A fault location system for a telecommunications network including a local exchange or switch, a node such as a primary connection point and a plurality of line terminations to the customer includes probability calculation to establish the location of a fault measuring from the exchange. Historical non-faulty reference values of capacitance are compiled for each line passing through the node providing a measure of the distance of each line. A lowest valid capacitance value provides an estimate of the reference capacitance between the exchange and the node. Using various parameters, probability tables are compiled of historic fault values and a new fault is compared against these tables to establish the probability of it being a fault at the node or elsewhere. As a result the reference capacitance can be obtained without the need for an engineer at the node, and the likely location of a fault can be pinpointed with greater accuracy.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a line parameter capacitance estimation method and system and a fault management system incorporating such a system.
2. Related Art
A conventional public telecommunications network comprises a relatively small number of interconnected main switches and a larger number of local switches, each of which is connected to one or two main switches. The local switches are connected to the terminating lines of the network and the far ends of these lines are connected to terminal equipment such as telephone instruments provided for users of the network.
The network formed from the main switches and local switches is known as the core network, while the network formed from the terminating lines is known variously as an access network or a local loop. Some terminating lines are connected to a remote concentrator, which may or may not have switching capabilities. The remote concentrator is then connected to a local switch. The term local switch when used herein covers both local switches and remote concentrators.
In a conventional access network, each terminating line is formed from a pair of copper wires. Typically, each copper wire passes through a series of nodes between the local switch and terminal equipment. Examples of such nodes are primary cross-connection points (PCP), secondary cross-connection points (SCP), distribution points (DP) and junctions.
Terminating lines are prone to faults such as dis-connections, short circuits between the two wires of the pair of wires, and short circuits between one of the wires and earth. Causes of such faults include ingress of water into a node and also physical damage to a node.
Disconnection faults occur frequently; 30-40% of all logged faults are disconnection faults and 25% are at the PCP making these the most common kind of disconnection fault. According to known systems, the engineer is sent to the PCP to establish whether the fault is there or in the vicinity which may be as little as a street or two away. However it is desired to be able to identify within a reasonable level of accuracy whether the fault is actually at the PCP or, for example, with the customer, in order to reduce the engineer time spent on locating the fault.
Local switches are provided with line testing apparatus which may be used to test its terminating lines. When a customer reports a fault on a terminating line, the line may then be tested to identify the fault condition.
The process of locating, evaluating and repairing a fault may involve a comparison between the fault value with a reference capacitance which is the capacitance of a line under normal conditions between a node, such as a PCP, and the local switch.
Conventionally, it has been necessary for a person to travel to a node to test the node. Simultaneously, it is necessary to test the line from the local switch. This procedure suffers from several disadvantages. Firstly, as it is necessary to send a person to the node to measure a capacitance reference value, two people are needed to complete the measurements—one at the node and a person at the local switch. The procedure itself is labour intensive, and time consuming. Also, because it is also necessary to test several nodes before the correct one is found, the problems of cost and time are exacerbated. Known systems are described in published patent applications EP 0862828 and EP0938800.
According to one known system, the location of the fault is then estimated using an expert system assigning scores based on a range of parameters. This system requires complex processing of data on site. In addition, where there is more than one line running to the PCP, or cabinet, a single reference value may not be representative if there is re-routing or if a line between the switch and exchange follows an alternative route where there are multiple lines.

Telecommunications line parameter estimation


A frame synchronization apparatus and method for controlling a frame synchronization process. The frame synchronization apparatus includes a correlation-value computation section; an IQ component select section; and a synchronization-signal outputting section. The correlation-value computation section computes a correlation value representing a correlation between a known delay wave detection series and a received delay wave detection series. The IQ component select selects a larger one of absolute values representing the amplitudes of I and Q. The synchronization-signal outputting section carries out a peak detection process to detect a peak in pieces of data arranged along a time axis to form a correlation-value series and output a frame synchronization signal for said input signal in accordance with a result of said peak detection process.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a frame synchronization apparatus and its control method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a frame synchronization apparatus capable of establishing a frame synchronization in a stable manner and in a short period of time and relates to a control method of the apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the hand phone technology and the radio digital transmission technology have been growing impressively. The radio digital transmission technology includes the digital broadcasting technologies such as the satellite and ground broadcasting technologies as well as the radio LAN (Local Area Network) technology. In comparison with the wire system, the radio digital transmission system is easily affected by the external environment such as the shape of the transmission route, buildings and the weather. It is thus necessary to establish a radio synchronization in a stable manner in an even worse transmission environment.
The radio synchronization cited above means a synchronization with a symbol timing, a synchronization with a frame timing and a synchronization with the frequency of a carrier. In synchronizations including and following a frame-timing synchronization, in general, a synchronization technology making use of a known signal inserted periodically into a transmitted signal is adopted widely.
In a poor transmission environment, by raising the power to transmit the known signal or lengthening the time to transmit the signal, the synchronization performance can be improved. If the transmission power of the known signal is raised or the transmission time of the known signal is lengthened, however, the power to transmit a data signal or the time to transmit the data signal decreases relatively in comparison with those of the known signal. Thus, the efficiency of the data transmission deteriorates.
As a requirement raised by the background described above, there is a strong demand for implementation of synchronization technologies each capable of establishing a state of synchronization without much degrading the efficiency of the data transmission. Such synchronization technologies are disclosed in documents such as Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 10-155004 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1), Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 10-190762 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 2), Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 8-307408 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 3), Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 6-252966 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 4). The synchronization technologies disclosed in the patent references can each be essentially represented by a frame synchronization circuit shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the existing frame synchronization circuit.
The existing frame synchronization circuit 1 shown in FIG. 1 includes a delay wave detector 11, a correlator 12, a power-value computation circuit 13, a peak detector 14, a deviation-angle computation circuit 15 and a storage circuit 16.
The delay wave detector 11 includes a processor 21 and a delay circuit 22. The processor 21 is a section for carrying out a complex multiplication process to multiply each current symbol in a received delay wave detection series by the complex conjugate of a symbol delayed by the delay circuit 22 from the current symbol by 1 symbol and supplying a product obtained as a result of the complex multiplication process to the correlator 12. The received delay wave detection series is a complex-symbol array of an input signal which is a digital modulated signal supplied by an external source to the delay wave detector 11 by way of an element such as an antenna or a RF (Radio Frequency) circuit. Provided at a stage preceding the delay wave detector 11, the antenna or the RF (Radio Frequency) circuit itself is not shown in the figure. In the following description, the product obtained as a result of the complex multiplication process is referred to as a received delay wave detection value.
The correlator 12 is a section for identifying a correlation between a received delay wave detection series and a known delay wave detection series and supplying a correlation value representing the identified correlation to the power-value computation circuit 13 and the deviation-angle computation circuit 15. The received delay wave detection series is a symbol array of the delay wave detection values received from the delay wave detector 11. The known delay wave detection series is defined as a symbol array of correct delay wave detection values of a known input series which is a symbol array of known values periodically inserted into the received signal. In the following description, the correct delay wave detection values of a known input series are also each referred to as a known delay wave detection value. The power-value computation circuit 13 provided at a stage following the correlator 12 is a section for computing a sum of the square of the I component of the correlation value and the square of the Q component of the correlation value to find an electric power to be supplied to the peak detector 14 provided at a stage following the power-value computation circuit 13. The peak detector 14 is a section for detecting a peak timing appearing in frame synchronization as the timing of the peak of the power and outputting a frame synchronization pulse in 1 symbol time segment with the peak timing.
A process carried out by the peak detector 14 to detect the peak timing is explained by referring to FIG. 2 as follows. In FIG. 2, the vertical axis represents the power value whereas the horizontal axis represents the time. The larger the vertical-axis coordinate, the larger the power value. Time lapses in the right direction along the horizontal axis.
In the waveform shown in FIG. 2, a signal power S in a peak detection process is the power of a signal appearing with a peak timing whereas a noise power N in the peak detection process represents the variance of power variations occurring at times other than a time corresponding to the peak timing. The peak detector 14 detects the first peak timing and outputs a frame synchronization pulse in 1 symbol time segment with the peak timing. Thereafter, the peak detector 14 detects the second peak timing after 1 frame period following the first peak timing, the third peak timing after 1 frame period following the second peak timing and so on. That is to say, the peak detector 14 detects a peak timing for every frame period and outputs a frame synchronization pulse in 1 symbol time segment with the peak timing.
The reader is requested to refer back to FIG. 1. The deviation-angle computation circuit 15 is a section for finding a deviation angle which is defined as arctan (Q/I) where notations Q and I denote respectively the Q and I components of the correlation value output by the correlator 12. The deviation-angle computation circuit 15 supplies the deviation angle to the storage circuit 16. The deviation angle computed with the timing of the frame synchronization pulse is held in the storage circuit 16, which is a section for finding a difference between the frequency of the carrier and the local-oscillation frequency of the receiver apparatus as the output of the storage circuit 16. The difference between the frequency of the carrier and the local-oscillation frequency of the receiver apparatus is used for the purpose of eliminating a frequency error included in the received signal as follows: A reversed rotation with a phase rotation magnitude corresponding to the frequency difference is added to the received signal. It is to be noted, however, that this feature is not shown in the figure.
As described above, the existing frame synchronization circuit 1 shown in FIG. 1 carries out a delay wave detection process before determining a correlation. Thus, a fixed correlation output can be obtained even if a frequency error exists in the received signal to a certain degree. As a result, the frame synchronization circuit 1 is characterized in that a frame synchronization can be established in a stable manner. That is to say, since a phase rotation caused by the frequency error can be stopped by carrying out the delay wave detection process, same-direction phases are cumulatively added to each other in the correlation detection process so that a large correlation output can be obtained.
Next, the delay wave detection process is explained quantitatively by making use of a concrete mathematical expression.
A delay wave detection output is expressed by Eq. (1) given below. In the equation, notation rn denotes a received delay wave detection series, notation Δf denotes the frequency error, notation T denotes the symbol period and notation θ0 denotes a phase shift generated in the transmission line and an analog circuit included in the transmitter apparatus.
                                                                                r                  n                                                                  r                                      n                    -                    1                                    *                                            =                                                                            a                  n                                                                                ⅇ                                          j                                                                    (                                                                              2                                                                                πΔ                                                            ft                                                                                +                                                      θ                            0                                                                          )                                                                              ·                                      a                                          n                      -                      1                                        *                                                                                ⅇ                                      -                                          j                                                                    (                                                                              2                                                        πΔ                                                                                f                                                                                (                                                                  t                                  -                                  T                                                                )                                                                                +                                                      θ                            0                                                                          )                                                                                =                                                                                a                    n                                                                          a                                          n                      -                      1                                        *                                                                          ⅇ                                          j2πΔ                                                                                fT                                                                      =                                                      a                    n                                                                          a                                          n                      -                      1                                        *                                                                          ⅇ                    jΔθ                                                                                (        1        )
It is to be noted that, in Eq. (1), an equation of Δθ=2πΔfT holds true. This expression represents a frequency error per symbol. In addition, if the BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) technique is adopted as the modulation method and if the amplitude of the received signal is assumed to have been normalized to 1, an equation of an=ejkπ (where k=0 or 1) holds true. Since ana*n-1 is also represented by an expression of ejk′π (where k′=0 or 1), the delay wave detection output can be expressed by a diagram of FIG. 3.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a mapping pattern on a complex plane of the delay wave detection output generated by the delay wave detector 11. In the following description, the complex plane is also referred to as an IQ plane. The I axis represents the I component representing the real part of a correlation value whereas the Q axis represents the Q component of the imaginary part of the correlation value. In the following description, the I and the Q axes are also referred to as the in-phase axis and the orthogonal axis respectively. On the IQ plane shown in FIG. 3, notation Δθ denotes a phase rotation angle generated due to the frequency error as a phase rotation angle per symbol.
That is to say, the received delay wave detection value has a phase rotated by +Δθ from the known delay wave detection value. The received delay wave detection value is a delay wave detection value between adjacent symbols in a received delay wave detection series, being a value delayed from the corresponding known delay wave detection value in the known delay wave detection series. The known delay wave detection value is a delay wave detection value in the known delay wave detection series.
In addition, in a known-signal time segment, the pattern of k′ after the delay wave detection process is also known. Thus, by taking the pattern as the known delay wave detection series and identifying the correlation with the received delay wave detection series of the delay wave detection outputs, a correlation value of KejΔσ at the peak timing can be obtained as shown in FIG. 4. Much like FIG. 3, FIG. 4 also shows the IQ plane. Notation K denotes a number obtained as a result of subtracting 1 from a known-symbol count inserted into the head of every frame of the input signal. The value of K is equal to the number of cumulative addition circuits used in the correlation processing. That is to say, the phase of the known delay wave detection value of the known delay wave detection series and the phase of the received delay wave detection value of the received delay wave detection series corresponding to the known delay wave detection series approach the same value as the value of Δθ decreases in such a way that, the smaller the value of Δθ, the better the phases approach the same value. In addition, for small values of Δθ, a positive correlation can also be said to be stronger.
As described above, in the existing frame synchronization circuit 1 shown in FIG. 1, the correlation value has a phase offset depending on the frequency error. By detecting a peak power value, however, the effect of the phase offset can be eliminated so that it is possible to establish a frame synchronization not dependent on the frequency error.
The existing frame synchronization circuit 1 shown in FIG. 1 executes frame synchronization control as explained above.

