A composite litter board is made from two separate rigid board members that are adapted to be releasably secured to each other by two rigid partial sleeves with C-shaped cross sections that have narrow openings.

Injuries often result in an injured person becoming physically incapable of self-transport to a medical facility. For example, trauma may result in unconsciousness or dizziness. In addition, self-transport may aggravate the injuries and lead to additional complications. Hence it is often necessary or desirable for medical personnel to transport an injured individual ("patient") to a medical facility while that patient is prone and possible partially or completely immobilized. To this end, so called litters or stretchers are typically employed.
There are several features which are either necessary or desirable for such an apparatus. First, it must be recognized that the patient may need to be transported between difficult to access locations, and that it may therefore be necessary for medical personnel to carry the patient for significant distances. Therefore the apparatus must be capable of supporting a patient for prolonged periods of time. It should also be sufficiently rigid to support the patient in an immobilized condition under circumstances where transport without such immobilization is likely to result in further injury or complications.
The apparatus should therefore also be lightweight, to decrease the overall load to the persons carrying it. In addition, it must be easily portable to the location of the patient prior to use and easily stored for future use. Ideally, it should be easily made available to medical personnel who are not expecting to encounter injured people at a specific location or time.
Further, the patient might be located in water as a result of an accident. Thus, it would be desirable for the transport apparatus to provide some buoyancy in such situations, to assist in the transport of the patient.
In addition, the apparatus should be capable of being easily cleaned. Patients often bleed during transport, and the apparatus should be capable of being cleaned between uses to provide an environment which is not unnecessarily conducive to infection.
Diagnosis of patients often requires the patient be the subject of procedures such as x-ray scanning, CT scanning, and the like. These procedures often require that the patient be placed within or adjacent to a large, fixed apparatus. It would be desirable for the transport apparatus to permit such placement without the necessity of removing the apparatus from the patient, as such removal may lead to greater injury, as mentioned above.
One apparatus long known to the art is the canvas stretcher. A rectangular canvas or cloth piece is attached at parallel sides to elongated rods. Medical personnel may lift the stretcher by means of handles at the ends of the rods. The stretcher may be collapsed by placing the rods together.
The stretcher has only a few of the desired features. It is relatively lightweight and portable. It does not interfere with some diagnostic procedures. Unfortunately, it is also not rigid enough to immobilize patients effectively. This non-rigidity often necessitates additional devices such as splints and boards to provide the necessary stiffness. Such stiffening devices require additional time to attach, and add significantly to the weight of the patient-apparatus combination which must be carried by the medical personnel. In addition, the degree of immobilization needed to prevent compounding of the existing injuries may not be achievable.
Alternatively, a rigid board ("litter board") or other device may be used to transport the patient. Such devices are more rigid than a stretcher, enabling better opportunity for protecting and immobilizing the patient. Such a device, however, is often heavy, hard to clean, cumbersome, and difficult to transport to and from the site of the patient. Moreover, such devices typically utilize metallic components which interfere with x-rays and the like.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved litter board.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a portable, lightweight and yet rigid litter board.
It is a yet further object of the present invention to provide a buoyant litter board.
It is a yet further object of the present invention to provide a litter board which may be easily cleaned.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a little board which permits diagnostic scanning of a patient without removal from the litter board.
These and other objects of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings.


A computer-implemented method for designing a 3D modeled object via user-interaction. The method includes obtaining the 3D modeled object and a machine-learnt decoder. The machine-learnt decoder is a differentiable function taking values in a latent space and outputting values in a 3D modeled object space. The method further includes defining a deformation constraint for a part of the 3D modeled object. The method further comprises determining an optimal vector. The optimal vector minimizes an energy. The energy explores latent vectors. The energy comprises a term which penalizes, for each explored latent vector, non-respect of the deformation constraint by the result of applying the decoder to the explored latent vector. The method further includes applying the decoder to the optimal latent vector. This constitutes an improved method for designing a 3D modeled object via user-interaction.

A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design, the engineering and the manufacturing of objects. CAD is an acronym for Computer-Aided Design, e.g. it relates to software solutions for designing an object. CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM is an acronym for Computer-Aided Manufacturing, e.g. it relates to software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations. In such computer-aided design systems, the graphical user interface plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique. These techniques may be embedded within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. PLM refers to a business strategy that helps companies to share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to the end of their life, across the concept of extended enterprise. The PLM solutions provided by Dassault Systemes (under the trademarks CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA) provide an Engineering Hub, which organizes product engineering knowledge, a Manufacturing Hub, which manages manufacturing engineering knowledge, and an Enterprise Hub which enables enterprise integrations and connections into both the Engineering and Manufacturing Hubs. All together the system delivers an open object model linking products, processes, resources to enable dynamic, knowledge-based product creation and decision support that drives optimized product definition, manufacturing preparation, production and service.
In this context and other contexts, machine-learning and in particular autoencoder and/or manifold learning is gaining wide importance.
The following papers relate to this field and are referred to hereunder: [1]: "Stacked Denoising Autoencoders: Learning Useful Representations in a Deep Network with a Local Denoising Criterion", P. Vincent, H. Larcohelle, I. Lajoie, Y. Bengio, P. Manzagol, in The Journal of Machine Learning Research, 2010.
[2]: "Reducing the Dimensionality of Data with Neural Networks", G. E. Hinton, R. R. Salakhutdinov, in Science, 2006.
[3]: "Learning Deep Architectures for Al", Y. Bengio, in Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, 2009.
[4]: "Generative Adversarial Nets", I. Goodfellow, J. Pouget-Abadie, M. Mirza, B. Xu, D. Warde-Farley, S. Glair, A. Courville, Y. Bengio, in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2014.
[5]: "Generative Visual Manipulation on the Natural Image Manifold", J-Y Zhu, P. Krähenbühl, E. Shechtman, A. A. Efros, in ECCV 2016.
[6]: "Neural Photo Editing with Introspective Adversarial Networks", A. Brock, T. Lim, J. M. Ritchie, in ICLR 2017.
Given a dataset representing samples from a same class, for example a dataset of images of chairs, or a dataset of 3D models of cars, autoencoders (explained in [1,2]) aims at learning a mapping between the original input space of this dataset and a low-dimensional space, often called latent space. Moreover, autoencoders also learn a reverse mapping from the latent space to the original input space. They may be used to do realistic non-linear interpolation in the original spaces, extract meaningful features in the data, compress the data into a compact representation, etc.
Paper [4] introduces a generative adversarial network, a model which learns a decoder, but also sets a probabilistic prior on the latent space to learn the distribution of the data. To do so, they train the decoder in order to fool a discriminator, whereas the discriminator is trained to classify between real data and synthetized data. One can also teach an encoder to project the data onto the latent space, using a reconstruction error like autoencoders.
Paper [5] learns a generative adversarial network on images. The modifications are finally retargeted onto the original image with optical flow. Paper [6] also proposes an edition system onto images, by learning an introspective adversarial network, a hybridization between a variational autoencoder and a generative adversarial network, but they retarget the user modifications with masking techniques instead of optical flow.
However, the use of machine-learning techniques in the context of (e.g. 3D) design remains an uncommon and relatively unknown approach.
Within this context, there is still a need for an improved method for designing a 3D modeled object via user-interaction.

Designing a 3D modeled object via user-interaction


A trombone includes a bell flare, a tuning slide connected with the bell flare via a tuning-slide crook, a bell brace securely connected between the tuning slide and the bell flare, a hand slide which has a first end slidably received within the tuning slide and a second end which is detachably connected with a cup, and an outer slide brace securely connected between the hand slide and the tuning slide further has an adjustable support securely mounted onto the bell flare for the user to distribute the weight of the trombone evenly onto the user's upper arm. Furthermore, a grip portion provided between the hand slide and the tuning slide is able to provide the user a comfortable grip effect when holding the trombone. An adjusting device mounted on the tuning slide and a distal end of which is adjustably and detachably engaged with a bell lock mounted at an intersection of the hand slide and the tuning slide is able to provide a suitable length for the extension of the user's arm.

A conventional trombone shown in FIG. 5 includes a bell flare 50, a bell brace 51 securely mounted between the bell flare 50 and a tuning slide 52, an inner slide brace 53 and an outer slide brace 54 securely mounted between the tuning slide 52 and a hand slide 55 and a "U" shaped tuning-slide crook 56 integrally formed with distal ends of the bell flare 50 and the tuning slide 52, hence connecting the bell flare 50 with the tuning slide 52 into one piece.
The trombone discussed above suffers several disadvantages in that when the user is playing it, the weight of the trombone is solely supported by one of the user's hands, therefore, the user could feel very tired after a period of time holding the trombone. Furthermore, because of the disposition of the tuning slide 52, the user's neck will have to twist so as to blow into a cup 57. Additionally, when the user is playing the trombone, a left thumb engages the bell brace 51 and then the other four fingers of the user's left hand hold the inner slide brace 53 tightly. However, owing to the distance between the bell brace 51 and the inner slide brace 53 being fixed, it is difficult for users having small hands to play the instrument.
From the previous description, it is noted that conventional trombone are not able to be practically ergonomic. Therefore, a comfortable structure for holding a trombone is necessary.
Thus, a trombone constructed in accordance with the present invention tends to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.


