A metal container has a bottom wall and a side wall provided with a low relief pattern of shallow grooves or creases to define outwardly convex panels. The grooves or creases have a depth between 0.3 and 3% of the radius of the side wall which has thickness between 3 and 30% of the radius of the grooves.

This invention relates to can bodies comprising a side wall provided with grooves; and furthermore to a method and apparatus for making the can bodies.
Ribs and panels have been formed in the side wall of cans for several purposes such as:
a). To give an interesting appearance to the can body which may promote a brand image. Such can bodies are shown in British Design Registration 1022336 and U.S. Design Pat. No. 290,688. In both cases the can body depicted is a drawn seamless can body having flange, neck and shoulder from which depends an array of longitudinal ribs and panels: the panels appear to be broad and thus substantially chordal in relation to the round body;
b). Longitudinal ribs and panels have been used to give rigidity to the side wall against loads applied to the top of the can body, such as arise during double seaming of a can end to close the body, or during stacking of filled cans. This aspect is discussed in WO 91/11275 where it is said that the panels between the ribs extend chordally to strengthen the side wall and so permit use of thinner side walls. However when a can, having flat or shallow externally concave panels in a thin side wall, is filled and closed with a beverage that generates pressure, the panels are pushed outwardly to make the original rib and panel shapes less visible. Whilst this problem may be overcome by forming deeper chordal panels, as shown in U.S. Design Pat. No. 332,750 there is a limit to the ductility of a side wall made of double reduced tinplate or wall ironed steel.
c). To provide flexible panels which move to accommodate volume changes arising therefrom during filling and thermal processing of the contents of the closed can, and settle for the final shape arising. Such cans are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,698 and are particularly suitable for containing thermally processed foods. The same principle may be applied to a can for pressurised beverages if the width of the longitudinal panel is narrow e.g over 30 panels for a can body 65 mm diameter; however there persists the problem that the shallow concave panels may be forced back to a continuous cylinder if pressure within the can is high and ribbed cans with concave panels are susceptible to damage to their coatings during manufacture and abrasion during transport.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,738 (Stirbis) describes a one piece metallic can body comprising an end wall and a cylindrical relatively thin side wall provided with a first annular groove at a short distance from the open end of the side wall and a second annular groove at a short distance from the bottom wall. A number of longitudinal externally concave grooves extend between the annular grooves to define a like number of panels in between the longitudinal grooves. In FIG. 2 Stirbis shows that the panels are of externally arcuate cross section approximating to the original cylindrical side wall before grooving so that the grooves are formed of stretch-formed material. The side wall of a can body made by drawing and wall ironing tinplate or aluminium is work hardened and has as little as 5% elongation to fracture. In order to avoid risk of fracture this invention seeks to provide a form of grooves and panels, and means to make them, that do not subject the side wall to excessive stretching.
EP-A-0547636 describes a drawn and wall ironed can body which has alternating inward and outward segments around its circumference. The apparatus used to achieve this configuration uses a hard mandrel with inward and outward segments which carries the can body. The can body is forced to conform with these segments by compressing the can against a plate covered with a resilient layer.


Methods and apparatus for treatment of patent foramen ovale (PFO) provide for applying energy to tissues adjacent the PFO with a catheter device to substantially close the PFO acutely. Apparatus generally includes a catheter device having at least one energy transmission member at or near its distal end configured to apply energy to PFO tissues to acutely, substantially close the PFO. Applied energy may be monopolar or bipolar radiofrequency energy or any other suitable energy, such as laser, microwave, ultrasound, resistive heating or the like. Some embodiments of a catheter device further include one or more tissue apposition members near the distal end for helping bring PFO tissues together, such as a PFO covering member, a vacuum applying member and/or the like. PFO closure via energy-based approaches of the invention may help prevent stroke, treat migraine headache, and possibly treat or prevent other medical conditions.

