,3,3,-pentachloropropane


An epitaxial layer is formed on a high-resistance semiconductor substrate containing interstitial oxygen at a high concentration, and then a heat treatment is performed to the semiconductor substrate at a high temperature in an oxidizing atmosphere. Accordingly, a stratiform region of SiO2 is formed by deposition at an interface between the epitaxial layer and the semiconductor substrate. As a result, an apparent SOI substrate for an SOI semiconductor device can be manufactured at a low cost.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor substrate that is generally used for a semiconductor device including a composite IC and an LSI.
2. Description of the Related Art
An SOI (Silicon On Insulator) semiconductor device has a semiconductor layer that is disposed on a semiconductor substrate through an intermediate insulating layer. Such an SOI substrate is suitably used for a device such as a composite IC, a high withstand voltage IC or an LSI for a portable instrument that is required to have high speed and low consumption power, in which several kinds of elements such as bipolar, MOS, and power elements are mounted on one chip.
To manufacture the SOI semiconductor device, an SOI substrate is required, which includes a high-quality crystalline semiconductor layer that is formed on a layer made of an insulating material such as SiO2 with extremely high resistance. Known conventional methods for manufacturing the SOI substrates include a bonding method, a SIMOX method, a method that combines bonding and ion implantation by utilizing hydrogen brittleness, and the like.
However, the SOI substrate manufactured by conventional techniques in any of the above-described methods is several to several dozen times more expensive than an ordinary bulk substrate. This is the biggest reason for preventing the SOI semiconductor device from being practically used, regardless of its inherent high performance and high functionality.

Method for manufacturing semiconductor substrate


A suspension member is mounted on the side members of an underbody. On the rear portion of the suspension member, spacers are provided between the suspension member and the underbody. Each spacer includes a bracket. The front end surface of the bracket is opposed to the rear wall surface of a main suspension body. During a frontal collision, the rear wall surface of the suspension member abuts against the bracket, whereby retreat of the suspension member is reduced.

The lower structure of a vehicle includes an underbody and a suspension member mounted on the underbody, for operably supporting movable components of a suspension. Patent Document 1 below describes a suspension member (35) securely mounded on a front-side member (1). The rear end portion of the suspension member (35) is fixed to the front-side member (1) at a rear connection portion (37) via a separate component. Patent Document 1 also describes that an under-floor unit component (17) including a fuel cell stack (13) is mounted under the floor of the vehicle. Note that the reference numerals in the parentheses, or ( ), above are those used in Patent Document 1 mentioned below and are not related to the reference numerals used in the description of the embodiments of this specification.


Apparatuses and methods are provided that include a multiplexer configured to generate a plurality of sums of a plurality of data words, wherein the plurality of data words is received by the multiplexer and identified as unmasked based on a data mask. The multiplexer is also configured to determine whether each sum of the plurality of sums indicates that a corresponding data word of the plurality of data words is masked. The multiplexer is further configured to shift the plurality of data words to remove the corresponding masked data word from the plurality of data words. The multiplexer is also configured to output only the data words identified as unmasked based on the data mask.

Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to the field of semiconductor devices. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention may provide one or more systems and methods for shifting data during a masked write to a buffer.
Description of Related Art
Computer systems are generally employed in numerous configurations to provide a variety of computing functions. Processing speeds, system flexibility, and size constraints are typically considered by design engineers tasked with developing computer systems and system components. Computer systems generally include multiple memory devices which may be used to store data (e.g., programs and user data) and which may be accessible to other system components such as processors or peripheral devices. Such memory devices may include volatile and non-volatile memory devices.
Typically, a memory device, such as a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), includes a memory array divided into a plurality of memory banks, or other divisions. Based upon addressing information received by the memory device during operation, data may be stored into and read out of appropriate banks of the memory array. For example, during operation of DRAM, an activate (e.g., active) command may be sent to the memory array. The activate command activates a row of the memory array. Further, a column select command may be sent to the memory array. The column select command selects a column of the memory array. With the row activated and the column selected, data may be retrieved from selected memory cells of the memory array.
In certain architectures, a memory device or a portion of a memory device may be used as a buffer. When data is written to the buffer, it may be beneficial for the data to be written without using row, column, and/or bank select signals. Accordingly, data is supplied and written to the memory device in a predetermined order. Data may then be read from the memory device in the same predetermined order, thus maintaining a first in, first out (FIFO) order. However, when data to be written to the memory device includes masked and unmasked data, the masked data is to be ignored and not written to the memory device. Unfortunately, traditional memory architectures are unable to seamlessly write to a memory device used as a buffer in a predetermined order while masking data that is not to be written.
Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention may be directed to one or more of the problems set forth above.