Frame synchronization apparatus and its control method


A slide rail has a mounting shaft and a sliding mount. The sliding mount is movably mounted around the mounting shaft and has a clamp, a handle, a clamp jaw, a holding bracket and a spring. The clamp is mounted around the mounting shaft. The handle is rotatably connected to the clamp and has a lock bar and a grip. The clamp jaw is mounted around and abuts the mounting shaft in the clamp and has a convex surface. The holding bracket is connected to the clamp to hold a showerhead, a soap dish or the like and has a positioning ring. The spring is mounted in the clamp between the clamp jaw and the positioning ring to push the convex surface of the clamp jaw to engage an engaging recess of the lock bar.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slide rail, more particular to a slide rail for holding sanitary devices conveniently.
2. Description of Related Art
With reference to FIG. 7, a conventional slide rail (60) is mounted on a wall for holding sanitary devices such as showerhead, soap dish or the like and has a mounting shaft (61) and a sliding mount (62). The mounting shaft (61) is mounted on a wall and has an external surface and a diameter. The sliding mount (62) is movably mounted around the mounting shaft (61) and has a clamp (63), a holding bracket (64), an handle (65) and a pressing rod (66).
The clamp (63) is hollow, is mounted around the mounting shaft (61) and has a center, two ends, a mounting hole (631) and a connecting hole (632). The mounting hole (631) is formed through the center of the clamp (63) and is mounted around the external surface of the mounting shaft (61). The connecting hole (632) is formed in one of the ends of the clamp (63) and communicates with the mounting hole (631).
The holding bracket (64) is connected to the clamp (63) by a fastener (67) opposite to the connecting hole (632) to hold a showerhead bracket, soap dish or the like.
The handle (65) is rotatably mounted in the connecting hole (632) of the clamp (63) and has an inner end and a threaded hole (651). The inner end of the handle (65) is mounted in the connecting hole (632) and extends into the clamp (63). The threaded hole (651) is formed in the inner end of the handle (65) and communicates with the mounting hole (631).
The pressing rod (66) is mounted in the threaded hole (651) of the handle (65) to press against the external surface of the mounting shaft (61) and has a pressing hole (661). The pressing hole (661) is formed through the pressing rod (66) and is mounted around the mounting shaft (61) in the clamp (63) and has a diameter larger than the diameter of the mounting shaft (61).
The position of the sliding mount (62) of the conventional hanger device (60) can be adjusted relative to the mounting shaft (61) by rotating the handle (65) to make the pressing rod (66) separate from the external surface of the mounting shaft (66). Then, the sliding mount (62) can be moved relative to the mounting shaft (61).
However, the external surface of the mounting shaft (61) is subject to wear by over-rotation of the pressing rod (66) forming a dent on the external surface of the mounting shaft (61), and this will make the sliding mount (62) slanting relative to the mounting shaft when the pressing rod (66) is pressed on the dent on the external surface of the mounting shaft (61). Then, the life of the mounting shaft (61) will be shortened and the mounting shaft (61) needs to be replaced.
Furthermore, the handle (65) is a circular shape, and a user cannot distinguish when the pressing rod (66) is pressing against the mounting shaft (61). Then, the conventional slide rail is inconvenient in use.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention tends to provide a slide rail to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.


A continuous welding machine (1) for welding facing sides of a pipe blank (15) bent from a material blank is provided, having a guide strut (2) for guiding the sides of the blank (15) to be welded to each other in the direction toward a welding device (3). Pipe guides (4, 5) arranged about a periphery of the guide track designed for the pipe blank (15). For the continuous welding machine (1) according to the invention, the pipe guides (4, 5) and the guide strut (2) are adjustable in the radial direction relative to a guide axis (7) for adapting to different pipe diameters, and the guide tracks (8, 9) of the guide strut (2) allocated to the sides of the pipe blank (15) to be welded and also arranged on opposite sides of the guide strut (2) are arranged at an angle to each other in a plane extending through the guide axis (7). With the help of the continuous welding machine according to the invention, selected pipes with different pipe diameters can be produced alternately.