A transmitter used in a wireless communication system based on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme includes a determination unit that determines a spreading factor and an amplitude for a control channel based on at least one of signal quality information and interference information in data transmission. The transmitter also includes a multiplexing unit that multiplexes a data channel with the control channel having been code-spread based on the spreading factor and the amplitude. A modulator then modulates the multiplexed signal in the OFDM scheme for transmission as OFDM symbols.

OFDM transmission is a promising access scheme in the field of wireless communication because of the advantageous features in the multipath propagation environment. In OFDM transmission, a data channel (or a sequence of symbols) to be transmitted is associated with multiple subcarriers selected so as to be orthogonal to each other, and is subjected to inverse Fourier transform and application of a guard interval, prior to being transmitted as OFDM symbols. At the receiving end, the guard interval is removed from the received signal, and Fourier transform is performed to extract information from each of the subcarriers. Then, the transmitted data channel is recovered.
The wireless receiver receives a control channel, as well as the data channel. The control channel includes a pilot channel containing priori known symbols, a common control channel used to transmit common information to all wireless receivers in the system, and an individual control channel used to transmit an individual data item to a wireless receiver. Dedicated resources are allocated to the control channel, which control channel is multiplexed with the OFDM symbols transmitted from the wireless transmitter. The wireless receiver extracts the control channel, including the pilot channel, from the received OFDM symbols, and performs channel estimation and securing of synchronization timing. This type of wireless transmission using an OFDM scheme is described in JP 2001-144724A.
FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B are schematic diagrams illustrating a control channel multiplexed with a data channel. In FIG. 1A, the control channel is frequency-multiplexed with the data channel by allocating a certain band of the spectrum. In FIG. 1B, the control channel is time-multiplexed with the data channel by allocating a certain time slot to the pilot channel.
It will be more and more required for this field of technology to catch up with the increasing moving speed of mobile terminals, expansion of the available frequency band, and shift to higher ranges of frequency, from the viewpoint of providing high-quality services. Accordingly, it is required to provide communication services capable of sufficiently meeting a rapid change in the signal level along the time and frequency axes occurring in the communication environment.
As illustrated in FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, a control channel (such as a pilot channel) is inserted only in a specific domain along the frequency axis or the time axis. For this reason, if the signal level abruptly changes in a domain in which the pilot channel is not inserted, satisfactory channel estimation cannot be performed. In this case, the function and the objective of the pilot channel cannot be achieved sufficiently. This means that the resources allocated to that control channel are not being efficiently used.
In addition, since dedicated resources are allocated to the control channel, the resources to be allocated to the data channel decreases. If the resources dedicatedly allocated to the control channel cannot be used efficiently, allocating the dedicated resources to the control channel, while decreasing the resources to be allocated to the other channels, becomes meaningless.


By reducing the overlap between HARQ subpackets transmitted by means of a transmitting MS and a cooperative MS, the disclosed method is capable of increasing gains in HARQ IR signal synthesis. The method transmits a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) in a cooperative communication system formed so as to comprise a transmitting mobile station (MS) and a cooperative MS, and involves creating individual HARQ subpackets transmitted by means of the transmitting MS and the cooperative MS such that said subpackets are arranged in mutually opposite directions in a circular buffer.