Apparatuses and methods for shifting data during a masked write to a buffer


A special brass alloy containing 62.5 to 65% by weight Cu, 2.0 to 2.4% by weight Mn, 0.7 to 0.9% by weight Ni, 1.9 to 2.3% by weight Al, 0.35 to 0.65% by weight Si, 0.3 to 0.6% by weight Fe, 0.18 to 0.4% by weight Sn and Cr, either alone or in combination, ≤0.1% by weight Pb, the remainder consisting of Zn and inevitable impurities.

The present disclosure relates to a special brass alloy and to a product produced from this special brass alloy.
For typical friction applications in a lubricant environment, generally low friction coefficients of the alloy used are required, wherein, in addition, the friction coefficient should be adaptable within predetermined limits to the respective application, in particular to the friction partner, the lubricant used and the friction conditions such as contact pressure and relative speed. This applies particularly to piston bushings which are exposed to high static and dynamic loads. Moreover, applications with high relative speeds of the friction partners, for example, in the case of axial bearings of a turbocharger, require alloys which ensure, in addition to reduced heat development, also good heat dissipation from the friction surface.
Due to the friction power and the oil contact, a tribological layer with accumulated lubricant components forms on the bearing surface. In the process, an even and at the same time high accumulation rate of the lubricant components and their degradation products is required in order to maintain a sufficiently stable absorption layer on the sliding layer.
Furthermore, a suitable bearing material is additionally characterized by a broad oil compatibility, so that the buildup of the tribological layer is largely not sensitive to the choice of certain oil additives. An additional aim consists in specifying an alloy for friction applications with good dry running properties so that a sufficient service life under dry friction conditions can be ensured.
For friction-stressed components, it is additionally important that the alloy used has sufficient strength. Accordingly, a high 0.2% elasticity limit should exist, in order to keep the plastic deformations occurring under load as small as possible. Additionally, it is necessary to specify a particularly hard alloy with a high tensile strength in order to increase its resistance to abrasive and adhesive stresses. In addition, a sufficient toughness is required as protection against impact stresses. In this connection, it is necessary to reduce the number of microdefects and the resulting growth of defects. This is associated with the requirement to specify an alloy with the highest possible fracture toughness which is largely free of internal stresses.
Suitable alloys for friction-exposed components are commonly special brasses comprising, in addition to copper and zinc as main components, an alloy additive consisting of at least one of the elements nickel, iron, manganese, aluminum, silicon, titanium or chromium. Here, in particular silicon brasses satisfy the aforementioned requirements, wherein CuZn31Si1 represents a standard alloy for friction applications such as for piston bushings. Furthermore, it is known to use tin bronzes which, in addition to tin and copper, additionally comprise nickel, zinc, iron and manganese, for friction applications or for mining.
As an example of a copper-zinc alloy which is suitable for machine parts exposed to sliding, such as bearings, worm gears, gear wheels, sliding shoes and the like, reference is made to CH 223 580 A. Disclosed is a copper proportion of 50-70% by weight with an alloy additive of 2-8% by weight aluminum, 0.05-3% silicon and 0.5-10% by weight manganese, the remainder being zinc. In addition, the alloy can comprise up to a maximum of 10% by weight lead as well as 0.1-5% by weight of one or more elements from the group consisting of iron, nickel and cobalt. Moreover, from EP 0 407 596 B1, a special brass alloy is known which comprises, in addition to copper, zinc, manganese, aluminum and silicon, comprises iron, nickel and cobalt as optional alloy components. In addition, a proportion of 0.03-1% by weight oxygen is provided. Moreover, DE 15 58 467 A discloses another special brass alloy which is provided for objects exposed to sliding and friction. In addition to copper and a zinc proportion which can reach up to 45 wt %, there is an alloy additive of manganese and silicon as well as tellurium. In addition, Fe, Ni, Al and Be represent additional optional alloy components. Furthermore, DE 15 58 817 B2 and DE 59 949 C1 describe copper alloys with a broad composition, which form a bearing material with reduced wear.
In order to achieve certain properties of a product produced from a special brass alloy, alloys with different alloy elements are used. For such components, it is thus necessary accordingly to keep different products in stock and especially also to master the handling of this wide variety of alloys.
JP 2001-355029 A discloses a synchronizer ring and thus a component designed for a temporally variable frictional load. This component is produced by the following steps: casting of a blank, hot extrusion molding of a tube, excision of a ring, hot forging and subsequent machining. The synchronizer ring is produced from a special brass alloy containing 62.46% Cu, 30.8% Cn and 0.053% Cr, the remainder consisting of Zn.
Weber et al.: "Neuer Pb-freier Kupferwerkstoff für Gleitlageranwendungen in Verbrennungsmotoren and Getrieben [New Pb-free Copper Material for Slide Bearing Applications in Combustion Engines and Transmissions]," Metall: Fachzeitschrift für Metallurgie; Technik, Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, GDMB-Verlag, Volume 63, No. 11, pages 564-567 (Nov. 1, 2009), discloses a slide bearing made of a special brass alloy with the following composition: 58% Cu, 0.5% Pb, 1% Si, 2% Mn, 0.5% Ni, 0.5% Fe, 2% Al, the remainder consisting of Zn.
An additional special brass alloy which is characterized by high strengths, improved abrasion resistance under frictional load and good dry running properties in case of deficient lubrication is known from EP 3 269 835 B1. This special brass alloy is an alloy with 60 to 62% by weight Cu, 2.1 to 2.5% by weight Mn, 0.2 to 0.6% by weight Ni, 2.9 to 3.1% by weight Al, 0.35 to 0.65% by weight Si, ≤0.1% by weight Fe, ≤0.1% by weight Sn, ≤0.1% by weight Pb, the remainder consisting of Zn and inevitable impurities. The products produced from this special brass alloy are characterized by elongate intermetallic phases in the structure which give the alloy products a high mechanical abrasion resistance. In extrusion molding, these intermetallic phases tend to result in a good longitudinal alignment tendency. Here, the elongate formation of the intermetallic phases of primarily the Mn-silicides, has the function of protecting the matrix against wear-generating stress. Thus the grain size of the (3 phase or of the 3-phase-dominated matrix is between 100 and 300 μm. Here, the products produced from this alloy are relatively coarse grained, which, however, can be advantageous for chip breaking in a metal cutting process applied to a semi-finished product produced from this alloy.
Although this previously known alloy has positive properties, the resulting relatively coarse grain is also sometimes considered to be disadvantageous, since grain boundary cracks can form during cold forming. Although semi-finished products produced from this alloy can be easily mechanically processed, it would be desirable for the remaining surface roughness resulting from mechanical processing, in particular from a metal cutting process, to be lower in order to avoid further processing effort due to subsequent polishing or a similar surface processing when the special brass alloy product is supposed to have only a low surface roughness. In addition, it has been found that these special brass alloy products or semi-finished products are subjected to relatively great thermal relaxation. As a result, the process windows to be complied with under certain circumstances, for example, for a thermal relaxation, have to be kept very narrow. In addition, when products are subjected to higher temperatures and in particular also to greater temperature variations, this process of thermal relaxation of this alloy can lead to a reduction in strength.