The invention generally relates to medical devices and methods. More specifically, the invention relates to energy based devices and methods for treatment of patent foramen ovale.
Fetal blood circulation is much different than adult circulation. Because fetal blood is oxygenated by the placenta, rather than the fetal lungs, blood is generally shunted away from the lungs to the peripheral tissues through a number of vessels and foramens that remain patent (i.e., open) during fetal life and typically close shortly after birth. For example, fetal blood passes directly from the right atrium through the foramen ovale into the left atrium, and a portion of blood circulating through the pulmonary artery trunk passes through the ductus arteriosus to the aorta. This fetal circulation is shown in attached FIG. 1.
At birth, as a newborn begins breathing, blood pressure in the left atrium rises above the pressure in the right atrium. In most newborns, a flap of tissue closes the foramen ovale and heals together. In approximately 20,000 babies born each year in the US, the flap of tissue is missing, and the hole remains open as an atrial septal defect (ASD). In a much more significant percentage of the population (estimates range from 5% to 20% of the entire population), the flap is present but does not heal together. This condition is known as a patent foramen ovale (PFO). Whenever the pressure in the right atrium rises above that in the left atrium, blood pressure can push this patent channel open, allowing blood to flow from the right atrium to the left atrium.
Patent foramen ovale has long been considered a relatively benign condition, since it typically has little effect on the body's circulation. More recently, however, it has been found that a significant number of strokes may be caused at least in part by PFO. In some cases, stroke may occur because a PFO allows blood containing small thrombi to flow directly from the venous circulation to the arterial circulation and into the brain, rather than flowing to the lungs where the thrombi can become trapped and gradually dissolved. In other cases, thrombi might form in the patent channel of the PFO itself and become dislodged when the pressures cause blood to flow from the right atrium to the left atrium. It has been estimated that patients with PFOs who have already had cryptogenic strokes have a 4% risk per year of having another stroke.
Further research is currently being conducted into the link between PFO and stroke. At the present time, if someone with a PFO has two or more strokes, the healthcare system in the U.S. may reimburse a surgical or other interventional procedure to definitively close the PFO. It is likely, however, that a more prophylactic approach would be warranted to close PFOs to prevent the prospective occurrence of a stroke. The cost and potential side-effects and complications of such a procedure must be low, however, since the event rate due to PFOs is relatively low. In younger patients, for example, PFOs sometimes close by themselves over time without any adverse health effects.
Another highly prevalent and debilitating condition—chronic migraine headache—has also been linked with PFO. Although the exact link has not yet been explained, PFO closure has been shown to eliminate or significantly reduce migraine headaches in many patients. Again, prophylactic PFO closure to treat chronic migraine headaches might be warranted if a relatively non-invasive procedure were available.
Currently available interventional therapies for PFO are generally fairly invasive and/or have potential drawbacks. One strategy is simply to close a PFO during open heart surgery for another purpose, such as heart valve surgery. This can typically be achieved via a simple procedure such as placing a stitch or two across the PFO with vascular suture. Performing open heart surgery purely to close an asymptomatic PFO or even a very small ASD, however, would be very hard to justify.
A number of interventional devices for closing PFOs percutaneously have also been proposed and developed. Most of these devices are the same as or similar to ASD closure devices. They are typically "clamshell" or "double umbrella" shaped devices which deploy an area of biocompatible metal mesh or fabric (ePTFE or Dacron, for example) on each side of the atrial septum, held together with a central axial element, to cover the PFO. This umbrella then heals into the atrial septum, with the healing response forming a uniform layer of tissue or "pannus" over the device. Such devices have been developed, for example, by companies such as Nitinol Medical Technologies, Inc. (Boston, Mass.) and AGA Medical, Inc. (White Bear Lake, Minn.). U.S. Pat. No. 6,401,720 describes a method and apparatus for thoracoscopic intracardiac procedures which may be used for treatment of PFO.
Although available devices may work well in some cases, they also face a number of challenges. Relatively frequent causes of complications include, for example, improper deployment, device embolization into the circulation and device breakage. In some instances, a deployed device does not heal into the septal wall completely, leaving an exposed tissue which may itself be a nidus for thrombus formation. Furthermore, currently available devices are generally complex and expensive to manufacture, making their use for prophylactic treatment of PFO impractical. Additionally, currently available devices typically close a PFO by placing material on either side of the tunnel of the PFO, compressing and opening the tunnel acutely, until blood clots on the devices and causes flow to stop.
Research into methods and compositions for tissue welding has been underway for many years. Of particular interest are technologies developed by McNally et. al., (as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,391,049) and Fusion Medical (as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,156,613, 5,669,934, 5,824,015 and 5,931,165). These technologies all disclose energy delivery to tissue solders and patches to join tissue and form anastamoses between arteries, bowel, nerves, etc. Also of interest are a number of patents by inventor Sinofsky, relating to laser suturing of biological materials (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,725,522, 5,569,239, 5,540,677 and 5,071,417). None of these disclosures, however, show methods or apparatus suitable for positioning the tissues of the PFO for welding or for delivering the energy to a PFO to be welded.
Causing thermal trauma to a patent ovale has been described in two patent applications by Stambaugh et al. (PCT Publication Nos. WO 99/18870 and WO 99/18871). The devices and methods described, however, cause trauma to PFO tissues to hopefully eventually cause scar tissue formation which will close the PFO. Using such devices and methods, the PFO actually remains patent immediately after the procedure and only closes sometime later. Therefore, a physician may not know whether the treatment has worked until long after the treatment procedure has been performed. Frequently, scar tissue may fail to form or may form incompletely, resulting in a still patent PFO.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have improved methods and apparatus for treating a PFO. Ideally, such methods and apparatus would help seal the PFO during, immediately after or soon after performing a treatment procedure. Also ideally, such devices and methods would leave no foreign material (or very little material) in a patient's heart. Furthermore, such methods and apparatus would preferably be relatively simple to manufacture and use, thus rendering prophylactic treatment of PFO, such as for stroke prevention, a viable option. At least some of these objectives will be met by the present invention.

Energy based devices and methods for treatment of patent foramen ovale


The present invention includes apparatus and methods for handling mailpieces. A mailpiece handling device includes a substantially horizontal deck for receiving a mailpiece. The device also includes a substantially vertical registration wall that extends upwardly from an edge of the deck. The device further includes a disk mounted for rotation in a circular opening in the deck adjacent the registration wall. The disk has a substantially horizontal surface. In addition, the device includes an arm mounted above the disk so as to be pivotable in a horizontal direction. Also, the device includes a steering member mounted at a free end of the arm. The steering member is for applying downward pressure to a mailpiece that is in contact with the disk.

This invention relates generally to the field of letter-handling equipment and more particularly to letter-feeding equipment.
In many small offices a postal scale and a small mailing machine/postage meter are used to prepare mailpieces for mailing. In a typical operation, the user places a letter on the postal scale and then takes the letter off the scale and inserts it into the infeed nip of the mailing machine. The postage meter is set to the correct amount of postage automatically in response to weight data transmitted to the postage meter from the scale. A sensor at the infeed end of the mailing machine senses the presence of the letter. The mailing machine responds to the sensor by feeding the letter through the meter, which prints a postage indicia on the letter.
If a considerable number of letters are to be mailed at a given time, the labor involved in placing the letter on the scale and then manually feeding it into the mailing machine/postage meter may become burdensome. However, in many cases, the volume of mail does not justify acquisition of high-speed integrated mailing equipment. It would therefore be desirable to provide further automation of the process of weighing/metering mailpieces without requiring the expenditure entailed by high-speed mailing equipment.

Postal weighing platform with integrated feeding and deskewing functions


In many computer applications, sensitive information must be kept on an untrusted machine. Such information must be protected against attackers, as well as against partially trusted entities to be given partial, but not total, access to the stored information. This invention provides a method, apparatus and computer-readable data structure for inhibiting an attacker from accessing or corrupting information stored by an untrusted machine. More specifically, in a log file generated during a process in which the untrusted machine is in limited communication with a trusted machine, entries generated prior to the attack remain secure (they cannot be modified without detection), even though subsequent entries can not be trusted. One embodiment of the invention also allows a partially trusted verifier to read and verify entries in the log file, but not to change them without detection. In another embodiment of the invention, operating with or without the trusted machine, the untrusted machine's log file can also incorporate log files of other processes.