The invention relates to a continuous welding machine for welding facing sides of a pipe blank bent from a material blank with a guide strut for guiding the sides of the pipe blank to be welded to each other in the direction toward a welding device, as well as with pipe guides arranged over the periphery of the guide track for the pipe blank.
Chimney pipes are frequently produced from pipe sections, which each consist of an outer pipe casing and an inner pipe casing, wherein insulation is provided between the outer pipe casing and the inner pipe casing of each pipe section.
To produce the pipe segments needed for the outer pipe casing and the inner pipe casing, various production methods are already known. For example, pipe segments with different diameters can be produced on different production lines, in order to then join them in a final assembly process to form the individual chimney pipe sections.
Here, among other things, continuous welding machines of the type noted above are also used to be able to butt-weld to each other the facing sides of a pipe blank bent from a material blank. In these known continuous welding machines, in the gap of the pipe blank there is a guide strut, in order to be able to guide the sides of the pipe blank to be welded to each other in guide s arranged on opposite sides of the guide strut toward a welding device. Because the guide strut must have a certain minimum thickness for stability reasons, the edges of the pipe blank guided against each other for forming a butt seam are shifted at an angle to each other in such a way that these edges arranged at approximately the same spacing to the guide axis are initially held at a distance by the guide strut, in order to contact only at the weld point arranged before the strut. This guide, which is initially spaced apart on a common peripheral casing, but which then butts against and finally forms an angle for the edges of the pipe blank to be welded to each other, makes it necessary that the pipe blank must be clamped with considerable expenditure of force, in order to be able to press the edges of the pipe blank against each other at an angle to each other at the weld point. Therefore, in these previously known welding machines, pipe guides are needed, which are in a position to press together the edges of the pipe blank that are to be welded to each other and that are initially still spread apart by the guide strut with considerable expenditure of force at the weld point. Known welding machines have special clamping jaws, which can be pressed by contact pressure rollers and which are to be adapted to the desired form of the pipe segment. The adjustment of the known welding machines to a certain pipe diameter of the required pipe blank, however, is associated with considerable retrofitting expense.
If the production options are limited to only one production line, initially a number of pipe segments with one diameter must be produced and temporarily stored, in order to then produce a corresponding number of pipe segments with the other needed diameters. Here, the machines required for forming and welding the necessary pipe segments first have to be converted to the other pipe diameter before pipe segments of such a pipe diameter can be produced on these machines.
The production of pipe segments especially for, if necessary, also quickly changing diameters, therefore requires a considerable amount of time and space. Therefore, a continuous welding machine has also already been created, which is used for welding pre-shaped blanks into pipes (WO 00/29163). The known welding machine has a modular construction and has a support device, which is formed, for example, as a rail and on which several modules are arranged. Here the pre-shaped blank is first inserted into a run-in module, from where the blank can be conveyed further to pre-centering modules. In each of these pre-centering modules, there are loading tools for the blank, which are used for its centering and shaping before the welding module. Now, in order to be able to present the very different pipe dimensions and pipe shapes for welding in a simple way without complicated conversion of the welding machine, it is provided in the welding machine known from WO 00/29163 that along the length of the blank, the modules, which can optionally also be coupled to each other, can be moved from a work position into a waiting position and back on the common support unit.
Because the known welding machine has a modular construction and the individual modules are arranged on a carrier so that they can be exchanged and adjusted relative to each other, an optimum adjustment of the pipe shape to be welded and pipe dimensions should be provided. For example, in WO 00/29163 it is also provided that according to the length of the pipe, several run-in modules and pre-positioning modules can be provided or such modules can be quickly exchanged for adapted modules according to the diameter range of the pipe. By exchanging the centering and welding modules, various welders can also be used in a simple manner. Here, the modules can be shifted on the carrier unit so that they can be brought into an inactive waiting position, in which they do not disrupt the work process of the active module and from which they can be easily brought again into the work position.
In the continuous welding machine known from WO 00/29163, the loading tools provided in the individual modules are stored in the welding machine, in practice, as change tools and activated when needed.
In WO 00/29163 it is described that the known continuous welding machine also has a directional tool, which is to be designated as a guide strut and which is inserted into the still open blank in such a way that the edges of the blank contact the edges of this directional tool extending toward each other. This directional tool, which is pulled upward when the edges of the blank are moved toward each other by the loading tools, should produce a defined position of the edges, so that a butted position of the edges of the blank is formed.
The continuous welding machine known from WO 00/29163 thus represents only a further development of the prior state of the art, which provides different loading tools for adapting to different pipe diameters, wherein these loading tools in WO 00/29163 are provided for shortening or avoiding retrofitting times in the welding machine itself.
Indeed, in WO 00/29163, movement of the guide strut is also provided, but the guide strut is to be raised only when the edges of the blank are to be moved toward each other by the loading tool.

Continuous welding machine for welding a pipe blank


The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for forming a predetermined pattern on a substrate using a gravure offset printing method. The apparatus for forming a pattern using a gravure offset printing method comprises a gravure on which a pattern to be filled with a color resist is formed; a roller brought into contact with the gravure to transfer the pattern formed on the gravure to the roller and then to print the transferred pattern onto a substrate; a roller driving means for rotating and horizontally driving the roller to transfer the pattern formed on the gravure to the roller and then to print the transferred pattern onto the substrate as it is; and a substrate support on which the substrate is placed. Further, the roller driving means includes a rotational driving unit for rotationally driving the roller; a horizontal driving unit for horizontally driving the roller independently of the rotational driving unit; and a control unit for controlling driving speeds of the rotational and horizontal driving units.

1. Claim For Priority
This application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2006-0014322 filed on Feb. 14, 2006, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for forming a predetermined pattern on a substrate using a gravure offset printing method.
3. Description of the Related Art
As various kinds of portable electronic equipment such as a mobile phone, person digital assistant (PDA) and notebook computer have been recently developed, a demand for a flat panel display having lightweight, thin and short and compact features is gradually increased. A flat panel display such as LCD (liquid crystal display), PDP (plasma display panel), FED (field emission display) and VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) have been actively studied and currently put to practical use.
In general, the flat panel display is formed with a color filter layer for implementing a color image thereon, and comprises a color filter in which a black matrix is formed to prevent an image quality thereof from being deteriorated due to leakage of light to a region excluding an image display area. A typical flat panel display including such a color filter is a liquid crystal display device. Such a liquid crystal display device is composed of a thin film transistor substrate with a thin film transistor formed thereon and a color filter substrate with a color filter layer formed thereon, and is completed by injecting liquid crystal between the two substrates to form a liquid crystal layer.
In the meantime, pixels having R (red), G (green) and B (blue) color components are generally arranged in a color filter layer 1, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. At this time, each of the pixels in the liquid crystal display device may be composed of sub-pixels with R, G and B color components. However, each pixel generally has a single color. The arrangement of pixels can be variously made according to the difference of resolution. Such a color filter layer can be formed through various methods such as dyeing, printing, electrodepositing and pigment spraying methods. In a conventional STN (super-twisted nematic) liquid crystal display device, the color filter layer has been mainly formed through the dyeing, printing or electrodepositing method. On the other hand, in a TFT LCD with excellent delicacy and reproducibility and applicability to a large-sized liquid crystal panel, the pigment spraying method is mainly utilized.
In the pigment spraying method, a photosensitive color resist is formed into a pattern through a typical photolithographic process to form the color filter layer. That is, the photosensitive color resist is first applied on a substrate, light is then irradiated onto the color resist using a mask, and a desired pattern is finally formed using developer, whereby the color filter layer has been completed. Therefore, the photolithographic process is required in forming the color filter through the pigment spraying method. However, there are some problems in that the photolithographic process is complicated and excessive manufacturing costs are required. Furthermore, the photolithographic process should be repeated three times to form the R, G and B pixels, and thus, a manufacturing process becomes more complicated.
In order to overcome the aforementioned problems in such a pigment spraying method, a scheme in which a printing method is employed in the TFT LCD field has been recently proposed. That is, a plurality of gravures, each filled with a color resist, and a plurality of rollers corresponding to the gravures are provided such that a color resist pattern with a certain color component is formed on a substrate by means of a roller, and the other color resists are sequentially formed by means of the other relevant rollers.
The above process will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 3, as follow.
First, as shown in FIG. 3(a), an adequate amount of color resist R is supplied onto a surface of a gravure 10 on which a pattern of a predetermined color component is formed. At this time, an amount of the color resist R supplied onto the gravure is slightly greater than a volume of a pattern groove 12 formed on the surface of the gravure 10. Then, a doctor blade 20 is employed such that the color resist R is received only in the pattern groove 12 formed on the surface of the gravure 10, and the color resist remaining on the other region is removed.
After the color resist R has been filled as such, a roller 30 is rolled along the surface of the gravure 10 as shown in FIG. 3(b) such that the pattern of the color resist R formed on the surface of the gravure is transferred onto the roller.
Then, the roller 30 onto which the color resist pattern has been transferred is moved on a substrate 40, and the pattern of the color resist R transferred to the surface of the roller 30 is transferred again onto the substrate 40 as shown in FIG. 3(c). Consequently, a predetermined color resist pattern is formed on the substrate 40 in such a manner. The aforementioned process is repeated three times to form the R, G and B patterns on the substrate.
In order to manufacture the color filter in such a manner, the roller is rotated at a predetermined speed and moved in a horizontal direction. At this time, a rotating speed and a horizontally moving speed of the roller should be controlled precisely such that the color resist pattern formed on the roller can be transferred onto the substrate without any change.
As shown in FIG. 4, a roller 10 has been conventionally designed in such a manner that it is rotated and linearly moved using a pinion gear 14 and a rack 16. However, in a case where the pinion gear 14 and the rack 16 are utilized, there is a problem in that large noise is generated while the roller is driven. Further, there is another problem in that it is difficult to accurately control the roller due to tolerance and backlash by means of an error made in the process of machining the gear.