High-tensile brass alloy and high-tensile brass alloy product


A method of providing an estimation of a mobile station's location in a cellular communication system having a plurality of base stations and mobile stations is disclosed. The mobile station's location is provided by measuring radio propagation parameters between the mobile station and each base station within propagation range of the mobile station. Then, a location probability density function (pdf) is found based on the measured radio propagation parameters. A joint probability density function (pdf) is then constructed by combining each individual function which is obtained. The location of the mobile station is then estimated from the resulting joint probability density function (pdf).

In a cellular radio system, the served area is divided into cells. Each cell is served by one base station. An active mobile station in a cell remains in radio contact with the serving base station. In normal operation, when a mobile engaged in active conversation moves from one cell to another, the cellular system will perform a hand-off in which the mobile station is instructed to tune to a new channel served by the base station of the cell it is entering.
In order to provide more efficient hand-offs and traffic management, a cellular system needs to know the approximate location of all the mobile stations engaged in active calls. In addition, a cellular system may also provide a mobile station location service. This service can provide information on the location of mobile station to the authorized service subscriber, even if the mobile is not engaged in an active call.


A method of determining the position of an underwater node. The positions of three or more transmitters are determined. Each transmitter transmits at least four pulses, wherein a time difference between each pulse and a previous one of the pulses is proportional to a respective co-ordinate of the position of the transmitter. The pulses are received at the underwater node and decoded by measuring the delays between them, thereby determining the co-ordinates of the transmitters. The range of each transmitter relative to the underwater node is also determined. Finally the position of the underwater node is determined in accordance with the co-ordinates and ranges. Any errors in the measurements of the delays between the pulses only translate into small errors in the determined position because of the proportionality between the delays and the coordinates. Therefore if there is a gradual decrease of signal-to-noise ratio then the accuracy of the position estimate also degrades gradually. Also, the use of pulse position modulation provides a low computation overhead in decoding and encoding.

