A method of making a reinforced insulating panel which includes the steps of covering insulating material, such as urethane foam of a regular size with glass fiber textiles, quilting the insulating material and the glass fiber textiles together so as to produce an integral middle member, covering the inner covering of the glass fiber of the middle member with an outer covering of the glass fiber and impregnating the covered member with a thermosetting resin and hardening the impregnated member. The glass fiber reinforced panel produced has excellent fire retardant and water repelling properties, has improved compressive strength and does not deform or delaminate easily.

This invention relates to a method of manufacturing reinforced insulating panels, and particularly to a method of making reinforced insulating panels impregnated with thermosetting resin, which utilize glass fiber reinforced material provided in a three-dimensional construction, wherein the delamination between surface material and insulating material is minimized and wherein the mechanical durability thereof is great.
A conventional reinforced panel of aluminum-insulating material is shown in FIG. 1, and is used as carrying boxes on refrigerator vehicles or containers and comprise an insulating member 101 and aluminum panels 102 fixed to both faces of the insulating member 101. Containers for marine transportation made of such panels are likely to corrode at their surface materials due to seawater and sea wind. When applying such panels to refrigerator containers or carrying boxes of refrigerator vehicles, such containers and boxes suffer from vertically acting compression and severe buckling load.
When joining surface member and insulating member, e.g., urethane foam of simple laminated structure, insulating members are likely to isolate or break at the interfaces thereof, resulting in the loss of refrigerating and freezing-retaining properties, which shortens the lives of carrying boxes or refrigerator containers.

Method of manufacturing reinforced insulating panel


A process for increasing the amount of isolatable products in a by-product stream generated in the production of 1,6 hexanediol includes combining the by-product stream with water to form a combination of the water and the by-product stream; and reacting the combination at a temperature between about 250.degree. C. to about 400.degree. C. at a pressure from about 1,000 psig to about 3,000 psig to form one or more reaction products.

Many chemical production processes produce by-product streams. These streams must be handled in some way. In some cases, these streams have historically been routed to waste and disposed of by, for example, deep welling or incineration. As a matter of efficiency, environmental stewardship, and process economics, it is usually desirable to minimize the size of the waste stream.
In a production scale distillation of 1,6, hexanediol ("HDO"), millions of pounds/year of by-product stream can be produced. Some production facilities store this stream in railcars (or other vessels) on the site until the streams can be handled properly. Not only do the vessels take up valuable space, railcars are often rented thereby adding to the cost of the product.
One of the fractions in the distillation of 1,6 hexanediol is referred to as "distillation heavies". It currently has little commercial value and is often used as fuel for steam generation. This stream represents a significant portion of the by-products from 1,6, hexanediol production. For example, in a typical 15M lb/yr hexanediol plant approximately 5.0 million pounds/year of distillation heavies might result. Reduction of the stream to useful products would, therefore, mean significant savings all around, i.e., environmentally, economically, efficiency, etc.

Recovering products from a by-products stream


A cable in accordance with the invention includes at least one core filament having a visually distinctive appearance; and a jacket, wrapped around at least a portion of said core filament. The jacket is adapted to change its opacity in response to tensile stress, thereby modulating the visibility of the core filament in relation to such stress. As a result, the overall appearance of the cable responds to stress, by changing at least one of chroma, hue, or value (visual appearance) quantifiably in response to tension.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to instruments and methods for orthopedic surgery generally and more specifically to elastic cables adapted for fixation of fractured bones.
2. Description of the Related Art
In various medical procedures wires or cables are used to join or stabilize fractured bones. Typically, metal alloy cables are preferred; but synthetic polymer cables are sometimes employed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,093,190 to Mattchen describes a method of using elastomeric cables to stabilize and compress fractured bones, by spanning a network of tensioned cables across a fracture. Such a network can provide stable fixation of a fracture in both linear and torsional directions. The method disclosed also provides a tensile preload across the fracture, tending to compress the fracture and maintain fixation despite tensile and shear loads (such as those resulting from movement, weight bearing and bone remodeling).
In addition to the use of cables in more-or-less permanent surgical implants, surgeons commonly find use for temporary tensile connections during orthopedic surgery. Often surgical techniques demand temporary application of tension to counteract muscles and ligaments or otherwise to manipulate bony structures.
In most cases, wires or cables are manipulated during surgery without the benefit of an accurate measurement of the applied tension. From time to time, however, it is desirable to tense an orthopedic cable to a specific, predetermined amount of force. Instruments are known, such as strain gauges and scales, that are capable of accurately measuring cable tension; Instruments have been devised to tension a cable to a predetermined force. However, such devices are often inconvenient, unwieldy, and expensive. Such instruments require routine calibration and maintenance. In addition, such instruments must be designed to withstand sterilization conditions (including autoclave temperatures). Some orthopedic devices have been introduced that attempt to provide a visual indication of tension. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,843 to Sohngen (1990). Nevertheless, a need persists for a simple, convenient means of measuring and displaying cable tension in the context of orthopedic surgery.

Surgical cable providing visual indication of tension


A convertible vehicle transporting trailer has rigid upper and lower decks. The upper deck is mounted onto the lower deck by selectively actuable, releasably lockable telescopic stanchions. The stanchions are actuable by actuators so as to raise and lower the upper deck over the lower deck between a lowered position, an intermediately elevated position, and a fully elevated position. In the fully extended position the upper deck is elevated above the lower deck so as to allow loading of vehicles or freight onto the lower deck. In the intermediately elevated position the upper deck is below the fully elevated position so as to be snugly adjacent uppermost extremities of the vehicles or freight on the lower deck. In the lowered position the upper deck rests on a mid-section of the lower deck and on elevated wheel-wells of the lower deck, so that a mid-section of the upper deck is between the wheel-wells of the lower deck and a forward elevated section of the lower deck so as to be immediately above and resting on the mid-section of the lower deck.