Audit logs have long been used to keep permanent records of critical events. The basic idea is that the audit log can be used at some future date to reconstruct events that happened in the past. This reconstruction might be required for legal purposes (to determine who did what when), for accounting purposes, or to reconstruct things after a disaster: errors, loss of data, deliberate sabotage, etc.
Traditionally, audit logs have been kept on paper. For example: 1) Account holders in banks were given bank books that log entries of every transaction in the account: deposits, withdrawals, and interest accrual; 2) Many cash registers print a record of every transaction on a paper tape inside the machine; 3) Notary publics in some jurisdictions keep a paper log listing all documents they have notarized; and 4) Many companies have logbooks where visitors sign their names upon entry into the premises.
Audit logs are more useful if the entries can be authenticated in some way. That is, there should be no way for a person to undetectably modify the audit log after the fact. There should be no way for a person to add backdated entries into the log, delete entries from the log, or modify entries already in the log. In the paper systems listed above, the physical log itself (either a single piece of paper or a bound book) enforces this authentication. If every cash register transaction is printed, one after the other, on a long spool of paper tape, someone cannot modify the log entries for past transactions. If a company's visitors log consists of a single bound book with sequential entries, someone cannot add or delete a name without being noticed.
Many modern audit logs are often kept in digital files on computer. Examples of such computer audit logs include but are not limited to: 1) a computer logging network access and other activity; 2) a door entry system that logs the entry/exit of people into/from a secure area; 3) a secure digital camera that needs to guarantee the authenticity of pictures it has taken; and 4) an electronic wallet (e.g., a smart card, a portable network computer, a PC dongle, or even a digital file). Such computer audit logs differ from paper documents in that they can be modified undetectably. For example, it is easy to read a computer file containing an audit log from a disk, add, delete, and modify individual entries at will, and write that file back to disk in such a way that the changes will go undetected. Computer files often contain information about when they were last modified, but this information is not secure and can be easily falsified. In fact, many computer hackers who break into computer systems take specific actions to modify the computers' audit logs to erase all traces of their actions.
Computer security manufacturers have responded to this threat in several ways. One is to force the audit log to be continuously printed out on paper. This is a common technique, described in Clifford Stoll's book "The Cuckoo's Egg." Variants of this technique involve writing the audit log to a non-erasable medium, such as a CD-ROM, or to a magnetic tape machine with no rewind capabilities. Sometimes the entire contents of a computer disk is saved to backup tape, and that tape is stored off-line for audit purposes.
Another approach uses conventional computer security techniques to guard the audit log files. Such techniques include hiding the log files, encrypting them, requiring special permissions to write to them, etc. These techniques work well in some applications--most notably when the audit log is stored on a shared computer and the malicious person trying to modify the audit log does not have full permissions on that computer--but are not without their problems. For example, clever hackers can often figure out ways around the computer security techniques and make changes to the audit log.
Another disadvantage of conventional techniques is that they do not work when the software creating the audit log does not trust the machine or network it is running on. This situation might occur when a Java-like Internet application is running on an unsecured remote machine or over an insecure network, when a software "agent" is running on a remote computer, or when a piece of software is running on a hardware device whose tamper-resistance features are not reliable.
One solution to the untrusted machine problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,646 for applications where a sequence of files is continuously being generated. The solution involves writing a hash of an immediately preceding file into each current file. In this way, each file is chained to a temporal sequence of all its predecessors, such that an attacker modifying any file must also modify all of its predecessors in the chain to avoid detection. This increases, but does not eliminate the likelihood of a successful attack. Furthermore, such an attack will destroy the security of every file in the chain, in addition to the particular file targeted for attack. Like most systems, the security ultimately rests on safeguarding one or more cryptographic keys (e.g., a message encryption/decryption key or an authentication key used in a keyed hash). This poses an especial problem when sensitive information must be kept on an untrusted machine ("U") that is not physically secure or sufficiently tamper-resistant to guarantee that it cannot be taken over by some attacker.
One solution to the untrusted machine problem is to maintain secure communication with a trusted machine ("T"). In particular, if there is a reliable, high-bandwidth channel constantly available between U and T, then the security of information on U is easily guaranteed. U need only encrypt the information as it is created and transmit it to T over the channel. The information is then stored in an audit log on T, in a secure form safe from attack.
A few moments' reflection will reveal that no security measure (including the channel to T) can protect audit log (also called a "logfile") entries written after an attacker has gained control of U. At that point, U will write to the log whatever the attacker wants it to write. This problem arises, for example, where a common encryption key is used for multiple information entries. However, it is possible is to refuse the attacker the ability to read, alter, or delete log entries made before he compromised the logging machine by using signed Diffie-Hellman key exchange and exchanging new keys every few minutes.
Thus, using Diffie-Hellman key exchange to communicate with a trusted machine over a reliable, high-bandwidth, continuously available channel is a preferred solution to situations where information must be kept on a unsecured machine. Unfortunately, such an ideal communications channel is often unavailable. In a system lacking such an ideal communications channel, we nevertheless would like to be able to:
1) ensure that an attacker who gains control of U at time t will not be able to read log entries made before time t; PA1 2) ensure that the attacker will not be able to undetectably alter or delete log entries, made prior to time t, after U reports its results back to T; and PA1 3) provide for occasional "commitments" from U, specifying the current values of its logs in a way that will not allow any later changes to be undetectably made, even if U is compromised.


An electronic device with an automatic backup function for handling a first data stream is provided. The electronic device comprises a main board, a data-sync chipset, a first storage unit, a wireless transmission module, and a second storage unit. Here, the data-sync chipset receives the first data stream and provides a second data stream to each of the first and second storage units so that the same file or all the files in a data-sync data folder can be stored in both the first and second storage units for the purpose of auto-backup. In addition, the wireless transmission module can transmit the first file to the second storage unit by means of wireless transmission. Accordingly, the second storage unit can be used as a mobile hard disk for wireless transmission.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device, and more particularly, to an electronic device with an automatic backup or an overwrite file function.
2. Description of the Related Art
The applied techniques to the computer and data processing are continuously changed. In addition to use the internal hard drive to store a great amount of data, more data storage devices connected to the computer or server by means of external transmission are used for data back-up and storage now. The common data storage devices, for example, include the memory card, the flash portable disk, the recordable/rewritable optical disc, the large capacity micro drive, or the disk array system.
Using the external hard drive as an example, a user stores a data file in an external hard drive for the convenience of carrying, and the external hard drive can be used as a data transmission facility between two computers. For instance, the incomplete work can be saved as a file into the external hard drive in the office, and the external hard drive can be plugged into the home computer to continue the office work at home. Meanwhile, the system regards the external hard drive as a data storage unit and read the data file from the external hard drive in order to revise the data. In order to avoid the loss and damage of important data, the user usually backs up more than one copy of the file with important data into the internal hard drive of the computer, and the data file will be named the same for easy recognition. However, the above-mentioned backup operation is manually operated, which is inconvenient to the user and error prone. Consequently, the files cannot be easily shared.
FIG. 1 schematically shows a flow diagram illustrating the operating principle of a conventional disk array system. The main board 1 is exemplified herein. When a first data stream is provided to a disk array controller 20 by a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 10, the first data stream is disassembled into a plurality of data blocks 1˜2N and stored into the hard disks of two disk drives 30 and 40. When the disk array controller 20 is configured to operate in the RAID 0 mode, the data blocks 1˜2N will be equally disassembled into two portions and then respectively written into the hard disks of the two disk drives 30 and 40. Since these two disk drives 30 and 40 synchronously perform the read or write operation on the data blocks 1˜2N, the speed of data backup can be doubled.
FIG. 2 schematically shows a flow diagram illustrating the operating principle of another conventional disk array system. When the disk array controller 1 is configured to operate in the RAID 1 mode, two copies of the data blocks 1˜N are automatically made and simultaneously written into the hard disks of the two hard drives 30 and 40. Since both disk drives 30 and 40 store the same data blocks 1˜N, once one of the disk drive units is malfunctioned, the same data blocks can be read from the other disk drive, such that the data loss is avoided. Accordingly, the RAID 1 mode is also known as the disk mirroring mode.