A known method and apparatus for determining the position of an underwater node is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,341. A plurality of buoys determine their positions based on Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation satellites and emit acoustic underwater data messages which contains this position. An underwater vehicle receives the messages and determines its position therefrom. Spread spectrum encoding is used to allow a single beacon carrier frequency for all buoys. Alternatively separate and locally-unique beacon carrier frequencies can be assigned to each buoy.


The present invention provides a dielectric filter capable of increasing a designing freedom for obtaining a desired filter characteristic and capable of producing an attenuation pole in the vicinity of passing frequency band, also to provide a duplexer and communication apparatus formed by using the dielectric filter and the duplexer. In a dielectric block there are formed two through holes of rectangular cross section extending from a first end face to a predetermined depth, with the internal sizes thereof being different from each other. In this way, it is possible to enlarge the ranges obtainable by mutual capacitances on an open face side and a short circuit face side, thereby making it sure to dispose an attenuation pole in the vicinity of a passing frequency band.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dielectric filter formed by providing electrodes on both inside and outside of a dielectric block, also relates to a duplexer and a communication apparatus fabricated by using the above dielectric filter and the duplexer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Several dielectric filters each formed by providing a plurality of resonators in a dielectric block may be classified into several types, and are used in different ways in accordance with different purposes. As one type of an dielectric filter in which one end face of the dielectric block is used as an open face while an opposite end face is used as a short circuit face, there have been several patent publications which disclose the following arrangements.
(1) Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-310911 discloses that electrically conductive materials are disposed in all the surfaces and through holes except the first end face, cross sectional shape of the through holes on the first end face side are made different from that on the second end face side, so that the same resonators are combined together with the characteristic impedance on one side being different from the other.
(2) Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 63-181002 discloses that a plurality of through holes are arranged in parallel with one another in a dielectric block, and a coupling hole is provided between these through holes.
(3) U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,193 (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-505608) discloses that through holes having constant cross sections are provided in a dielectric block, and input/output electrodes capable of surface mounting are provided on the side face of the dielectric block.
(4) Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-86807 discloses that a plurality of through holes are formed in a dielectric block, one end of each through hole is formed into a short circuit face while the other end thereof is formed into an open face. Further, a recess portion is formed on the open face side; and a conductor is disposed in the recess portion for getting in connection with conductors within the through holes, thereby forming a desired load capacity.
However, with the dielectric filters of the above (1), (2) and (3), when a dielectric block having a pure rectangular parallelepiped shape is used, there is a problem that it is difficult to obtain a large freedom in designing for obtaining a desired characteristic. Moreover, there is no attenuation pole existing in the frequency gain property.
With the dielectric filter of the above (4), the load capacity is created and resonator length is shortened by forming a recess portion on open end face side of each through hole.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention provide a dielectric filter, a duplexer and a communication apparatus fabricated by using the dielectric filter and the duplexer, all free from the above-discussed problems.
In order to control a coupling coefficient between resonators and to control an attenuation pole frequency, a distance (pitch) between through holes adjacent to each other and a difference (a step ratio) between cross section sizes of the through holes are used as structural parameters, thereby making it possible to change a self-capacitance and a mutual capacitance, both of which may be calculated with the use of the above parameters.
However, in a prior art dielectric filter, since the cross sections of through holes extending from a first end face side to a second end face side are all circular, it is impossible to obtain a necessary capacity value of Cij and a necessary coupling coefficient, all within a range allowed by realizable formation sizes. Further, in order to form an attenuation pole at a frequency in the vicinity of passing frequency band, it is necessary to increase both Cij on the open face side and Cij on the short circuit face side. But, since it is impossible to obtain a necessary capacity value of Cij within a range allowed by realizable formation sizes, it is probably impossible to form an attenuation pole at a desired frequency.
Here, the present invention is a dielectric filter wherein a plurality of through holes are formed in a dielectric block having a generally rectangular parallelepiped shape, extending from a first end face thereof and reaching a second end face thereof opposite to the first end face, internal conductors are provided within the holes, a conductor with its first end face serving as an open face and its second end face serving as a short circuit face is provided on the external surface of the dielectric block, thereby forming a plurality of dielectric resonators, cross sections of the holes are made rectangular, a depth which is 10% to 50% of the hole length extending from the first end face to the second end face is served as a step position, an internal size of each hole extending from the step position to the first end face is different from an internal size of the hole extending from the step position to the second end face.
In this way, since cross sections of the holes formed in the dielectric block are made rectangular, a depth which is 10% to 50% of the hole length extending from the open face is served as a step position, if compared with a case where the cross sectional shape of the through holes are circular, it is possible that Cij may be made large when the coupling coefficient has been made constant. Thus, an attenuation pole may be generated in a position close to a central frequency of a passing frequency band, thereby making it possible to improve a characteristic of an attenuation amount in the vicinity of a passing frequency band.
Further, the present invention is a dielectric filter wherein a plurality of through holes are formed in a dielectric block having a generally rectangular parallelepiped shape, extending from a first end face thereof and reaching a second end face thereof opposite to the first end face, internal conductors are provided within the holes, a conductor with its first end face serving as an open face and its second end face serving as a short circuit face is provided on the external surface of the dielectric block, thereby forming a plurality of dielectric resonators, cross sections of the holes are made rectangular, a depth which is 10% to 50% of the hole length extending from the first end face to the second end face is served as a step position, a cross section of each hole extending from the step position to the first end face is rectangular, and a cross section of the hole extending from the step position to the second end face is circular.
In this way, since the cross sections of the through holes on the short circuit face side having a high electric current density are made into circular shapes, it is possible to avoid a current concentration on top portions of through holes having square cross section, thereby enabling the electric current to be distributed uniformly and thus improving a no-load Q (Qo). Further, since the cross sections of the through holes on the open face side are formed into rectangular shape, it is allowed to increase a designing freedom for designing the above Ci and Cij, thus making it possible that an attenuation pole may be generated in a position closer to a central frequency of a passing frequency band.
Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a duplexer having a plurality of dielectric filters, characterized in that at least one group of dielectric filters are incorporated in a single one dielectric block. In this manner, it is possible to obtain a duplexer comprising a reception filter capable of attenuating a transmission frequency band and allowing the passing of reception frequency band, and a transmission filter capable of attenuating a reception frequency band and allowing the passing of transmission frequency band. Therefore, since it is possible to generate an attenuation pole frequency in the vicinity of a passing frequency band, the above reception filter and the above transmission filter are suitable for use in a case where a transmission frequency band and a reception frequency band are close to each other.
Further, according to the present invention there is provided a communication apparatus characterized in that said device is formed by providing in its high frequency circuit either a dielectric filter or a duplexer. Therefore, it is possible to obtain a communication apparatus which is compact in size and has an excellent characteristic such as an excellent CN ratio of a high frequency circuit section.