Apparatus and method for forming pattern


The systems and methods described herein are directed to a standup paddle board system including a multi-hull board and a steering mechanism which can be activated by a user and assist in maneuvering the standup paddle board system. In addition, one or more moveable rudders can extend from a bottom surface of the multi-hull board and can change position in response to activation of the steering mechanism. In at least some variations, activation of the steering mechanism, such as a steering arm or tiller, can effectuate simultaneous movement of two or more moveable rudders.

Stand up paddle boarding is a popular water sport that can be enjoyed in a variety of bodies of water around the world, such as lakes, rivers and oceans. At least some standup paddle boards allow a user to stand on the standup paddle board and use a paddle to assist in propelling and directing the standup paddle board along the body of water.
In addition, due to the size of most standup paddle boards, including some catamaran style standup paddle boards, changing the direction of travel of the standup paddle board can be difficult. For example, a user of a standup paddle board can expend a significant amount of energy in order to either propel or change the direction of travel of the standup paddle board. Therefore, it can be beneficial for a user to have assistance in at least changing the direction of travel of the standup paddle board in order to at least preserve some of the user's energy and improve the speed and efficiency of the standup paddle board.

Standup paddle board system with steering mechanism


FP-1 is a protein that is specifically expressed in the follicular papilla of the hair follicle. The nucleic acid and amino acid sequences of FP-1, as well as antibodies that specifically bind FP-1 are provided. In addition, methods of isolating follicular papilla cells and methods of modulating hair growth are also disclosed.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of dermatology. More specifically, the present invention relates to compositions and methods for modulating hair growth.
(b) Background
Although hair growth disorders are not life threatening, their impact on social interactions and on an individual's psychological well being is undeniable. Thus, effective methods of treating hair growth disorders are greatly desired.
One of the most common hair disorders is alopecia, where humans begin losing scalp hair at the temples and on the crown of their head as they age. Although this type of hair loss is predominantly found in males, it is also present in a certain proportion of women. Alopecia can also be induced by chemical agents or physical agents (e.g., during anti-cancer chemotherapy), and the condition also results from specific disease states.
Another type of hair growth disorder results from abnormally accentuated hair growth. For example, hirsutism is manifested as excessive androgen-dependent hair growth in women, whereas hypertrichosis is an increase in androgen-independent hair growth (Bertolino et al., "Disorders of epidermal appendages and related disorders," in Dermatology in General Medicine, 4th ed., pp. 671-695, Fitzpatrick et al., eds. (McGraw-Hill, 1993)).
A traditional treatment for alopecia is hair transplantation. This typically involves transplanting plugs of natural hair from areas of the scalp where hair is growing to bald or thinning areas of the scalp. This procedure is costly, time-consuming, painful, and does not provide a sufficient remedy in all cases. Electrical stimulus has been suggested as an alternative way to promote hair growth (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,477 and references cited therein); however, such methods are of questionable efficacy.
Other methods for stimulating hair growth comprise the use of various chemicals or drugs, mud preparations, and plant extracts (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,798,341, 5,767,152, 5,753,713, 5,750,107, 5,741,816, 5,739,111, 5,723,149, 5,679,378, 5,674,497, 5,663,160, 5,656,300, 5,643,898, 4,139,619, and references cited therein). There are two compounds currently in clinical use to treat alopecia: finasteride, sold as PROPECIA®, and minoxidil, marketed as ROGAINE®. A drawback of finasteride is that it can only be used by men. Furthermore, its use can result in sexual side effects such as a decreased desire for sex, difficulty in achieving erection, and a decrease in the amount of semen. Minoxidil is a vasodilatory drug which can have side effects in some patients. Similarly, mud preparations and plant extracts can produce unwelcome side effects in various patients and are of questionable efficacy. Moreover such treatments require a normal scalp with no local abrasions, dermatitis, or sunburn, rendering such methods unavailable to many individuals.
In addition to these hair growth disorders, individuals may also desire to increase, decrease, or prevent hair growth purely for cosmetic reasons. As a result, there is immense interest in the development of effective cosmetic and clinical treatments. Yet, most, if not all, of the known methods to control hair growth have several drawbacks.
For example, various procedures have been used to remove unwanted hair from the groin area, legs and face including shaving, electrolysis, use of depilatory creams, waxing, plucking and therapeutic anti-androgens, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,093,748. However, these traditional methods have various drawbacks associated with them. For example, shaving can cause nicks, cuts and undesirable stubble. Although electrolysis keeps a treated area free of hair for prolonged periods of time, it can be expensive, painful, and may leave scarring in some cases. Depilatory creams have a high potential to irritate the skin. Waxing and plucking can cause pain, discomfort and poor removal of short hair. Finally, anti-androgens can have undesirable side effects.
Thus, alternative methods for controlling hair growth are needed.

Compositions for controlling hair growth


Stable aqueous solutions comprising concentrations of baclofen in the range of greater than 2.0 mg/mL up to about 10 mg/mL are disclosed. These solutions can be used as pharmaceuticals for parenteral or oral administration. The invention also provides methods of preparing said stable aqueous baclofen solutions.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to aqueous solutions comprising high concentrations of baclofen in the range of greater than 2.0 mg/mL up to about 10 mg/mL. These solutions can be used as pharmaceuticals. The invention also relates to various methods of preparing stable solutions in this concentration range.
2. Background
Baclofen is a skeletal muscle relaxant and antispastic agent. Baclofen is a structural analog of the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and may exert its effects by stimulation of the GABAB receptor subtype. Baclofen is the generic (USAN) name (USP Dictionary of USAN and International Drug Names 2003) for 4-amino-3-(p-chlorophenyl) butyric acid, a derivative of γ-aminobutyric acid. Its structural formula is:

Baclofen is a white to off-white, odorless or practically odorless crystalline powder, with a molecular weight of 213.66. It is slightly soluble in water, very slightly soluble in methanol, and insoluble in chloroform. Its slight solubility in water makes it difficult to obtain stable aqueous solutions of baclofen that have concentrations greater than approximately 2 mg/mL.
Baclofen can be administered orally, but when injected directly into the intrathecal space of a patient effective CSF concentrations are achieved with resultant plasma concentrations 100 times less than those occurring with oral administration. Baclofen injections (Lioresal Intrathecal, Medtronic) are therefore commonly administered intathecally via an implanted pump to manage severe spasticity of spinal cord origin. (McEvoy, 2003) Presently, baclofen is commercially available for injection as a 2 mg/mL solution having a pH of 5 to 7 and the following simple preservative-free formula (Lioresal Intrathecal package insert):
Baclofen2 mgSodium chloride9mgWater for injectionqs 1mL
Unfortunately, the 2 mWmL concentration has been inadequate to control the pain and symptoms of some patients. An additional difficulty is that mixing a 2 mg/mL baclofen injection with other drugs such as morphine or hydromorphone in "cocktails" to aid in control of pain can dilute the baclofen content to unacceptably low levels. In these and other applications, it can be desirable to administer a more concentrated solution of baclofen in order to reduce the volume of baclofen solution to be administered. But due to baclofen's slight solubility in water, aqueous solutions having a higher concentration of baclofen have not been shown to be commercially viable products. At higher concentrations baclofen may not entirely dissolve in aqueous solution, or it may have an unacceptable tendency to precipitate out of solution during storage.
An upper limit on room temperature aqueous solubility of baclofen has been reported by some sources as 4.3 mg/mL (Abuja, 1985), however that concentration was achieved by allowing the baclofen to dissolve over a period of weeks or months until it reached an equilibrium state. In an equilibrium solution there is always particulate baclofen present. The solution is at equilibrium because the rate at which the baclofen particulates dissolve is equal to the rate at which the dissolved baclofen precipitates out of solution.
Baclofen has not been shown to be nearly as soluble when less time-consuming methods are used to dissolve it, nor has it been reported that concentrations equaling or even approaching the 4.3 mg/mL concentration can be achieved in solutions that are not at equilibrium, i.e. where no particulate baclofen is present. Commercially and pharmaceutically acceptable baclofen solutions must not contain any significant amount of particulates, and the baclofen must stay in solution without precipitating prior to and during administration to a patient. Only solutions of baclofen having a concentration of 2 mg/mL have previously been demonstrated to have the properties that make them an acceptable commercial pharmaceutical product by remaining stable for extended periods of time without precipitation of significant amounts of baclofen particulates.
Various sources have reported stable suspensions or syrups of baclofen for oral administration that had concentrations even higher than equilibrium concentration of 4.3 mg/mL, (Allen et al., 1996; Johnson and Hart, 1993) but none of these preparations are acceptable for pharmaceutical injection uses. Other sources have reported the production of microspheres containing 12 to 50% baclofen (Cruaud et al., 1999, but such microspheres are not compatible with delivery systems requiring an aqueous solution of baclofen.
It was also known that baclofen can be readily dissolved in very high and very low pH solutions. For example, Ahuja (1985) reported that concentrations of baclofen greater than 20 mg/ml could be obtained by dissolving baclofen in aqueous solutions of 0.1N HCl or aqueous solutions of 0.1N NaOH. Significantly, the pKa1 for baclofen at 20° C. is reported by Ahuja to be 3.87±0.1 and the pKa2 at 20° C. 9.62±0.1. The pH of a 0.1N HCl solution is well below the pKa1 value for baclofen and the pH of a 0.1N NaOH solution is well above the pKa2 value for baclofen. Thus baclofen at these pHs would be expected to have different solubility properties than baclofen dissolved in more neutral pH solutions. Moreover, it would be expected that high concentration solutions of baclofen that were prepared at pHs below pKa1 or above the pKa2 value of baclofen would tend to fall out of solution when the pH of the solution was adjusted to a value between the pKa1 and pKa2 values. Because solutions having a pH of less than 4 or greater than 8.5 would not expected to be acceptable pharmaceutically, the use of very high or very low pH solutions of baclofen does not resolve the need for higher concentration aqueous solutions of baclofen.
Therefore, there appears to be a clinical need for more concentrated aqueous solutions of baclofen having acceptable pharmaceutical properties, and most preferably for concentrated solutions that are also stable in a variety of storage conditions and for extended periods of time.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