Electronic device with an automatic backup function


A piezo-electric film forming method includes (1) a first moving step of moving a nozzle with respect to a substrate along a first direction to form a first piezo-electric band extending along the first direction, (2) a measuring step of measuring thickness distribution along the width of the first piezo-electric band, (3) a calculating step of calculating a shifting distance based on the thickness distribution, (4) a shifting step of moving the nozzle with respect to the substrate along a second direction by the calculated shifting distance, wherein the second direction intersects with the first direction, and (5) a second moving step of moving the nozzle with respect to the substrate along the first direction to form a second piezo-electric band extending along the first direction. The piezo-electric film is formed such that the first piezo-electric band and the second piezo-electric band are overlapped.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for forming a piezo-electric film.
2. Description of the Related Art
Piezo-electric films are used in a variety of fields. One known method of forming a piezo-electric film is an aerosol deposition method (AD method). The AD method uses an aerosol discharging device. The aerosol discharging device discharges a mixture of fine particles containing a piezo-electric material and a gas from a nozzle. In this specification, the term aerosol means fine particles that float and are separated by means of a gas.
In the AD method, a long narrow piezo-electric band will be formed on the surface of a substrate by moving the nozzle that discharges the aerosol along a straight fine relative to the substrate. The piezo-electric band has a certain width. Next, a second long narrow piezo-electric band will be formed next to the previously formed piezo-electric band. Then a third long narrow piezo-electric band will be formed next to the second piezo-electric band. By repeating the process of forming a new piezo-electric band next to the previously formed piezo-electric band, a piezo-electric film composed of a plurality of piezo-electric bands can be formed on the surface of the substrate. Note that in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-152360, a method is disclosed in which the AD method is employed to form the piezo-electric film.

Method and device of forming a piezo-electric film


Disclosed is an improvement in a conventional process for C5 and C6 sugar recovery from lignocellulosic biomass for fermentation to ethanol, which process including the conventional steps of pretreatment of the biomass with steam at elevated temperature and pressure, collection of C5 sugars from hemicellulose breakdown, cellulose hydrolysis and collection of C6 sugars from cellulose breakdown. The improvement includes conditioning of the biomass prior to the pretreatment step by heating the biomass with steam for a time period between 5 minutes to 60 minutes to achieve a steam treated biomass having a temperature of about 80 to 100° C.; and adjusting a moisture content of the steam treated biomass to about 45% to 80%. An increased recovery of C5 and C6 sugars is achieved compared to the conventional process.

There is a growing demand for transportation fuels made from renewable feedstocks. These renewable fuels displace fossil fuels resulting in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, along with other benefits (1-3). Biofuels include fuel ethanol. Fuel ethanol is roduced from biomass by converting starch or cellulose to sugars, fermenting the sugars to ethanol, and then distilling and dehydrating the ethanol to create a high-octane fuel that can substitute in whole or in part for gasoline.
In North America, the feedstock for the production of fuel ethanol is primarily corn, while in Brazil sugar cane is used. There are disadvantages to using potential food or feed plants to produce fuel. Moreover, the availability of such feedstocks is limited by the overall available area of suitable agricultural land. Therefore, efforts are being made to generate ethanol from non-food sources, such as cellulose, and from crops that do not require prime agricultural land, for example miscanthus. Cellulose is one of the most abundant organic materials on earth. It is present in many forms of biomass, including agricultural residues like corn stover and corncobs, woody residues and other plant materials. Cellulose is a polymer of glucose, as is starch. However, the isolation of reactive cellulose from lignocellulosic biomass and hydrolysis to C6 sugar monomers has its challenges. One non-food source of C6 sugars is lignocellulosic biomass.
Lignocellulosic biomass may be classified into four main categories: (1) wood residues (sawdust, bark or other), (2) municipal paper waste, (3) agricultural residues (including corn stover, corncobs and sugarcane bagasse), and (4) dedicated energy crops (which are mostly composed of fast growing tall, woody grasses such as switchgrass and miscanthus).
Lignocellulosic biomass is composed of three primary polymers that make up plant cell walls: Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Cellulose fibres, which contain only anhydrous glucose (C6 sugar), are locked into a rigid structure of hemicellulose and lignin. Lignin and hemicelluloses form chemically linked complexes that bind water soluble hemicelluloses into a three dimensional array, cemented together by lignin. Lignin covers the cellulose microfibrils and protects them from enzymatic and chemical degradation. These polymers provide plant cell walls with strength and resistance to degradation, which makes lignocellulosic biomass a challenge to use as substrate for biofuel production.
Hemicelluloses are polysaccharides and include xylan, glucuronoxylan, arabinoxylan, glucomannan, and xyloglucan, which all contain many different C5 or C6 sugar monomers. For instance, besides glucose, sugar monomers in hemicellulose can include xylose, mannose, galactose, rhamnose, and arabinose. Hemicelluloses contain most of the D-pentose sugars, and occasionally small amounts of L-sugars as well. Xylose is always the sugar monomer present in the largest amount, which is why hemicellulose content is often expressed in terms of xylose equivalent content, as will be discussed further below. Xylose is a monosaccharide of the aldopentose type, which means it contains five carbon atoms (C5 sugar) and includes an aldehyde functional group. Cellulose is crystalline, strong and resistant to hydrolysis, while hemicellulose has a random, amorphous structure with little strength and is easily hydrolyzed by dilute acid or base, or by hemicellulase enzymes.
There are two main approaches to the production of fuel ethanol from biomass: thermochemical and biochemical. Thermochemical processes convert the biomass to a reactive gas called syngas. Syngas is converted at high temperature and pressure to ethanol by a series of catalyzed processes. Biochemical processes use biocatalysts called enzymes to convert the cellulose content to sugars (C5 and C6), which are then fermented to ethanol and other fuels such as butanol. The biochemical processes generally exploit the different susceptibility to hydrolysis of hemicellulose and cellulose, by hydrolyzing the hemicellulose and cellulose in different steps.
Biochemical conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol in general involves five basic steps (1) Preparation—the target biomass is cleaned and adjusted for size and moisture content; (2) Pretreatment—exposure of the raw biomass to elevated pressure and temperature for a specified duration; with or without catalyzing additives to hydrolyze the hemicellulose separately from the cellulose; (3) Cellulose hydrolysis—conversion of the cellulose in the pretreated biomass to simple C6 sugars using special enzyme preparations to hydrolyze the pretreated plant cell-wall polysaccharides; (4) Fermentation, mediated by bacteria or yeast, to convert these sugars to fuel such as ethanol; and (5) Distillation and Dehydration of the ethanol/fuel.
Certain pretreatment methods employ chemical additives, such as acids, to catalyze the hydrolysis of hemicellulose and/or alkalis to remove lignin. These additives as well as many of the breakdown products they generate during the pretreatment process, such as lignin and some soluble lignin derivatives, are either toxic to yeast, or inhibit hydrolysis, or both. Furthermore, all forms of lignocellulosic biomass have some level of sterols, fatty acids, ethers and other extractives that can also be inhibitory.
One approach to address the inhibitory effect of these substances is the use of harsher pre-treatment conditions, which can for example be tailored to effectively hydrolyze and degrade the hemicellulose to such an extent that very little xylose and xylo-oligosaccharides remain to interfere with the cellulose enzymes. However this approach creates another significant disadvantage in that it causes significant cellulose degradation, which then reduces glucose yield and ultimately the ethanol yield, often creating a commercially significant reduction of the overall ethanol process efficiency, even in the virtual absence of inhibitory compounds.
In another approach xylanases are used to completely hydrolyze the xylan oligomers to xylose and lessen the inhibitory effect of these oligomers. However, although this approach is somewhat effective, it produces high levels of xylose which is itself an inhibitor. Moreover, the other inhibitory compounds generated in the pretreatment step from decomposition of the hemicellulose are still present. Thus, although the overall yield is better, in the end this approach is not commercially viable due to the added cost for the xylanases and the cost of still required elevated cellulase levels due to the other inhibitory substances.
All pretreatment processes, generally result in significant breakdown of the biomass, in particular the hemicellulose component, which leads to the generation of various C5 sugars and other hemicellulose breakdown products. Hemicellulose decomposition products such as formic acid, furfural and hydroxyl methyl furfural etc. are produced during pretreatment which carry through to and inhibit the hydrolysis and fermentation processes. Thus, these hemicellulose decomposition products reduce the effectiveness of the cellulose hydrolyzing enzymes, thereby requiring the use of increased levels of added enzyme, the cost of which is an important factor in providing a cost effective commercial process.
The breakdown products inhibitory to the downstream cellulose and/or sugar fermentation processes are usually separated from the biomass prior to cellulose hydrolysis, to minimize any potentially inhibitory effects on ethanol yield. However, although the overall ethanol yield could be significantly improved if the C5 sugars originating from the hemicellulose could also be used in the sugar fermentation step, separating the C5 sugars from the removed inhibitory hydrocellulose breakdown product stream is cost intensive and uneconomical. Thus, an efficient and economical process is desired which increases the yield of C5 and C6 sugars in a conventional lignocellulosic biofuel production process.