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.16 working group is creating an 802.16m radio interface specification that satisfies requirements of an IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications)-advanced next-generation mobile phone system. Based on the IEEE 802.16m draft standard, the WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) forum is working out the WiMAX release 2.0 MSP (Mobile System Profile; mobile communication system profile) (see NPL 1). The IEEE 802.16m standard and WiMAX release 2.0 MSP are expected to be completed by early 2011.
The IEEE802.16 working group has also started envisioning and designing a future 802.16/WiMAX network which excels 802.16m/WiMAX2.0. There is common recognition among the 802.16/WiMAX community that the future 802.16/WiMAX will support an explosive increase of mobile communication data traffic spurred by apparatuses with greater screens, multimedia applications and an increasing number of connected users and apparatuses. The future 802.16/WiMAX network will also efficiently cooperate with other wireless techniques such as 802.11/Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity).
The future 802.16/WiMAX network will be drastically improved regarding various performance index values such as throughput and SE (Spectral Efficiency) compared to the 802.16m network. For example, when coverage in a metropolitan area is assumed, the future 802.16/WiMAX network is aiming at SE at a cell edge twice that of the 802.16m/WiMAX2.0 network on both UL (uplink) and DL (downlink) (see NPL 2). It should be noted that the 802.16m/WiMAX2.0 network has SE at a cell edge of at least 0.06 bps/Hz/sec of DL in a 4×2 antenna configuration and SE at a cell edge of at least 0.03 bps/Hz/see of UL in a 2×4 antenna configuration.
For example, collaboration techniques such as CliCo (Client Collaboration) has assured a drastic improvement in SE at a cell edge and energy efficiency of an entire network of a radio communication system. CliCo is a technique for clients to jointly transmit/receive data in radio communication (see NPL 3). CliCo uses client clustering and peer-to-peer communication to transmit/receive information through a plurality of paths between a BS and a client. As a result, it is possible to improve SE at a cell edge without any increase in infrastructure costs. Furthermore, CliCo can extend the service life of a battery of a client having a poor channel.
FIG. 1 shows a diagram illustrating typical radio communication system 100 that performs CliCo. Radio communication system 100 includes BS (base station) 102 and a plurality of MSs (mobile stations), for example MS 104 and MS 106.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating typical BS 102. BS 102 is equipped with only WiMAX and is constructed of WiMAX PHY block 130 and WiMAX MAC block 120. WiMAX MAC block 120 performs a WiMAX OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access)-based media access control protocol. WiMAX PHY block 130 performs the WiMAX OFDMA-based physical layer protocol under the control of WiMAX MAC block 120.
Referring to FIG. 2, WiMAX MAC block 120 is further constructed of control section 122, scheduler 124, message creation section 126 and message processing section 128.
Control section 122 controls a general MAC protocol operation. Scheduler 124 schedules allocation of resources to each MS under the control of control section 122. Upon receiving resource allocation scheduling information from scheduler 124, message creation section 126 creates a data packet and DL control signaling. Message processing section 128 analyzes the data packet and UL control signaling received from the plurality of MSs under the control of control section 122 and reports the analysis result to control section 122.
It should be noted that the data packet and DL control signaling created by message creation section 126 are transmitted to the plurality of MSs by BS 102 via OFDMA transmitter 136 in WiMAX PHY block 130. The data packet and UL control signaling analyzed by message processing section 128 is received by BS 102 via OFDMA receiver 138 in WiMAX PHY block 130.
Referring to FIG. 2, message creation section 126 includes HFBCH (HARQ Feedback Channel) creation section 132 and resource allocation creation section 134. Here, HARQ represents a hybrid automatic repeat request. HFBCH creation section 132 creates a HARQ feedback channel for UL data transmission that carries HARQ feedback information (e.g., ACK/NACK) for UL data transmission. Resource allocation creation section 134 creates resource allocation control signalling for UL/DL data transmission that carries resource allocation information for each of the plurality of MSs.
Referring to FIG. 2, channel coder 502 exists in OFDMA transmitter 136. Channel coder 502 converts a data burst obtained from message creation section 126 to a baseband modulated signal. FIG. 3 shows a block diagram illustrating typical channel coder 502. Channel coder 502 is constructed of FEC encoder 304, circular buffer 308, HARQ subpacket generator (bit selection and repetition block) 306, modulator 310 and subpacket generation control section 312.
Referring to FIG. 3, FEC encoder 304 converts a data burst to coded bits using a predetermined coding scheme such as CTC (Convolutional Turbo Coding). The coded bits made up of information bits and parity bits are normally stored in circular buffer 308. The information bits are arranged from the leading part of circular buffer 308, followed by the parity bits. The size of circular buffer 308 for the data burst can be expressed as follows,
                    (                  Equation                                                              1                )                                                                      N          CB                =                              N            DB                                M            cr                                              [        1        ]            Here, NDB is a size of the data burst, Mcr is a mother coding rate of FEC encoder 304 such as Mcr=⅓.
Referring to FIG. 3, HARQ subpacket generator 306 punctures (or repeats) the coded bits in circular buffer 308 to thereby create a HARQ subpacket.
FIG. 4 illustrates a HARQ subpacket generation method at Mcr=⅓.
To create a HARQ subpacket to be transmitted at i-th transmission, HARQ subpacket generator 306 needs to know the starting position (that is, Pi) in circular buffer 308 and the size (that is, Ni) of the HARQ subpacket transmitted at the i-th transmission. The starting position and size are supplied by subpacket generation control section 312.
The starting position of the HARQ subpacket transmitted at the i-th transmission is normally determined by an SPID (subpacket identifier) of a HARQ transmitted at the i-th transmission. Subpacket generation control section 312 determines the size of the HARQ subpacket according to MCS information and resource allocation information and indicates the size to HARQ subpacket generator 306. The MCS information and the resource allocation information are described in the resource allocation control signalling created by resource allocation creation section 134.
Referring to FIG. 3, modulator 310 converts the HARQ subpacket to a baseband modulated signal.
Referring to FIG. 2, channel decoder 504 exists in OFDMA receiver 138. Channel decoder 504 demodulates/decodes a baseband modulated signal received using HARQ soft combining such as HARQ IR (Incremental Redundancy).
FIG. 5 shows a block diagram illustrating typical MS 104. MS 104 is provided with WiMAX and Wi-Fi, and is constructed of WiMAX PHY block 142, Wi-Fi PHY block 144, WiMAX MAC block 146, Wi-Fi MAC block 148 and GLL (general link layer) block 150. WiMAX MAC block 146 executes a WiMAX OFDMA-based media access control protocol. WiMAX PHY block 142 executes a WiMAX OFDMA-based physical layer protocol under the control of WiMAX MAC block 146. Wi-Fi MAC block 148 executes a Wi-Fi CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance)-based media access control protocol. Wi-Fi PHY block 144 executes a Wi-Fi OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing)/DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum)-based physical layer protocol, under the control of Wi-Fi MAC block 148. GLL block 150 has a function of managing coordinated operation between heterogeneous WiMAX and Wi-Fi links.
Referring to FIG. 5, WiMAX MAC block 146 is further constructed of control section 154, message creation section 152 and message processing section 156. Control section 154 controls a general MAC protocol operation. Message creation section 152 creates UL control signaling and a data packet under the control of control section 154. Message processing section 156 analyzes a data packet and DL control signaling received from BS 102 under the control of control section 154 and reports the analysis result to control section 154.
It should be noted that the data packet and UL control signalling created by message creation section 152 is transmitted to BS 102 by MS 104 via OFDMA transmitter 162 in WiMAX PHY block 142. The data packet and DL control signaling to be analyzed by message processing section 156 is received by MS 104 via OFDMA receiver 164 in WiMAX PHY block 142.
Referring to FIG. 5, resource analysis section 151 and HFBCH analysis section 153 exist in message processing section 156. HFBCH analysis section 153 analyzes a received HFBCH in response to UL data transmission and decides whether the corresponding UL data transmission has been successful or not. Resource analysis section 151 analyzes the received resource allocation control signalling and extracts resource allocation information identified for MS 104. In the case of UL data transmission, a data packet created by message creation section 152 under the control of control section 154 is then transmitted by MS 104 to BS 102 according to the extracted resource allocation information.
Referring to FIG. 5, channel coder 402 exists in OFDMA transmitter 162 and channel decoder 404 exists in OFDMA receiver 164. It should be noted that channel coder 402 in OFDMA transmitter 162 has a configuration and function similar to those of channel coder 502 in OFDMA transmitter 136, and channel decoder 404 in OFDMA receiver 164 has a configuration and function similar to those of channel decoder 504 in OFDMA receiver 138.
FIG. 6 shows a block diagram illustrating typical MS 106. MS 106 is also provided with both WiMAX and Wi-Fi, and has a configuration and function quite similar to those of MS 104. Channel coder 602 in OFDMA transmitter 182 has a configuration and function similar to those of channel coder 402 in OFDMA transmitter 162. As shown in FIG. 5, a main difference between MS 104 and MS 106 is that scheduler 158 exists in the Wi-Fi MAC block of MS 104 and this scheduler is used for collaboration scheduling for CliCo.
Referring to FIG. 1, BS 102 communicates with MS 104 via WiMAX links 108a and 108b, and communicates with MS 106 via WiMAX links 110a and 110b. MS 104 communicates with MS 106 peer-to-peer Wi-Fi links 112a and 112b. Alternatively, MS 104 may also communicate with MS 104 using other wireless techniques such as WiMAX, Bluetooth or 60 GHz mmW (millimeter wave).
It should be, noted that CliCo can be realized on both DL and UL of radio communication system 100. In the present invention, the operation of CliCo on an UL (uplink) in radio communication system 100 is taken as an example.
Referring to FIG. 1, when signal quality of WiMAX link 108a between BS 102 and MS 104 degrades, MS 104 can start an UL (uplink) CliCo procedure such as neighbor discovery, cooperator selection/allocation. When signal quality of WiMAX link 110a between BS 102 and MS 106 is good, MS 104 can select MS 106 as a cooperator. In the context of CliCo, MS 104 is called originating MS and MS 106 is called cooperating MS.
CliCo may occur in various situations. For example, if originating MS 104 is assumed to be located at the back of a cafeteria, signal quality of the WiMAX link to originating MS 104 may be quite low. On the other hand, if cooperating MS 106 is assumed to be located much closer to the window or entrance of the cafeteria than originating MS 104, cooperating MS 106 can thereby have much higher signal quality of WiMAX link than originating MS 104.
FIG. 7 shows a diagram illustrating typical frame configuration 200 applicable to a radio communication system that performs the CliCo shown in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 7, each of frame 202 and frame 212 is made up of eight subframes. Five of the eight subframes are DL subframes and the rest are UL subframes.
As far as CliCo of the UL (uplink) is concerned, BS 102 can transmit MAP 220 to a plurality of mobile stations connected to BS 102 including originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 involved in CliCo in first DL subframe 204 of frame 202. MAP 220 is made up of a plurality of MAP IEs (information elements). Some of the MAP IEs can carry HARQ feedback information for UL data transmission and some other MAP IEs can carry resource allocation information for DL/UL data transmission. One MAP IE in MAP 220 that carries HARQ feedback information forms an HBFCH for UL data transmission.
During period 208 between first DL subframe 204 and first UL subframe 206 of frame 202, originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 need to decode MAP 220 to obtain resource allocation information including their respective items of HFBCH index information. Furthermore, originating MS 104 needs to transmit UL data burst 250 to cooperating MS 106 via peer-to-peer Wi-Fi link 112a.
If originating MS 104 has successfully decoded MAP 220 transmitted by BS 102 via WiMAX link 108b, originating MS 104 transmits a HARQ subpacket of UL data burst 250 to BS 102 via WiMAX link 108a according to the received resource allocation information in first UL subframe 206 of frame 202. On the other band, if cooperating MS 106 has successfully decoded MAP 220 transmitted by BS 102 via WiMAX link 110b and has also successfully received UL data burst 250 transmitted from originating MS 104 via peer-to-peer Wi-Fi link 112a, cooperating MS 106 simultaneously transmits the HARQ subpacket of same UL data burst 250 to BS 102 via WiMAX link 110a according to the received resource allocation information in first UL subframe 206 of frame 202. As a result, BS 102 can perform HARQ soft combining of combining two HARQ subpackets of UL data burst 250 received from WiMAX link 108a and WiMAX link 110a to improve quality of the received signal.
In second DL subframe 214 of frame 212, BS 102 can transmit MAP 240 to a plurality of mobile stations connected to BS 102 including originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 involved in CliCo. As described above, HFBCHs which form a part of MAP 240 can carry HARQ feedback information for UL data burst 250 transmitted by originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 in first UL subframe 206 of frame 202.
During period 218 between second DL subframe 214 and first UL subframe 216 of frame 212, in order to obtain the respective items of HARQ feedback information for UL data burst 250, originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 need to decode their respective HFBCHs in MAP 240 according to HFBCH index information obtained by decoding MAP 220 during period 208.
When the HARQ feedback information indicates in first UL subframe 206 of frame 202 that BS 102 has not correctly decoded UL data burst 250 transmitted by originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106, originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 need to retransmit UL data burst 250 in first UL subframe 216 of frame 212.
According to the IEEE 802.16m draft standard, the specified HARQ transmission mechanism does not deal with UL (uplink) CliCo (see NPL 1). However, the same mechanism is applicable to UL (uplink) CliCo in a direct way.
According to the IEEE 802.16m draft standard, on an UL, a "synchronous HARQ operating mode" in which HARQ timing is performed at a constant interval is used and a "non-adaptive HARQ operating mode" in which the resource size or the like is not changed is used (see NPL 1).
In the synchronous HARQ operating mode, both originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 can use the same HARQ subpacket transmission rule as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1SPIDInitialSecondThirdFourthFifthtrans-trans-trans-trans-trans-missionmissionmissionmissionmission. . .Originating MS01230. . .Cooperating MS01230. . .
According to the subpacket transmission rule shown in Table 1, each of originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 transmits a subpacket having SPID=0 at initial transmission and transmits one of subpackets having SPID=0, 1, 2, 3 in cyclic order of retransmission.
According to the IEEE 802.16m draft standard, the resource allocation information is transmitted by BS 102 only at the initial transmission using MAP IEs addressed to originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106, and this information is also used for retransmission by originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 (see NPL 1). That is, this means that the size of the HARQ subpacket is the same for both originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 whether in HARQ transmission or in HARQ retransmission.
According to the IEEE 802.16m draft standard, for both originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106, the starting position of the HARQ subpacket transmitted at i-th transmission is determined as follows (see NPL 1).[2]Pi[SPID(i)·N] mod NCB  (Equation 2)
Here, N is a size of a HARQ subpacket (N=NOM for originating MS 104, N=NCM for cooperating MS 106), N=NRE′ NSM′ Nmod, where NRE is the number of data tones (data units) allocated for transmission of a data burst and NSM is an STC (space-time coding) rate and Nmod is a modulation order. The values of NRE, NSM and Nmod can be obtained from the resource allocation information. NCB is a circular buffer size for a data burst defined in equation 1. SPID(i) is an SPIN of a HARQ subpacket transmitted at i-th transmission.
FIG. 8 illustrates typical HARQ subpacket transmission performed by both originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 according to the subpacket transmission rule shown in Table 1 and the rule for determining the starting positions of HARQ subpackets defined in equation 2. In FIG. 8, suppose coding rate Mcr=⅓ and NOM=NCM=⅜·NCB of the FEC encoder.
Referring to FIG. 8, in originating MS 104, the starting positions of the HARQ subpackets in four transmissions including the initial transmission are calculated as follows.P1=0P2=⅜·NCB P3=¾·NCB(= 6/8·NCB)P4=⅛·NCB
In cooperating MS 106, the starting positions of the HARQ subpackets in four transmissions including the initial transmission are calculated as follows.P1=0P2=¼·NCB P3=½·NCB= 2/4·NCB)P4=¾·NCB
It is easily understandable from FIG. 8 that individual HARQ subpackets transmitted by originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 are created so as to be in the same direction in the circular buffer. Furthermore, the individual HARQ subpackets transmitted by originating MS 104 and cooperating MS 106 apparently overlap with each other even in initial transmission.