High concentration baclofen preparations

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


Torque is transmitted between two rotatable, coaxial shaft members in a stationary housing which includes a number of alternate clutch discs connected to the shaft members and engageable to counteract differential rotational speed therebetween, and a hydraulic arrangement driven by the speed differential. The arrangement includes a number of pistons which are axially movable in the housing and are intended to create a hydraulic pressure in the arrangement and thereby to engage the clutch discs, piston actuating devices engaging a shaft member via cams, so as to impart to the pistons a reciprocating movement, and a closed hydraulic system connecting cylinders at all pistons with a hydraulic line containing check-valves. Oil is supplied to the system with a pump and may be removed from the system via an overflow valve.

A device of the kind described above is known through our own EP-A-94200571.1, to which reference is made for further information about the technical field and certain features common for this prior device and the device according to the present invention. With this known device it has become possible to obtain a reasonably even or non-fluctuating differential rotational speed decrease or braking action in the device. With one embodiment of the prior device it is also possible to obtain the desired, even action also in a second rotational direction, i e in the reverse gear, if the device is used as a so called differential brake in a connection between the front and the rear axle of a road vehicle.
However, a supply piston in the hydraulic arrangement of the prior device is spring biassed into engagement with its cam, and the hydraulic system itself is of the open type, sucking oil from a reservoir and delivering it back after use in the system.
A drawback with this device is that it is impossible to obviate or switch-off its action, which for example means that towing away of a vehicle provided with such a device is very difficult. A present requirement on a device of the kind referred to is that it shall make a towing away at a speed of 50 km/h possible.

Device for transmitting torque between two rotatable shafts


A method and an apparatus for obtaining a gamut description of a multidimensional color reproduction device. The method is based on the transformation of several types of colorants boundaries that map to the boundaries of the color gamut of the device in color space.