This invention relates to an automobile transporting trailer having spaced apart lower and upper decks, upon which automobiles may be positioned for transportation, and where the uppermost deck is repositionable relative to the lower deck, from a spaced apart position to a fully retracted position, allowing the trailer to be converted for transporting cargo other than automobiles.
Transportation of automobiles on trailers specifically designed for this purpose is well known. Generally, such trailers have a lower and upper decks which support a number of vehicles on each deck. The upper deck on most trailers can be slightly raised from a lower or loading position to an upper or transporting position. Vehicles are usually driven on to the upper deck over stowable ramps and articulatable deck portions when the upper deck of the trailer is in the lower or loading position. This lower or loading position helps minimize the incline of the loading ramps. Once the upper deck is loaded, it is elevated to the upper or transporting position which provides sufficient clearance for vehicles to be loaded onto the lower deck.
The prevalent disadvantage to the design of such trailers is that on backhaul, without cargo, they must be transported singly in a vertically extended position since they either cannot be fully collapsed or loaded one on top of the other. Further, the present design of such trailers does not make the transportation of goods normally transported by flatbed highway trailers practicable.
As stated by Blodgett in U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,222, the degree of success achieved by a multi-purpose truck depends to a large extend on how compactly the automobile storage deck assembly can be stored when it is not in use. In addition, acceptance of such a truck is affected to a large degree by how easily the truck can be converted from one carrying mode to the other. It is an object of the present inventing to provide a convertible trailer which is compact when in a flat-deck trailer mode, and which may be quickly and easily converted between the flatdeck trailer mode and a double-decker vehicle carrying mode, and which is capable of carrying very heavy freight when in the flat-deck trailer mode.
Applicant is also aware of U.S. Pat. No. 5,332,345 which issued to Lillard on Jul. 26, 1994 for a Vehicle Carrier. Lillard discloses articulatable upper and lower vehicle platforms mounted to a common chassis. An array of upper vehicle platforms are disposed along the length of the chassis, mounted over a corresponding array of lower vehicle platforms. When the upper platforms are adjacent. It is not taught nor suggested that the upper platforms rest or bear on the rails of the chassis along the length of the platforms.
The present invention is a convertible cargo transporting trailer. The trailer has lower and upper decks disposed in vertically spaced apart general parallel alignment. The upper deck can be extended above the lower deck from a fully retracted position, where the upper deck is nested on the lower deck, to an intermediately extended position, where loading of the upper deck is facilitated, to a fully extended position to accommodate loading of the lower deck. Once loading of the trailer is completed, the overall vertical distance between the upper deck and vehicles positioned on the lower deck surface may be adjusted by slightly lowering the mid portion of the upper deck into a suitable transportation position.
The upper deck, when in its fully retracted position, can be utilized for the transportation of heavy equipment and cargo and in an intermediately extended position can be utilized for the transportation of palletized or containerized goods and equipment on each of the decks.
Put another way, my invention includes an upper rigid deck and a lower rigid deck, wherein the upper deck is selectively elevatable by elevating means so as to actuate between an upwardly extended position and a lowered position. In the upwardly extended position the upper deck is sufficiently elevated over the lower deck for carrying cargo such as automobiles on the lower deck. In the lowered position the upper deck fits so as to nest onto the lower deck thereby forming a unitary single deck cargo carrier.
In summary, the convertible vehicle transporting trailer of the present invention includes rigid upper and lower decks. The upper deck is mounted onto the lower deck by selectively actuable, releasably lockable telescopic stanchions. The stanchions are actuable by actuators so as to raise and lower the upper deck over the lower deck between a lowered position, an intermediately elevated position, and a fully elevated position.
In the fully extended position the upper deck is elevated above the lower deck so as to allow loading of vehicles or freight onto the lower deck. In the intermediately elevated position the upper deck is below the fully elevated position so as to be snugly adjacent uppermost extremities of the vehicles or freight on the lower deck.
In the lowered position the upper deck rests on a mid-section of the lower deck and on elevated wheel-wells of the lower deck, so that a mid-section of the upper deck, forward of a wheel-well covering section of the upper deck, is between the wheel-wells of the lower deck and a forward elevated section of the lower deck so as to be immediately above and resting on the mid-section of the lower deck extending between the wheel-wells and the forward elevated section. In this position an upper surface of the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck is substantially co-planar with an upper-most surface of the mid-section of the upper deck.
In the lowered position, longitudinally extending, parallel, elongate side girders of the upper deck extend from their lower girder edges resting on upper-most surfaces of correspondingly aligned and correspondingly elongate side girders of the lower deck, to an upper deck floor of the mid-section of the upper deck, that is, the side girders are of sufficient height, so that the upper deck floor of the mid-section is substantially co-planar with an upper deck floor of the wheel-well covering section. Thus heavy loads carried on the mid-portion of the upper deck cause the side girders of the upper deck to bear against and along the side girders of the lower deck. Similarly, heavy loads carried on the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck cause the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck to bear against the wheel-wells of the lower deck.
A floor of the lower deck extends between the side girders of the lower deck, in one preferred embodiment between the lower edges of the side girders. A floor of the upper deck extends between the upper deck side girders, in one preferred embodiment between the upper edges of the side girders.
A rearmost downwardly inclined section of the lower deck is mounted to the wheel-wells. A rearmost ramp section of the upper deck is mounted to the wheel-well covering section. In one preferred embodiment the rearmost ramp section is pivotally mounted to a rear edge of the wheel-well covering section and a rear actuator is mounted between the lower deck and the ramp section for selectively pivoting the ramp section relative to the wheel-well covering section. Thus when the upper deck is in the lowered position, the ramp section may be pivoted so as to be substantially co-planar with the upper deck floor of the wheel-well covering section. As with the other actuators, the rear actuator is releasably lockable so as to releasably lock the ramp section relative to the wheel-well covering section.
Advantageously the forward elevated section of the lower deck has a selectively inclinable ramp, selectively inclinable between a declined position which allows driving a vehicle from the mid section of the lower deck onto the forward elevated section, and a substantially horizontal position for carrying cargo on the forward elevated section.
Further advantageously, forwardly extendable floor members are slidably telescopically mounted in a forward end of the mid section of the upper deck for forwardly extending the upper deck over the forward elevated section of the lower deck. Rigid supports are pivotally mounted to the forward elevated section for pivoting between a lowered stowed position and an elevated, preferably vertical, position for releasable mounting to forward ends of the floor members.
In one preferred embodiment the actuators for actuating the stanchions comprise a longitudinally aligned oppositely disposed pair of actuators mounted on each of the side girders of the lower deck. Opposite ends of the oppositely disposed pair of actuators are pivotally mounted to lower ends of the forward and rear mid-section stanchions. The lower ends of the forward and rear mid-section stanchions are slidably mounted in oppositely disposed guides mounted on the side girders of the lower deck. The guides cooperate with each of the oppositely disposed pair of actuators.The upper ends of the forward and rear mid-section stanchions are pivotally mounted to corresponding forward and rear ends of the mid section of the upper deck. Thus, extending the actuators drives the lower ends of the stanchions oppositely along the guides, and rotates the forward and rear mid-section stanchions into preferably vertically oriented alignment.
In one aspect of the present invention the wheel-well covering section of the upper deck is pivotally mounted to the mid section of the upper deck. Thus in the embodiment wherein the wheel-well covering section is supported when elevated above the wheel-wells by non-actuable telescopic stanchions, the wheel-well section may be elevated, at least in part,by elevating the rear end of the mid section of the upper deck.

Convertible vehicle transporting trailer


A flow control assembly for a fire sprinkler system includes a valve housing having an inlet opening and an outlet opening. The valve housing defines a fluid flow path that extends between the inlet opening and the outlet opening. A flow control valve is disposed within the fluid flow path. A swing check valve is disposed within the fluid flow path of the valve housing downstream from the flow control valve. The swing check valve includes a clapper that is connected to an actuator arm. An electrical switch is disposed outside of the valve housing. A mechanical linkage includes a first end that extends through the valve housing and engages with the actuator arm. The mechanical linkage also includes a second end that is coupled to the electrical switch. The first end translates with said actuator arm.

Fire sprinkler systems for multi-story buildings generally include a standpipe riser that is fluidly coupled to one or more sprinkler heads via a main feed line having a plurality of pipes that extend therebetween. Various valves are fluidly connected to the pipes to start, stop or otherwise control the flow of water between the standpipe riser and the sprinkler heads. The fire sprinkler system also may include other separate components such as a flow indicator, a pressure gauge, and alarm system and/or a drainage system.
Typically, the standpipe riser is situated vertically within a stairwell or other limited mechanical space. The valves, the flow indicator and/or the pressure gauge are disposed in a straight line or in series generally extending horizontally from the standpipe riser. As a result, a large amount of valuable space within the stairwell or other limited mechanical space may be required to accommodate the standpipe riser and the various components. In addition, each valve and/or component necessitates a break in the main feed line pipes. As a result, multiple flange-to-flange joints, pipe taps, threaded and/or grooved pipe connections are required, thus providing multiple leak and/or system failure opportunities.

Flow control assembly for a fire sprinkler system


A wire cutter suitable for creating a cavity in cancellous bone includes a restrainer and a cutting wire, wherein a portion of the cutting wire will protrude from a slot formed on the restrainer to the outside of the restrainer and inside a bone, when the cutting wire is advanced in a tunnel formed in the restrainer and toward a closed end of the tunnel.

It is well accepted that bioresorbable orthopedic implants are always the better choice than permanent foreign-body implants, as long as their bioresorption rates, biomechanical properties and variations in biomechanical properties with respect to the resorption processes are appropriately controlled. Among all bioresorbable orthopedic implants, calcium-based implants (calcium phosphate, calcium sulfate, etc.), are among the top choices so far. Some popular conventional methods of forming a hardened (set) bone cement in bone cavity involve creating a bone cavity in advance.
Prior-art cavity creation devices having an inflatable and expandable fluid-filled balloon structure often have insufficient "lift"—ability to push back compression—fractured bone (e.g., to restore vertebral body height) under certain circumstances due to the "softness" and the relatively large surface of the balloon. These devices do not have the function of cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone.
Prior-art cavity creation devices having an inflatable and expandable balloon-type structure rely on a high pressure fluid to expand a cavity in bone, which increases various high pressure-related risks in clinical procedures. These devices do not have the function of cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone.
Prior-art cavity creation devices having a foldable and extendable (expandable) rigid structure have risks of generating stress-concentrated spots and fresh cracks in the readily fractured bone. These devices do not have the function of cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone.
Most prior-art rigid-structure cavity creation devices have a hollow structure under expanded/unfolded condition. Once bone chips/fragments are trapped in such devices during unfolding (expanding) and/or folding (collapsing) procedures, such devices have risks of being unable to be retrieved from the treated site, especially through a minimally invasive percutaneous path. Likewise, in case any pieces/components of the rigid-structure devices break off the structure during procedure, these broken-off pieces/components would be very hard to be retrieved, especially through a minimally invasive percutaneous path. These devices do not have the function of cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone.
The inventors of the present application in WO 2006/138398 A2 disclose a non-inflated tool for expanding a bone cavity in which an orthopaedic paste is to be implanted comprising a flexible linear filler and a rod with one end thereof connected to one end of the flexible linear filler, so that the flexible linear filler can be pushed by the rod through a tube into a hole of a bone to expand a bone cavity in the bone. The filler may be a wire, band, or chain. Preferably, the chain comprises a series of beads linked one after another or by a string. Despite the ability of this non-inflated tool to effectively create/expand bone cavity, once the linear filler breaks, it would be very hard to retrieve the broken-loose bodies, especially through a minimally invasive percutaneous path. Another risk for the prior-art non-inflated tool is entanglement of the linear filler, which might happen during feeding (expansion) and/or retrieving procedure. When entanglement happens, it would be very hard for the linear filler to be retrieved, especially through a minimally invasive percutaneous path. These devices do not have the function of cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone.
The inventors of the present application in WO 2009/035549 A disclose a method of using beads to create a cavity in a bone comprising the following steps: a) introducing said beads into a bone by applying a pressure on said beads, wherein said beads are metallic beads able to be attracted by a magnet; and b) withdrawing said beads from said bone by magnetic force. In this prior art a tool is disclosed to facilitate the introduction said beads into a bone. These devices do not have the function of cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone.
For most prior-art rigid-structure cavity creation devices, an easy, accurate, reliable and safe bone-cavity creation procedure for a fractured bone or a bone suffering osteoporosis is always a great challenge. There is a need in developing an easy, accurate, reliable and safe technique for cutting into the cancellous portion of a bone, whereby soft tissues therein may be broken into pieces to facilitate the migration/penetration of an orthopaedic paste. Without being broken, these soft tissues may hinder the migration/penetration of the orthopaedic paste in the bone being treated. The orthopaedic paste will set to act as a medical implant.