Conditioning of biomass for improved C5/C6 sugar release prior to fermentation


Displaying information is disclosed. A plurality of widgets is provided within a single interface. At least one widget in the plurality of widgets includes at least one resizing interface element. The one widget is associated with a first set of dimensions. A maximize request is received, through an interaction with the resizing interface element. A second set of dimensions is determined. At least one widget is displayed in an area defined by the second set of dimensions and within the single interface.

One way that web and mobile site users interact with applications and information is through the use of widgets/gadgets. Unfortunately, interaction with a widget or gadget is typically limited to the display of information, and the ability to remove the widget, or to minimize it within the space allocated to it on the page. When the widget is minimized, a blank area is typically presented to the user. Further, fully functional interactivity with the widget, such as clicking a hyperlink contained in the widget, causes a new page to be launched and the user taken to the new page. Since users are not allowed to fully operate the widget application within the original UI, they lose navigation speeds by waiting for new pages to open and also by having to navigate back and forth between the pages. Users also lose access to related information afforded by staying on the same site page. Additional bandwidth is consumed by the user by having to operate via multiple pages, which can slow their experience and possibly cost them more money. In addition, at the time a user navigates away from the initial page, the site operator loses a user, and with it the potential for positive traffic flow, search engine relevance, and advertising revenue, etc.

Displaying information using expandable widgets


An improved apparatus is provided to control supply of airflow to an engine. The engine includes a combustion chamber connected to an air intake passage and an air exhaust passage. An air intake valve selectively opens and closes the intake passage to control the supply of the airflow to the combustion chamber. An air exhaust valve selectively opens and closes the exhaust passage to control the discharge of the exhaust gas from the combustion chamber. An altering device alters a period of an overlap of the valves by changing a valve timing of valves. A first detector detects a driving state of the engine. An ECU computes a target valve timing based on the detected driving state of the engine controls the altering device based on the computed target valve timing. An adjusting device is arranged in the intake passage to adjust the supply of the airflow to the combustion chamber. The ECU computes a target amount of the airflow to be supplied to the engine in an idling state. The ECU detects the period of the valve overlap. The ECU computes a correction value to correct the target amount of the air based on the detected period of the valve overlap. The correction value is continuously variable based on the period of the valve overlap. The ECU corrects the target amount based on the correction value by increasing the target amount by the correction value and controls the adjusting means based on the corrected target amount.