Dielectric filter, duplexer and communication apparatus


A method and a system for fine control of the thermal power of a nuclear boiling water reactor (BWR) with natural circulation. The reactor vessel, in which the core of such a reactor is enclosed, embodies an in-vessel part of a water level gauge containing a water level sensor, such that together with the out-of-vessel part of the system, which is a signal conditioning and processing unit, the effective water level in the vessel can accurately be measured and adjusted either automatically or by hand. The in-vessel part of the system comprises a water level gauge, such as a vertical standpipe, in which the "steam-collapsed" or "effective" water level is accurately created. The effective water level is typically defined for a reactor vessel of a normally operating boiling water reactor (BWR), while partly containing liquid water, partly a mixture of steam and water, and partly just steam. A ternary-coding, hybrid digital/analog thermocouple sensor with stand-alone capability is enclosed in the water level gauge, providing ternary-coded (-1, 0, +1) as well as analog (amplitude) signaling, such that by using an appropriate signal conditioning and processing unit, the water level in the gauge, relative to a reference level, is uniquely and very accurately determined. By the beneficial use of the analog information on water level contained in the signal transition curves, in addition to the digital information of the sensor signals, continuous water level readings can be obtained over the whole of a designed water level measuring range, this being independent of reactor water temperature or pressure. This accurate continuous level-measuring system is not limited to use in boiling water reactors, nor to water as a level-forming liquid.