Wireless communication device and hybrid automatic repeat request transmission method

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA


By forming a multi-layer preparation comprising a tablet or granule containing a medicine as the core and the outermost layer comprising a plasma-decomposable polymer and a plasma-crosslinkable polymer and irradiating the outermost layer with a plasma about release-regulating preparations according to the plasma irradiation, the direct exposure of the medicine to the plasma can be avoided and the release pattern can be controlled more easily.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid preparation having a purpose and function of regulating the rate of releasing a medicine administered mainly orally in the digestive tracts and a process for producing it. In particular, the present invention relates to a multi-layer solid preparation characterized by having an outer layer comprising a plasma-decomposable polymer and a plasma-crosslinkable polymer and irradiated with a plasma for the above-described purpose and for obtaining the above-described function, and a process for producing it.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The matrix method is a method of designing a preparation having a purpose and function of regulating the rate of releasing a medicine in the digestive tracts. It is known to use a water-insoluble substance such as a wax or ethylcellulose as the material of the matrix. The matrix method is characterized by a mesh structure comprising a skeleton of a water-insoluble substance such as a wax or ethylcellulose. The rate of releasing the medicine from the mesh structure upon contact with the fluid in the digestive tracts is regulated by varying the properties of this structure.
The release of a medicine from the mesh structure depends mainly on a difference in the osmotic pressure between the inside and outside of the structure or, in other words, difference in the concentration of the medicine between them. Since the difference in concentration does not change for a considerably long time in the mesh structure, there is a tendency toward a zero-order release rate. Therefore, when a zero-order release rate was desired, a matrix-type preparation was frequently used heretofore. As the rate constant of the zero-order release varies depending on the size of the openings of the mesh and their uniformity, it is important to select the most suitable technique and contrivance for forming the openings of the mesh. Various techniques were developed for this purpose. They include a technique wherein a medicine-containing solid preparation is irradiated with .gamma.-rays to form a mesh structure and a technique wherein the medicine-containing solid preparation is coated with a film comprising a water-soluble substance such as a sugar so that the water-soluble substance is eluted to form the mesh structure after the administration thereof. However, these methods still have problems. Namely, in the .gamma.-ray irradiation method, the medicine is decomposed and deactivated and in the latter method, the coating film containing the water-soluble substance will be affected by the conditions in the digestive tracts.
The inventors have made intensive investigations for the purpose of developing a new functional material by a plasma reaction and, more particularly, for the purpose of developing a new drug delivery system with a plasma-irradiated polymer powder. The following references 1), 2) and 3) written by the inventors are to be referred to in the present invention:
1) Bulletin of the Gifu College of Pharmacy, Vol. 36 (1987), pp. 11 to 25, Masayuki KUZUYA New Plasma-started Polymerization, PA1 2) "Chemical Engineering" published by Kagaku Kogyo-Sha in 1989, pp. 664 to 671; Masayuki KUZUYA, New DDS with Plasma-irradiated Polymer Powder, and PA1 3) "Hyomen" published by Koshin-Sha in 1989, pp. 885 to 892.
It is well known that when an acrylic resin such as polymethyl methacrylate is subjected to radical irradiation, radicals are formed on the resin surface. The inventors have found that when a plasma-irradiated acrylic resin is tableted as indicated in References 2) and 3), the radicals on the resin surface cause crosslinking between the solids due to the compression in the tableting operation to form macro-matrix tablets. Namely the inventors succeeded in forming a matrix having a mesh structure regulated at will by suitably selecting the irradiation polymerization conditions and tableting compression conditions, unlike known matrixes. The Reference 2) discloses a case wherein theophylline is incorporated into an acrylic resin powder irradiated with an argon plasma and tableted and the behavior of theophylline eluted therefrom is investigated. It is described therein that the mesh structure of the matrix can be regulated at will by suitably selecting the irradiation polymerization conditions and tableting compression conditions and that, as a result, the diffusion and elution of theophylline as the rate-determining step can be controlled.
Thereafter the inventors proposed various matrix-type release-regulating preparations according to the plasma irradiation and investigated them. The inventors thus found that by forming a multi-layer preparation comprising a tablet or granule containing a medicine as the core and the outermost layer comprising a plasma-decomposable polymer and a plasma-crosslinkable polymer and irradiating the outermost layer with a plasma, the direct exposure of the medicine to the plasma can be avoided and the release pattern can be controlled more easily. The present invention has been completed after further investigations made on the basis of this finding.
The present invention provides a multi-layer solid preparation characterized by having an outer layer comprising a plasma-decomposable polymer and a plasma-crosslinkable polymer and irradiated with a plasma. The present invention provides also a process for producing a multi-layer solid preparation characterized by forming an outermost layer comprising a plasma-decomposable polymer and a plasma-crosslinkable polymer and then irradiating the layer with a plasma.


A liquid delivery device for killing weeds. The liquid delivery device includes a main tube, a handle, and a pump housing that includes a pump chamber. A reservoir is disposed in the main tube, and a plunger is connected to the reservoir and positioned in the pump chamber. The plunger is operative to push a liquid contained in the pump chamber through a check valve and dispensing orifices when a user moves the reservoir with respect to the main tube and pump housing. The device also includes a spike extending from the pump housing and an annular stand-off surrounding the spike. The spike is adapted to disrupt the soil and damage the root structure of a target weed.

Weed control has been a challenge for at least as long as people have maintained lawns. Generally, chemical weed killers or herbicides are used to control weeds. Non-selective herbicides, such as Round-Up®, are very effective. However, they are notorious for killing desirable plants, particularly lawn grass. Selective herbicides, although designed to target specific weeds, are generally less potent than non-selective herbicides. Many people prefer to use natural rather than synthetic herbicides. However, natural herbicides tend to be non-selective. Therefore, when using any of the selective, non-selective, and natural herbicides, it is important to specifically target the weed and control overspray. Most herbicides are applied with a simple spray bottle or wiper, neither of which can both control overspray and adequately target the weed's leaf and root structures.


A device for producing print images of varying lengths in offset printing, said device comprises replaceable, cylindrical format sections with differing cylinder diameters. Each format section includes a support shaft with which the format section forms a single unit. The units are replaceable with one another to change print image length.

The invention relates to a device for producing print images of varying lengths in offset printing, the device comprising format sections with different cylinder diameters which can be exchanged for changing the print image length.
A device for producing print images of varying lengths in offset printing is known from German patent document DE 199 55 084 A. This device uses printing sleeves with a changeable diameter which are fitted onto cylinder cores and/or base cylinders for a full-rotation offset printing machine. The cylinder cores are positioned with both ends inside a frame, wherein one side of the frame is provided with a drive unit for the cylinder cores. The other side of the frame is used for the removal of the printing sleeves. The cylinder cores must take the form of air shafts, so that the printing sleeves can be fitted over the cylinder cores. The printing sleeves, which form the format sections, must be provided with a compressible layer on the inside surfaces, allowing the sleeves to be expanded somewhat and fitted over the air shaft. The disadvantage of these elastic and/or compressible layers, however, is that the high line forces generated in offset printing push the printing sleeves from the concentric position. This leads to changes in the adjustments and thus considerable printing problems. Air shafts and/or printing sleeves of this type have long been known in flexographic printing. However, since considerably lower pressure forces occur in the printing gap during flexographic printing, the aforementioned problems do not arise.
A further difficulty with this device is the torque transmission. The air shaft of known print units in offset printing has a specific diameter that is based on the smallest print length to be produced. For example, if this print length must start at approximately 350 mm (13.8″ circumference), then the air shaft should have a maximum diameter of 105.158 mm. The same air shaft is also used for a print length of approximately 609 mm (24″, D=194.04 mm). In that case, the air shaft diameter is not favorable and can lead to considerable problems in the printing sleeve composition and the torque transmission.
European patent document EP 1 101 611 A also relates to a device for producing print images of varying lengths in offset printing, wherein this device also has replaceable printing sleeves. These printing sleeves are positioned on pivoting arms. For the printing sleeve replacement, openings are worked into one of the two bearing plates through which the printing sleeves can be exchanged. However, the aforementioned problems also exist with this method and/or device.
German patent document DE 35 43 704 A relates to a device for imprinting a web. The sleeves in this case are also attached so as to be replaceable on a rotating body. A bearing plate can be folded down on the operating side for replacing the sleeves. However, producing such a fold-down bearing plate for an offset press is costly.
German patent document DE 19 53 4651 relates to a printing unit for indirect printing. For this, respectively one form cylinder and one transfer cylinder can be fitted for a variable circumference with so-called sleeves having variable outer diameters.