The independent values with which the color device can be addressed are called colorants or inks. For purposes of generality, the physically achievable values for these colorants range from 0 to 100%. A color reproduction device with n colorants will be called a printer or an n-ink process. A typical device we have in mind is a multidimensional color printer with n colorants such as a cmyk offset printing press, but the invention can also be applied to other devices such as color displays, color photography or slide makers.
With colorants space is meant an n-dimensional space with n the number of independent variables with which the printer can be addressed. In the case of an offset printing press the dimension of the space corresponds to the number of inks of the printer. With color space is meant a space that represents a number of quantities of an object that characterize its color. In most practical situations, colors will be represented in a 3-dimensional space such as the CIE XYZ space. However, also other characteristics can be used such as multispectral values based on filters that are not necessarily based on a linear transformation of the color matching functions to represent color. A typical example is an n-dimensional space of which the axes correspond to densities.
With colorants gamut or colorant domain is meant the delimited space in colorant space of colorant combinations that are physically realizable by a given printer, taking into account possible extra limitations on colorant combinations. In this invention it is supposed that colorant limitations are preferentially specified by mathematical formulas that describe the boundaries of the desired colorant gamut.
The colorant gamut of a cmyk offset press for example is delimited by a linear condition that limits the sum of the four colorant (for example to 340%). A printer model is a mathematical relation that expresses color values in function of colorant for a given printer. The variables for the colorant are denoted as c.sub.1, c.sub.2, . . . c.sub.n with n the dimension of the colorant space. An n-ink process is completely characterized by its colorant gamut with a number of colorant limitations and the printer model. Because of this close relationship between an n-ink process and the printer model, the operations typical for a printer model are also defined for the n-ink process. With inverting an n-ink process is meant that the corresponding printer model is inverted. The transformation of an n-ink process to color space on the other hand is equivalent to the transformation of the corresponding colorant domain to color space by making use of the printer model. If an n-ink process is given with colorant limitations in the colorant domain and if an m-ink process is deduced from this n-ink process by setting n-m colorant to constant values in the printer model of the n-ink process, the colorant limitations are inherited by this m-ink process if the colorant gamut of the m-ink process is restricted by colorant limitations obtained by setting the n-m colorant in the colorant limitations of the colorant gamut of the n-ink process to their constant values.
Extracting an m-ink process out of an n-ink process with m<n, means that n-m out of the n colorant in the printer model are replaced by a constant value. The colorant of such an m-ink process vary between the minimum and maximum values they can have according to the colorant gamut of the n-ink process and the colorant limitations are inherited by the m-ink process. The m-ink process is called the extracted m-ink process of the n-ink process.
If an m-ink process is extracted from an n-ink process, and the n-m out of the n colorant in the printer model of the n-ink process are replaced by their minimum or maximum value as defined by the colorant gamut of the n-ink process, the m-ink process is called an m-ink boundary process of the n-ink process. In general there are ##EQU1## m-ink boundary processes of an n-ink process. The colorant in the colorant gamut of an m-ink boundary process vary between the minimum and maximum values they can have according to the colorant gamut of the n-ink process and the colorant limitations are inherited by the m-ink process. With color gamut is meant a delimited region in color space, containing colors that are physically realizable by a given printer, taking into account possible extra limitations on colorant combinations.
A color gamut is completely determined by its boundaries. In a 3-dimensional color space these boundaries are surfaces, and hence there will be surfaces in colorant space that map to the color gamut boundaries. In general several kinds of colorant surfaces should be taken into account, but for well-behaved printers the color gamut is, by definition, exactly determined by the transformation of the colorant domains of the 2-ink boundary processes of the n-ink process to color space. It can be shown that this condition is equivalent with saying that in a n-ink process, a colorant combination lies inside the color gamut if there are at least three colorant that can be changed both positively as negatively. Such surfaces in colorant space are called physical colorant boundaries that are transformed by the printer model to the physical color boundaries in color space. The envelope of the physical color boundaries determines the boundaries of the physical color gamut of the n-ink process. In the case of an s-dimensional color space, the dimension of the boundaries is s-1. Physical colorant boundaries correspond in this case to the domains of the (s-1)-ink boundary processes of the n-ink process. The physical color boundaries are obtained by transforming the domains of the (s-1)-ink boundary processes of the n-ink process to color space.
The color gamut of a printer is certainly one of its most important characteristics. An explicit representation of this gamut is highly desirable, for example, to enable the optimal reproduction of images that contain colors that fall outside the color gamut of the printer.
Because our invention is based on the use of a printer model, a few more words of explanation are given on the subject of printer models.
The Neugebauer Equations
Different mathematical expressions have been proposed to model printing processes, along which the Neugebauer equations are certainly the most known ones.
The Neugebauer equations reflect how color originates in halftone printing. The printing with three inks c.sub.1, c.sub.2 and c.sub.3 by means of three halftone screens results theoretically in eight possible combinations of colorant overlap, called the Neugebauer primaries. If the size of the halftone dots is small enough not to be resolvable by the eye, the resulting color is a weighted sum of the tristimulus values of these primaries. For a 3-ink process, the Neugebauer equation for the X tristimulus value is given by EQU X.sub.(c1,c2,c3) =a.sub.W X.sub.W +a.sub.1 X.sub.1 +a.sub.2 X.sub.2 +a.sub.3 X.sub.3 +a.sub.12 X.sub.12 +a.sub.13 X.sub.13 +a.sub.23 X.sub.23 +a.sub.123 X.sub.123
If it is assumed that the relative positions of the halftone dots are random, the Neugebauer equations can be calculated from the Demichel equations that predict the fraction of each combination of the three inks as a function of their respective dot percentages c.sub.1, c.sub.2 and c.sub.3, and this leads to the Neugebauer equations in their most often encountered form: EQU a.sub.W =(1-c.sub.1)(1-c.sub.2)(1-c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.1 =(c.sub.1)(1-c.sub.2)(1-c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.2 =(1-c.sub.1)(c.sub.2)(1-c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.3 =(1-c.sub.1)(1-c.sub.2)(c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.23 =(1-c.sub.1)(c.sub.2)(c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.13 =(c.sub.1)(1-c.sub.2)(c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.12 =(c.sub.1)(c.sub.2)(1-c.sub.3) EQU a.sub.123 =(c.sub.1)(c.sub.2)(c.sub.3)
in which c.sub.1, c.sub.2 and c.sub.3 represent the dot percentages of the three inks. The equations for the Y and Z values are obtained by replacing the X values by the corresponding Y and Z values respectively. The extension of the Neugebauer equations for n inks is straightforward.
According to one interpretation, the Neugebauer equations predict the X, Y and Z tristimulus values by means of trilinear interpolation from the corresponding tristimulus values of the 8 Neugebauer "primaries". If the Neugebauer equations are used as multilinear interpolation formulae, they can be used to model any color device in any color space.
Working out the Demichel coefficients in the Neugebauer equations and rearranging the terms results in the following set of polynomial expressions: EQU X=k.sub.0 +k.sub.1 c.sub.1 +k.sub.2 c.sub.2 +k.sub.3 c.sub.3 +k.sub.12 c.sub.1 c.sub.2 +k.sub.13 c.sub.1 c.sub.3 +k.sub.23 c.sub.2 c.sub.3 +k.sub.123 c.sub.2 c .sub.3 EQU Y=1.sub.0 +1.sub.1 c.sub.1 +1.sub.2 c.sub.2 +1.sub.3 c.sub.3 +1.sub.12 c.sub.1 c.sub.2 +1.sub.13 c.sub.1 c.sub.3 +1.sub.23 c.sub.2 c.sub.3 +1.sub.123 c.sub.1 c.sub.2 c.sub.3 EQU Z=m.sub.0 +m.sub.1 c.sub.1 +m.sub.2 c.sub.2 +m.sub.3 c.sub.3 +m.sub.12 c.sub.1 c.sub.2 +m.sub.13 c.sub.1 c.sub.3 +m.sub.23 c.sub.2 c.sub.3 +m.sub.123 c.sub.1 c.sub.2 c.sub.3
This leads to an interpretation of the Neugebauer equations as a set of "interpolating polynomials". The coefficients can be calculated from the X, Y and Z values of the eight Neugebauer primaries, or they can be obtained by means of a regression technique on a large set of color-colorant combinations. The Neugebauer equations can be graphically represented. For a given color XYZ, each one of the three Neugebauer equations represents a curved surface in the colorant space. The situation is depicted for a common cmy printing process in FIG. 1.
Improving the Precision of the Neugebauer Printing Model.
Real printing processes seldom behave exactly according to the physical model on which the Neugebauer equations are based. Various modifications of the Neugebauer equations have therefore been suggested to improve their precision, among which the n-modified and the spectral Neugebauer equations are only cited. The interpretation of the Neugebauer equations as interpolating polynomials leads to the introduction of additional higher order terms, while their interpretation as trilinear interpolation suggests the concept of "piece-wise trilinear interpolation" to improve the accuracy of the model. The latter method is also known under the name of cellular or localized Neugebauer equations ("LNE"). The different subdomains are called the Neugebauer cells. More information on these models is found in the article by Rollestone Robert and Balasubramanian Raja (1993), "Accuracy of Various Types of Neugebauer Model", 1993 IS&T and SID's Color Imaging Conference: Transforms & Transportability of Color, pp. 3-37.
Calculation of the Color Gamut Boundaries.
An example of a first heuristic method is described in "Derivation of 3-dimensional gamut descriptions for graphic arts output devices", presented at TAGA 94 by William Kress and Michael Stevens.
According to this method, the colorant gamut is sampled and the resulting colorant combinations are evaluated by means of a printer model. The resulting colors are then classified in "bins" of, for example, different CITE lightness values. The envelope of the colors that lie within one such a "bin" reflects an approximation of the shape of the color gamut at the corresponding constant lightness value. The method is conceptually simple, but has a number of drawbacks. In the first place a large set of samples in the colorant gamut is needed to achieve a reasonable description of the color gamut boundaries. Hence this method is quite slow and the processing time for this method increases exponentially with the number of colorant. A second problem is that from a mathematically point of view it is difficult to determine exactly the boundaries of the color gamut per lightness level from a set of discrete points. Particularly the detection of holes or several contours per lightness level is rather complicated, if not impossible. Moreover, the method is not always robust because it may fail to detect the exact contours if the sampling distance in the colorant space is too large so that neighboring points ih colorant space are transformed to colors in color space that are not seen as connected by the color gamut boundary detection method.
According to a second approach, the gamut boundaries are "explored" in one of the color spaces using heuristic techniques. A "start color" is first selected that is known to fall inside the reproducible color gamut. This color is then incrementally changed keeping two of the three dimensions (for example hue and lightness) constant. The changed color is then separated and the colorant values are evaluated. If they fall within the colorant gamut, the corresponding color is assumed to fall within the printable color gamut and a next increment is added to the color. If, however, the set of colorant values falls outside the colorant gamut, a point of the colorant gamut boundary is assumed to lie in between the current and the previous separated color. By returning to the last color that still was within the color gamut and making the color increment smaller, the exact position of the point of the color gamut boundary can be determined with any desired precision. By selecting a sufficient number of "start colors" and a sufficient number of directions for the color change, the boundaries of the color gamut can be reasonably estimated. This method, however, also has a number of drawbacks. The method mainly works in color space, so the printer model has to be inverted.
Till now this is almost always done by iterative methods. If several colorant combinations give rise to the same color, only one solution will be found. If that solution lies outside the colorant gamut, wrong conclusions will be drawn for the color gamut if at least one of the other solutions would be inside the colorant domain. A second problem is that it can fail when the color gamut is concave or when per cross section several contours have to be determined. A third drawback is that the heuristic nature of the procedure leads to very long calculations since many more points need to be evaluated than are obtained for the description of the gamut boundary itself. A faster version of this method is represented in the article "The color gamut obtainable by the combination of subtractive color dyes", Journal of Imaging science, Vol. 30, No. 1, 1986 by N. Otha. Per lightness plane a border point is searched for and the next border point is detected by looking radially around this point. From this new border point the next border point is detected again by radially looking around it. This last procedure is repeated until the first border point is reached again. In this way concave contours can be detected, but nevertheless this iterative method is still quite slow, the printer model has to be inverted and multiple contours are not detected.
A third approach is described in the article by Masao Inui, "Fast Algorithm for Computing Color Gamuts", Color Research and Application, Vol. 18, No. 5, October 1993. In order to calculate a gamut descriptor of a 3-ink process, the following procedure is performed:
Step 1: The lightness values at the eight vertices of the dye delimited solid are calculated for zero and maximum amounts; PA1 Step 2: For a given lightness, the locations of several equilightness points on the edges of the dye delimited solid are computed; PA1 Step 3: Loci connecting these points on the faces of the dye delimited solid are computed; PA1 Step 4: The loci are mapped into color space to produce the boundary of the color gamut.
According to the article, the loci of the equilightness points on the edges of the dye solid are computed as follows. Since at the edge of the color solid one of the colorant is equal to its minimum or maximum value, there are effectively only two colorant available as variables to achieve the desired lightness value. One of these variables can be used as a parameter, leaving only one value left to iterate on. One dimensional Newton-Raphson is used to determine the value of this remaining variable that results in the desired lightness value.
The above method is claimed to work very fast, but its weak point is that it relies on Newton Raphson iteration. Depending on the printer model, there may be several possible solutions, but only one solution will be found with iterative methods. Nevertheless, if several start points would be used to find all the solutions, it is not possible to know which colorant combination belongs to (which one of) the previous solution(s), i.e. no information is available about the connectivity between the different solutions.
Moreover, for unconventional processes some boundaries of the color gamut are not obtained by mapping the edges of the colorant cube to color space. An example of such a 3-ink process was found in printing yellow (y), cyan (c) and green (g) inks. The XYZ and corresponding CIELAB values of the Neugebauer primaries of this process are given in Table 1. The first column corresponds to the 8 possible combinations of ink overlap. An evaluation reveals that for this process approximately half of the realizable colorant combinations yields colors that lie outside the color gamut as it is defined by the mapping of the edges of the colorant cube to color space. FIG. 2 shows a cross section of the color gamut in CIELAB at a constant L* value. The solid lines correspond to the intersection with the mapping of the edges of the colorant cube to color space. The shaded area represents colors that lie outside the gamut defined by the physical boundaries. The outer curve represents the intersection with the object color solid, also known as the MacAdam limits.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ XYZ and CIELAB values of the Neugebauer primaries of a non-conventional 3-ink process. X Y Z L* a* b* ______________________________________ white 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 y 64.8 66.2 10.5 85.1 -3.1 80.1 g 19.7 29.8 7.0 61.5 -43.1 51.2 c 25.7 33.6 69.2 64.7 -29.7 -37.8 yg 14.1 19.6 1.7 51.4 -30.0 64.6 yc 11.1 19.8 6.9 51.6 -51.0 34.4 gc 4.7 11.2 4.6 39.9 -60.9 24.6 ygc 3.0 6.8 1.1 31.4 -49.3 37.8 ______________________________________
In many situations, it is not possible to print all the colorant combinations. A typical example occurs for the cmyk offset process, for which the sum of the inks is limited to 340%. For some other colorant combinations, there may also be some printing problems if three times 100% is printed on top of each other, although the total amount of colorant may be larger than 300%. To avoid such effects, several colorant limitations may be given in the colorant domain.
To determine the color gamut of a printer with a number of colorant limitations, previous methods should be adapted. Some of them can be easily extended such as the first method, but all the previously cited problems remain. However, for the last method, the iteration becomes more complex so that even in the case of simple mathematical printer models there will be multiple solutions which are difficult to find. Moreover, if all the different solutions could be found, also in this case it is almost impossible to connect the different solutions to form one or several contours.
Finally, also the extension of previous methods to more than three colorant is not always straightforward. Most methods suppose that there is a one to one relation between printers with three colorant and the color values. For printers with more than three colorant this is certainly no longer the case.