The thermal power and the power distribution of a nuclear boiling water reactor with natural circulation, such as the Dodewaard reactor in the Netherlands, is controlled with neutron-absorbing control rods that are moved stepwise into and out of the core of the reactor. To compensate for fuel depletion while operating the reactor at full power, some control rods are quite frequently moved to new axial positions. Toward the end of a power cycle, all the control rods are gradually withdrawn from the core.
The nuclear reactor is contained in a reactor vessel largely filled with water (see FIG. 1). During normal operation, much of the water is in the boiling phase, due to the nuclear heat produced in the reactor core. The uppermost part of the reactor vessel is filled with steam. This steam is fed to a turbogenerator in order to generate electricity. The water in the vessel is partly in gas phase and partly in liquid phase, its gas/liquid ratio depending on the thermal energy produced by the core of the reactor.
The interface between the steam and the boiling water, referred to as "froth level" in FIG. 1, is usually maintained at a constant position in the upper part of the vessel, by returning the condensed steam from the turbine condenser, referred to as "feed water" in FIG. 1, back to the reactor vessel with powerful high-pressure pumps.
No previous means have been capable of accurately detecting the position of the turbulent "froth level". A standpipe is normally connected on the outside of the vessel in which, on the principle of communicating vessels, a solid column of water is automatically created and in which the weight of the column is a measure of the position of the so-called "effective level" in the vessel. Pressure transducers connected to these standpipes provide level signals to the automatic control system to maintain the water level in the vessel at a fixed preset position. The reactor operators are able to manually change the set-point of this level control system.
However, during operation at high pressure and temperature, these generally applied pressure difference measuring systems suffer from decalibration effects. Moreover, during start-up and shutdown operations of the reactor system, this level measuring method is quite inaccurate, largely due to changing temperatures inside the vessel itself, as well as inside the standpipes located on the outside of the vessel.

Method and system for fine control of thermal power of a boiling water reactor with natural circulation

N.V. Tot Keuring Van Elektrotechnische Materialen (KEMA)


A wiring substrate includes an insulating layer, a first pad, and a solder resist layer. The first pad is embedded in the insulating layer. The solder resist layer is provided on an upper surface of the insulating layer. The solder resist layer is formed with an opening portion through which the recess portion is exposed. An adjacent portion of the solder resist layer adjacent to a peripheral portion of the opening portion covers a peripheral portion of the upper surface of the first pad and protrudes from the peripheral portion of the upper surface of the first pad toward the center portion of the first pad so as to cover above the recess portion. Surfaces of the first pad being in contact with the insulating layer are smaller in roughness than the upper surface of the insulating layer and the peripheral portion of the upper surface of the first pad.

1. Field
Exemplary embodiments of the invention relate to a wiring substrate and a method for manufacturing the wiring substrate.
2. Related Art
What is called build-up wiring substrates are known in which wiring layers and insulating layers are stacked alternately and the wiring layers are connected to each other through via holes which penetrate through the insulating layers. For example, such build-up wiring substrates are manufactured by stacking wiring layers and insulating layers on a support body and then removing the support body.
In a manufacturing process of a build-up wiring substrate, a surface of a support body may be roughened. In this case, when the support body is removed, the roughened surface of the support body is transferred to an insulating layer or the like that has been formed on the support body. Therefore, when a solder resist layer, an underfill resin, or the like is formed on the roughened surface of the insulating layer after the removal of the support body, adhesion property between the insulating layer and the solder resist layer, underfill resin, or the like can be improved (for example, see JP 2012-209580 A (corresponding to US 2009/0095514 A).

Wiring substrate and method for manufacturing the same


The present invention relates to a router (e.g., intermediate router) and a method that queues and services an upgraded/downgraded packet and a plurality of other packets all of which are part of a flow in a manner that eliminates the reordering of the packets. In one embodiment, the router and method queues and services the packets by handing-off a token from an upgraded/downgraded packet to a head-of-line packet which is forwarded to a downstream router. In another embodiment, the router and method queues and services the packets without handing-off a token from an upgraded/downgraded packet to a head-of-line packet which is forwarded to a downstream router.