Device for producing print images of varying lengths in offset printing


A hydraulic system for supplying fluid to a torque converter of an automatic transmission for a vehicle driven by a power source includes a torque converter including an impeller, a turbine, and an impeller clutch for alternately engaging and disengaging a drive connection between the impeller and the power source, a hydraulic control system producing line pressure and converter charge pressure that communicates with the impeller clutch, a discharge line communicating with the impeller clutch and through which hydraulic fluid discharges from the torque converter at a discharge pressure similar to the first pressure, thereby minimizing a pressure differential across the impeller clutch tending to disengage the impeller clutch, and an oil cooler to which fluid is supplied from at least one of the source of line pressure and the converter discharge line and from which fluid returns to the control system.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a torque converter for an automatic transmission, and, in particular, to a hydraulic system that actuates an impeller clutch of the torque converter and provides a continuous supply of hydraulic lubricant to transmission components.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A torque converter is a modified form of a hydrodynamic fluid coupling, and like a fluid coupling, is used to transfer rotating power from a prime mover, such as an internal combustion engine or electric motor, to a rotating driven load. A torque converter is able to multiply torque when there is a substantial difference between input and output rotational speed, thus providing the equivalent of a reduction gear.
In a torque converter there are at least three rotating elements: an impeller, which is mechanically driven by the prime mover; a turbine, which drives the load; and a stator, which is interposed between the impeller and turbine so that it can alter oil flow returning from the turbine to the impeller to multiply torque. The stator is mounted on an overrunning clutch, which prevents the stator from counter-rotating the prime mover but allows for forward rotation. The torque converter is encased in a housing, which contains with automatic transmission fluid (ATF), sometimes referred to as "oil," "lube" or "lubricant."
Hydrodynamic parasitic losses within the torque converter reduce efficiency and generate waste heat. In modern automotive applications, this problem is commonly avoided by use of a bypass clutch (also called lock-up clutch), which physically links the impeller and turbine, effectively changing the converter into a purely mechanical coupling. The result is no slippage, and therefore virtually no power loss and improved fuel economy.
Torque converter clutch designs include two basic types, a closed piston design and an open piston design. A closed piston design requires a dedicated hydraulic circuit into the torque converter, which communicates only with the apply side of the clutch piston. When pressure is high, the clutch applies. When pressure is low, the clutch releases. A more uncommon form is to have this circuit on the release side where high pressure releases the clutch and low pressure applies the clutch.
An open piston design involves flowing ATF through the torque converter and across the piston, flowing from the apply side to the release side. The piston is applied by the pressure difference between the apply and release sides. This pressure differential can be controlled by either controlling apply and release pressure directly or by controlling flow rate with a designed pressure drop restriction across the piston. Normally, this same flow of ATF is used to cool the torque converter, so a relatively high flow rate is required in this hydraulic circuit. A barrier to achieving the intended flow rate is the limitation on converter charge pressure to prevent converter ballooning (axial distortion of the torque converter). This commonly results in a high gain clutch design where small pressure drop changes across the piston result in large changes in apply force, which makes clutch controllability a challenge.
Most torque converters only have one converter clutch, the bypass clutch which alternately connects and releases a drive connection between the impeller and turbine. A torque converter can also provide an impeller clutch to connect and release a drive connection between the impeller and a power source, such as an engine, electric motor, starter/generator or hydraulic motor. The intent of the impeller clutch is to reduce load on the power source during idle, which reduces fuel consumption. This functionality is commonly referred to as idle-disconnect or neutral idle.
When two clutches are present within a torque converter, usually one piston is an open piston design while the other is a closed piston design. Having two closed piston designs within a torque converter is not practical because this requires four hydraulic circuits to communicate with the torque converter—one for each clutch, and two more to flow across the converter for cooling. Having two as open piston clutches presents a complicated design problem for controlling the apply and release of the two clutches independently. This leads to the more practical approach of using a closed piston design for the bypass clutch and an open piston design for the impeller clutch.
In an open piston design, the impeller clutch is actuated by a pressure differential between a converter charge circuit and a converter discharge circuit. A relatively high flow rate is required to cool the converter when the impeller clutch is engaged. Low flow restrictions across the closed clutch to reduce the pressure drop and a high gain clutch to maintain capacity would be required to avoid an excessive charge pressure. To disengage the impeller clutch, the pressure drop must be reduced lower yet. Because there is no direct control over flow restrictions across the clutch, pressure drop can only be reduced by reducing flow rate through the converter. During vehicle launch, the ramp rate of pressure drop across the converter clutch can be varied to achieve a variable "k factor" across the clutch for better launch feel.
When the torque converter is multiplying torque, power loss occurs which significantly increases the temperature of ATF in the torque converter and must be cooled before returning to the transmission. Cooler return oil is usually routed into the transmission lubrication circuit to cool internal clutches, gear sets and bearings. The lubrication circuit is also used to fill or charge balance dams, which are intended to keep disengaged clutch pistons from drifting on when internal rotational speeds increase.
The converter clutch control and hydraulic layout described above reduces flow to the downstream lube circuit when in idle-disconnect mode. When in idle-disconnect mode, the balance dams will drain down and result in an error state during the upcoming drive-away unless a minimum lubrication circuit flow rate is maintained, which cannot easily be met and still have the low pressure drop needed to disengage the impeller clutch. This error state could cause unintended clutch application including an early gear shift, an unintended gear state, or a tie up in the gearbox.
There is a need in the industry to control an impeller clutch in a torque converter during idle-disconnect mode without introducing risk to the transmission lubrication system.

Hydraulic supply system for torque converter impeller clutch


A solid state imaging apparatus characterized in that a phase low pass filter is formed by providing an array of recesses and projections having a predetermined repeated pitch on the surface of the light receiving side of a clear molded package of a solid state imaging device. When an object light passes through the phase low pass filter, dot images will be separated by diffraction of the light and an image will be formed on every other unit pixel of the light receiving surface. Thereby, the moire can be removed without using a crystal plate filter or the like.

1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates to solid state imaging apparatus and more particularly to a solid state imaging apparatus photoelectrically converting an object image to an electric signal and to be used for an electronic still camera or video camera.
2. Related Art Statement:
In an electronic still camera or video camera, there is a characteristic that, in case an image is formed on the light receiving surface of a solid state imaging device and is converted to an electric signal, a moire will be likely to be caused by a spatial frequency. Therefore, usually, as shown in FIG. 8, a low pass filter (abbreviated as an LPF hereinafter) 23 formed of crystal plates to prevent such moire is arranged in the rear of an imaging optical system consisting of zoom lens groups 21 and 22 formed, for example, of two groups. Further, as required, an infrared ray cutting filter 24 for cutting infrared rays is also arranged.
In order that the above mentioned crystal LPF 23 may develop the optical high-frequency cut off effect sufficiently to prevent the moire, the crystal LPF 23 must be arranged accurately to keep a predetermined angle within a plane vertical to the optical axis between the zoom lens groups 21 and 22 formed of two groups and the solid state imaging device 25. Therefore, a solid state imaging apparatus wherein a semiconductor substrate on which are provided respective photosensitive device groups of a solid state imaging device and an optical high-frequency cut off crystal plate arranged in parallel with the above mentioned semiconductor substrate on the incident light path side are integrally fixed so as to be able to be handled as one part is disclosed in the publication of Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No.122087/1984.
Also, a photoelectric transducer device wherein a solid state imaging device itself is made integral by enclosing its sensor part with a resin molding instead of the conventional CCD unit is disclosed, for example, in the publication of Japanese Utility Model Application Laid Open No.170975/1988. This photoelectric transducer device is made by successively laminating a light transmitting conductive film, PIN type amorphous semiconductor layer and conductive film on a light transmitting insulating substrate and is characterized in that the above mentioned light transmitting insulating substrate is a colored glass.
However, in the solid state imaging apparatus wherein a semiconductor substrate on which are provided respective photosensitive device groups of a solid state imaging device and an optical high-frequency cut off crystal plate arranged in parallel with the above mentioned semiconductor substrate on the incident light path side are integrally fixed so as to be able to be handled as one part and which is disclosed in the publication of Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No.122087/1984, it is attempted to dissolve the moire by using the optical high-frequency cut off crystal plate but this crystal plate is expensive. Further, the optical high-frequency cut off crystal plate is only held as mounted on the peripheral edge on a receiving part provided on the semiconductor substrate and is therefore far from one part.
Also, the photoelectric transducer device which is made by successively laminating a light transmitting conductive film, PIN type amorphous semiconductor layer and conductive film on a light transmitting insulating substrate, is characterized in that the above mentioned light transmitting insulating substrate is a colored glass and is disclosed in the above mentioned publication of Japanese Utility Model Application Laid Open No. 170975/1988 is made integral by enclosing the sensor part with a resin molding but has the colored glass which is the light transmitting insulating substrate made separately so that the surface must be ground and is still of a two-body structure.
Now, on the solid state imaging device itself, there is recently established a technique of integrally forming a solid state imaging device including leads by clear molding the chip of the solid state imaging device of a plastic molded transparent resin. The surface of a clear molded package is finely polished to be used as a perfect plane and an optical LPF to remove a moire is separately provided.
For this optical LPF are used not only a crystal plate filter but also a lenticular plate on which are arranged minute cylindrical lenses of a partly arcuate cross-section and a phase filter on which transparent films are formed like stripes by evaporative deposition and which controls a phase filter.
Thus, the solid state imaging device and optical LPF are provided separately from each other and an attempt to combine them into one has never been made.