Method and apparatus for calculating color gamuts


Methods are provided for depositing materials in forming semiconductor devices on a substrate, such as metal oxide transistors. In one embodiment, the invention generally provides a method of processing a substrate including forming a gate dielectric on a substrate having a first conductivity, forming a gate electrode on the gate dielectric, forming a first pair of sidewall spacers along laterally opposite sidewalls of the gate electrode, etching a pair of source/drain region definitions on opposite sides of the electrode, depositing a silicon-germanium material selectively in the source/drain region definitions, and implanting a dopant in the deposited silicon-germanium material to form a source/drain region having a second conductivity.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to the field of semiconductor manufacturing processes and devices, more particular, to methods of depositing silicon-containing films forming semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
As smaller transistors are manufactured, ultra shallow source/drain junctions for sub-100 nm CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) devices, such as silicon-containing MOSFET (metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor) devices, are becoming more challenging to produce. Such MOS(FET) transistors may include p-channel MOS (PMOS) transistors, and n-channel MOS (NMOS) transistors, depending on the dopant conductivity types, whereas the PMOS has a p-type channel, i.e., holes are responsible for conduction in the channel and the NMOS has an n-type channel, i.e., the electrons are responsible for conduction in the channel.
Silicon based materials may be used in device creation for MOSFET devices. For example, in a PMOS application, the film in a recessed area of the transistor is usually silicon-germanium, and for a NMOS application, the film in the recessed area may be SiC. Silicon-germanium is advantageously used to implant more boron than silicon alone to reduce junction resistivity, which improves device performance, for example, the silicon-germanium interface with the silicide layer at the substrate surface has a lower Schottky barrier than the silicon interface with silicon-germanium.
The recessed areas comprise source/drain extension or source/drain features, which are manufactured by etching silicon to make a recessed source/drain feature and subsequently filling the etched surface with a selectively grown silicon-germanium epilayer. The mismatch of lattices between silicon and the silicon-germanium material generates compressive stress which is transferred in the lateral dimension of the junction to create compressive strain in the PMOS channel and to increase mobility of the holes and improve device performance.
Selective silicon-epitaxial (Si-epitaxial) deposition and silicon-germanium-epitaxial deposition permits growth of epilayers on silicon (Si) moats with no growth on dielectric areas. Selective epitaxy can be used in semiconductor devices, such as within source/drains, source/drain extensions, contact plugs, and base layer deposition of bipolar devices. Additionally, selective epitaxy permits near complete dopant activation with in-situ doping, so that the post annealing process may be omitted. Therefore, junction depth can be defined accurately by silicon etching and selective epitaxy. Improved junction depth also produces compressive stress. One example of the use of silicon containing materials in device creation is for MOSFET devices.
However, in ultra shallow source/drain junction applications for use in decreasing feature sizes, conventional manufacturing processes result in increased series resistance and reduced compressive stress in PMOS devices. Also, silicidation of the surface of the source/drain regions of a transistor results in junction consumption that increases the series resistance even further and produces tensile stress which counteracts the desired compressive stress formed in the transistor. As such, conventional etching and deposition processes for MOSFET under the silicon-germanium incorporation have been less than desirable and have resulted in undesirable dopant diffusion and undesirable stress relaxation effects.
Therefore, there is a need to have a process for selectively and epitaxially depositing silicon and silicon compounds that have an enriched dopant concentration and incorporation into semiconductor devices with improved device performance.


In an embodiment of the invention, a system includes a direct memory access (DMA) engine to move data on a real time basis and a communication front-end to transmit and receive the data. In another embodiment, the system may also include a medium access control (MAC) to control transmission and reception of the data and that may be partitioned or divided according to response times to carry out selected functions. Other embodiments of the invention are described and claimed.

Communication/computer systems and devices typically include communication front-ends that require real-time input or output of data for transmission and reception of the data on a communication medium. In such systems or devices, a communication processor including an associated memory or storage device runs a real-time operating system to supply and receive the data from the communication front-end isochronously without under-runs or over-runs.
A computer system or device running an operating system without real-time capabilities, such as the Microsoft Windows® family of operating systems or the like, requires a dedicated communication co-processor to supply and receive data on a real-time basis from a communication front-end. For data transmission, the real-time software running on the communication co-processor receives the data from the host computer system and buffers the data into an associated local storage or memory device. The co-processor then monitors the communication front-end and supplies the data to the communication front-end in a time-bounded manner when the communication front-end is able to transmit the data. For data reception, the real-time software on the co-processor receives the data in a time-bounded manner from the communication front-end and buffers the data in the associated local storage until the host computer is ready to receive the data. The additional co-processor and associated local storage adds additional cost to the system, occupies additional space and consumes additional power which is of concern, particularly in mobile systems or devices.

System including real-time data communication features


An apparatus and method for performing automated sample preparation, DNA amplification and detection, which apparatus has heat-sinking, flat carriers for holding specimens and reagents, devices for heating and cooling and maintaining the specimen to or at any given temperature for any given time periods, and a computer to generate signals that control said temperatures and times.