Mechanisms that provide various levels of QoS use schedulers and queues to offer privileged treatment or services to clients. These clients can vary from rental car customers waiting to be served in various queues depending on their membership level, to processes waiting to be executed on a computer . . . to packets belonging to various QoS classes waiting to be serviced by a router in a network.
In queuing systems, clients with higher precedence classes have higher service rates or get serviced before the clients with lower precedence classes. The privilege given to clients with higher precedence classes causes a relatively shorter waiting time for them when compared to clients with lower precedence classes. As a result, the clients in the higher precedence classes in general are able to leave the queuing system earlier than the clients in the lower precedence classes. To accomplish this, the queuing system often changes the sequence of clients to service the higher precedence clients before the lower precedence clients.
In some cases, when there are no clients with higher precedence classes waiting to be serviced, the queuing system may decide to "promote" a lower precedence class client to be serviced as a high precedence class client. This may be done to keep the efficiency high in the queuing system. In other cases, when a high precedence class is over-booked with clients then the queuing system may decide to "demote" a higher precedence class client to be serviced as a low precedence class client. After a queuing system "remarks" (promotes or demotes) a client, then there is a potential to reorder the clients which in some applications can be problematic. For example, in a traditional queuing system like the one used in the routers of a network, whenever a packet (client) is promoted or demoted from one QoS class to another QoS class then this may result in a reordering in either the same node in which the remark occurred or in a downstream node. The reordering of packets can be problematical as will be discussed next with respect to the network 100 shown in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1 (PRIOR ART), there is shown an exemplary network 100 which has a source computer 102 (user 102) that communicates with a destination computer 104 (user 104) via multiple routers/nodes 106 (only 9 routers/nodes 106 shown). Each router 106 includes a queuing system 108 with a queue 110 and a scheduler 112 that implements a traditional QoS method 114. An example of the operation of the traditional QoS method 114 is described next with respect to two of the routers 106′ and 106″. Assume three packets are received at the router 106′ in the order 1, 2, 3. The first and the third packets belong to the same flow (e.g. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) flow) and have a 'lower precedence' QoS class than the second packet which belongs to another flow. As such, packets 1 and 3 are stored in a lower precedence queue than packet 2. Assume packets 2 and 3 arrive at the time when packet 1 was being transmitted to router 106″. After packet 1 is transmitted, the scheduler 112 in router 106′ schedules packet 2 to go after packet 1 since packet 2 has a higher precedence class than packet 3. Assume also that packet 3, having complied with a certain policy, was promoted by the scheduler 112 in router 106′ to a higher precedence class. In this example, the packets are transmitted in the order 1, 2, 3 to the downstream router 106″.
At the downstream router 106″, packet 1 waits in the lower precedence queue to be scheduled for transmission. Assume, that packet 1 finds packet 0 being transmitted so it has to wait. While packet 1 is waiting, packets 2 and 3 are received and queued in the higher precedence class. Upon completion of the transmission of packet 0, packets 2 and 3 are scheduled to go next since they are of higher precedence than packet 1. Notice that packets 1 and 3, which belong to the same flow, got reordered in the downstream router 106″. This reordering of packets 1 and 3 is not desirable and strongly discouraged for the reasons discussed next.
The reordering of packets is strongly discouraged because of the high complexity and high cost associated with the handling of reordered packets. For instance, if the packets are reordered then some higher layer protocols, like TCP for example, suffer a severe performance impact since out-of-order packets indicate packet loss and therefore congestion. This problem is discussed in greater detail in the following documents (the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein):    [1] S. Bohacek, J. P. Hespanha, J. Lee, C. Lim, K. Obraczka "TCP-PR: TCP for Persistent Packet Reordering", Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, May 2003.    [2] S. Blake, D. Black, M. Carlson, E. Davies, Z. Whang, and W. Weiss "An architecture for differentiated services", RFC 2475, 1998.    [3] J. Heinanen, F. Baker, W. Weiss, J. Wroclawski "Assured Forwarding PHB Group", RFC 2597, June 1999.In fact, in some network technologies (e.g., Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)), it is strictly prohibited to reorder packets.
As can be seen, the reordering of clients (packets) which belonged to the same flow or service class when they entered the network is not desired and may be even prohibited. This reordering problem becomes even more complex when packets come in batches (i.e. flows) which are labeled with the same QoS or precedence class and which merge with other packet batches (flows) within the same QoS queue. Accordingly, there is a need for a new queuing system and method for queuing clients (packets) in a manner that overcomes the reordering problem which is associated with the traditional queuing system. This need and other needs are satisfied by queuing system and method of the present invention.

Quality of service (QoS) class reordering with token retention


A shovel and shovel handle attached to a cylinder for dispensing liquid binding tack emulsion on curb faces or edges prior to paving asphalt on roads. Emulsion solution is poured in the cylinder top and dispensed from a hole at the bottom of a cylinder cap. An idler wheel is attached onto a rod connected to a deflector shield in one embodiment, or by U-bolt assembly onto the front of the cylinder in another embodiment. A hook rod is inserted in the cylinder and is pulled upward to allow the solution to flow out of the cylinder. The deflector shield keeps the solution against the shovel head, while solution is being distributed evenly along the curb face or edge.