A power generating system includes a power generator generating DC power, and an inverter circuit for converting DC power into AC power. The power generator has a plurality of power generating modules each including a plurality of power generating units and at least one electric storage device connected to each of the plurality of power generating modules. A plurality of first switch devices connect/disconnect each of positive electrodes of the plurality of power generating modules to/from a positive bus, a plurality of second switch devices connect/disconnect each of the positive electrodes of the plurality of power generating modules to/from negative electrodes of the power generating modules which are contiguous to one side, a plurality of third switch devices connect/disconnect each of the negative electrodes to/from a negative bus, and the DC output voltage can be increased/decreased stepwise by switching the switch devices.

Thanks to the recent gradual decrease in the production cost of solar batteries used in solar electric generating systems, many consumers utilize solar electric generating systems at home, although many of the home solar electric generating systems are cooperation type systems connected to a commercial single phase AC system supplied to residential areas. The solar battery of home solar power electric generating systems is connected in series-parallel to several dozen power generating modules with small kW output. The cooperation type solar electric generation systems require converting DC power into AC power via an inverter circuit to be used for single phase AC systems.
The publicly known solar electric generating system shown in FIG. 24 is a typical cooperation type system controlling an inverter circuit by the PWM method and having a solar battery 100 wherein a plurality of the sub-units of a plurality of power generating modules connected in series are connected in parallel, inverter circuit 101 and control device 102 controlling the inverter circuit 101 by switching. The control device 102 is provided with a voltage detection device 103 detecting the standard voltage of the AC system, amplifier 104 amplifying the detected voltage, triangular wave generator 105 and PWM control part 106. As shown in FIG. 24, the PWN control part 106 controls the switch elements of the inverter circuit 101 based on sine waves 107 of the command voltage according to the standard voltage shown in FIG. 25 and carriers 108 generated in the triangular generator 105, and then accomplishes output to the AC system after converting to sine wave AC power by the generating square wave AC voltage 109, as shown in FIG. 25, and flattening the square wave AC voltage 109 via a filter circuit.
However, regarding the technology controlling the inverter circuit using the above PWM method, there is a problem that approximately only 90% of the output of solar battery is utilized as the output of the solar battery, and needs to be intermittently shut off to convert to AC power. Furthermore, due to the generation of harmonic components from frequent switching of switching elements in the inverter circuit and the impedance of the AC system, a large filter means or electromagnetic interference removal means needs to be provided to absorb the harmonic components. In addition, there is another problem of having a large loss in power devices, such as an inverter circuit and switching elements due to the large number of switching frequencies involving significant voltage changes.
In contrast, there is another proposal for a solar electric generation system utilizing a battery switching system by changing the output voltage level in multi-steps via switching the number of solar batteries out of a plurality of solar batteries to provide the output. In this power generation system, as shown in FIG. 26, for instance, four sets of solar batteries 110 capable of generating 10V, 20V, 40V and 80V DC power are provided and only a switch S1 out of switches S1, S2, S3 and S4 is turned on to output 10V DC power and the voltage of DC power can be increased/decreased stepwise in increments of 10V to switch to 20V, 30V, . . . 140V and 150V by combining the switches to be turned on. DC power is output to the AC system after being converted to AC power as shown in FIGS. 27(A) and (B) via an inverter circuit 111. In this solar electric generation system utilizing a battery switching system, in comparison with the power generation system previously described in FIG. 24, problems associated with harmonic waves or electromagnetic field interference are mitigated. However, there is the problem that the rate of utilization becomes significantly lower since all of the four solar batteries are used only for a short time to generate a peak voltage and one or a plurality of solar batteries are in the idle stage most of the time.
When any of the four sets of solar batteries 110 is blocked by buildings and the like and only partial sunlight becomes available, the power to be generated from the blocked solar battery 110 is significantly decreased to reduce the output voltage influencing the normal output of AC power. Furthermore, there is another problem that the DC voltage is not generated from any of the four sets of the solar batteries 110 during the nights when sunlight is not available, therefore, the power generation time by the solar battery 110 is limited to affecting the performance of power generation by the power generation system.
In recent years, the development of a power generation system utilizing a fuel cell system is advanced and is expected to be gradually put to practical use in the near future as a home power generation system.
The fuel cell is comprised of layered multiple single cells and is configured to output DC power by connecting a number of single cells in parallel. Since each single cell generates approximately 0.6-0.7V DC power, and there is the same problem as the solar electric generating system in a way which utilizes technology to provide DC power generated from a power generating system to an AC system by having the power generating system cooperate with a home single phase AC system.


A server machine manages and presents a user interface. The user interface presents search results, and the server machine receives a cursor input that corresponds to a particular search result. The particular search result references an item available for purchase, and the item is described by descriptors. Responsive to the cursor input, the user interface presents a preview window that contains a descriptor not shown in the particular search result. The server machine receives a further cursor input that indicates the item is to be included in a list of items. Responsive to the further cursor input, the user interface presents a list of items as including an icon that references the item. The icon indicates that the item is included in the list of items.

A machine may be configured to facilitate decision-making by a user. For example, a general-purpose computer may be configured by special-purpose software to become a special-purpose computer that functions as a search engine to search a database. A user of a client device may submit a query to the search engine. In response, the search engine may identify search results within the database based on the submitted query and present the search results to the client device for viewing by the user. One or more of the presented search results may identify an item (e.g., a product, a specimen of a product, service, or an instance of a service). Viewing the presented search results, the user may operate the client device to select a particular search result from among the presented search results.
Where the number of search results to be presented is large, the search engine may present the search results a portion at a time. For example, the search results may be subdivided into multiple pages and presented one page at a time. As another example, the search results may be presented on one single page that extends beyond a viewable screen area displayed by the client device. The client device may display only a portion of the search results at a given time, and the user may operate the client device to adjust (e.g., move or scroll) the viewable screen area in a manner that displays another portion of the search results.


There is disclosed a process for preparing 1,5-benzothiazepine derivatives of the formula: ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1 is a lower alkyl group, or a salt thereof which comprises subjecting a propionate derivatives of the formula: ##STR2## wherein R.sup.2 is an ester residue and R.sup.1 is the same as defined above, to intramolecular cyclization in the presence of a sulfonic acid compound of the formula: EQU R.sup.3 SO.sub.3 H (III). wherein R.sup.3 is a lower alkyl group or a substituted or unsubstituted phenyl group, in a non-halogenated organic solvent and, if desired, converting the product to a salt thereof.

This invention relates to a novel process for preparing 1,5-benzothiazepine derivatives of the formula: ##STR3## wherein R.sup.1 is a lower alkyl group, or a salt thereof.
The above 2-(4-lower alkoxyphenyl)-3-hydroxy-2,3-dihydro-1,5-benzothiazepin-4(5H)-one is useful as an intermediate for the synthesis of medical compounds, for the example, (+)-cis-2-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-acetoxy-5-(.beta.-dimethylaminoethy l)-2,3-dihydro-1,5-benzothiazepin-4(5H)-one (generic name: Diltiazem) which is excellent coronary vasodilator.
Heretofore, there have been known that said intermediate can be prepared by the two steps of, for example, hydrolyzing ethyl 2-hydroxy-3-(2-aminophenylthio)-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)propionate with alkali to give corresponding free acid and then subjecting it to intramolecular cyclization under heating (Japanese Patent Publication (examined) No. 8982/1971).
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel process for preparing said intermediates from 2-hydroxy-3-(2-aminophenylthio)-3-(4-lower alkoxyphenyl)propionate in a high yield by one step.

Process for preparing 1,5-benzothiazepine derivatives


An inflatable cuff used as an artificial sphincter may be used in either of two different ways. The first embodiment involves the cuff encircling the urethra for maintaining pressure on it to occlude it except when voiding the bladder. The second embodiment involves placing a one-way valve in the urethra which is encircled by the inflatable cuff such that the cuff is only inflated when it is desired to void the bladder by opening the valve in the urethra through pressure being applied to the exterior of the valve body. In each embodiment a syringe-type pump bulb is used which is connected to a one-way valve in turn connected to a tube to the inflatable cuff. The bulb side wall has sufficient memory to cause it to return to its normal expanded condition which causes the suction of fluid from the cuff when the manually operated valve is actuated. Fluid pumped to the cuff through the valve causes a positive pressure on the cuff side of the valve blade elements and a negative pressure on the bulb side which combine to assist in maintaining the valve in a sealed closed condition.

An artificial sphincter is commercially available from American Medical Systems, Inc. (AMS), Gordon Valley, Minn., and is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,377 issued Sep. 16, 1980.
The present invention is an improvement upon the AMS system which includes an inflatable cuff encircling the urethra with the cuff being maintained in an inflated condition by a pump whereby the urethra is intended to be occluded to urine flow from the bladder. If a person desires to void the bladder, a valve is manually operated which allows fluid pressure in the cuff to be relieved and fluid flows through the valve into the pump. Deflation of the cuff is totally dependent upon pressure within the cuff forcing the fluid out of the cuff and back to the pump. This is a slow process and there is need for a more instantaneous way to prepare the cuff for voiding the bladder. The first embodiment of the present invention provides an answer to this problem.
A second problem experienced with the AMS system is that the cuff maintains continuous pressure on the urethra in order to prevent undesired urine flow from the bladder. It is difficult to achieve the optimum pressure level considering the advantages and disadvantages of too much or too little pressure. The amount of pressure that will assure that there is no leakage will cause damage to the urethra by cutting off blood flow and too little pressure will result in bladder leakage. The second embodiment of the present invention provides an answer to this problem.