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus that controls an engine by varying the valve timing of at least either one of an intake valve and an exhaust valve while adjusting the amount of intake air supplied to the engine.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
In a typical engine, an intake passage and an exhaust passage, which are communicated with a combustion chamber, are selectively opened and closed by an intake valve and an exhuast valve, respectively. The intake valve is driven by an intake camshaft while the exhaust valve is driven by an exhuast camshaft. The intake and exhaust camshafts rotate synchronously with a crankshaft. Accordingly, the opening and closing timing of the valves, or the valve timing, is determined by the rotational phase of the crankshaft.
There are various types of apparatus that change the valve timing of the intake and exhaust valves in accordance with the operating state of the engine. A typical apparatus is provided with a variable valve timing (VVT) mechanism for changing the valve timing and a computer for controlling the VVT mechanism. The computer controls the VVT mechanism in accordance with the operating state of the engine to vary the valve timing to a target timing. Furthermore, when the valve timing is varied, the period of time during which both intake and exhaust valves are opened, that is, the valve overlap, is also changed.
Changes in the valve timing and the valve overlap optimizes the amount of air-fuel mixture drawn into the combustion chamber, the amount of exhaust gas discharged from the combustion chamber, the discharge timing of the exhaust gas, and the amount of residual exhaust gas in the combustion chamber, or the amount of internal gas recirculation (EGR). This increases engine power and improves fuel emissions and fuel efficiency.
However, when the VVT mechanism fails to function, the actual valve timing becomes different from the target valve timing. This may result in various problems.
For example, if the timing mechanism fails when the valve overlap is long, the increase in the amount of internal EGR decreases the amount of air included in the air-fuel mixture that is sent to the combustion chamber. This causes the amount of air drawn into the combustion chamber to become insufficient and hinders normal combustion. As a result, the fuel efficiency becomes low and the engine emissions becomes undesirable.
An insufficient amount of air may cause the engine to stall especially if the load of the engine is low such as when the engine is idling. The amount of fuel drawn into the combustion chamber for combustion is small when the engine load is low. Thus, in such state, combustion tends to become unstable. An increase in the amount of internal EGR further amplifies the unstable combustion.
A control apparatus that prevents such engine stalls has been proposed in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 15, the control apparatus is applied to an engine 200, which has a crankshaft 201, an intake camshaft 202 for driving a suction valve (not shown), and an exhaust camshaft 203 for driving an exhaust valve (not shown). Pulleys 204, 205, 206 are provided on the ends of the shafts 201, 202, 203, respectively, and connected to one another by a timing belt 207.
The control apparatus includes a VVT mechanism 211, which shifts the valve timing of the intake valve, and a computer 212, which controls the VVT mechanism 211. The VVT mechanism 211 is provided with a control plate 208, which rotates relatively to an intake camshaft 202, an actuator 210, which rotates the control plate 208, and a link 209, which connects the actuator 210 and the control plate 208. The actuator 210 rotates the control plate 208 about the intake camshaft 202 with the link 209.
When the engine 200 is idling, the computer 212 controls the actuator 210 to rotate the rotate the control plate 208 counterclockwise to a position shown in FIG. 16(a). This position is hereafter referred to as the idling position. The rotation of the control plate 208 retards the valve timing of the intake valve and causes the valve overlap to become shorter.
When the load of the engine 200 is high, the computer 212 controls the actuator 210 to rotate the control plate 208 clockwise to a position shown in FIG. 16(b). This position is hereafter referred to as the high load position. The rotation of the control plate 208 advances the valve timing of the intake valve and causes the valve overlap to become longer.
Accordingly, the control apparatus enables the valve timing of the intake valve and the valve overlap to be shifted between two conditions.
Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 15, the engine 200 is provided with an intake manifold 213. A surge tank 214 and an intake pipe 215 are further provided at the upstream side of the intake manifold 214. A throttle valve 216 is arranged in the intake pipe 215. The throttle valve 216 adjusts the amount of air that is drawn into the combustion chamber (not shown) by way of the intake pipe 215, the surge tank 214, and the intake manifold 213.
The intake pipe 215 is provided with a bypass 217. The bypass 217 connects the upstream side of the throttle valve 216 to the downstream side of the throttle valve 216. An idle speed control valve (ISCV) 218 is arranged in the bypass 217. When the throttle valve 216 is completely closed during idling of the engine 200, the ISCV 218 adjusts the speed of the engine 200 by adjusting the amount of air flowing through the bypass 217.
When the engine 200 shifts to an accelerating state from an idling state, the computer 212 controls the ISCV 218 and increases the opening of the ISCV 218. Thus, engine stalls caused by an insufficient amount of intake air is prevented even if the VVT mechanism 211 fails to function when the engine 200 returns to an idling state.
The amount of air tends to become insufficient due to an increase in the amount of internal EGR if the VVT mechanism 211 fails to function when the control plate 208 is located at the high load position. Therefore, to positively prevent engine stalls, it is necessary to set the increase amount of the opening of the ISCV 218 under the assumption that the VVT mechanism 211 fails to function when the control plate 218 is located at the high load position.
However, if the increase amount of the opening of the ISCV 218 is determined assuming that the VVT mechanism 211 fails when the control plate 208 is located at the high load position, excessive air is drawn into the combustion chamber by way of the bypass 217 when the engine 200 shifts from an idling state to an accelerating state. This may suddenly increase the output torque of the engine 200 and degrade driveability. This may also decrease the effectiveness of the engine brake.
Engine stalls may be prevented by detecting abnormalities of the VVT mechanism 211 and increasing the opening of the ISCV 218 when detecting abnormalities. If the VVT mechanism 211 functions normally, excessive air is not drawn into the engine 200 when the engine 200 shifts from an idling state to an accelerating state.
However, a certain amount of time is necessary to detect abnormalities of the VVT mechanism 211. This delays the response of the VVT mechanism 211. Thus, the engine 200 may stall when shifted from an idling state to an accelerating state during the period between when an abnormality actually occurs and when the abnormality is detected.

Intake air control apparatus for engines


A device and method are provided for reducing or preventing skin sensitization in electrotransport drug delivery. The method involves co-administration of a countersensitizing agent, comprising cis-urocanic acid or an analog thereof, with the drug delivered via electrotransport. Novel drug reservoirs and electrotransport drug delivery systems, formulated with a countersensitizing agent as described herein, are provided as well.