Device and method for cutting into a cancellous bone


An adaptive trajectory apparatus and method provide vehicle control comma to steer an underwater vehicle launched from a vessel towards a contact. A plurality of measured/estimated position and motion parameters associated with the contact are provided. The contact parameters also include information on quality and alertment status. The contact parameters are compared with an information matrix that defines a plurality of trajectory strategies and data parameters required to effect each of the trajectory strategies. A trajectory strategy is defined as a candidate trajectory strategy when the required data parameters are included in the measured/estimated contact parameter set. An expert system periodically selects a unique possible trajectory strategy based upon a predetermined set of rules that utilize the received contact parameters, quality thereof, contact alertment status and vehicle state information received from the underwater vehicle. The vehicle control commands are generated with a controller using the selected unique candidate trajectory strategy and the vehicle state information.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the control of an underwater vehicle trajectory from a moving platform, and more particularly to an adaptive trajectory selection apparatus and method that continually determines, in real-time, the trajectory of an underwater vehicle in order to effectively guide it to a desired area. Improved guidance is provided, in accordance with a given set of goals, through the innovative combination and extension of technologies and techniques from the fields of guidance and control, data management and expert systems.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Present submarine combat control systems require an operator to select a single mode (trajectory) for post-launch guidance of an underwater vehicle, such as a torpedo. The post-launch guidance problem is that phase of vehicle/torpedo guidance whereby commands are sent over a communication system in order to guide the vehicle to the vicinity of a contact or target. In the case of a torpedo, effective guidance to the vicinity of the target will result in the torpedo's internal homing system detecting the contact (acquisition) and then beginning to autonomously seek it. Present systems cease any further vehicle control beyond acquisition.
Information on the contact is provided by sensors on the launching vessel. This data in conjunction with vessel navigational parameters, environmental and historical data is processed in order to provide estimates of contact state (position and velocity) along with indications of the quality of these estimates. The amount of either measured or estimated information available on a particular contact at any given time depends on many tactical and environmental factors. In present systems, a system operator monitors the system in order to determine what information is present and then selects a guidance mode when the torpedo is launched. At present, the modes from which the operator makes a choice for the post-launch guidance phase include: bearing rider, pursuit and intercept. A brief description of the characteristics of these trajectories follows.
Bearing rider is a mode whereby the vehicle or a point in front of the vehicle (associated with the acoustic homing system) is controlled so as to remain on the bearing between the firing platform and the contact. Pursuit is a trajectory in which the heading of the vehicle is controlled so as to always point at the contact. The intercept trajectory requires that the course of the vehicle be computed so that the vehicle will collide with the contact, which is assumed to be non-maneuvering, at some time in the future Upon selection of one of these modes, error indications are computed in the combat systems and the operator uses his judgement to determine when and what commands should be issued over the communication link to the torpedo to follow the selected trajectory. The ability to compute the required torpedo orders for any particular trajectory is dependent on the information content of the state vector for the contact-of-interest.
Traditionally, the guidance mode of choice during tactical encounters has been intercept. The drawback of intercept guidance is the requirement for a complete target state solution, i.e. Range, Course, Speed and Bearing. More recently this form of guidance is becoming less effective as a result of increased contact capabilities. Improved contact sensor capabilities allow for earlier alertment to an incoming vehicle/threat, thereby allowing for contact evasive action. This makes it impossible for the launching platform's combat system to maintain the complete contact motion solution set necessary to employ intercept throughout the launch to acquisition phase of a tactical encounter. The resulting reduced solution set thus requires an alternate strategy that is more in accordance with the available information.
Although the situation may warrant it, the guidance mode selected is rarely, if ever, changed during a given torpedo run. Further, if the present torpedo trajectory interferes with the contact data being measured by the launching vessel, modifications to the trajectory would be desirable in order to support the ongoing contact location estimation process. Such interference results in the launching vessel's sensor(s) obtaining heavily biased contact measurement information. This heavily biased information can seriously effect the ability to determine effective corrections necessary to sustain any form of vehicle trajectory control. It can also mask the presence of a contact maneuver which could obviously have serious impact on the efficacy of the guidance mode being employed.
Current post-launch guidance requires a great deal of operator involvement. A more automated system which reduces operator involvement is sorely needed in order to effectively react to the increasingly complex tactical missions/scenarios. Future anti-submarine warfare (ASW) scenarios will involve multiple sensors and concurrent guidance of multiple vehicles including torpedoes, mobile mines, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and mobile countermeasures. Thus, current systems do not provide for continuous, real-time, adaptive selection of vehicle strategies and the associated automatic guidance desired to effectively employ single and multiple vehicles in a changing tactical scenario.

Adaptive trajectory selection apparatus and method

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


This invention provides chiral thioindigo compounds for doping smectic liquid crystal hosts, wherein the compounds modulate a chiral bulk property of an induced chiral smectic liquid crystal phase upon irradiation at a wavelength in the visible range. Modulation of the chiral bulk property is effected by reversible trans-cis photoisomerization of the compound upon irradiation. The compounds maintain their rod-like shape in both isomeric forms, and hence do not destabilize the chiral smectic liquid crystal phase. Compounds according to the invention are useful in optical devices such as optical switches, displays, and memory.

Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) are potentially useful as the active component in optoelectronic and photonic devices such as optical switches, displays, and spatial light modulators. To be useful in such applications, switching of an FLC, i.e., control of its light-transmitting properties, must be possible. One approach is to dope the liquid crystal with a photochromic compound that produces a reversible photomechanical effect, i.e., a structural change of the liquid crystal phase, in response to irradiation with light of a specific wavelength. The structural change of the liquid crystal phase changes the light-transmitting properties of the liquid crystal. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,586 to Hattori et al., issued Jun. 2, 1992, proposes the use of a photochromic dopant to achieve such switching in a liquid crystal film, for photorecording of digital information. Irradiation of the aligned liquid crystal film in the ultra-violet (UV) range causes a change in the birefringence of the liquid crystal phase as shown by the rotation of plane-polarized light transmitted through the material. The initial state can be restored by irradiating the film with visible light. As shown by Hattori et al., this principle can be applied to a FLC using a fulgide dopant, in which case the irradiation merely modulates the birefringence of the liquid crystal phase in the absence of an electric field. However, the resulting rotation of plane-polarized light is very small, on the order of 0.2 degree, which is not enough to produce a sufficient contrast in some optoelectronic and photonic applications.
A different approach which may be useful for applications such as optical switches and displays involves a system employing a photoactive chiral dopant in an achiral smectic C(S.sub.C) liquid crystal host (i.e., a liquid crystal phase which exhibits molecular ordering and a molecular tilt) to give an induced FLC. In principle, upon irradiation of the resulting chiral smectic C(S.sub.C *) phase, switching can be achieved via modulation of the spontaneous polarization (P.sub.s ; a chiral bulk property of the FLC) above and below a switching threshold, to change the light-transmitting properties of the FLC. Modulation of P.sub.S is associated with a photo-induced structural change in the dopant.
Recently it has been shown that P.sub.S can be photomodulated in the near-UV range via the reversible trans-cis photoisomerization of chiral azobenzene dopants in S.sub.C or S.sub.C * liquid crystal hosts (Negishi et al., Chem. Lett., 319, 1996; Blinov et al., Jap. J. Appl. Phys., 35:5405, 1996; Sasaki et al., J. Phys. Chem., 99:13013, 1995; Walton et al., Liq. Cryst., 17:333, 1994; Sasaki et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 116:625, 1994; Ikeda et al., Nature, 361:428, 1993) and of azobenzene side-chain-doped copolymer FLCs (Oge et al., Macromol. Chem. Phys., 197:1805, 1996). In this system, the modulation of P.sub.S arises from a photomechanical effect associated with the change in shape of the azobenzene dopant from rod-like (trans) to bent (cis): the change to the bent cis-isomer destabilizes the S.sub.C * phase of the liquid crystal and decreases polar ordering, thus decreasing P.sub.S. The photomechanical effect results in significant decreases in the temperature of phase transition between chiral smectic A(S.sub.A *) (i.e., a smectic liquid crystal phase having the same molecular ordering as a S.sub.C * phase, but without a molecular tilt) and S.sub.C * phases or between chiral nematic (N*) (i.e. a liquid crystal phase having orientational ordering only) and S.sub.C * phases, producing in some cases a complete loss of polarization due to an isothermal phase transition to the S.sub.A * or N* phase.
Thus, while the above system has demonstrated photomodulation of P.sub.S, there are significant disadvantages to that approach: (i) the addressing wavelength causing trans-to-cis photoisomerization of the azobenzene dopant is in the near-ultraviolet range (365 nm), which is undesirable for practical applications for which an inexpensive addressing light source is preferred; and (ii) the mechanical destabilization of the S.sub.C * phase can produce a more fluid, less ordered nematic phase with lower structural integrity, which may be a severe impediment if the FLC film is to be used as a long-term digital information storage device.