Artificial sphincter urinary control system


A porous membrane, such as a microporous or ultrafiltration membrane, is formed from a solution of a polysulfone and a free radical polymerizable monomer exposed to ultraviolet light to form a blend of the polysulfone and copolymers of polysulfone activation products and polymerized monomer having polymer segments covalently bonded to each other. The solution is separated into two phases including a porous solid phase comprising the membrane.

This invention relates to membranes formed of polysulfone copolymer compositions having polymer segments covalently bonded to each other and to a process for producing membranes. More particularly, this invention relates to membranes formed of polysulfone copolymer composition having polymer segments covalently bonded to each other wherein the copolymer is present throughout the membrane solid matrix.
Porous polymer structures are generally classified according to their effective pore size or according to their retentivity i.e., the sizes of particles that are not able to pass through the pores of the porous polymeric structure. Thus, for example, the structures used as filters are classified as ultrafilters if they retain dissolved matter such as ions, proteins viruses or macromolecules, while they are classified as microporous structures if they pass dissolved matter and retain only undissolved particles. The dividing line between microporous structures and ultrafilters in terms of pore size is not defined clearly but ultrafilters generally are agreed to have an average pore size between about 0.005 and about 0.05 micrometers. A microporous structure typically has an average pore size between about 0.05 and about 10 micrometers.
Porous membranes can be described as a pore volume and a solid matrix separated by a pore wall. Porous polymeric structures used as membrane filters have also been classified according to a pore size difference at their two surfaces, i.e., as isotropic or symmetric when the two surfaces have similar pore size, and anisotropic or asymmetric when the two surfaces have different pore sizes. Porous polymeric structures have also been classified as hydrophilic or hydrophobic. When the hydrophilic structures are brought into contact with water, they will spontaneously wet, i.e. water will displace the air from the pores of the structure without the application of any external force. On the other hand, a positive pressure is required to intrude water into the pores of hydrophobic structures to displace the air.
Aromatic polysulfone (polysulfone, polyethersulfone or polyphenysulfone) membranes are widely used because of their physical robustness, and chemical and thermal stability. Along with these advantages, polysulfone membranes have certain disadvantages, related to their surface properties. The hydrophobic nature of polysulfones causes loss of permeation properties when these membranes are used to filter protein solutions, colloidal latex paints rinses, or in concentration of waste cutting oils. Also, in some applications, it has been demonstrated that a porous membrane with a charged surface will have better performance than an uncharged polysulfone membrane. Thus, a modified polysulfone that overcomes this inherent hydrophobic property of polysulfones will increase the scope of application and use of these membranes.
Much effort has gone into modifying the pore surface of pre-formed membranes. When macromolecular substances are used, this can result in change of pore properties, particularly a loss of flow, particularly for membranes having small average pore size. When heterogeneous chemical modification is used, a complicated reaction scheme is required, which can change membrane structure and properties such as mechanical strength and solubility. Furthermore, these schemes increase the complexity of the manufacturing process.
Codissolved pairs of polymers are sometimes used to change the properties of the final membrane, but this approach is limited to soluble compatible pairs.
Block copolymers are useful because the properties of the blocks of each polymer are maintained. It is common for a block copolymer to have two glass transition temperatures, corresponding to the glass transition temperature of each polymer block. Furthermore, block copolymers can be made of incompatible polymers and still have useful, indeed even improved properties, while blends of the same polymers would have poor properties, if they could even be made. Since the blocks of one polymer are covalently linked to the other polymer block, phase separation occurs only on the size level of the polymer chain segments and the deleterious effects of phase separation into relatively large domains is avoided.
Prior methods of making various types of microporous polysulfones membranes are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,629,563 and 4,900,449. U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,563 describes highly asymmetric polysulfone microporous membranes. U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,449 describes symmetric porous membranes made of blends of polyethersulfone and a hydrophilic polymer to form a hydrophilic membrane. U.S. Pat. No. 5,076,925 describes microporous membranes made from a blend of polyethersulfone and a hydrophilic polymer to form a hydrophilic polymer. These membranes are hydrophilic as formed, but a post-treatment procedure allows removal of the hydrophilic polymer to render the membranes hydrophobic.
At the present time, polysulfone grafted membranes are prepared by modifying the pore wall surface of a solid polysulfone membrane with a polymerizable monomer to form a graft only on the membrane pore wall surface. The remaining portion of the membrane comprises unmodified polysulfone polymer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,468,390, Journal of Membrane Science, 105(1995), p. 237-247 and Journal of Membrane Science, 105 (1995, p. 249-259) disclose modified aryl polysulfone membranes having a hydrophilic vinyl monomer chemically grafted to their pore wall surfaces. An unmodified membrane is contacted with a solution of the monomer and is exposed to ultraviolet light to effect photochemical grafting in the absence of a sensitizer or a free radical initiator. The monomers utilized function to render only the polysulfone membrane pore wall surface hydrophilic. The remaining portion of the membrane solid matrix comprises unmodified polysulfone. These surface-modified membranes are not rewettable after they have been dried and, if dried, lose significant permeability. Therefore it is necessary to maintain the membrane surfaces wet prior to use.
Japanese Pat. No. JP-A-2-59029, published Feb. 28, 1990, discloses a process for modifying a polysulfone porous membrane on its pore wall surface only with a polymerizable monomer by immersing the membrane in the monomer solution and irradiating the solution with ultraviolet light. The process is conducted under conditions such that any solvent used in the process does not dissolve the polysulfone membrane. As a result of the process, only the pore wall surface of the porous membrane is modified to render it hydrophilic when hydrophilic polymerizable monomers are utilized in the process. As is the case with the modified polymers disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,468,390, the modified membrane surfaces cannot be dried without a serious loss of permeability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,480,554 claims a polysulfone membrane that can be dried without loss of retention properties. This membrane is hydrophobic and requires an alcohol treatment to maintain ultrafiltration properties.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide modified polysulfone membranes which are modified through out their solid matrix thickness. In addition, it would be desirable to provide such modified polysulfone membranes which can be dried without adversely affecting membrane permeability. Furthermore, it would be desirable to provide such a membrane which is wettable directly with water without the need for humectants such as glycerine or an alcohol treatment after being dried. In addition, it would be desirable to provide a process for forming such membranes which can be modified with a wide variety of polymerizable monomers to produce membranes formed of a polysulfone copolymer composition having polymer segments covalently bonded.

Polysulfone copolymer membranes and process


The present invention provides a programmable lighting system comprising a plurality of light-emitting elements and a controller responsive to a hierarchically encoded data input stream. The controller determines and provides appropriate control signals for controlling the characteristics of the light generated by the plurality of light-emitting elements operatively coupled thereto. The data input stream may use a DMX512 or other network protocol and can be hierarchically encoded by varying the value of the START code of the data packets. When a DMX512 or other data packet with a NULL START code or “color” packet is received by the controller, the controller interprets the frames to be intensity control data wherein each frame can correspond to a particular light-emitting element or group of light-emitting elements. The color packet can provide data for the generation of a particular temporal color sequence or a temporal color sequence that is random or any other lighting sequence. When a DMX512 or other data packet with a non-NULL START code or “service” packet is received by the controller, the controller can interpret each START code value independently and can assign or modify one or more attributes of the controller, for example, the particular mode of operation, or an address or serial number may be assigned or modified based on the value of the START code.