The delivery of drugs through the skin provides many advantages; primarily, such a means of delivery is a comfortable, convenient and noninvasive way of administering drugs. The variable rates of absorption and metabolism encountered in oral treatment are avoided, and other inherent inconveniences--e.g., gastrointestinal irritation and the like--are eliminated as well. Transdermal drug delivery also makes possible a high degree of control over blood concentrations of any particular drug.
However, many drugs are not suitable for passive transdermal drug delivery because of their size, ionic charge characteristics and hydrophilicity. One method of overcoming this limitation in order to achieve transdermal administration of such drugs is the use of electrical current to actively transport drugs into the body through intact skin. The method of the invention relates to such an administration technique, i.e., to "electrotransport" or "iontophoretic" drug delivery.
Herein the terms "electrotransport", "iontophoresis", and "iontophoretic" are used to refer to the transdermal delivery of pharmaceutically active agents by means of an applied electromotive force to an agent-containing reservoir. The agent may be delivered by electromigration, electroporation, electroosmosis or any combination thereof. Electroosmosis has also been referred to as electrohydrokinesis, electro-convection, and electrically induced osmosis. In general, electroosmosis of a species into a tissue results from the migration of solvent in which the species is contained, as a result of the application of electromotive force to the therapeutic species reservoir, i.e., solvent flow induced by electromigration of other ionic species. During the electrotransport process, certain modifications or alterations of the skin may occur such as the formation of transiently existing pores in the skin, also referred to as "electroporation". Any electrically assisted transport of species enhanced by modifications or alterations to the body surface (e.g., formation of pores in the skin) are also included in the term "alectrotransport" as used herein. Thus, as used herein, the terms "electrotransport", "iontophoresis" and "iontophoretic" refer to (1) the delivery ot charged drugs or agents by electromigration, (2) the delivery of uncharged drugs or agents by the process of electroosmosis, (3) the delivery of charged or uncharged drugs by electroporation, (4) the delivery of charged drugs or agents by the combined processes of electromigration and electroosmosis, and/or (5) the delivery of a mixture of charged and uncharged drugs or ageints by the combined processes of electromigration and electroosmosis.
In present electrotransport devices, at least two electrodes are used. Both of these electrodes are disposed so as to be in intimate electrical contact with some portion of the skin of the body. One electrode, called the active or donor electrode, is the electrode from which the drug is delivered into the body. The other electrode, called the counter or return electrode, serves to close the electrical circuit through the body. In conjunction with the patient's skin, the circuit is completed by connection of the electrodes to a source of electrical energy, e.g., a battery, and usually to circuitry capable of controlling current passing through the device. If the ionic substance to be driven into the body is positively charged, then the positive electrode (the anode) will be the active electrode and the negative electrode (the cathode) will serve as the counter electrode, completing the circuit. If the ionic substance to be delivered is negatively charged, then the cathodic electrode will be the active electrode and the anodic electrode will be the counter electrode.
Existing electrotransport devices additionally require a reservoir or source of the pharmaceutically active agent which is to be delivered or introduced into the body. Such drug reservoirs are connected to the anode or the cathode of the electrotransport device to provide a fixed or renewable source of one or more desired species or agents.
Thus, an electrotransport device or system, with its donor and counter electrodes, may be thought of as an electrochemical cell having two electrodes, each electrode having an associated half cell reaction, between which electrical current flows. Electrical current flowing through the conductive (e.g., metal) portions of the circuit is carried by electrons (electronic conduction), while current flowing through the liquid-containing portions of the device (i.e., the drug reservoir in the donor electrode, the electrolyte reservoir in the counter electrode, and the patient's body) is carried by ions (ionic conduction). Current is transferred from the metal portions to the liquid phase by means of oxidation and reduction charge transfer reactions which typically occur at the interface between the metal portion (e.g., a metal electrode) and the liquid phase (e.g., the drug solution). A detailed description of the electrochemical oxidation and reduction charge transfer reactions of the type involved in electrically assisted drug transport can be found in electrochemistry texts such as J. S. Newman, Electrochemical Systems (Prentice Hall, 1973) and A. J. Bard and L. R. Faulkner, Electrochemical Methods, Fundamentals and Applications (John Wiley & Sons, 1980).
The present invention is directed to a method for using such electrotransport drug delivery system so that sensitization of the skin or mucosal tissue is reduced or eliminated during drug administration. Sensitization is a two-phase process involving biological mechanisms totally distinct from those observed in skin irritation. The first phase in sensitization reactions is the induction phase where the skin is initially exposed to a sensitizing agent, such as a drug or other antigen. During this phase, generally no skin reaction occurs. In the induction phase, the sensitizing drug or antigen is presented to T-lymphocytes by the Langerhans cells of the epidermis, either in situ or in the draining lymph node. As a consequence, cells which recognize the antigen, proliferate and differentiate.
The second, subsequent phase, following the establishment of contact allergy, is elicitation where a subsequent re-exposure (i.e., contact with the skin) to the sensitizing drug or antigen results in a manifested skin reaction. This condition is known as allergic contact dermatitis. During elicitation, the antigen is once again presented mainly on Langerhans cells. The T-cells which have differentiated or clonally expanded upon prior exposure now migrate to the treated site and initiate a cascade of skin reaction events which result in local inflammation.
Contact sensitization is a completely different process than irritation. Irritation is caused by and therefore relieved by a different mechanism than that of sensitization. Irritation depends upon a variety of factors including, but not limited to, change in pH and bacterial overgrowth. Ultimaitely, irritation is the result of damage to the cells by cellular response to a toxic agent, i.e., one that irritates. Sensitization, on the other hand, is the result of an allergic cellular response to an agent which is not necessarily intrinsically toxic.
Immune tolerance is a different phenomenon from both sensitization and irritation. Immune tolerance is the state of prolonged unresponsiveness to a specific antigen. Tolerance to contact sensitization has been induced in adult animals by pretreatment of the skin site to which the sensitizing drug or antigen is applied with compounds that act to suppress the animal's immune system (see Rheins et al. (1986) J. Immunol. 136:867-876). Immune tolerance to contact sensitizers was induced in mice by application of arachidonic acid to the local site for several days prior to antigen application (Rheins et al., supra).
A number of countersensitizing agents have been proposed for reducing sensitization and/or irritation reactions associated with transdermal drug delivery. Countersensitizing and/or counter irritating agents which have been used in transdermal drug delivery include metabolic modulators which inhibit drug metabolism by skin enzymes (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,885,154 and 5,304,379 to Cormier et al.), corticosteroids such as hydrocoitisone (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,049,387 and 5,118,509 to Amkraut and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,000,956, 5,077,054 and 5,171,576 to Amkraut et al.), antigen processing inhibiting agents such as ammonium chloride (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,120,545 and 5,149,539 to Ledger et al.), lysosomal uptake inhibiting agents such as monensin (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,130,139 and 5,160,741 to Cormier et al.) and calcium channel blocking agents such as verapamil (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,202,130 to Grant et al.). In addition, the use of corticosteroids such as hydrocortisone (see Int'l Pub. No. WO 95/26782, inventors Cormier et al.) and the buffering of reservoir pH at select ranges (see Int'l Pub. No. WO 95/06497, inventors Cormier et al.) have been proposed to lessen or eliminate skin irritation and/or sensitization associated with electrically assisted transdermal drug delivery.
Cis-urocanic acid has been proposed to be useful for inhibiting or preventing sensitizing effects encountered with passive transdermal delivery of certain drugs. See, e.g., European Patent Publication No. (312,525, published Aug. 31, 1994, and Wille et al., "Topical Delivery of Mast Cell Degranulating Agents for Treatment of Transdermal Drug-Induced Hypersensitivity," Proceed. Intern. Symp. Control. Rel. Bioact. Mater., 22:119-120 (1995). In addition, it has been reported by Shimizu et al. in J. Inv. Dermatol., pp. 749-753 (1993), that cis-urocanic acid could induce skin tolerance to a sensitizing drug.
The use of cis-urocanic acid or an analog thereof in reducing or preventing sensitization occurring in conjunction with electrotransport drug delivery is, however, novel and completely unsuggested by the art. An important advantage of using cis-urocanic acid or a cis-urocanic acid analog as a countersensitizing agent is that such compounds are naturally occurring compounds found in skin and body tissue (or metabolites of naturally occurring compounds) and thus use in conjunction with electrotransport drug delivery does not represent the introduction of foreign mater al. Another important advantage is the effectiveness of cis-urocanic acid or an analog thereof in reducing or preventing skin sensitization during electrotransport drug delivery.