The present invention relates to the field of automated analyzers for nucleic acid diagnostics, in particular to temperature control devices. It is well known in the field of molecular biology that a reaction is influenced by the temperature at which the reaction is performed. If the temperature of the reaction varies, the results could be inconsistent with previous assays or with results of the calibration reactions. Precise temperature control to provide heating and cooling cycles is useful in many processes and particularly useful in gene amplification and detection processes.
This invention more fully describes an embodiment of the carrier which incorporates a standard microscope slide as part of the carrier as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,963 and copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 836,348; and PCT US/90/06768. This invention describes a carrier assembly of multiple carriers which uses a slide as the main portion of each carrier bottom and frames the edges which fit around the slide in keeping with the original carrier format. This invention describes the automated apparatus's temperature control system and its integration with the carrier for more precise temperature regulation.
The in situ amplification process (described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,963, and copending U.S. patent applications, Ser. No. 227,348; Ser. No. 836,348; and PCT/90/06768) uses enzymes such as polymerase or ligase, separately or in combination, to repeatedly generate more copies of a target nucleic acid sequence by primer extensions to incorporate new nucleotides or by ligations of adjacent complementary oligonucleotides, wherein each template generates more copies and the copies may themselves become templates. By melting complementary strands of nucleic acids, the original strand and each new strand synthesized are potential templates for repeated primer annealing or ligation reactions to make and expand the number of specific, amplified products. A thermostable polymerase with reverse transcriptase activity and a thermostable ligase are now both available and increase the choice of enzymes and combination of reactions for in situ applications. As stated in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 227,348, if RNA in the specimen is the target to be amplified, the specimen is treated with reverse transcriptase to make a nucleic acid complement of the RNA just prior to amplification. Using a thermostable reverse transcriptase polymerase such as rTth (Perkin Elmer, Norwalk, Conn.), it may not be necessary to add another polymerase for rounds of primer extension amplification. The amplification can either be primer extensions in one direction for linear amplification, or in opposing directions, for geometric amplification. The label can either be incorporated as labeled nucleotides or labeled primers for one-step detection or labeled probes may be added in a step following amplification whereby the probes hybridize to the amplified products for detection.
Nucleic acid amplification had been limited to solution reactions wherein the nucleic acid is released from cells or tissue. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,963 and copending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 227,348 and 836,348, a process to amplify nucleic acid targets within cells was described and a method for embedding the cellular specimens in a matrix was described to immobilize and stabilize the cells during amplification and detection. A number of examples for using in situ amplification are given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,963. A photomicrograph of cells which had amplified and labeled DNA was included in Ser. No. 836,348 to show that the amplified fragments are retained in individual cells and such cells can be enumerated under microscopic observation.
The process requires at least one denaturing or high temperature stage, and one primer annealing or low temperature stage in each cycle. To achieve the desired results, the embedded cell specimens are heated to nucleic acid denaturation temperature and temperature control commences before reagent addition. Since the specificity of nucleic acid hybridization is influenced by temperature, uniform and accurate temperature for all specimens is maintained throughout the reaction. The time required for the specimen to be brought to the reaction temperatures can be a large percentage of the time allowed for the biochemical processes to be performed; therefore, means to cycle temperature rapidly and reliably are desirable.
There are various techniques and devices for adjusting temperature of reagents and specimens thereafter controlling the reaction temperature. For example, it is known to use individual reaction heating coils around individual reaction vessels. While a circulating air or water bath can control temperature of a large number of reactions simultaneously, the rate at which heat transfers from such a bath to a reaction vessel is substantially proportional to the difference between the temperature of the vessel and the temperature of the bath, to the heat capacity of the fluid, and to the efficiency of the contact therebetween. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,852 where circulating fluid reservoirs or Peltier heat pumps are described for heating and cooling a reaction mix.) The specific heat of air is so small that it becomes very difficult to control the temperature of reaction vessels accurately in circulating air. While water has a superior specific heat compared to air, it must be moved rapidly about the reaction vessels to maintain narrow temperature tolerances and, unfavorably, the water supports microbial growth. In addition to fluid baths, it is also commonly known to install reaction vessels in thermal contact with a temperature controlled body or mass having good thermal conductivity and a specific heat as high as practical. For example, a plurality of reaction vessels may be located within an aluminum or copper body.
The aforementioned in situ amplification for cellular analyses, which requires precise temperature regulation, creates a need for an improved apparatus which adjusts and controls the temperature of the cellular specimens An apparatus designed for rapid temperature cycling necessitates reducing thermal loads to increase the rate at which heat transfers occur. The carriers used in this invention are thin, flat reaction vessels whose bottom piece transfers and spreads the heat quickly to the ultra-thin specimen within. Using the word "thin" herein for carrier means that the carrier bottom that conducts heat to the specimen is preferably not thicker than 1 millimeter. Using the word "ultra-thin" herein for specimen means that a rehydrated matrix and specimen is preferably not thicker than 0.5 millimeter. Because the specimen is ultra-thin and represents a significantly greater surface area to volume ratio than what would be found in a conical tube, the specimen temperature more closely matches the temperature of the bottom piece. For e.g., the surface area-to-volume ratio of 100 microliters in a conical tube is 132:1; whereas, the surface area-to-volume ratio in a flat carrier (with a 2 cm.times.2 cm matrix and specimen holding area) holding an equivalent 100 microliter sample is 830:1, or more than six times greater. For example, a conical microfuge tube filled to a depth of 1 centimeter at a maximum width of 0.62 centimeters has a surface area of 1.32 cm.sup.2 and a volume of 0.1 cubic centimeter (100 microliters). A carrier with a sample 2 cm.times.2 cm.times.0.025 cm also has volume of 0.1 cubic centimeter, but has a surface area of 8.3 cm.sup.2.
When glass slides are inserted in a carrier assembly as separate carrier bottoms, each glass slide becomes part of the heat flow transfer to and from a specimen. A specimen in the thin, aforementioned configuration has greater surface contact with the slide (carrier bottom), thereby reflecting quicker temperature changes with respect to the flat carrier bottom, than a specimen-containing solution with respect to the aforementioned conical tube. Using glass in the bottom carrier piece, or a material with comparable heat conductivity characteristics, also improves the heat transfer capability of the carrier format over standard microfuge tubes made of polypropylene. A flat configuration of the matrix and specimen holding area on a carrier enables convenient microscopic analysis of molecular targets within the individual cells immobilized throughout the specimen.
Discrimination between binding specificity of different nucleic acid primers and probes to target molecules is affected by temperature. Minor sequence variations in nucleic acid base composition may be detected within individual cells either by labeling newly-incorporated nucleotides from specific oligonucleotides and/or amplifying the target sequence and then hybridizing a labeled probe to the amplification products. These sequence variations may be used in DNA-based diagnostics to identify infectious disease, genetic disease, cancer or identity-testing. Precise temperature control is required to use genetic sequence information most fully and produce exquisitely accurate results.
The object of the invention is to provide an apparatus and method of accurately controlling the temperature of simultaneous biochemical reactions, bringing all the individual reactions to a desired temperature, holding the reactions to the specified temperature for a period of time, cooling the reactions to a desired temperature, and holding the reactions at the specified temperature for a period of time. Further objects, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing figures.

Temperature control apparatus and method


The present invention provides an electrically conductive sheet molding compound composition adapted for electrostatic painting comprising a resin mixture including about 20 to about 60% by weight of thermoplastic resin based on the total weight of said resin mixture, the thermoplastic resin being selected from the group consisting of styrene-butadiene rubber, polystyrene, saturated polyester resin, and mixtures thereof; fibrous reinforcing material; and conductive material. The conductive material is added to the sheet molding compound composition in a sufficient quantity to render an article molded with said composition with structural integrity and electrically conductive enough to be electrostatically painted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electrically conductive sheet molding compound compositions and methods of forming the compositions and, more particularly, to an electrically conductive sheet molding compound composition including conductive carbon black adapted for electrostatic painting.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Electrostatic painting of various automobile parts, including doors and hoods, is commonly used today in the automotive industry. Electrostatic painting of sheet molding compound (SMC) substrates, for example, is desirable because it reduces paint waste and emissions as compared to non-electrostatic painting techniques. Electrostatic painting techniques require the substrate to be electrically conducting or to have an applied prepcoat or primer which is electrically conducting in order to display an increased paint transfer efficiency. Currently, an electrically conductive primer must be applied to a sheet molding compound composition article to be coated prior to electrostatically painting the article because, unlike steel, sheet molding composition is not conductive.
When using an electrically conducting primer, the path to ground is achieved via the conducting primer. An alternative technique is to use a grounding clip. This undesirably causes higher film builds near the grounding clip with film builds decreasing as the distance from the grounding clip increases. In addition, after several passes through the paint booth, significant resistance to ground may be encountered due to multiple paint layers on the buck itself.
There thus exists a need in the art to provide a sheet molding compound composition material with increased electrical conductivity. This would overcome problems associated with electrostatically painting articles whose electrical conductivity is provided only through a conductive primer or prep coat. These problems include excessive waste of paint as a result of the need for overspraying, increase in pollution, and the inability to evenly coat the substrate. Although the general idea of conductive sheet molding compound has been previously suggested, problems exist in obtaining uniform conductivity within a molded part, resulting in poor paint adhesion. The present invention overcomes these problems by incorporating conductive carbon black into molding compound compositions, such as sheet molding compound compositions, to increase the electrical conductivity of the compositions for use with electrostatic painting.


An unsaturated compound including a urethane bond in a main chain and a sulfonic acid group, a phosphoric acid group, an alkylsulfonic acid group, or an alkylphosphoric acid group on a benzene ring in a side chain is provided. In addition, a solid polymer electrolyte membrane containing a compound prepared by polymerizing the above-mentioned compound and an electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly including diffusion layers adhered on both surfaces of the electrolyte membrane are provided. Furthermore, a solid polymer fuel cell using the electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to compounds, solid polymer electrolyte membranes, electrolyte membrane-electrode assemblies, and solid polymer fuel cells.
2. Description of the Related Art
Perfluoro-based proton conductive polymers, such as Nafion (DuPont) and non-perfluoro-based proton conductive polymers not containing fluorine, have been used as solid polymer electrolyte membranes in fuel cells.
Nafion is a copolymer of perfluorovinyl ether containing a sulfonic acid group and tetrafluoroethylene. It forms an electrolyte membrane having a high proton conductivity.
However, Nafion has a problem in that when it is employed in a direct fuel cell that uses a liquid fuel, such as methanol, the fuel permeability (crossover) is significantly large. Therefore, the energy efficiency is insufficient.
With regard to a solid polymer electrolyte membrane formed of a non-perfluoro-based proton conductive polymer not containing fluorine, a copolymer of a phenylmaleimide derivative having high mechanical strength and a methacrylic acid monomer containing an ion-exchange group has been suggested (Kobunshi Gakkai Yokosyu (Polymer Preprints, Japan, Japanese Ed.) 1999, 48(10), 2393).
However, there is a problem in that the membrane formed of the copolymer of a high mechanical strength phenylmaleimide and a methacrylic acid monomer containing an ion-exchange group cannot readily achieve favorable proton conductivity.

Compound for solid polymer electrolyte membrane