Compounds and methods for doping liquid crystal hosts


A disc prosthesis for insertion between vertebrae of the spin has upper and lower members and a pivot ball retained in a socket to prevent the ball from becoming removed from the socket. Also, a shock absorbing member is fitted between the upper and lower member of the prosthesis. The upper and lower members are also vertically movable to compress the shock absorbing member and absorb shock in the spine.

The spine is one of the most delicate portions of the human body, and is subject to failure from a number of causes, one of the most common being failure of a disc positioned between the vertebrae.
Prostheses have been successfully inserted between the vertebrae of the upper spine, but efforts to provide a prosthesis for the discs between the vertebrae of the lower spine have been less successful. Marnay, U.S. Pat. No. 5,314,477 and Salib, U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,031 are typical examples of current efforts to install such prostheses in lower vertebrae. These efforts, however, have not been successful for several reasons. First, existing prostheses have generally disc-shaped upper and lower members, each of which has outer dimensions nearly equal to the outer dimensions of the weight bearing portions of the upper and lower vertebrae, between which the original disc was positioned. To insert such a disc through a patient's back, an incision must be made between adjacent ribs. The disc must then be inserted without interfering with the spinal cord or any of its adjoining nerves. Surgeons have found that an incision large enough to receive a prosthesis cannot be made in the middle or lower back without causing damage to adjacent nerves.
A prosthesis disc might also be positioned between vertebrae of the middle and lower back by inserting it through the abdominal cavity, however, such efforts have also been unsuccessful. Extending along the back wall of the abdominal cavity are parallel arteries carrying blood to and from the lower extremities. Inserting a prosthesis disc through the abdominal cavity requires moving it between the arteries which run adjacent the inner surface of the back. Again, surgeons have been unable to safely insert existing prostheses through the abdomen.
Another problem of existing prostheses lies in their operation. Existing prostheses have upper and lower members, one of which has a generally semispherical portion which is received in a complementarily concave portion of the second member. Such prostheses employ the weight of the upper body to retain the semispherical portion of one member within the concave portion of the other member. When the patient is reclining, however, or when the patient bears his body weight with his arms so as to stretch the spine, existing prostheses are unable to retain their relationship to one another, and the parts may become disoriented. Such disorientation will cause intense pain and render a patient immobile.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a prosthesis disc for insertion in the spine of a patient which can be inserted in the middle or lower back and which will not disassemble by the movements of the patient's body.


A computer processor includes a number of register pairs LOCKADDR/LOCKCOUNT. In each pair, the LOCKADDR/LOCKCOUNT register is to hold a value that identifies a lock for a computer resource. When a lock instruction issues, the corresponding LOCKCOUNT register is incremented. When an unlock instruction issues, the corresponding LOCKCOUNT register is decremented. The lock is freed when a count associated with the LOCKCOUNT register is decremented to zero. This scheme provides fast locking and unlocking in many frequently occurring situations. In some embodiments, the LOCKCOUNT registers are omitted, and the lock is freed on any unlock instruction corresponding to the lock. In some embodiments, a computer object includes a header which includes a pointer to a class structure. The class structure is aligned on a 4-byte boundary, and therefore two LSBs of the pointer to the class structure are zero and are not stored in the header. Instead, two header LSBs store: (1) a LOCK bit indicating whether the object is locked, and (2) a WANT bit indicating whether a thread is waiting to acquire a lock for the object.

The present invention relates to locking of computer resources.
When different computer entities such as computer processes or threads share a computer resource (for example, data, code, or a piece of hardware), it may be desirable to allow one of the computer entities to lock a resource for a while to prevent some types of access to the resource by other computer entities. For example, if two or more threads share computer data, and one thread has started but not finished to modify the data when another thread is accessing the data, the other thread may get incorrect information from the data and/or the data could be corrupted by the two threads. Also, if one thread has started but not finished execution of a critical code section when another thread starts executing the same code section, execution errors may occur if, for example, the critical code section modifies the state of a data area, a hardware controller, or some other computer resource. Therefore, locking techniques have been provided to allow computer entities to lock computer resources.
It is desirable to provide fast techniques for locking of computer resources.


An axle assembly having an axle housing with a center portion defining a sump and one or more axle shaft housings extending from the center portion. Each of the axle shaft housings receives an axle half shaft. The axle housing includes a differential assembly having a ring gear; and a lubrication directing assembly disposed directly adjacent to the ring gear. The axle assembly also includes a pump mounted in one or more of the axle shaft housings and is drivingly coupled to a pump gear. The pump gear is drivingly coupled to the axle half shaft. The axle assembly also includes an axle housing cover surrounding the axle housing. A fluid storage tank is attached to the housing cover, wherein the fluid storage tank includes a fill channel directly attached to the housing cover.

Axle assemblies have internal cavities housing gear assemblies that must be properly lubricated to avoid premature wear and failure. The internal cavities must be filled with a certain level of lubrication fluid so that the gear assemblies can be lubricated as gear components rotate within the internal cavity. This is particularly the case during vehicle startup for certain components, such as differentials and power distribution units.
Lubrication fluid often collects at the ring gear and the lubricant sump in conventional axle assemblies. As a result, these axle assemblies experience churning losses and inefficiencies. It would therefore be advantageous to readily reduce the amount of lubrication fluid in some components of axle assemblies, while providing the lubrication fluid to other axle assembly components in order to maintain proper temperature and lubricant life in the vehicle.


The disclosed adaptive finite impulse response (FIR) digital filter architecture computes tap coefficient updates in parallel with and simultaneously with the computation of the filter output at each iteration. The filter includes a filter output processor (206) and a tap update processor (212) which respectively process, in parallel, the filter output and the coefficient updates for a subsequent iteration. The filter output processor and the tap update processor form their respective outputs at each iteration from input signal values at previous iterations stored in a filter input memory (203) and from tap coefficients stored in a filter taps memory (205). In even-numbered iterations only the even-numbered taps are updated and in odd-numbered iterations only the odd-numbered taps are updated. At every iteration, in forming the filter output and the even or odd tap updates, the previous inputs and tap coefficients are accessed in a pattern that requires that they be fetched only once from their respective memories.