Reduction of skin sensitization in electrotransport drug delivery


A video recorder connected to a DV (Digital Video) camcorder via an IEEE serial bus comprises a memory for storing time codes in dubbing-unwanted information, commanded by a user, in a DV tape. When commanded by the user for video recording, a microprocessor of the video recorder controls the DV camcorder to fast forward the DV tape for data area other than the dubbing-unwanted information based on the time codes about the dubbing-unwanted information as stored in the memory, and to reproduce the video information in the dubbing-unwanted information. This makes it possible to significantly reduce the time required for the user to check the video information to be dubbed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video recorder to be connected to a DV camcorder via an IEEE 1394 serial bus.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to connect a DV (Digital Video) camcorder via an IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers) 1394 serial bus to a video recorder such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) recorder or a hard disk drive recorder, and to dub stream data (photographed data), recorded on and reproduced from a DV (Digital Video) tape in the DV camcorder, onto a recording medium such as a DVD or a hard disk in the video recorder. The following describes an example of the dubbing process in the case where the video recorder is a DVD recorder.
First, a user connects a DV camcorder with a DV tape to a DVD recorder by an IEEE 1394 serial bus cable. Then, the user selects dubbing (recording) from a setting menu, and presses a decision key to start the dubbing process. In response to the operation of the user, the DVD recorder sends a reproduction start command to the DV camcorder via the IEEE 1394 serial bus, whereby the dubbing starts in which the DV camcorder starts reproducing the DV tape, while at the same time the DVD recorder starts recording. Thus, after connecting the DV camcorder to the DVD recorder via the IEEE 1394 serial bus, the user is not required to manually operate the DV camcorder to start reproduction, or manually operate the DVD recorder to start recording in synchronization with the start of the reproduction, thereby improving the convenience in handling in this respect.
Furthermore, a DVD recorder connected to a DV camcorder via an IEEE 1394 serial bus has an additional convenient function. More specifically, assume that video information (video data) recorded on the DV tape contains information which is unwanted or does not have to be dubbed (such information unwanted for dubbing being hereafter referred to as "dubbing-unwanted information" or simply as "unwanted information") such as commercial information. In such case, a user first commands the DV camcorder from the DVD recorder to reproduce the video information before starting dubbing, and then view and check the reproduced video information on a liquid crystal display of the DV camcorder so as to check or identify the unwanted information. The user then operates a remote control to command the DVD recorder to store a start point and an end point of the unwanted information, in which the start and end points of the unwanted information are to be used in subsequent dubbing to prevent the unwanted information from being dubbed. By commanding the DVD recorder connected to the DV camcorder to perform dubbing after the above process, it is possible to dub the video information on the DV tape automatically or semi-automatically excluding (removing) the unwanted information (such automatic or semi-automatic dubbing function being hereafter referred to as "unwanted information-excluded dubbing"), thereby dubbing the wanted or essential information in the video information.
As described above, the system formed by the video recorder (DVD recorder) and the DV camcorder connected to each other via an IEEE 1394 provides improved convenience in handling, and thus can significantly reduce laborious work of the user. However, the system still suffers inconvenience. Specifically, the user may be uncertain in the actual dubbing as to whether or not the unwanted information which the user itself has commanded is properly set, after the user has checked, identified and commanded it using the function of the "unwanted information-excluded dubbing" as described above.
This is because, even though the user itself thought that the user properly input a command to the video recorder to exclude e.g. commercial information, there is a possibility that the user may not have properly set the start point and the end point of the unwanted information, so that the video recorder may actually store data area, including but beyond the commercial information, as data area to be excluded in the actual dubbing. If so, by viewing the video images recorded by dubbing, the user will find data missing in parts of data area which should contain the essential information (mainly the parts before and after the commercial information), so that the user is required to do the dubbing again. If the recording medium (disc) in the video recorder is e.g. a DVD-R (Recordable) which is write-once type, such recording medium containing improper data becomes a waste.
This problem may be solved by reproducing, before actual dubbing, the video information to be dubbed (namely the essential video information other than the unwanted information which the user has input a command to exclude) so as to display, on the liquid crystal display, the reproduced information for checking by the user. However, this causes further inconvenience in that it takes a significantly long time to reproduce the video information other than the unwanted information, because the unwanted information such as commercial or news program which the user commands to exclude is usually short.

Video recorder to be connected to a digital video camcorder via IEEE 1394 serial bus


A device (1) for producing a moulding of surface properties comprises a housing (3) having a pressure plunger (4) mounted on or in the housing (3), which can be moved and can be pressed on a surface (2), which pressure plunger has a blank carrier (5) comprising a pressure surface (6) which can be pressed on the surface (2), on which pressure surface a moulding blank (7) comprising a moulding layer (9) made of a curable material can be secured in a detachable manner. The device further comprises a curing device (12) arranged on or in housing (3), with which the curable material of the moulding blank (7) can be cured while being pressed on the surface (2).

Various methods for examining surface properties are known. High-resolution images of a surface topography can be produced with suitable probes, or with particle or electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, visualizations of surface properties such as, for example, a magnetization, an electrical charge distribution or a chemical composition or chemical properties can be generated. Some examination methods are non-destructive and do not affect the surface to be examined. Other methods of examination require a significant interaction with the surface to be examined and change its properties or structure.
Atomic force microscopy enables a non-destructive and high-resolution imaging of a topography of a surface. However, the surface examined with atomic force microscopy must be scanned in high-resolution with an elastically mounted measuring probe, which requires a long measuring time of usually several minutes per image. The surface intended for the surface analysis must be brought into the detection range of the measuring probe. Similar requirements and limitations regarding the surfaces that are suitable and sufficiently accessible for the analysis also apply to other optical or microscopic examination methods or to spectroscopic analyses.
Various methods for producing a moulding of a surface topography are known in practice for enabling the examination of hard-to-reach surface regions. A soft metal foil can be pressed onto the surface to be examined in order to mould the surface topography. The moulded soft metal foil can subsequently be analyzed, for example, with optical microscopes or with an atomic force microscope to produce images of the surface topography of the surface to be analyzed.
It is also known in practice to apply a curing material to a surface and to release a cast or impression from the surface after a curing process, wherein the moulding thus obtained forms a highly realistic negative shape of the surface topography. A long curing time is usually necessary when using curing materials composed of two components. It is also known in the art to arrange liquid polymer materials configured as film or foil onto the surface which can be activated, for example, by heat or radiation and cured by cross-linking to mould the surface topography.
The manual application of the curable polymer material onto the surface is labor-intensive and cost-intensive. In addition, such a moulding process can hardly be reproduced with sufficiently accuracy, so that, for example, comparative surface analyses that are performed at intervals over a longer period of time are not possible or can be performed only with considerable effort.
The currently available curable polymer materials regularly allow only a moulding of the surface topography, i.e., the three-dimensional structuring of the surface to be moulded. It would be advantageous if, in addition to the surface topography, other surface properties could also be imaged with a moulding and made available for subsequent measurements and analyses.

Device and method for producing a moulding of surface properties