1. Field of Invention
This invention benefits the paving industry when the tack emulsion is to be applied prior to paving on existing concrete curb face or asphalt edge to adhere to the newly laid asphalt.
2. Description of Prior Art
No prior art found.
To dispense or apply tack emulsion solution to an existing concrete curb face or asphalt edge, for the purpose of adhering to the newly paved asphalt. Tack, as it is commonly known in the asphalt construction industry business, is an asphaltic emulsion solution, liquid asphalt, or a variety of other substances which are applied onto a surface that is to be paved only to existing asphalt. A tack truck, commonly known as a boot truck, would apply a tack overlay to the old existing asphalt road just prior to the new asphalt paving placement. This area is however only on the main road surface and not for the curb face and edges, because precision and accuracy is not always achieved. Most boot trucks are able to spray or apply to the curbs with a spray wand unit on the boot truck, or boot trailer. The spray wand can be used to apply tack, but it is costly when complaints are called in because of getting the black tack solution, aggravated by wind conditions and other unpredictable factors, on other areas besides where the tack is to be applied.
When the road grade work is complete, that is when the road surface doesn""t need tack, but the curb edges will have to be tacked. There are a lot of jobs with new construction, which means no previous asphalt is existing. When only the concrete curb face needs tack, the expense of a boot truck would not be logical. That is when you need something smaller to efficiently tack the curbs or edges that the new asphalt will have to bind to.
Many asphalt road companies have what is called a boot trailer, or boot wagon which holds the tack emulsion that is sprayed on the curbs or edges. The boot trailer is hooked on a pick-up truck and two men are involved, one to drive the pick-up truck to pull the boot trailer, while another man is spraying tack. Occasionally a tack clot goes thru the spray nozzle and it could mean tack spitting different directions. The inspectors on the job site will not allow tack above the pavement line or on the sidewalk. Any tack solution showing on areas other than where it is supposed to be will be removed at the expense of the company spraying tack.
Vertical curbs are hard to judge spraying with a boot trailer or boot truck. The spraying process can result in over spray which can create a messy situation especially when the wind is blowing. If the boot trailer or boot truck is not already owned by the company doing road construction then this equipment is costly to purchase and expensive to rent.
In the paving construction field when the curb is the only tack item to be tacked, some companies have used paint brushes to apply the tack, while others use the cup dipping method. Dipping a cup into the tack solution and putting the cup next to the curb while trying to pour the tack emulsion solution onto the curb face. This is hard to do without making a mess. Some have used the shovel method, pouring the tack onto a shovel that is held against the curb and walking using the shovel edge as a guide. This would involve two men, one holding the shovel while the other man is constantly dipping a cup in the bucket of tack solution and pouring it onto the shovel. These methods are simple and both work, but they are back breaking and time consuming .
TACK-IT EZ is a useful asphalt hand tool device to apply tack solution on the road edge of concrete curbs and asphalt edges. It""s very easy to manage and operate. Pour tack solution in cylinder, place idler wheel on existing curb, pull hook rod up and walk on the side of curb. Tack is dispensed evenly on the side of curbs. All models work the same, except the Model VC500 has a feature that allows the idler wheel to be adjustable to the desired height.
Objects and Advantages
Accordingly, besides the objects and advantages of the TACK-IT EZ described in my above patent, several objects and advantages of the present invention are:
(a) to provide an asphalt hand held device that will dispense tack solution on existing concrete curb face and asphalt edge face;
(b) to provide an asphalt hand tool that will make pothole tacking easy to handle;
(c) to provide an asphalt hand tool that will be easy to handle and operate, all asphalt crew members can handle a shovel;
(d) to provide an asphalt hand tool that eliminates the normally back breaking task of applying tack to curb face and edges;
(e) to provide an asphalt hand tool that eliminates the messy and sloppy appearance of other methods that are used to apply tack to curb face and edges;
(f) to provide an asphalt hand tool that will eliminate getting tack all over hands for a job that can be messy otherwise;
(g) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can be cleaned and maintained fairly easy;
(h) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can stand by itself while pouring the tack solution into the cylinder, allowing one man to fill cylinder;
(i) to provide an asphalt hand device that can accommodate the curb tacking job;
(j) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can apply tack solution to the hard to do vertical curbs and edges and get a more professional job appearance;
(k) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can apply tack with the one man operation procedure, it virtually eliminates the two man operation procedure;
(l) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can eliminate using tack trailers or a tack truck, creating a time and expense saver;
(m) to provide an asphalt hand tool that is approximately fifty-six inches (56xe2x80x3) tall and approximately twelve inches (12xe2x80x3) in depth, for the largest model, which makes it extremely portable and space efficient;
(n) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can be easily carried in just a relatively small space in the back of the pick-up work truck and be readily available;
(o) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can be produced in the different but similar models;
(p) to provide an asphalt hand tool that can be manufactured fairly inexpensively;
Further objects and advantages are to provide an asphalt tool which can be used easily and conveniently in applying tack solution to the existing concrete curb face and asphalt edges, without defacing the curb and edges with excessive tack solution. This asphalt tool which is simple to use and inexpensive to manufacture, can be supplied in different but similar models, which can be used repeatedly. Still further objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.

TACK-IT EZ; asphalt tool to dispense tack emulsion on existing concrete or asphalt curb face or edges