This invention relates to digital signal processing, and more specifically to an adaptive digital filter architecture which performs tap updating in an efficient manner.
A proposed technology for providing DS1-rate (1.544 mb/s) transmission over the customer serving area portion of the copper twisted-pair telephone loop plant is known as the High Speed Digital Subscriber Line (HDSL) (see, e.g., B. A. Mordecai, T. R. Hsing, D. L. Waring, and D. S. Wilson, "Repeaterless technology brings copper and fiber together," Telephony, Jul. 2, 1990, pp. 28-33.) The initial targeted application for HDSL is a non-repeatered, POTS(plain old telephone service)-like deployed, DS1 service. DS1 service over the copper plant is currently provided by T1 carrier, a technology which may require costly engineering effort and service initialization delays. Provided that the cost of HDSL electronics is sufficiently low, service providers could use HDSL technology to supplant T1 carrier in providing new DS1 orders.
One of the most crucial components of an HDSL transceiver is the adaptive channel equalizer. The extreme high frequency rolloff of HDSL channels, and the intersymbol interference (ISI) which this rolloff produces, must be countered by an equalizer at the receiver. The wide range of channel characteristics present within the copper loop plant, and the tendency of any given channel to change slowly with time, require the channel equalizer to be adaptive. Since channel equalizers are typically implemented as one or more digital filters, the success of HDSL is dependent upon the availability of low-complexity, yet computationally powerful, adaptive digital filter architectures.
As is well known in the digital filter art, an adaptive finite impulse response (FIR) digital filter processes an input signal by multiplying a current digital input signal value and the input signal value at plural equally spaced discrete previous time instants, with a set of tap coefficient values which are continually being updated. The current input signal value and the previous input signal values as multiplied by their corresponding tap coefficient values and are then summed to produce an output signal. The difference between the resultant output signal and a desired signal value, is an error signal which is used to adapt and update the coefficient values of the FIR filter structure for calculation of the filter output at a subsequent time instant or instants. By constantly updating the tap coefficient values, the filter is able to adapt to external environmental factors such as changing signal conditions over the receiving data channel.
Prior art adaptive digital filters have used various algorithms for updating the tap coefficients. One of the most popular algorithms is the LMS, or stochastic gradient algorithm, and the variants thereof. In accordance with each of these algorithms, each tap coefficient in the filter structure is updated by a prescribed mathematical formula that is a function of that tap's previous coefficient value, the error signal and a previous signal value in that tap.
Generally, prior art adaptive FIR filter implementations are structured to calculate the filter output (and also error) from the sum of products (SOPs) of tap coefficients times delayed input values, and to then compute, for each tap from the error obtained in the first step, the tap's updated coefficient to be used in calculating the filter output at a subsequent time instant. This serial approach has two significant disadvantages. The first is that each data element (present and previous input values) and tap coefficient value must be fetched twice from memory: once in forming the FIR SOPs calculation, and once in performing the tap updates. Depending on the hardware implementation, precious machine cycles may be wasted as a result of this dual fetch thereby limiting the speed at which the filter can operate. The second disadvantage is that in applications whose processing throughput calls for the use of two processors to perform the calculations (e.g., applications where filter length or input/output speed requires more than one processor), the serial approach requires that the FIR SOPs calculation be distributed between the two processors. Additional hardware and one or more overhead machine cycles are then required to add the partial SOPs to form the filter output.
An object of the present invention is to avoid the aforenoted disadvantages of the serial approach of the prior art with an alternative digital filter architecture.

Adaptive digital filter architecture for parallel output/update computations


A liquid spill resistant electrical receptacle includes a main body and a front portion. The front portion includes a front surface and rear surface. Terminals are recessed rearwardly from openings formed in the front surface, and are connected to wires extending rearwardly from the main body. The front surface includes a first surface portion, in the vicinity of the openings, which is positioned forwardly from a second surface portion that is located generally outboard of the first surface portion. Optionally, the first surface portion may be in the form of outwardly-extending ridges around the terminal openings, and configured to direct water or other liquids away from the terminal openings associated with the terminals.

The use of computers, telecommunications equipment and other electronic devices is continuing to rapidly increase in office, commercial, industrial and other environments. As a result, the importance of efficiently supplying power throughout these environments is also increasing. Historically, one problem with use of electrical power is the positioning of electrical power outlet ports, such as electrical receptacles. Positioning of these devices is important with respect to both convenience and cost efficiency. Electrical receptacles for supplying power to various types of devices (lighting, computers, etc) must be located in accessible positions for all types of use.
In this regard, it is known to employ electrical receptacles directly mounted to various types of furniture, such as bookshelves and desks. These receptacles may be mounted at a location substantially above a floor surface, and allow the user to interconnect electrical devices near their locations of use, thereby avoiding the necessity of running device cords and cables a substantial distance.
A system employing covered receptacles mounted within a workstation is disclosed in Propst, U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,629 issued Feb. 8, 1993. The Propst arrangement includes a desk top having a rear cover hinged to a vertical back panel. Receptacles are mounted to the lower portion of the cover and bristles extend horizontally from the cover to an edge of the desktop when the cover is closed. When the cover is opened, the user can "plug in" the cord of a desired electrical device and close the cover, with the cord then extending through the bristles.
A further advance of the prior art was achieved with the commonly owned Byrne, U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,788 issued May 31, 1988. In this patent, a retractable power center is disclosed which is manually operable. The power center includes a movable and vertically slidable power carriage utilized to mount electrical receptacles. The carriage can be extended between an open position and a closed, retracted position.
In Brownlie, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,982 issued Jan. 15, 1991 an access flooring module is provided, which is mounted in an opening provided in a floor. The module is moveable between open and closed positions, so as to receive electrical components such as power sockets.
Timmerman, U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,668, issued Nov. 19, 1996 discloses a temporary power/data tap for delivery electrical power and data service to a work surface from a distant standard wall or floor mounted electrical receptacle. Another device comprising utility receptacles and specifically directed to use in a work surface is disclosed in Gevaert, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,156 issued Jan. 20, 1998.
In accordance with the foregoing, various types of configurations exist with respect to mounting electrical receptacles. However, one problem with a number of known electrical receptacles relates to the potential damage (or dangerous situations) from environmental conditions. For example, electrical receptacles may be constructed and configured in such a way as to be susceptible to damage from water or other fluids. As well known in the electrical industry, water spillage or the like may result not only in damage to electrical components, but may also cause dangerous situations, due to electrical arcing or similar electrical malfunctions caused by water spillage and seepage.
In this regard, a substantial advance in the art was achieved through the development of waterproof simplex receptacles as disclosed in Byrne, U.S. Pat. No. 7,244,128, issued Jul. 17, 2007. The Byrne '128 patent is incorporated by reference herein. Specifically, the Byrne '128 patent discloses the use of a simplex receptacle body having a front portion with a front surface and rear surface. Terminals extend through the front portion, and are disclosed as including a ground terminal, neutral terminal and hot terminal. The terminals are electrically connected to a set of electrical wires or cables extending rearwardly from the receptacle. The receptacle also includes a rear housing. A waterproofing clip is disclosed which includes an upper portion extending lengthwise across the clip, and a pair of vertically connecting portions extending downwardly from opposing ends of the upper portion. At the lower ends of the vertical connecting portions, spring legs extend forwardly from each of the vertical connecting portions. The spring clips are resilient in nature and sized so as to be "snap fitted" around the main housing body of the rear housing. With the rear housing and the waterproofing clip, the rear portion of the simplex receptacle is essentially waterproof, and resists seepage of water or other liquids therein.

Waterproof simplex receptacle with additional watershedding


A dry testing method for a glove (10) made with an air permeable, waterproof material (16). The stem (22) of a tee fitting (24) is connected to an air pump (20) source. A mouth (30) of the glove is tightly attached to one end (32) of the fitting so no air can escape through the mouth. An airflow meter (26) or air pressure gauge connects to another end (28) of the fitting. When the air pump is running, the glove inflates with air and a backpressure is created. The flow meter is read to determine the backpressure level in the inflated glove, the glove being accepted if the meter registers at least a predetermined value indicating the glove does not leak water, but the glove being rejected if the meter reading is less than the predetermined value.

This invention relates to the manufacture of waterproof gloves utilizing a layer of an air permeable material; and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for dry testing the glove to determine if it is waterproof.
Certain types of gloves, for example, waterproof gloves, are made using an air permeable material sandwiched between an inner and an outer layer of material. This material, while preventing water from leaking into the glove, allows airflow through the glove. During manufacture of the glove, it sometimes happens that a hole is punched in the material, that a seam is not properly sewn, or that rip or tear is created. Any of these occurrences renders the glove unsuitable for sale so that it has to be reworked or discarded.
Glove manufacturers test their gloves for water leaks. Conventionally, glove testing requires filling the glove with water and watching for leakage through the outer layer of the glove. While effective, the test requires that the glove gets wet and it subsequently has to be dried. This adds an additional process step to the glove manufacture and adds to the cost of the glove. Further, when a glove dries, it may wrinkle and become misshapen so a secondary operation is necessary to get rid of the wrinkles and insure the glove has a suitable appearance before being packaged for sale. This adds an additional process step and further increases costs.

Method and apparatus for testing air permeable waterproof gloves


A method, apparatus, system, and signal-bearing medium that in various embodiments determine whether to execute a command in a queue or whether to wait until another command or commands completed. The determination is based on a combination of an in-use vector and a scorecard vector. The in-use vector indicates which slots in various queues contain commands. The scorecard vector indicates the dependencies between various queues. In this way, the scorecard vector, and the thus the queue dependencies can be set and modified after the logic that processes the commands has been designed.

Computers typically contain a bus, which may be a set of hardware lines or conductors used for information transfer between the various components of the computer system, such as the processor, the memory, and the input/output ports. A bus typically consists of specialized groups of lines that carry different types of information. For example, one group of lines might carry data, while another group of lines carries memory addresses where the data can be found, and still another group carries control signals. Some computers contain multiple buses, for example a system bus and an I/O (input/output) bus. These multiple buses might not have the same number of lines, and the lines might have different meanings. Thus, at the point where these multiple buses connect with each other, specialized hardware is needed to convert the interface of one bus into the interface of another bus. This specialized hardware is often contained within a chip or chips.
The chips used in such a bus interface often receive many different types of commands. Typically, these commands are placed into separate queues in order to maximize throughput, so that if a first queue that services commands of a first type is full, a second queue can still accept and make progress executing commands of a second type. With this approach, there are occasions where commands in the various queues need to be ordered with respect to each other to prevent unintentional out-of-order execution.
Ordering commands in queues has been accomplished by designing logic that searches through the queues looking for command dependencies and sets hold-off bits in a register to indicate that a particular command is dependent on another command or commands already in one of the queues and cannot proceed until the previously accepted command or commands complete. A common problem in designs of this type is that the rules for which commands are dependent upon each other are fluid and change late in the design cycle of the chip. Additionally, design flaws on either end of the bus interface may necessitate different hold-off conditions than the designer originally contemplated. Unfortunately, the logic that searches the queues and determines command dependencies cannot be changed without redesigning the chip. Thus, there is a need for a solution that allows flexibility in ordering commands in queues.
Although the aforementioned problems have been described in the context of a chip in a bus interface, they can apply in any context where commands on command queues need to be ordered with respect to dependencies that they might have on each other.

International Business Machines Corporation


An electronic device is proposed for accompanying a perishable good during one period to monitor the exposure of the good to an environmental parameter, such as temperature. The device includes a data interface for receiving data representing the exposure of the good to the environmental parameter during an immediately preceding period. It further includes a sensor for measuring the environmental parameter. Also, the device includes a processor for using a relationship specific to the good (such an Arrhenius equation for that good) to compute a characteristic of the good at the end of the one period using the received data and the output of the sensor. The device further includes a memory for recording the output of the sensor. To economise on memory usage, data is stored at a faster rate during periods when the data is of most significant (e.g. it indicates a high temperature). A switch is provided for indicating that data should not be taken into account in the computation, during a short interval, in which for example the device may be being handled.

Temperature monitors are important in any industry involving goods that are temperature sensitive. This includes such broad categories as food and beverages, medical and pharmaceuticals, biologicals, chemicals and adhesives. The monitoring of the environment of goods is also important to distributors, suppliers, storage facilities, or large service providers such as hospitals or large restaurant chains.
Certain perishable goods require low temperature for their conservation during storage as well as during transportation. In case of a rupture of the cold chain, such goods typically must be used quite rapidly in a period of a few hours. Food products, such as meat or dessert cream, are typical examples, but this constraint can also apply to other products, such as blood components. For example, red cell concentrates, which may be conserved in a blood bank 42 days at +4° C. once distributed by the blood transfusion facility, must be used very rapidly if the ambient temperature exceeds +10° C. Other temperature sensitive products, such as water-based adhesives, water-based inks, Al-based vaccines, anesthetics, or organs for transplant purposes, need to be maintained above certain temperatures or within a certain range temperature to assure viability.
To date one type of commercial temperature monitoring device exists, which is based on chemical or colored ink markers. Such devices typically either work as a threshold-indicator undergoing a sudden color change at a given temperature or run continuously in a narrow band system which is progressively colored as a function of time and temperature.
Other commercially available temperature monitoring devices include data loggers or recorders. Such loggers, after being turned on, collect at regular time intervals temperature data, which are stored in the memory of the device. At the end of the monitored period, the data can be downloaded over an interface to a computer or an external read-out device or display.
Products or goods may also be sensitive to other environmental conditions. For example, red blood cells of blood products burst under exposure of certain levels of acceleration or shock. Alternatively thrombocytes in the blood require constant motion to prevent clotting and/or coagulation of the product.
Electronic monitoring devices, which fall in the general category of data loggers, have been described in WO 93/08451, U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,959 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,426,595 for monitoring temperature, pressure, humidity and/or acceleration (i.e. shock or vibration).
FR 2,774,763 describes an electronic device for estimating the amount of heat received by a product for a given period. The described device measures at regular intervals the temperature to which the product is exposed, and the measured temperature is converted according to a specific mathematical algorithm into a coefficient. The device includes means for recording the converted coefficients and cumulating these coefficients in a memory, as well as means for transmitting the cumulative coefficient in the device memory to an adapted external reader. The cumulative coefficient represents an estimate of the heat amount to which the product was exposed during the monitored period. A high cumulative coefficient would indicate that the product was generally exposed to higher temperatures while a low cumulative coefficient would indicate a general exposure to lower temperatures (although a brief exposure to a high temperature during the monitored period could not be ruled out by a low cumulative coefficient).
WO 01/23841 describes a monitoring device in which time and one or more parameters are continuously measured over one time period after triggering of a start signal and the important chronological parameter conditions in regard to storage and transport conditions are simultaneously and permanently displayed on an integrated display. The described device may include a program, which would allow the calculation and display of the expired storage or transport time and/or remaining storage or transport time under normal expiry time and/or remaining storage or transport time as reduced through measured parameter conditions during that time period.

Environmental parameter indicator for perishable goods


An inspecting apparatus is provided by which a cross section of a semiconductor device to be inspected can be easily obtained. The inspection apparatus includes a first microscope for specifying a portion where the inspection of a cross section is to be effected, a rotary grinder for grinding the portion specified by the first microscope, a second microscope for monitoring the portion ground by the rotary grinder, and a stage for fixing the semiconductor device movable relative to the first and second microscopes and the rotary grinder.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device inspecting apparatus for inspecting a cross section of a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Background Art
In the following description, "semiconductor device" refers to a wafer before dicing on which a plurality of chip patterns are formed, or to a chip after dicing.
An inspection checking a cross section of a semiconductor device is effected for confirming whether or not the process steps for manufacturing the semiconductor device is proper, or to analyze the cause of malfunction of a semiconductor device. A sample for such inspection is prepared by cleavage or grinding. In the former method, a portion corresponding to a cross section to be checked is scratched by means of a diamond pen or the like, and the semiconductor device is cleaved from the crack. In the latter method, a semiconductor device 200 is depressed to a rotary grinding plate by using a jig 310 for grinding, and the cross section to be inspected is exposed.
However, the above mentioned two methods of preparing samples have the following problems. In the former method, it is very difficult to obtain accurately the cross section to be inspected. The accuracy in scratching by a diamond pen is in the order of millimeter, while the accuracy in the order of submicron is required in recent semiconductor devices formed with high density. Further, as the patterns of semiconductor devices are, in most cases, aligned linearly, the number of patterns appearing at the cross section should be as large as possible. However, it is very difficult to obtain a linear cross section by cleavage.
In the latter method, it is necessary to interrupt grinding to carry out microscopic monitoring so as to determine whether or not the cross section to be inspected is obtained. Since grinding with floating abrasive grains is carried out at the final stage for finishing, the abrasive grains may enter or scrape interconnections and the like appearing on the cross section of the semiconductor device, making it difficult to obtain a fine cross section. Although it is possible to obtain a linear cross section by this method, it is difficult to align the direction of grinding with the cross section to be inspected.
In addition, in both methods, aluminum used as interconnections or bonding wires in the semiconductor device extends and adheres on the cross section during cleavage or grinding, and thus it is difficult to obtain an accurate cross section. In addition, both methods require much skill, and an ordinary operator can not do well the task.

Apparatus for inspecting a semiconductor device


Methods are providing for fabricating transistors having at least one source region or drain region with a stressed portion. The methods include: forming, within a cavity of a substrate structure, the at least one source region or drain region with the internal stress; and resurfacing the at least one source region or drain region to reduce surface defects of the at least one source region or drain region without relaxing the stressed portion thereof. For instance, the resurfacing can include melting an upper portion of the at least one source region or drain region. In addition, the resurfacing can include re-crystallizing an upper portion of the at least one source region or drain region, and/or providing the at least one source region or drain region with at least one {111} surface.

Consumer demand for electronic devices with increased functionality continues to drive the semiconductor industry to pursue enhanced performance of integrated circuits. Therefore, various methods to increase the speed of semiconductor devices, such as transistors, have been proposed. For instance, increasing mobility of charge carriers in the transistor can lead to enhanced performance.
However, some techniques for enhancing semiconductor device performance can require complex additional fabrication processing steps, leading to potential defects, decreased yield, and increased costs. For example, one technique for enhancing performance of a transistor includes providing stress to a channel region thereof, leading to enhanced charge carrier mobility and faster performance. Disadvantageously, stressed channel regions can increase fabrication complexity, leading to increased costs and reduced yields.

Fabricating transistors having resurfaced source/drain regions with stressed portions


The present invention is drawn to human stem cell factor receptor agonist polypeptides, nucleic acid molecules encoding same, methods of producing the agonist polypeptides from the nucleic acid sequences and therapeutic compositions comprising the agonist polypeptides. The polypeptides of the instant invention are derived from the sequnce of SEQ ID NO:1, wherein 1-23 amino acids are optionally deleted from the C-terminus and the N-terminus is joined to the C-terminus, either directly or through a linker and C- and N-termini are created between an amino acid pair chosen from 23-24 through 110-111 of SEQ ID NO:1, generating said human stem cell factor receptor agonist polypeptide. The human stem cell factor receptor agonist polypeptide may additionally be immediately be preceded by a (methionine.sup.-1), (alanine.sup.-1) or (methionine.sup.-2, alanine.sup.-1).

Colony stimulating factors which stimulate the differentiation and/or proliferation of bone marrow cells have generated much interest because of their therapeutic potential for restoring depressed levels of hematopoietic stem cell-derived cells. Colony stimulating factors in both human and murine systems have been identified and distinguished according to their activities. For example, granulocyte-CSF (G-CSF) and macrophage-CSF (M-CSF) stimulate the in vitro formation of neutrophilic granulocyte and macrophage colonies, respectively while GM-CSF and interleukin-3 (IL-3) have broader activities and stimulate the formation of both macrophage, neutrophilic and eosinophilic granulocyte colonies. Certain factors such as stem cell factor are able to predominately affect stem cells.
Small amounts of certain hematopoietic growth factors account for the differentiation of a small number of stem cells into a variety of blood cell progenitors for the proliferation of those cells, and for the ultimate differentiation of mature blood cells from those lines. However, when stressed by chemotherapy, radiation or natural myelodysplastic disorders, a resulting period which patients are seriously leukopenic, anemic, neutropenic, or thrombocytopenic occurs. The use hematopoietic factors accelerates hematopoietic regeneration during this compromised period.
Stem cell factor has the ability to stimulate growth of early hematopoietic progenitors which are capable of maturing to erythroid, megakaryocyte, granulocyte, lymphocyte and macrophage cells. Stem cell factor treatment of mammals results in absolute increases in hematopoietic cells of both the myeloid and lymphoid cells.
EP 0 423 980 discloses novel stem cell factor (SCF) polypeptides including SCF.sup.1-148, SCF.sup.1-157, SCF.sup.1-160, SCF.sup.1-161, SCF.sup.1-162, SCF.sup.1-164, SCF.sup.1-165, SCF.sup.1-183, SCF.sup.1-185, SCF.sup.1-188, SCF.sup.1-189, SCF.sup.1-220, SCF.sup.1-248,
Rearrangement of Protein Sequences
In evolution, rearrangements of DNA sequences serve an important role in generating a diversity of protein structure and function. Gene duplication and exon shuffling provide an important mechanism to rapidly generate diversity and thereby provide organisms with a competitive advantage, especially since the basal mutation rate is low (Doolittle, Protein Science 1:191-200, 1992).
The development of recombinant DNA methods has made it possible to study the effects of sequence transposition on protein folding, structure and function. The approach used in creating new sequences resembles that of naturally occurring pairs of proteins that are related by linear reorganization of their amino acid sequences (Cunningham, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 76:3218-3222, 1979; Teather & Erfle, J. Bacteriol. 172: 3837-3841, 1990; Schimming et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 204: 13-19, 1992; Yamiuchi and Minamikawa, FEBS Lett. 260:127-130, 1991: MacGregor et al., FEBS Lett. 378:263-266, 1996). The first in vitro application of this type of rearrangement to proteins was described by Goldenberg and Creighton (J. Mol. Biol. 165:407-413, 1983). A new N-terminus is selected at an internal site (breakpoint) of the original sequence, the new sequence having the same order of amino acids as the original from the breakpoint until it reaches an amino acid that is at or near the original C-terminus. At this point the new sequence is joined, either directly or through an additional portion of sequence (linker), to an amino acid that is at or near the original N-terminus, and the new sequence continues with the same sequence as the original until it reaches a point that is at or near the amino acid that was N-terminal to the breakpoint site of the original sequence, this residue forming the new C-terminus of the chain.
This approach has been applied to proteins which range in size from 58 to 462 amino acids (Goldenberg & Creighton, J. Mol. Biol. 165:407-413, 1983; Li & Coffino, Mol. Cell. Biol. 13:2377-2383, 1993). The proteins examined have represented a broad range of structural classes, including proteins that contain predominantly a -helix (interleukin-4; Kreitman et al., Cytokine 7:311-318, 1995), b -sheet (interleukin-1; Horlick et al., Protein Eng. 5:427-431, 1992), or mixtures of the two (yeast phosphoribosyl anthranilate isomerase; Luger et al., Science 243:206-210, 1989). Broad categories of protein function are represented in these sequence reorganization studies:
Enzymes
______________________________________ T4 lysozyme Zhang et al., Biochemistry 32:12311-12318 (1993); Zhang et al., Nature Struct. Biol. 1:434-438 (1995) dihydrofolate Buchwalder et al., Biochemistry reductase 31:1621-1630 (1994); Protasova et al., Prot. Eng. 7:1373-1377 (1995) ribonuclease T1 Mullins et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 116:5529-5533 (1994); Garrett et al., Protein Science 5:204-211 (1996) Bacillus b-glucanse Hahn et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:10417-10421 (1994) aspartate Yang & Schachman, Proc. Natl. Acad. transcarbamoylase Sci. U.S.A. 90:11980-11984 (1993) phosphoribosyl Luger et al., Science 243:206-210 anthranilate (1989); Luger et al., Prot. Eng. isomerase 3:249-258 (1990) pepsin/pepsinogen Lin et al., Protein Science 4:159- 166 (1995) glyceraldehyde-3- Vignais et al., Protein Science phosphate dehydro- 4:994-1000 (1995) genase ornithine Li & Coffino, Mol. Cell. Biol. decarboxylase 13:2377-2383 (1993) yeast Ritco-Vonsovici et al., Biochemistry phosphoglycerate 34:16543-16551 (1995) dehydrogenase Enzyme Inhibitor basic pancreatic Goldenberg & Creighton, J. Mol. trypsin inhibitor Biol. 165:407-413 (1983) Cytokines interleukin-1b Horlick et al., Protein Eng. 5:427- 431 (1992) interleukin-4 Kreitman et al., Cytokine 7:311- 318 (1995) Tyrosine Kinase Recognition Domain a-spectrin SH3 Viguera, et al., J. domain Mol. Biol. 247:670-681 (1995) Transmembrane Protein omp A Koebnik & Kramer, J. Mol. Biol. 250:617-626 (1995) Chimeric Protein interleukin-4- Kreitman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Pseudomonas Sci. U.S.A. 91:6889-6893 (1994). exotoxin fusion molecule ______________________________________
The results of these studies have been highly variable. In many cases substantially lower activity, solubility or thermodynamic stability were observed (E. coli dihydrofolate reductase, aspartate transcarbamoylase, phosphoribosyl anthranilate isomerase, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, ornithine decarboxylase, omp A, yeast phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase). In other cases, the sequence rearranged protein appeared to have many nearly identical properties as its natural counterpart (basic pancreatic trypsin inhibitor, T4 lysozyme, ribonuclease T1, Bacillus b-glucanase, interleukin-1b, a -spectrin SH3 domain, pepsinogen, interleukin-4). In exceptional cases, an unexpected improvement over some properties of the natural sequence was observed, e.g., the solubility and refolding rate for rearranged a -spectrin SH3 domain sequences, and the receptor affinity and anti-tumor activity of transposed interleukin-4-Pseudomonas exotoxin fusion molecule (Kreitman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:6889-6893, 1994; Kreitman et al., Cancer Res. 55:3357-3363, 1995).
The primary motivation for these types of studies has been to study the role of short-range and long-range interactions in protein folding and stability. Sequence rearrangements of this type convert a subset of interactions that are long-range in the original sequence into short-range interactions in the new sequence, and vice versa. The fact that many of these sequence rearrangements are able to attain a conformation with at least some activity is persuasive evidence that protein folding occurs by multiple folding pathways (Viguera, et al., J. Mol. Biol. 247:670-681, 1995). In the case of the SH3 domain of a -spectrin, choosing new termini at locations that corresponded to b-hairpin turns resulted in proteins with slightly less stability, but which were nevertheless able to fold.
The positions of the internal breakpoints used in the studies cited here are found exclusively on the surface of proteins, and are distributed throughout the linear sequence without any obvious bias towards the ends or the middle (the variation in the relative distance from the original N-terminus to the breakpoint is ca. 10 to 80% of the total sequence length). The linkers connecting the original N- and C-termini in these studies have ranged from 0 to 9 residues. In one case (Yang & Schachman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 90:11980-11984, 1993), a portion of sequence has been deleted from the original C-terminal segment, and the connection made from the truncated C-terminus to the original N-terminus. Flexible hydrophilic residues such as Gly and Ser are frequently used in the linkers. Viguera, et al. (J. Mol. Biol. 247:670-681, 1995) compared joining the original N- and C-termini with 3- or 4-residue linkers; the 3-residue linker was less thermodynamically stable. Protasova et al. (Protein Eng. 7:1373-1377, 1994) used 3- or 5-residue linkers in connecting the original N-termini of E. coli dihydrofolate reductase; only the 3-residue linker produced protein in good yield.


A coin carrier that includes a cup holder member, a lid member including an audible open lid altering mechanism, and an adjustable length support strap assembly. The cup holder member includes a central coin cup receiving cavity that is accessible through a top receiving cavity opening, and a logo display area, a lid securing hook and pile fastener section, and at least one closable side pocket carried on an exterior sidewall thereof. The lid member is pivotally attached to the cup holder member with a flexible hinge strap. The lid member includes a securing tab that is securable to the lid securing hook and pile fastener section of the cup holder member. The audible open lid alerting mechanism includes an on/off switch, a battery connector, an activation switch, an audible signal generating circuit, and a speaker. The activation switch is positioned on a receiving cavity facing surface of the lid member at a location such that, when the lid member is positioned over and sealing the top receiving cavity opening, the activation switch is depressed sufficiently to reset the audible signal generating circuit, the audible open lid alerting mechanism being activated by opening the lid member.

It can often be necessary when gambling in a casino or the like to carry a large number of coins in a plastic holding cup. Although the plastic holding cup can hold a number of coins, because of the large diameter of such cups, it can be difficult for persons with small hands or persons with arthritis to grip and hold such coin laden cups comfortably. It would be a benefit, therefore, to have a coin carrier that could be used to carry coins or a coin holding cup that included a neck/shoulder support strap that allowed that coins to be carried without the necessity of gripping and holding with the hands. In addition, because the coins are easily accessed through the open top of a coin carrying cup and are therefore subject to pilfering, it would be a further benefit to have a coin carrier that included a lid that was securable over the access opening. It would of course be a further benefit to have a coin carrier including a lid having an audible alerting mechanism that generated an audible output each time the lid was opened.


A cable coupler includes a body having a first end, a second end, and first and second passageways sized and shaped to receive a cable, with each passageway including a tapered portion. A wedge assembly is disposed in each tapered portion to secure a cable to the body. A clip assembly is attached to the body adjacent the tapered portion of each of the passageways and is shiftable between a closed position in which the clip assembly is positioned to prevent an adjacent one of the wedge assemblies from exiting the corresponding passageway and an open position in which the adjacent wedge assembly is insertable into the tapered portion of the corresponding passageway.

Cable couplers that couple two tensioned cables together are used in many applications. For example, in underground mining operations a cable roof truss is created in an underground mine passage generally consists of a tensioned cable extending between a pair of embedded roof anchors. Many times, the tensioned cable is made up of two sections which must be joined by a coupler. The construction industry also uses joined cables in a number of applications, such as in column wrapping, ring-tensioning applications, or with barrier cable installations often seen in parking garages.
A first design for a cable coupler is known as a spacer tube, often rectangular in section that has two barrels extending through the coupler. The cables are pulled through the barrels in opposite directions and tensioned. A set of wedge pieces are placed in the barrels adjacent the cables and the cables are released. The cables pull backward under their own tension, drawing the wedge pieces into the barrel. The wedge pieces grip the cables and lock the cables relative to the coupler.
A second design incorporates a curved path for each of the cables. This design, commonly known as the "dog bone" coupler due to the distinctive shape of the coupler, is different than the spacer tube in that the passages for the cables are curved to reduce sharp edges and to more evenly distribute the forces along the cable. Again, after the cables are tensioned and released, the cables and the retaining wedges are drawn into the tapered passageways of the coupler, drawing the wedge pieces into progressively greater contact with the cables so that the wedge pieces grip and lock the cables relative to the coupler.
In both of the aforementioned designs, the user must first insert both cables through the barrels of the coupler and then, using a tensioner, place the cables under tension. The wedge pieces must be manually placed adjacent the cables and in the tapered portion of the barrels. Unfortunately, these loose wedge pieces can easily fall to the ground during installation, and the wedge pieces may be lost in the darkness of a mine passage. Valuable time may be lost looking for and recovering any dropped or lost wedge pieces. To alleviate this often-encountered problem, suppliers generally provide extra wedges with the cable coupler. However, even if the wedge pieces are not lost, time and manual dexterity are required to insert the wedges into the coupler, which may have to be accomplished in a cold and/or dark setting.
While the disclosure is susceptible to various modifications and alternative constructions, certain illustrative embodiments thereof have been shown in the drawings and will be described below in detail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit the disclosure to the specific forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, and the equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.


A porous absorbent made of a filter, a filter material or a sponge material is inserted into a polluted part of soil or groundwater containing environmental pollutants such as chlorinated solvents or heavy metal ions. The porous absorbent is inserted into the polluted environment such that its one end comes into contact with the pollutants and the other end is exposed to air. The porous absorbent allows the pollutants absorbed thereby to rise up to its air-exposed end through the vaporizing activity of the pollutant themselves and of the water containing them. The pollutants are allowed to evaporate from the air-exposed end to be dissipated into the air, or to concentrate at the air-exposed end for later removal. Further, microorganisms fixed to the porous absorbent are used to decompose pollutants for removal, or to absorb pollutants for removal. Those pollutant eliminating methods allow efficient elimination of even highly concentrated pollutants at a low cost without requiring complicated processes. The method based on the use of microorganisms is further advantageous in that it is less stressful to the environment and biologically safer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method whereby environmental pollutants can be eliminated from the polluted environment (polluted sites) such as, for example, soil or groundwater which have been contaminated with environmental pollutants.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, leaks into the environment of chlorinated organic solvents such as trichloroethylene and dichloroethylene that have been used as detergents in many factories are arising a great concern among public. In the United States, environmental pollution such as the contamination of soil and groundwater with chlorinated organic solvents, initiated by the contamination with petroleum and gasoline, have progressed to a gravely risky degree. To meet such situations, general tendencies proceed towards imposing sterner regulations onto the use of such chlorinated organic solvents as mentioned above. However, a problem still remains how to treat the environment that has been contaminated with those chlorinated organic solvents, that is, how to treat the soil and groundwater contaminated with such pollutants.
To cope with such problems, methods for treating soil and groundwater contaminated with chlorinated organic solvents have been investigated. The treating methods hitherto proposed consist of physical processing such as air extraction under vacuum or combustion, but there is still a strong demand for methods whereby the environment, without suffering undue stresses, can be cleaned up such pollutants at a low cost. To meet such demand, the technologies enabling the decomposition/elimination of environmental pollutants by the use of microorganisms or so-called "bio-remediation" of the polluted environment have been proposed and are attracting people's attention.
Bio-remediation of the polluted environment can be achieved by roughly three different procedures: 1) a bio-reactor type of treatment which consists of fixing bacteria that decompose pollutants and of applying them as a solid (a closed-system treatment), 2) a treatment which consists of activating the bacteria endogenous to the polluted soil or groundwater by providing them with various nutrients (endogenous bacteria activation) and 3) a treatment which consists of delivering directly to the polluted sites bacteria (they may be delivered in the form of solids) capable of decomposing pollutants (an open-system treatment). The characteristics of the three methods are summarized in the table below.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ Endogenous Closed-system bacterial Open-system treatment activation treatment ______________________________________ Installation Big Intermediate Small cost Running cost Big Intermediate Small Treatment time Small Intermediate Big Treatable amount Intermediate Big Intermediate Reaction controllability Easy Difficult Almost impossible Bio-safety Big Small Small Concentration of Big Intermediate Small pollutants to be treated ______________________________________
The conventional methods such as described above which concern with the decomposition/elimination of environmental pollutants by the use of microorganisms have their characteristic disadvantages as well as advantages as shown in Table 1. Take the close-system treatment as an example, it is excellent in treating capacity and in easy controllability and enjoys high safety while it is disadvantageous in that its installation and operation require a high cost. The endogenous bacteria activation, on the other hand, is excellent in treating capacity, but is disadvantageous in reaction controllability, cost-effective installation and operation, and bio-safety. The open-system treatment, though being meritous in enabling low-cost installation and operation, and in achieving biosafety, is still deficient in treatment time and in treatable pollutant concentrations. Furthermore, with all these methods reactions are practically uncontrollable, and inevitable addition of microorganisms to existent bacteria may become a threat to the bio-safety of the environment.
Because, as are discussed above, conventional methods for decomposing/eliminating environmental pollutants by the use of microorganisms have their own characteristic advantages and disadvantages at the same time, it is customary currently to choose one from among them and to apply it in combination with other chemical or physical methods, according to the nature of the pollutants of the environment to be treated.
The bio-remediation has its characteristic merits: it requires only a low cost for operation, it doesn't require much man-power for operation/maintenance, and it doesn't impose much stresses on the environment. The open-system treatment appears to be most amply provided with such merits characteristic to bio-remediation, but there are still strong demands that the above-described defects characteristic to the open-system treatment should be corrected further.

Method for eliminating environmental pollutants