Recent advances in the development of semiconductor and organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs and OLEDs) have made these solid-state devices suitable for use in general illumination applications, including architectural, entertainment, and roadway lighting, for example. As such, these devices are becoming increasingly competitive with light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent, and high-intensity discharge lamps.
An advantage of LEDs is that their turn-on and turn-off times are typically less than 100 nanoseconds. The average luminous intensity of an LED can therefore be controlled using a fixed constant-current power supply together with pulse width modulation (PWM), for example, of the LED drive current, wherein the time-averaged luminous intensity is typically linearly proportional to the PWM duty cycle. This technique of using PWM signals is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,189. Today, PWM is typically the preferred method for LED luminous intensity control in that it offers linear control over a range of three decades (1000:1) or more without suffering power losses through current-limiting resistors, uneven luminous intensities in LED arrays, and noticeable colour shifts as identified by A. Zukauskas, M. S. Schur, and R. Caska, 2002, Introduction to Solid-State Lighting. New York, N.Y., Wiley-Interscience, p. 136. The PWM signals used to control the LEDs are preferably generated by microcontrollers and associated peripheral hardware.
An application of LEDs is in theatrical lighting fixtures. These fixtures are commonly controlled using an industry-standard asynchronous serial communications network protocol referred to as "DMX512." This protocol was introduced in 1990 by the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) and is presented in their publication, "USITT DMX512/1990 Digital Data Transmission Standard for Dimmers and Controllers". Most theatrical lighting manufacturers quickly adopted the DMX512 protocol as an industry standard.
As originally designed, DMX512 was intended primarily to control up to 512 lighting fixture dimmer controls. To this end, the protocol comprises a serial stream of data transmitted over an RS-485 multidrop serial communication link, wherein each data "packet" comprises a packet header, an 8-bit START code, and 1 to 512 8-bit data bytes called "frames." FIG. 1 illustrates a timing diagram for control of a lighting system using the DMX512 protocol. When the start code is NULL, the data bytes are interpreted as dimmer control settings, thereby allowing up to 256 discrete intensity levels for each lighting fixture. The position of each frame within the packet defines the DMX512 "address" of the lighting fixture. In operation, the lighting fixture receives each packet and extracts the data frame corresponding to its fixed DMX512 address, as illustrated in the configuration of FIG. 2.
Where a theatrical lighting fixture has additional components such as color filter wheels, moveable lenses and irises, or motorized mounts, the lighting fixture may have multiple DMX addresses (referred to as DMX "channels") to independently control these components.
The DMX512 protocol also makes provision for 255 optional START codes wherein the START code value is between 1 and 255, which the USITT publication cited above states are "for future expansion and flexibility."
The Entertainment Service and Technology Association released a document describing a proposed successor of the DMX512/1990 protocol, "Draft BSR E1.11, Entertainment Technology—USITT DMX512-A Asynchronous Serial Digital Data Transmission Standard for controlling Lighting Equipment and Accessories, Revision 3" in 2000. The purpose of this document is primarily to more precisely define the scope of the USITT DMX512 serial network protocol and related RS-485 network physical layer. It also however formally defines Alternate START Codes wherein the START code is an 8-bit value other than NULL. Annex E of this document defines reserved Alternate START Codes for special purposes and future development of the draft standard. These include a Manufacturer ID code intended to identify proprietary data packets and a System Information Packet intended to identify manufacturers' specific products.
Both DMX512/1990 and its proposed successor DMX512-A are real-time lighting fixture control protocols in that each data frame represents the current intensity for the lighting fixture dimmer, wherein each data packet is transmitted at least 44 times a second in accordance with the DMX512 protocol timing requirements.
With recent advances in LED lighting technology, it has become desirable to execute complex lighting control sequences using the DMX512 protocol and RS-485 asynchronous serial communication. Some of the problems, however, with using the existing DMX512 protocols and RS-485 asynchronous serial communication in a manner for both communication and synchronization of a networked ensemble of lighting fixtures whose operation comprises complex and synchronized lighting control sequences, are that the DMX512 protocol does not support phase shifting of the data stream, nor does the protocol support multiple interpretations of the data stream. Furthermore, the DMX512 protocol does not support the transmission of hierarchical data, remote querying of a dimmer control address, nor autonomous synchronized color fading. In addition, a problem with synchronized strobing of light sources is that timing inaccuracies can cause perceptible differences in light output.
It can be advantageous to address logical groups of lighting fixtures and using the current state-of-the-art in DMX512 technology, this requires that the DMX512 master controller maintain a list of DMX512 addresses assigned to each group, and to sequentially address each of the lighting fixtures in a DMX512 color packet. The disadvantage of this approach is that the DMX512 packet can take up to 44 milliseconds to transmit in its entirety. In the worst case scenario therefore, there is a corresponding delay of 44 milliseconds between lighting fixtures in the same logical group responding to a common command. This delay was not of particular importance when the DMX512 protocol was introduced in 1990, as almost all theatrical light sources consisted of incandescent lamps with response times measured in tens of milliseconds. Delays in responding to a common command were therefore mostly imperceptible. However, the introduction of high flux light-emitting diodes suitable for entertainment and architectural applications has reduced the response time from tens of milliseconds to tens of nanoseconds. Consequently, delays of even a few milliseconds between LED-based lighting fixtures responding to a common command can be noticeable and objectionable.
Furthermore, it is common practice with theatrical lighting systems to assign DMX512 addresses to lighting fixtures after they are installed, often in relatively inaccessible locations. If an error is made in assigning a DMX512 address, it becomes a trial-and-error process to determine why the lighting fixture is not responding to the DMX512 master controller.
Furthermore, it is known that perceived brightness of LEDs has a non-linear relationship to the radiometric intensities of the LEDs, including for example the Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect and Bezold-Brücke phenomenon. This relationship between perceived brightness and radiometric intensities is described by, for example, Wyszecki, G., and W. S. Stiles in "Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae," New York, N.Y.: Wiley-Interscience, 2000. This relationship results in a perceived non-linear brightness when using linear control parameters. The relationship between perceived lightness and measured illuminance of an object can be approximately represented by Steven's Law defined as follows:B=αL0.5  (1)
where B is the perceived lightness, α is a scaling constant, and L is the luminance (measured in candela per square meter per steradian) of the illuminated object at a given point on its surface.
Stevens' Law (Equation 1) has been used in theatrical lighting fixture dimmers to linearize the relationship between the raw color represented by, for example, a dimmer control panel slide resistor or DMX512 color packet frame values and the perceived lightness of illuminated surfaces as described in IESNA, 2000, IESNA Lighting Handbook, Ninth Edition. New York, N.Y., Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, where it is commonly referred to as "square law dimming." However, this approach assumes a single light source for which only the intensity can be varied as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,084, for example. Therefore, problems arise when attempting to apply this technique to multicolor light sources, such as for example a light fixture with red, green, and blue LEDs, whose intensities can be independently or interdependently varied.
Thus, there is a need for a solution that allows the DMX protocol to be used for control of lighting fixtures which can overcome the problems identified in the prior art.
This background information is provided for the purpose of making known information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.

System and method for controlling luminaires


Several embodiments of turbocharged internal combustion engines wherein the turbocharger is designed to provide high boost at low and mid range and the boost is reduced at high range to maintain either a limitation of the maximum boost or to maintain the boost pressure in a linear relation to engine speed. The means for reducing the boost pressure comprises a throttle valve in the induction passage that is operated in a variety of manners responsive to engine speed.

This invention relates to an air supply system for a supercharged internal combustion engine, and more particularly to an arrangement for increasing the boost power at low and mid ranges without having excess boost at high speed conditions.
It has been proposed to increase the power of an internal combustion engine by employing some form of supercharging for compressing the air charge delivered to the combustion chambers of the engine. Most superchargers used for this purpose provide a boost that increases as the engine speed increases. Many of the superchargers used for this purpose also have a non-linear increase in boost pressure with relation to engine speed such as centrifugal type of superchargers which may be either engine driven or driven by an exhaust turbine (turbochargers). As a result, supercharged engines tend to have a high degree of power at maximum engine speed but their mid range and low speed performance may not be significantly greater than normally aspirated engines. Although these problems can be offset by designing the supercharger to provide higher boost pressures at low and mid range, then excessive boost is generated at high speed and performance can be deteriorated and/or the engine life significantly reduced.
It has been proposed to limit the maximum boost pressure of a supercharger by somehow reducing the speed at which the supercharger is driven as the engine speed increases. With a turbocharger this is done by using a relief valve in the exhaust turbine which opens when the exhaust pressure reaches a certain limit so as to reduce the speed at which the turbocharger is driven. Similar devices may also be employed with positively driven superchargers. Another alternative is to provide a fixed throttle in the discharge from the supercharger so as to reduce the maximum pressure which can be generated in the induction system.
Both of the expedients mentioned have a number of disadvantages. For example, reducing the speed at which the supercharger is driven, for example by using a pressure relief valve, provides a number of disadvantages. First, these relief valves are subjected to very high temperatures and failure rates can be quite high. In addition, the devices can add to the noise in the exhaust system and also add significantly to the cost of the over all engine.
Fixed throttles, on the other hand, tend to reduce the performance not only at high speed but also at low speed and thus are not totally satisfactory.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an improved and simplified arrangement for permitting a supercharger to generate high boost pressures at low and mid range speeds without creating excess boost at high speeds.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved and simplified arrangement for reducing the boost pressure generated by a supercharger at high speeds without adversely affecting the boost pressure at low speeds.
It is yet a further object of this invention to provide an improved arrangement for controlling the boost pressure of a turbocharged engine.

Air supply system for supercharged internal combustion engine


A grounding segment for a segmented grounding electric device, including a plurality of segment single bodies disposed in a matched manner, wherein a curved concave surface is formed in an outer side surface of each segment single body; a chute is formed in the curved concave surface; an interior of the chute is in sliding connection with an elastic member; two ends of the elastic member are respectively connected to sliders; the sliders are in sliding connection with the interior of the chute; each slider is movably connected to a curved fixing member matching a grounding conductor; the curved fixing member is made of a conductive material applicable to grounding conductors of different sizes; and a locking apparatus is connected between the plurality of segment single bodies. A user conveniently transports and mounts the grounding segment to reduce a land excavation area. Universality of the grounding segment is improved.

A grounding apparatus of a transmission line is a basic guarantee and an important measure to maintain safe and reliable operation of an electric device and guarantee safety of the electric device and an operating person. The grounding apparatus includes a grounding body and a grounding line. In addition, the grounding body good in impact characteristic can play a role in lightning protection by leading lightning current into the ground, thereby effectively protecting the transmission line, and further avoiding a power outage caused by a lightning strike. This has great significance to safe operation and power supply reliability of the electric device.
When an existing grounding segment is mounted and connected to a grounding conductor, because the size of the grounding segment is greater than that of the grounding conductor, an excavation area in mounting construction is relatively large, which goes against environmental protection. In addition, the grounding segment is inapplicable to grounding conductors of different sizes, and universality of the grounding segment is relatively poor.

Grounding segment for segmented grounding electric device

SOUTH CHINA SEA INSTITUTE OF OCEANOLOGY, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES