A silicon substrate is used as a mold, and thin films such as metal films and polyimide films are sequentially stacked on the silicon substrate by using photolithography techniques, thereby forming a probe sheet having contact terminals having a pyramidal shape or a truncated pyramidal shape disposed at distal ends of cantilever beam structures. A fixing substrate is further fixed to the probe sheet, and then, the formed probe sheet is sequentially stacked and formed on the silicon substrate, the substrate is fixed, and the silicon substrate and predetermined polyimide films are removed by etching, thereby forming the group of contact terminals with the cantilever beam structures at a time.

An example of the flow of the inspection process in the manufacturing process of a semiconductor device carried out after forming semiconductor circuits on a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter, simply referred to as a wafer) is shown in FIG. 51 with using a package product, a bare chip, and CSP (Chip Size (Scale) Package), which are typical shipping forms of semiconductor devices, as examples.
In the manufacturing process of the semiconductor device, roughly three inspections described below are carried out as shown in FIG. 51. The first is a wafer inspection carried out in the wafer state in which the semiconductor circuits and electrodes are formed on a wafer to check the conduction state and the electrical signal operating state of the semiconductor elements, the second is a burn-in inspection in which semiconductor elements are placed at a high temperature or high-voltage applied state to extract unstable semiconductor elements, and the third is a sorting inspection to check the product performance before shipping the semiconductor devices.
With respect to the apparatus (semiconductor inspection apparatus) used in such inspections of semiconductor devices, in conventional technologies, many semiconductor devices (semiconductor chips (hereinafter, simply referred to as chips)) are provided on the surface of a wafer, and they are individually separated for use. Many electrodes are disposed in an array on the surface of each of the individually separated semiconductor devices. When a large number of such semiconductor devices are industrially produced and the electrical characteristics thereof are inspected, a connecting device comprising probes formed of tungsten needles obliquely projecting from a probe card is used. The inspection by the connecting device employs the method in which contact is achieved by scrubbing the electrodes with the contact pressure utilizing the flexure of the probes so as to inspect the electrical characteristics thereof.
Recently, along with the density growth of semiconductor elements, in the inspection process in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, the pitches of the probes for inspection have been narrowing, and the number of pins of the probes has been increasing. Therefore, it has been desired to develop an inspection apparatus of semiconductor elements using a connecting device capable of reliably transmitting electrical signals between the electrodes of the semiconductor elements and inspection circuits, probing minute electrodes of the semiconductor elements having narrow pitches and many pins with high precision in the step of carrying out an operation inspection and further probing the semiconductor elements with a low load so as to prevent damages.
As the inspection method and inspection apparatus that enable characteristic inspections of semiconductor elements in the case where the density of the semiconductor elements is grown, the pitches thereof are narrowed and an operation test by high-speed signals is required, there are the technologies described in the collection of papers of ITC (International Test Conference), 1988, pp. 601 to 607 (Non-Patent Document 1). FIG. 52 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the inspection apparatus disclosed in the Non-Patent Document 1, and FIG. 53 is an enlarged perspective view showing the principal part of the inspection apparatus. In a probe for semiconductor inspection used herein, wiring 202 is formed by photolithography techniques on an upper surface of a flexible insulating film 201, a ground layer 203 is formed on a lower surface of the insulating film 201, and semispherical bumps 205 formed by plating at through holes 204 of the insulating film 201 which are provided at the positions corresponding to the electrodes of a semiconductor to be inspected are used as contact terminals. This technology employs the method in which the bumps 205 connected to inspection circuits (not shown in the drawings) via the wiring 202 formed on the surface of the insulating film 201 and via a wiring board 206 are brought into contact with the electrodes of the semiconductor elements to be inspected by scrubbing the bumps 205 with the elastic force of a plate spring 207, thereby mutually transmitting signals to carry out the inspection.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-24377 (Patent Document 1) discloses inspection apparatus of semiconductor elements, and FIG. 54 is a schematic view of the structure of a probe card for the inspection thereof. In this probe apparatus, a probe sheet is divided into four, and pyramidal contact terminals 212 and an insulating film 213 on which wiring is formed are pressed down by a spring plunger 211 provided at the center of the probe sheets via a pressing piece 214 and a buffer material.
Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 07-283280 (Patent Document 2) discloses an inspection system in which contact terminals are formed by using the holes, which are formed by performing selective anisotropic etching to a silicon wafer, as molds, the contact terminals are electrically connected to wirings formed in a flexible insulating film, a probe sheet fixing board is fixed to the rear surface of the insulating film reverse to the contact terminal disposed surface of the insulating film via a buffer layer, the probe sheet fixing board is superimposed on a wafer supporting substrate on which a wafer having semiconductor devices to be inspected formed thereon is fixed to a wafer-shaped groove, and the distal-end plane of the contact terminal group and the plane of the electrodes of the wafer are brought into contact with each other, thereby achieving electrical connection and carrying out an inspection of the semiconductor devices.
Further, Published Japanese Translation of PCT Application No. 2002-531915 (Patent Document 3) discloses a spring contact element formed by lithography techniques. FIG. 55 is a schematic diagram showing an intermediate stage of a manufacturing process of the spring contact element formed by the lithography techniques. In this process, a tip part (contact terminal) 217 is formed by using a hole 216, which is formed by performing anisotropic etching to a silicon substrate 215, as a mold, a beam part (beam) 218 and a post part 219 connected to the tip part 217 are formed by the lithography techniques and surface polishing processing (Chemical Mechanical Polishing: CMP), the post part 219 is connected to an electrode 221 of a ceramic multi-layer wiring board 220 by solder 222, and lastly, the tip part 217 is removed from the silicon substrate 215.

Probe card, manufacturing method of probe card, semiconductor inspection apparatus and manufacturing method of semiconductor device


The present invention relates to extended recombinant polypeptide (XTEN) compositions, conjugate compositions comprising XTEN and XTEN linked to cross-linkers useful for conjugation to pharmacologically active payloads, methods of making highly purified XTEN, methods of making XTEN-linker and XTEN-payload conjugates, and methods of using the XTEN-cross-linker and XTEN-payload compositions.

Extending the half-life a therapeutic agent, whether being a therapeutic protein, peptide or small molecule, often requires specialized formulations or modifications to the therapeutic agent itself. Conventional modification methods such as pegylation, adding to the therapeutic agent an antibody fragment or an albumin molecule, suffer from a number of profound drawbacks. While these modified forms can be prepared on a large scale, these conventional methods are generally plagued by high cost of goods, complex process of manufacturing, and low purity of the final product. Oftentimes, it is difficult, if not impossible, to purify to homogeneity of the target entity. This is particularly true for pegylation, where the reaction itself cannot be controlled precisely to generate a homogenous population of pegylated agents that carry the same number or mass of polyethylene-glycol. Further, the metabolites of these pegylated agents can have sever side effects. For example, PEGylated proteins have been observed to cause renal tubular vacuolation in animal models (Bendele, A., Seely, J., Richey, C., Sennello, G. & Shopp, G. Short communication: renal tubular vacuolation in animals treated with polyethylene-glycol-conjugated proteins. Toxicol. Sci. 1998. 42, 152-157). Renally cleared PEGylated proteins or their metabolites may accumulate in the kidney, causing formation of PEG hydrates that interfere with normal glomerular filtration. In addition, animals and humans can be induced to make antibodies to PEG (Sroda, K. et al. Repeated injections of PEG-PE liposomes generate anti-PEG antibodies. Cell. Mol. Biol. Lett. 2005.10, 37-47).
Thus, there remains a considerable need for alternative compositions and methods useful for the production of highly pure form of therapeutic agents with extended half-life properties at a reasonable cost.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

XTEN conjugate compositions and methods of making same


Developing an ETL system for transforming data prior to loading the data into a data warehouse. An embodiment of the invention automatically generates configuration files from an input data flow diagram defining the ETL system. The configuration files or other metafiles control execution of the processes illustrated in the data flow diagram. The invention includes a notation for use in the data flow diagram.

A data warehouse is a database designed to support decision-making in an organization. A typical data warehouse is batch updated on a periodic basis and contains an enormous amount of data. For example, large retail organizations may store one hundred gigabytes or more of transaction history in a data warehouse. The data in a data warehouse is typically historical and static and may also contain numerous summaries. It is structured to support a variety of analyses, including elaborate queries on large amounts of data that can require extensive searching.
The data warehouse often represents data as a "cube" of three, four, or more dimensions. For example, a business may be modeled as a cube having three dimensions, corresponding to real-world business distinctions such as Product, Time, and Market. Any point within the cube is at the intersection of the coordinates defined by the edges of the cube, and is viewed as corresponding to a metric or measurement that is valid for the combination of dimension values that define the point. For example, such metrics might include "units sold," "price," etc. Each point may indicate the price and units sold of a particular product, at a particular time or time period, in a given market.
Some systems implement this data model from within a relational database. A relational database has many interrelating tables. As known in the art, each table typically has a two dimensional structure of values with records and fields. A table can have a combination of one or more fields called the primary key. This means that for each record, the values in the fields of the primary key serve to identify the record. These values in fields of the primary key are known as primary key identifier (PKID). A given PKID should be unique in a table; that is, no two records should have the same PKID.
Tables in a relational database are related by means of foreign keys. A foreign key is a combination of one or more fields. Each foreign key relates to a primary key of another table. A record in a table with a foreign key relates to a record in a table with a primary key if the fields in the foreign key have the same values as the fields in the primary key.
Those skilled in the art are also familiar with dimension tables. A dimension table is a collection of information describing a business construct. For example, in a model designed to represent web usage, there is a "Domain" dimension table including information in the form of strings that describe each target domain, such as the site the domain belongs to and the country code for the domain. Other dimension tables contain information describing concepts such as "Time," "Referring Domain," and many others. Note that dimensions are usually parameters relating to the organization of measured data, and do not indicate the measured data itself.
Other tables include fact tables which contain the actual numeric metrics, such as a count of page views, that a user might be interested in viewing. In addition, there are defined relationships between the dimension and fact tables. Specifically, the fact table has a plurality of foreign keys which relate to primary keys in the dimension tables. This allows the individual records of the fact table to be indexed or matched up to specific dimensional values. That is, given a set of dimensional values, corresponding metrics can be located. In the example above, a user wishes to view data from the page views fact table. The Domain dimension table allows the user to choose a single domain, and then see only the data from the page views fact table that corresponds to that target domain. Similarly, the time dimension allows the user to choose a single day and view only the data from the page views fact table that corresponds to the chosen target domain and the chosen date. Choosing the dimensions across which a user wants data to be summarized is sometimes referred to as slicing the data. A definition of the relationship between tables in a data warehouse is called a schema.
Most metrics are aggregates that summarize data across criteria provided by one or more dimension tables in the data warehouse. In the example above, the count of page views is aggregated across a specific target domain (from the Domain table) and a specific day (from the Time table). This particular metric provides a count of a given value. Other metrics might provide a sum, average, or other summary. Still other metrics are calculated, rather than aggregated. For example, a data warehouse might provide metrics such as Peak Hour Page Views, which provides the hour during which the most page views are received. This metric is not derived by summarizing a value across dimensions; instead, it is calculated by comparing a value across dimensions and selecting the top value. Other calculated metrics might provide the bottom value, the top or bottom N values, the top or bottom percentage, etc.
Those skilled in the art are familiar with data modeling such as this (see Kimball, Ralph, The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, Wiley 1998).
After the tables of a data warehouse have been populated with actual data, the warehouse becomes very useful. However, the process of populating the data warehouse can become quite difficult because of the enormous amounts of data involved. Consider, as an example, the task of populating a web usage data warehouse in a company that maintains numerous web sites administered by different divisions within the company in different parts of the world. Furthermore, each site may have a number of individual servers. For example, the company may maintain more than five hundred servers, which might use different types of server software. Together, the servers may generate over 1.5 billion log records, each representing a page hit. For data warehousing purposes, it is desired to combine data logged by each of these servers and use it to populate a data warehouse.
Some known art systems use "Extract, Transform, and Load" (ETL) methodology to correlate the data prior to loading the data into the data warehouse. Extraction refers to actually obtaining the data from individual data sources such as servers. Unfortunately, this process in itself can be particularly difficult when dealing with the enormous size of the data in a web usage data warehouse or other large database. Transformation indicates processing the data to put it into a more useful form or format. Loading refers to the process of loading the data into the tables of a relational database. Existing systems require a developer to manually generate the configuration files needed to control transformation in an ETL system. As the importance of data warehousing grows, so grows the need to develop and implement customized ETL systems in a short amount of time.
Existing systems include application development tools (e.g., visual compilers) that output a compiled application program. However, such existing tools fail to provide process development functionality (e.g., data handling) such as needed to develop ETL systems. For example, the existing tools fail to automatically generate flow control for controlling the flow of data through multiple application programs and process control for controlling the operation of each of the application programs responsive to an input data flow diagram.
Accordingly, a system for providing process development functionality to develop complex ETL systems is desired to address one or more of these and other disadvantages.

Method and system for developing extract transform load systems for data warehouses


A suitcase is provided having compartments for storing various types of articles in the distinct compartments. Preferably, the compartments are implemented to store in one compartment toiletries and/or cosmetics and, in the other compartment, articles of clothing or the like. In one of the compartments, removable inserts are provided having separate sub-compartments or fastening mechanisms for holding various articles and the like. The inserts are removable from the compartment and include straps for hanging the same for ready access to the articles held by the insert.

The present invention generally relates to a suitcase for holding and transporting clothing and/or other articles. More specifically, the present invention relates to a suitcase, particularly useful for separating certain types of articles from other types of articles within interior compartments of the suitcase.
It is, of course, generally known to provide suitcases with separate compartments. Typically, one large compartment forms an interior of the suitcase. Often, many sub-compartments are formed within the large compartment. However, oftentimes, it is desirable to separate certain articles from other articles. One specific example of such articles is cosmetics and toiletries. Often, these articles can be cumbersome to carry within a suitcase, take up a great deal of space, and often are messy and may spill on or otherwise stain other articles within the interior of the suitcase.
Moreover, it is often difficult to pack cosmetics and toiletries within a suitcase and have those products readily available for use when needed.
A need, therefore, exists for an improved suitcase with separate compartments for various types of articles. In addition, a need exists for a suitcase directed to holding articles, such as cosmetics and toiletries, separately from a remainder of the articles within the interior of the suitcase.


A method includes grasping a user input device in communication with a surgical tool of a robotic surgical system, the surgical tool including an end effector with opposing jaws, squeezing the user input device and thereby actuating a motor that closes the jaws and clamps down on tissue at a surgical site, and calculating with a computer system in communication with the surgical tool work completed by the motor to close the jaws and clamp down on the tissue. The computer system generates one or more effort indicators when the work completed by the motor meets or exceeds one or more predetermined work increments corresponding to operation of the motor, and communicates the one or more effort indicators to an operator.

Minimally invasive surgical (MIS) instruments are often preferred over traditional open surgical devices due to the reduced post-operative recovery time and minimal scarring. The most common MIS procedure may be endoscopy, and the most common form of endoscopy is laparoscopy in which one or more small incisions are formed in the abdomen of a patient and a trocar is inserted through the incision to form a pathway that provides access to the abdominal cavity. The trocar is used to introduce various instruments and tools into the abdominal cavity, as well as to provide insufflation to inflate and thereby elevate the abdominal wall above the organs. The instruments can be used to engage and/or treat tissue in a number of ways to achieve a diagnostic or therapeutic effect.
Each surgical tool typically includes an end effector arranged at its distal end. Example end effectors include clamps, graspers, scissors, staplers, and needle holders, and are similar to those used in conventional (open) surgery except that the end effector of each tool is separated from its handle by an approximately 12-inch long shaft. A camera or image capture device, such as an endoscope, is also commonly introduced into the abdominal cavity to enable the surgeon to view the surgical field and the operation of the end effectors during operation. The surgeon is able to view the procedure in real-time by means of a visual display in communication with the image capture device.
Surgical staplers are one type of end effector capable of cutting and simultaneously stapling (fastening) transected tissue. Sometimes referred to as an "endocutter," the surgical stapler includes opposing jaws capable of opening and closing to grasp and release tissue. Once tissue is grasped or clamped between the opposing jaws, the end effector may be "fired" to advance a cutting element or knife distally to transect the grasped tissue. As the cutting element advances, staples contained within the end effector are progressively deployed to seal opposing sides of the transected tissue.
Technological advances have allowed surgical tools, such as surgical staplers, to be used in robotic surgical systems. In robotic surgery, a surgical tool is mounted to a robotic arm of a robotic manipulator, and a surgeon is able to remotely operate the surgical tool from a master control console in communication with the robotic manipulator. The master control console includes one or more user input devices that can be grasped by the surgeon (e.g., one in each hand) and physically manipulated in space to cause the corresponding surgical tools to move, articulate, and actuate as the surgeon desires.
One drawback to operating surgical tools via a robotic system, however, is the general loss of tactile feedback that manually operated surgical tools provide to the surgeon during operation. With robotic surgical systems, the surgeon cannot directly feel the physical force required to grasp onto tissue, which can be a useful metric in confirming tissue thickness and staple sizes, for example. What is needed is a way to provide feedback to the surgeon operating a robotic surgical instrument of the effort the robot used to grasp tissue.

Communicating closure effort for robotic surgical tools background


In one embodiment, a decompression circuit is provided for a data stream that includes code words representing compressed data and uncompressed data. The decompression circuit includes a translation circuit adapted to identify the code words in the data stream and to translate the identified code words into corresponding decompressed data words; and a shift register operable to serially shift in uncompressed data in the data stream and to shift in parallel the decompressed data words from the translation circuit.

Many types of electronic devices require that information be loaded from a source and stored in a memory. For example, programmable logic devices are configured to implement a desired logical function based upon configuration data provided by a programming tool. The configuration data may be stored internally for a non-volatile device or externally for a volatile device. Regardless of whether the configuration data is stored internally or externally, the increasing complexity of programmable logic devices requires larger and larger amounts of configuration data. This increased configuration data size produces delays in the configuration process and increases the costs.
During the configuration process, the configuration data is typically serially-shifted into the devices responsive to cycles of a clock signal. For example, it is common to have one bit of the configuration data shift in for each clock cycle. As seen in FIG. 1, the configuration data is shifted into a shift register 100 as serial data 110. When the shift register has been filled, the contents are transferred in parallel to a memory 120. For example, should shift register 100 be thirty-two bits long, thirty-two bits of serial data 110 would be shifted into shift register 100 responsive to thirty-two cycles of clock signal 125. The resulting thirty-two bit word stored within shift register 100 is then transferred into memory 120, whereupon another thirty-two bits of data may shift into shift register 100, and so on.
To reduce the storage requirement for the configuration data, the configuration data may be compressed. In addition, the compression of the configuration data decreases the amount of time needed to configure the corresponding programmable logic devices. Because a programmable logic device is very sensitive to errors in the configuration data stream, any compression of the data must be lossless or perfect such that the decompressed configuration data is exactly the same as the configuration data before compression. Because of the requirement for perfect compression, only a portion of the configuration data can generally be compressed. Thus, the configuration data being shifted into the device will comprise both uncompressed and compressed data. This mixed nature of the configuration data complicates the configuration data flow described with respect to FIG. 1. Any compressed configuration data must be decompressed before configuration may be completed. But recall that the configuration data is being shifted at a constant rate responsive to cycles of the clock signal. When data is decompressed, this constant rate must necessarily change. This adds complexity to the configuration process because it must accommodate the rate changes depending upon whether configuration data being shifted in was compressed or not. This accommodation may take place in the programming tool providing the bit stream or may take place within the device. Regardless of where the accommodation takes place, it adds considerable complexity to the configuration circuitry and the software controlling the configuration process. Moreover, this complexity inherently limits the bit rate of the configuration data stream. As a result of this complexity, comparatively few programmable devices utilize configuration data compression, particularly in low-cost devices.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for improved decompression techniques for data streams.


An air bag device comprises an air bag. The bag has a mouth portion which includes first and second outside sewed parts and a center non-sewed part. Each outside sewed part is provided by sewing mutually facing side end sections of the mouth portion and the center non-sewed part includes two mutually facing center end sections each having bolt openings. An elongate gas generator has bolts extending therefrom. The gas generator is substantially entirely received in the mouth portion having the bolts exposed to the outside through the bolt openings of the two mutually facing center end sections. A housing is employed for receiving a unit including the air bag and the gas generator. The housing has bolt openings through which the bolts pass. Nuts are engaged with the bolts to secure the unit to the housing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to air bag devices and method of producing same. More particularly, the invention relates to air bag devices for use in a wheeled motor vehicle, which generally comprise a housing fixed to a vehicle body, a gas generator unit installed in the housing and an air bag folded up in the housing with a gas inlet opening thereof connected with a gas outlet opening of the gas generator.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hitherto, various types of air bag devices have been proposed and put into practical use particularly in the field of wheeled motor vehicles. That is, upon a vehicle collision, an air bag is instantly inflated to protect a passenger seated in front of the air bag device. Some of the conventional air bag devices are described in Japanese Patent 2523406, Japanese Patent First Provisional Publication 8-119059 and Japanese Utility Model First Provisional Application 61-185642.
In order to clarify the task of the present invention, one conventional air bag device 100 will be described in brief with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6 of the accompanying drawings.
The conventional air bag device 100 shown in the drawings comprises a housing 3 (see FIG. 6), a cylindrical gas generator unit 5 installed in the housing 3 and secured to the same by means of bolts 8a and nuts 8b, and an air bag 7 connected at its inlet opening 7a to an outlet of the gas generator unit 5. As shown in FIG. 5, the gas generator unit 5 comprises a cylindrical case 11 and a cylindrical gas generator proper 5a concentrically installed in the cylindrical case 11. The inlet opening 7a of the air bag 7 is connected to an outlet opening of the gas generator proper 5a through openings 11a formed in the cylindrical case 11.
As is seen from FIG. 5, the air bag 7 has at the inlet opening 7a two opposed flaps 9a and 9b each having bolt openings 9c and 9d. As is understood from FIG. 6, upon assembly, the two flaps 9a and 9b are put around the cylindrical case 11 with their leading end portions overlapped having the bolts 8a passed through the bolt openings 9c and 9d which are registered.
However, due to its inherent construction, the above-mentioned conventional air bag device 100 has the following drawback.
As is understood from FIG. 6, upon inflation of the air bag 7, leakage "L" of gas tends to occur at lateral sides of the inlet opening 7a of the air bag 7. In fact, it is difficult to seal such lateral sides because they are substantially exposed to the outside.

Air bag device and method of producing same


A sheet convey apparatus and a printer having such a sheet convey apparatus have rock arms rockable around a rotational center of a driven roller on which an endless belt is supported. Urging roller attaching plates for supporting the urging roller, a transmission shaft, urging roller driving arms and urging cylinders are attached to the rock arms, and the urging cylinders can abut against the corresponding urging roller driving arms. Urging force releasing springs are connected between the urging roller driving arms and the rock arms. When the urging cylinders are extended, the urging roller is urged against the endless belt, and, when the urging cylinders are retracted, the urging force of the urging roller is released. In this way, a sheet urging force is kept constant to eliminate unevenness of the contact between the sheet and the endless belt, and any streak is prevented from being formed on the sheet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer for printing a picture, a figure or the like on a sheet such as cloth.
2. Related Background Art
As an example of prior arts, in a technique disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. 5-51637 (1993) (referred to as "prior art example" hereinafter), as shown in FIGS. 12 and 13, a cloth web 101 wound on a take-out roll 100a and a take-up roll 100b is directed to an endless belt 102 mounted around rollers 102a-102c, and, ink is discharged from an ink jet head 103 in response to image information, thereby printing an image.
An urging roller 104 for closely contacting the cloth web 101 with the endless belt 102 is supported by a support member 105 such as a lever and a drive mechanism 106 such as an air cylinder is connected to the support member 105. By actuating the drive mechanism 106, the support member 105 and the urging roller 104 can be shifted so that the urging roller 104 is retarded from the endless belt 102 to be spaced apart from the cloth web 102 or the urging roller 104 is urged against the endless belt 102 to closely contact the cloth web 101 with the endless belt 102. Further, a control device 107 is connected to the drive mechanism 106. After the endless belt 102 is stopped, the drive mechanism 106 is controlled by the control device 107 so that the urging roller 104 is retarded from the cloth web 101, and, after the endless belt 102 is operated again, the drive mechanism 106 is controlled by the control device 107 so that the urging roller 104 is urged against the cloth web 101.
However, in the apparatus according to the above-mentioned prior art example, since the urging roller 104 is merely urged against or separated from the endless belt 102, the following problem arises.
That is to say, after the urging roller 104 is urged against the cloth web 101 on the endless belt 102 by means of the drive mechanism 106, the endless belt 102 is operated. With this arrangement, since the urging roller 104 urges the same area of the cloth web 101 for a predetermined time period until the endless belt 102 is operated again, a streak is generated on that area of the cloth web. Further, there also arises a problem that unevenness of the close contact is apt to occur since the cloth web 102 is closely contacted with the endless belt 102 which is intermittently operated at a high speed.

Printer having sheet convey apparatus for conveying adhered sheet


An optical glass which is a SiO.sub.2 --TiO.sub.2 --K.sub.2 O--RO (where R represents Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba and Zn metal elements) system glass of a specific content range exhibits optical constants of a refractive index (Nd) of about 1.58-1.78 and Abbe number (.nu.d) of about 28-45, is free of PbO and has an improved property against devitrification.

This invention relates to an optical glass of a SiO.sub.2 --TiO.sub.2 --K.sub.2 O--RO (where R represents Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba and Zn metal elements) system which is free of PbO, has an excellent property against devitrification and has optical constants of a refractive index (Nd) of about 1.58-1.75 and Abbe number (.nu.d) of about 28-45.
As a glass having the above mentioned optical constants, there is known a silicate glass containing PbO. For coping with environmental problems arising in the process of manufacturing a glass, however, various glasses which do not contain a toxic PbO ingredient but instead contain a TiO.sub.2 ingredient have been proposed. For example, the specification of German Patent No. 973350 discloses a silicate glass containing TiO.sub.2 and fluorine and the specification of Japanese Laid Open Patent Publication No. Sho 54-105119 discloses a SiO.sub.2 --TiO.sub.2 --K.sub.2 O--BPO.sub.4 and/or Al(PO.sub.3) .sub.3 system glass. These glasses, however, are insufficient in stability against devitrification. Besides, the former glass is hard to homogenize in melting due to evaporation of the fluorine ingredient. The specification of U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,423 discloses a glass of a SiO.sub.2 --TiO.sub.2 --Li.sub.2 O--K.sub.2 O system. This glass, however, is also insufficient in stability against devitrification.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to comprehensively improve the disadvantages of the prior art optical glasses and provide an optical glass having the above mentioned optical constants and having an improved property against devitrification.


Disclosed is a single population of simulated leukocyte granules prepared from mammalian whole white blood cells, which is useful in calibrators for a hematology analyzer, a calibrator which includes the single population of simulated leukocyte granules. Disclosed is also a method of preparing the single population of simulated leukocyte granules. The method of preparing single population of simulated leukocyte granules includes the actions of: obtaining mammalian whole white blood cells; treating the mammalian whole white blood cells with a hemolytic agent and a leukocyte treating liquid which includes an isotonic saline solution. The isotonic saline solution may include a fixative, an oxidizer, and a carbohydrate compound; fixing the treated mammalian whole white blood cells with a fixative; and suspending the fixed cells in a preservation medium for long-term preservation of fixed cells.

A hematology analyzer has been usually calibrated before it leaves factory. However, it is possible that its scales of measurement will be drifted when being transported and used, and therefore, the analyzer needs to be calibrated. Calibration parameters of a hematology analyzer include white blood cell (leukocyte, WBC), red blood cell (erythrocyte, RBC) and platelet (PLT) counts, hemoglobin (HGB), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and hematocrit (HCT). Methods for determining the reference value of these parameters may refer to respective international standard methods. With reference to white blood cells (WBC), according to international reference methods (See, e.g., Clin Lab Haematol., 1994 June; 16(2):131-8), it is only possible to obtain a total white blood cell count, but not possible to achieve leukocyte differentiation. In case of calibrators for various hematology analyzers, it is sufficient that the leukocyte components of calibrators are a single population of granules rather than simulated granules of differential leukocytes (classes of leucytes).
There are many methods of preparing single population of simulated leukocyte granules described in prior art. These methods may be classified as follows: 1) preparing simulated granules of non-cellular origin from pollen, latex particle and the like; 2) treating animal erythrocytes to simulate leukocytes; 3) treating mammalian granulocytes to simulate certain class of leukocytes. These processed single population of simulated leukocyte granules are primarily used to prepare some control products. Although the prior art gives no word to the simulation of leukocyte component for use in calibrators, in fact, the processing methods used are totally applicable to the preparation of simulated leukocyte granules for use in calibrators.
Due to insurmountable defects in cost, compatibility of instrument system and the like, simulated granules of non-cellular origin have been gradually taken over by processed cell-derived granules. For example, based on the original volume of cells, different single populations of simulated leukocyte granules can be obtained by treating animal erythrocytes. U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,364 discloses that human lymphocytes are simulated with human erythrocytes, human monocytes are simulated with turkey erythrocytes, and human granulocytes are simulated with erythrocytes of a shark species. U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,964 discloses that human lymphocytes are simulated with avian nucleated red blood cells, and human monocytes, neutrophils, eosinophils are simulated with red blood cells of reptiles. In accordance with these methods, single population of simulated leukocyte granules are obtained by harvesting animal erythrocytes by centrifugation and fixing them using aldehyde compounds. Such single population of simulated leukocyte granules exhibits good suspensibility and stability, and can be used to simulate leukocyte components for used in control products or calibrators of some hematology analyzers.
There are detailed descriptions for methods of treating mammalian granulocytes in U.S. Pat. No. 6,759,246. By treating granulocytes of swine, cattle and other suitable mammals with reagents such as Bronopol and Triadine-3, granulocytes become similar to human lymphocytes in properties of light scatter, impedance, conductivity and dye uptake, whereby they are identified as lymphocytes on some hematology analyzers. Then, the simulated lymphocytes are fixed using aldehyde reagents as a cell fixative. This patent discloses that compared with human lymphocytes simulated with mammalian lymphocytes, human lymphocyte analogs simulated with granulocytes show greater stability in cell volume on a analyzer. Furthermore, analogs of single population of neutrophils and eosinophils may be also simulated with processed porcine granulocytes, while analogs of single population of monocytes come from processing bovine granulocytes.
However, the prior art methods of preparing analogs of single population of leukocytes still suffer from some drawbacks. When some single population of human leukocyte granules simulated with animal red blood cells are detected on a hematology analyzer using impedance method, a standard histogram distribution of human leukocytes from fresh blood is exhibited (See FIG. 1). Nevertheless, in case of 5-part differential hematology analyzer based on forward light scatter, side light scatter, etc., the scatter plot exhibited by single population of leukocytes which is simulated with animal nucleated red blood cells does not show the distributional characteristics of single population clusters (See FIG. 2), because animal nucleated red blood cells generally have an ellipse rather than a spherical shape. Cells are passed through flow chamber in various "postures", resulting in nonuniform light scatter properties, for example, sector trailing distribution or complete dispersionas shown in FIG. 2. Although lymphocytes simulated with mammalian granulocytes or other single population of leukocytes can be used for 5-part differential hematology analyzer based on multi-angle light scatter, it requires granulocytes being separated, for example, by separation methods such as density gradient, and moreover special treatment and prolonged fixation. Therefore, these methods are not desirable due to complexity.
To overcome the poor clustering subjected to the leukocyte granules simulated with animal red blood cells, and complexity in processing regarding the single population of leukocytes simulated with animal granulocytes, the present invention provides a method of preparing single population of simulated leukocyte granules, adapted for calibrators of a hematology analyzer employing a multi-angle light scatter theory (e.g., 5-part differential hematology analyzer), which method is simple in operation, has low cost and good granule clustering, and exhibit excellent stability.

Single population of simulated leukocyte granules, calibrators comprising the same and methods of preparing the same

Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.


A method of making unit cell sized oxide particulates comprising preparing a water solution of a metal or ceramic salt or methanol solution of Pt, adding a 2-fold molar excess of KO2 to the water solution and forming a reaction solution, spinning down the reaction solution, and creating oxide nanoparticles.

Oxide nanoparticles are the subject of intense research efforts due to the wide variety of applications for which they are suited. Nanometer sized oxide particulates have been used in a wide variety of applications: electronic and magnetic devices, energy storage and generating systems and even medical applications. In general, there is a myriad of different synthetic techniques depending on the type of particle being prepared.
However, none of these techniques have demonstrated broad-spectrum applicability for oxide nanoparticle synthesis. The prior art techniques only produce micrograms of material.
Nanometer sized oxide particles were first considered theoretically in the mid 1980's, and synthesized a few years later. One of the first uses for metal oxide nanoparticles was Fe2O3 nanoparticles (≈50 nM) in magnetic data storage. Since that time, numerous other applications have been developed such as the Gretzel Solar cell, which uses dye-coated TiO2 particles to absorb incident radiation. Additionally, metal oxide nanoparticles have been explored as high-energy cathode materials for lithium batteries.
The critical performance aspect of these nanoparticles relates to their very small size, which corresponds to increased surface area.
As a general rule, this reduction in size and increase in surface area significantly increase the desired interactions either by enhancing energy adsorption in the Gretzel cell, or increasing the amount and rate at which Li+ can be intercalated and de-intercalated into the cathode.
Additionally, nanoparticles in general allow for new and varied approaches to creating nanometer to micron sized electrical components by creating transferable inks of these nanometer-sized particles. These techniques, such as laser printing, laser direct write printing, and 3-d printing take advantage to two key features of nanoparticles: small size allows for great flexibility and compactness in component design. The very small size of the particles also results in far greater reactivity. As such, annealing of an ink such as one composed of nanoparticulates of CeO2 can create stable ceramic films at temperatures well below the melting point of CeO2.
Unfortunately, one of the greatest problems facing the production of oxide-based nanoparticulates is the difficulty in rapidly synthesizing significant quantities of material. Typically, production requires several different steps to control particles size and to coat the nanoparticles to prevent them from aggregating, resulting in increasing particle size over time. These syntheses result in the formation of only micrograms of the oxide nanoparticulates.

Synthesis of unit cell sized oxide particulates

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


A system for the support and management of search for documents is presented. The system includes knowledge-database, query interface and communication to a database of documents to be searched. Information generated during a search session is collected by the system and is added to the knowledge-database. The information is ranked automatically according to the usage of that information by the user. During successive search session, or during search made by other users, the system uses the knowledge-database to support the users with keywords, queries and reference to documents.

The growth of the Internet introduced broad access to information not available before. Access to digital information sources, once an asset of a small group of professional, holding information technology skills, has become a daily tool for millions of the Internet users.
Lower skill levels for search of such information is now an inseparable part of searches made for information by most of the users. Skill and knowledge aspects became limiting factors for successful search and retrieve of such information. Such limitations present themselves in the composition of Boolean queries, knowledge of relevant information sources such as the AltaVista index at www.altavista.digital.com (maximum coverage of Internet documents by a single index is less then 40%). Many of the documents are accessed only by a direct reference from a person with a specific knowledge. Many of the information provided by querying an index such as Yahoo are not relevant. The search process is long, queries are modified many times and many information pieces are missed.
Natural language query is one suggested replacement for Boolean query method. However, a research from Search Insider (www.searchinsider.com) indicates clearly that users prefer the Boolean query methods and that search engines such as AltaVista and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) provide require much improvement.
The present status of information search and retrieval in the Internet is characterized by long and tedious search process, poor relevancy of retrieved documents and low level of success in retrieval of relevant documents.
It is the purpose of the present invention to provide a method and tools for efficient search and retrieval of documents. The description in reference to the Internet is maid in a way of example only. It would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, that the proposed method is applicable to any digital information source.

Apparatus and method for search and retrieval of documents


A method of determining and displaying the charge status of a storage battery of a battery-operated appliance, such as a razor. A time-based charge status is calculated, based at least in part on the cumulative operating time of the appliance since recharging. The battery terminal voltage is also monitored. The time-based charge status is displayed until the battery voltage indicates a low voltage condition, at which point a low-charge alert indicator is displayed only if the time-based charge status is below a predetermined level (i.e., if the cumulative operating time is above a predetermined level). Methods of detecting battery aging, and for accounting for periods of excessive current flow, are included.

This invention relates to a method of determining the charge status of a storage battery, and to a method of determining the aging of a storage battery.
More accurate determinations are needed of when the low-charge status of a storage battery is actually reached. This low-charge status equates to a terminal voltage corresponding to a residual capacity of, for example, 10 to 20 percent of the rated capacity of the battery. With this residual charge it is still possible to operate the power-consuming device reliably. The battery voltage drops as its capacity (i.e., its charge) drops.
If the power-consuming device places a higher than normal load on the storage battery (i.e., if a greater amount of current flows through the storage battery), the storage battery's terminal voltage will drop at an accordingly higher rate that with a current of normal magnitude. Inside the storage battery itself a voltage drop occurs that is equal to the product of the internal resistance of the storage battery and the current. From this it results that a drop in the storage battery's terminal voltage equivalent to a drop in capacity of the storage battery can also be observed when the current increases. If, therefore, the terminal voltage is used as the sole criterion for determining the storage battery's capacity, an accordingly far advanced discharge status of the storage battery will be assumed to exist when lowering of the voltage is caused by a comparatively large current through the power-consuming device, even though its capacity is comparatively well above the low-charge point. In this case the storage battery still has a comparatively large capacity.
A prior art method for determining and displaying charge status is disclosed in DE-OS 41 31 981 A1 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,193), which describes how the operating time of an electrical appliance, particularly a shaving apparatus, is monitored with a counter. This prior art method features the activation of segments of a display in accordance with the operating time, indicating to the user the current charge status of the storage battery or batteries. If a voltage discriminator detects that the measured terminal voltage of the storage batteries has reached a predetermined lower threshold value, then the readout of the display is set to a condition indicative of a charge status that corresponds to the lower threshold value and a counter presetting a specified residual operating time of the electrical appliance is started. After this residual operating time has elapsed, the electrical appliance is switched off by appropriate activation of an electronic switching device. This switching off can be effected by instant switch-off or by a slow reduction of power, thus resulting in the case of a shaving apparatus in a slow reduction of speed.

Method of determining and displaying battery charge status


A light receiving circuit includes a light receiving element, a transimpedance amplifier, a delay circuit and a comparator. The transimpedance amplifier is configured to convert the current signal into a first voltage. The comparator includes first to third current control elements each including first to third electrodes and configured to control current of the third electrode by voltage of the second electrode. The first voltage is inputted to the second electrode of the first current control element. Output voltage of the delay circuit is inputted to the second electrode of the second current control element. A second voltage is inputted to the second electrode of the third current control element. The comparator is configured to compare output current of the first current control element with sum of output current of the second current control element and output current of the third current control element.

The light receiving circuit for converting an optical signal into an electrical signal is widely used in various fields. For instance, the photocoupler equipped with the light receiving circuit is widely used in electronic devices for industrial, communication, and household use.
In these electronic devices, signals are mutually transferred between different power supply systems such as DC voltage, AC voltage, and telephone line power supply systems.
Use of a photocoupler enables transfer of electrical signals between different power supply systems insulated from each other.
In the light receiving circuit installed in e.g. a photocoupler, the current of the light receiving circuit increases with the increase of the input level of the pulse optical signal. Thus, the delay time of the signal increases. This may increase the output pulse width distortion.

Light receiving circuit and photocoupler


Embodiments of the present invention relate to arcuate saddles with partial ribs typically used to anchor and suspend insulated or non-insulated pipes. Partial ribs on the lower face of the saddle inhibit the saddle from sliding relative to the hanger when engaged and provide strengthening force to the saddle.

Aspects of the present invention relate generally to saddles for anchoring and supporting insulated and uninsulated pipes. Saddles are typically used in building construction to anchor and support pipes to suspend the pipes from the structure of the building. Saddles typically spread the force of a hanger across a portion of the pipe to minimize the force applied to a particular spot. Arcuate flat saddles and saddles with 180° arcuate ribs (FIG. 1) are well known in the art. An improved saddle is desired.


A biocatalytic process to produce optically active phenylalanine analogs from arylacrylic acids is disclosed in which Rhodotorula graminis yeast containing phenylalanine ammonia-lyase introduces a molecule of ammonia stereoselectively onto the double bond of a 3-substituted acrylic acid. The substituent at the 3-position of the 3-substituted acrylic acid includes, for example, aromatic rings such as substituted phenyl groups, five member aromatic heterocyclics, and six member aromatic heterocyclics.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a biocatalytic process to produce optically active phenylalanine analogs from arylacrylic acids. In this process yeast containing L-phenylalanine ammonia lyase ("PAL") introduce a molecule of ammonia stereoselectively onto the double bond of a 3-substituted acrylic acid. The substituent at the 3 position of the 3-substituted acrylic acid is an aryl substituent including, for example, substituted phenyl groups, five member aromatic heterocyclics, and six member aromatic heterocyclics. In particular, this invention relates to a process for preparing phenylalanine-like aromatic amino acids using phenylalanine ammonia-lyase containing yeast, Rhodotorula graminis ATCC 20804.
2. Related Background Art
Phenylalanine and its derivatives have been used as essential building blocks in the construction of various types of biologically active molecules. An extremely important and powerful class of pharmaceutical compounds called protease inhibitors contain a phenylalanine-like architecture as their pharmacophores. These protease inhibitor drugs, especially HIV-protease inhibitors are appearing in increasing numbers in pharmacies and hospitals. The three recently approved protease-inhibitor drugs for treatment of AIDS all incorporate a phenylalanine derived moiety in their chemical structures. The search for more potent and effective protease inhibitors is continuing not only in the treatment of HIV infections but also in other disease area such as influenza and human cytomegalovirus (CMV). Currently, there is a pressing need for a general process of preparing a variety of optically active unnatural amino acids having phenylalanine-like structures as chiral synthons for synthesis of these drug candidates.
Although phenylalanine can be readily prepared in large scales by various existing methods including chemical and biological transformations, its analogs with various substitutions on the aromatic ring or with different aromatic ring systems such as naphthyl and heterocyclic ring systems, have been much more difficult to synthesize.
Trans-cinnamic acid ("t-cinnamic acid") and ammonia reversibly forms L-phenylalanine through the addition of the amino group ("amination") to the double bond of t-cinnamic acid. Elimination of ammonium ions from phenylalanine is called "deamination". The reaction is catalyzed by Phenylalanine Ammonia-Lyase (PAL) in either direction. Examples in the prior art of use and production of PAL, and of methods to produce phenylalanine with the assistance of PAL, include the references below.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,273, Finkelman et al., herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for the production of PAL by fermentation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,047, McGuire, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for producing catabolite resistant, PAL-producing mutant bacteria and yeast. The PAL thus produced is disclosed as being usable to make L-phenylalanine.
Hodgins, D., Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1971, 2977-2985, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, reports on PAL purified from Rhodotorula glutinis, and the inhibiting effects of various ring-substituted analogues on phenylalanine deamination.
D'Cunha, G., Satyanarayan, V., and Nair, P., Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 1996, 421-427, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, reports a procedure for the direct one-step synthesis of L-phenylalanine methyl ester by using PAL.
Rees, D., and Jones, D., Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 1996, 282-288, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, reports producing PAL from Rhodosporidium toruloides. The stability of the PAL was also studied.
Evans, C., Choma, C., Peterson, W., and Misawa, M., Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 1996, 282-288, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, reports the use of immobilized cells from a PAL-containing yeast mutant FP10M6 derived from rhodotorula rubra to demonstrate the feasibility of a continuous process of L-phenylalanine production from t-cinnamic acid.
Nakamichi, K., Nabe, K., Yamada, S., and Chibata, I., European Journal of Applied Biotechnology, 1983, 158-162, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, reports the effect of various amino acids such as D-phenylalanine, D and L isoleucine, D and L leucine, L-valine, L-methionine, L-tryptophan, and L-tyrosine on the PAL activity in Rhodotorula glutinis.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,117, Vollmer et al., herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for producing L-phenylalanine from t-cinnamic acid and ammonia or ammonium salts using PAL as a catalyst. Reducing agents such as hydrogen sulfide, thioglycolic acid, thiosulfuric acid, nitrous acid, sulfurous acid, ammonium and metal salts of the above, dithiothreitol, ethylmercaptan, ethylenemercaptan, methylmercaptan, 2-mercaptoethanol, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, iron (II) compounds, manganese (II) compounds, sulfur, and zinc are added to the bioreaction mixture to reduce the effects of oxygen on catalyst life.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,269, Vollmer et al., herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for the PAL enzymatic conversion of t-cinnamic acid and ammonia to L-phenylalanine under substantially anaerobic, static conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,151, Kishore, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for producing L-phenylalanines and analogues from t-cinnamate and ammonia with the use of polyhydric alcohols to enhance instantaneous rates of reaction and to inhibit inactivation of the enzyme.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,757,015, Orndorff, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for producing phenylalanine from t-cinnamate and ammonia with the use of Rhodotorula graminis ATCC 20804.
JP 06113870 A2, describes a procedure for the direct one-step enzymatic conversion of trans-cinnamyl methyl ester to L-phenylalanine methyl ester. The reverse reaction of phenylalanine ammonia lyase from Rhodotorula glutinis was utilized for this conversion.
JP 60043393 A, describes production of L-phenylalanine (LPA) by reacting cinnamic acid with ammonia or an ammonia-releasing substance in an aqueous medium in presence of a culture bath, cells or their processed material from a microorganism having L-phenylalanine ammonia lyase activity. The microorganism includes Rhodotorula rubra ATCC 20258, Rhodotorula texensis IFO 932, Rhodotorula glutinis IFO 0559, and Sporobolomyces IFO 1040.
JP 61043993 A, describes catalyzed formation of alpha-amino acids from 2-en-carboxylic acids and excess NH.sub.3 reacted in H.sub.2 O under anaerobic conditions in the presence of ammonia-lyase or mycelia such as Sporobolomyces roseus IF01040 containing ammonia-lyase or a substance derived from ammonia-lyase.
JP 06113870 A, describes the preparation of beta-substituted alanine derivatives of formula R--CH.sub.2 --CH(NH.sub.2)--CO.sub.2 H, comprising the reaction of ammonia with the acrylic acid derivative of formula R--CH.dbd.CHCO.sub.2 H in the presence of L-phenyl alanine ammonia-lyase. In the formulae, R is a monovalent group derived from a heterocyclic compound. Preferably, R=pyridyl, furyl or thienyl. Suitable enzymes include one or a mixture of the bacterial body obtained by culturing the transformant of Escherichia coli, MT10243 (FERM P-9023), integrated with the gene of the L-phenyl alanine ammonia-lyase originating from Rhodosporidium L-phenyl alanine ammonia-lyase producing bacterium (bacteria), treated products of the bacterial body, such as the washed, dried, crushed and fixed product, and purified enzyme extracted from the body or products.
A great volume of research is devoted to the application of PAL, as shown by the references above. Much work has been done with prokaryotic vectors to derive PAL catalysis of the cinnamic acid/phenylalanine reaction. Several eukaryotic yeast derived PAL have been used to catalyze the formation of phenylalanine. However, few yeast derived PAL have been used to produce a variety of optically active unnatural amino acids having phenylalanine-like structures as chiral synthons for synthesis. In particular, Rhodotorula graminis ATCC 20804 expressed PAL has not been used to introduce a molecule of ammonia stereospecifically into the double bond of the composition, ##STR1## to generate the optically active amino acid of the composition, ##STR2## wherein R is a substituted aromatic six-member ring system or a six or five-membered heterocyclic ring system including single and multiple substituted analogs.

Synthesis of optically active phenylalanine analogs using Rhodotorula graminis


A transport vehicle for piece goods includes a loading platform, a front end wall or a rear end wall or both a front end wall and rear end wall, and at least one side wall. The side wall is movable by an opening device in such a manner that the side wall is first displaceable in the vertical direction of the transport vehicle and is then pivotable about an axis oriented in the longitudinal direction of the transport vehicle.

A transport vehicle for compressed bales of straw or silage is known from DE 20 2007 019 318 U1, in which transport vehicle a loading platform is delimited by end walls and side walls. For loading and unloading the transport vehicle, the side walls can be lowered into an open position, near the ground, in which they are arranged beneath the loading platform. In the transport position, an open region remains between the bottom edge of the side walls and the loading platform, which open region can be secured by means of additional, folding side panels or securing elements, in particular in the form of flexible holding elements such as tarpaulins or ropes or nets.
So-called wing body parts of lorries are additionally known (see DE 10 2008 049 135 A1). These are wall parts of the closed body of the lorry which have an L-shaped cross-section and each comprise a side wall and a section of the roof wall of the body. In the region of the ends that are formed by the sections of the roof wall, the wing body parts are pivotably mounted about an axis which is oriented in the longitudinal direction of the lorry. By means of opening devices, which are generally in the form of hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders, the wing body parts can be pivoted upwards for loading and unloading the lorry. A disadvantage of such a form of side walls that are to be opened is the comparatively large lateral space requirement which is necessary for pivoting of the wing body parts. If that space is not available, the lorry cannot be loaded and unloaded or can be loaded and unloaded to only a very limited extent. In any case, a space requirement in the vertical direction is also necessary for opening the L-shaped wing body parts, which space requirement is significantly higher than the overall height of the body in the closed state. If that space is not available, the lorry again cannot be loaded and unloaded or can be loaded and unloaded to only a limited extent.
Starting from this prior art, the object underlying the invention was to provide a transport vehicle for piece goods which can be loaded and unloaded in an advantageous manner. In particular, the transport vehicle is to permit advantageous loading of the piece goods with different load heights and is to be capable of being loaded and unloaded in confined space conditions.
The object is achieved by means of a transport vehicle according to claim 1. Advantageous embodiments thereof are the subject of the dependent claims and will become apparent from the following description of the invention.


Patients may operate a CAP system to deliver appropriate airway pressure at their home. A patient's apnea problem can be diagnosed at home without supervision with a CPAP device which delivers a continuously minimum appropriate pressure for substantially the entire period of therapy.

The present invention relates to tie diagnosis and treatment of partial or complete upper airway occlusion, a condition where the upper airway collapses, particularly under the reduced pressure generated by inhalation. This is most likely to happen during unconsciousness, sleep or anaesthesia.
A particular application of the present invention is to the diagnosis and/or treatment of snoring and sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is characterized by complete occlusion of the upper airway passage during sleep while snoring is characterized by partial occlusion. Obstructive sleep apnea sufferers repeatedly choke on their tongue and soft palate throughout an entire sleep period resulting in lowered arterial blood oxygen levels and poor quality of sleep. It should be realized that although the following specification discusses sleep apnea in detail, the present invention also applies to the diagnosis and treatment of other forms of upper airway disorders.
Reference to international patent publication WO 82/03548 will show that the application of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) has been used as a means of treating the occurrence of obstructive sleep apnea. The patient is connected to a positive pressure air supply by means of a nose mask or nasal prongs. The air supply breathed by the patient, is at all times, at slightly greater than atmospheric pressure. For example, gauge pressures will typically be within the range of 2 cm to 25 cm. It has been found that the application of continuous positive airway pressure provides what can be described as a "pneumatic splint", supporting and stabilizing the upper airway and thus eliminating the occurrence of upper airway occlusions. It is effective in eliminating both snoring and obstructive sleep apnea and in many cases, is effective in treating central and mixed apnea.
The airway pressure required for effective CPAP therapy differs from patient to patient. In order to discover the airway pressure which is most effective for a particular individual, the practice has been for the patient to undergo two sleep studies at an appropriate observation facility such as a hospital, clinic or laboratory. The first night is spent observing the patient in sleep and recording selected parameters such as oxygen saturation, chest wall and abdominal movement, air flow, expired CO2, ECG, EEG, EMG and eye movement. This information can be interpreted to diagnose the nature of the sleeping disorder and confirm the presence or absence of apnea and where present, the frequency and duration of apneic episodes and extent and duration of associated oxygen desaturation. Apneas can be identified as obstructive, central or mixed. The second night is spent with the patient undergoing nasal CPAP therapy. When apnea is observed the CPAP setting is increased to prevent the apnea. The pressure setting at the end of the sleep period, i.e., the maximum used, is deemed to be the appropriate setting for that patient. For a given patient in a given physical condition there will be found different minimum pressures for various stages of sleep in order to prevent occlusions. Furthermore, these various pressures will, in fact, vary from day to day depending upon the patient's physical condition, for example, nasal congestion, general tiredness, effects of drugs such as alcohol, as well as their sleeping posture. Thus the appropriate pressure found in the laboratory is necessarily the maximum of all these minimum pressures for that particular night and is not necessarily the ideal pressure for all occasions nor for every night. It will generally be higher than necessary for most of the night.
Also patients must be able to operate a CPAP system to deliver appropriate airway pressure at their home where their general physical condition or state of health may be quite different to that in the sleep clinic, and will certainly vary from day to day. The patient's physical condition often improves due to CPAP therapy. It is often the case that after a period of therapy the necessary airway pressure can be reduced by some amount while still preventing the occurrence of obstructive sleep apnea. However, the prior art provides no facility to take advantage of this fact other than by regular diagnostic sleep periods in a sleep clinic or hospital.
The long term effects of CPAP therapy are unknown so it is desirable to keep the airway pressure as low as practicable, particularly if a patient requires long term treatment. Lower airway pressures also result in a lower face mask pressure which is generally more comfortable for the patient. It has been found that CPAP induces patients to swallow and this inducement to swallow can be reduced by lowering the airway pressure. Thus it is desirable to use the lowest practicable airway pressure that is effective in preventing airway occlusion during CPAP therapy for the comfort and, possibly, the long term safety of the patient. Also, a lower airway pressure requires less energy consumption and a less complex and therefore less expensive apparatus which is generally quieter.
Low airway pressures are also desirable before and during the early stage of each sleep period as the increased comfort of an initially lower airway pressure allows the patient to more easily fall asleep. When a patient undergoing CPAP opens his mouth with pressurized air being forced through the nose the pressured air exits out of the mouth producing an unpleasant sensation. This can occur when the patient puts on the mask connected to the pressured air supply before falling asleep and some patients will therefore leave the mask off for as long as possible and may in fact fall asleep without wearing the mask and therefore without the benefits of the CPAP therapy.
Presently available CPAP units do not address this problem and so there is a need to provide a CPAP device which will be more acceptable to the patient before and- during initial sleep by operating at an initially low pressure but automatically increasing to an appropriate therapeutic pressure before apnea occurs.
In addition to the problems associated with administering CPAP therapy there exists the inconvenience and cost of diagnosis which is currently undertaken by overnight observation at a sleep clinic or the like. Hence a simple means whereby a patient's apnea problem can be diagnosed at home without supervision is clearly desirable as well as a CPAP device which will deliver a continuously minimum appropriate pressure for substantially the entire period of therapy.
Devices are available to detect apnea. For example, International Patent publication WO/86/05965 discloses an apparatus which includes acoustic respiration sensors, background sound sensors and movement sensors. Such apparatus are capable of detecting breathing sounds, comparing those sounds with body movements and background noises and by further comparing the results with a data base of information, to indicate whether the patient is undergoing a normal or abnormal breathing pattern. Such apparatus can sound an alarm on the occurrence of apnea.
Another device which could be readily adapted to detect and record the occurrence of apneic episodes is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,190. That apparatus is responsive to the CO2 levels in exhaled air during respiration and is also responsive to the absence of respiration (i.e., apnea) in which case it can switch on a ventilator.
These devices are deficient in that they do not take advantage of the indication of apnea obtained exclusively from a recording from a single sound transducer (microphone) preferably located in the CPAP nose mask or prongs that can be interpreted by a skilled physician. The sound transducer, in its most general form, consists of a pressure transducer which, in addition to detecting snoring sounds, can detect other respiratory parameters such as the rate of breathing, inhaled air flow or inhaled air flow rate. The inherent simplicity of this form of measurement makes it safe and practicable for anybody to use in their own home with a minimum of prior instruction.
Although diagnosis in a sleep clinic as outlined above is beneficial, it has some deficiencies. A patient is likely not to sleep in a fully relaxed state in an unfamiliar environment and a single night is insufficient to obtain a pressure setting that will be optimal in the long run. Thus home therapy at the pressure setting arrived at in this way is likely to be less than 100% effective on some occasions and higher than necessary for a substantial portion of the time. The cost and inconvenience of a sleep study in a hospital setting are to be avoided if possible.
A skilled physician can usually recognize the symptoms of sleep apnea from questioning and examining a patient. Where no other indications are present there is very little risk in attempting nasal CPAP therapy without further testing as the treatment is fail safe and non-invasive. However, a very useful intermediate step would be to analyze the pattern of respiratory sounds over one or more full nights of sleep. Interpretation of these patterns together with questioning and examination will, in many cases, provide sufficient confirmation of apnea to prescribe nasal CPAP therapy. If nasal CPAP eliminates the symptoms of day time sleepiness (as assessed by the patient) and of apneic snoring patterns (as assessed by analysis of recorded respiratory sounds while on nasal CPAP), the treatment can be continued. Further check ups can be conducted at intervals recommended by the physician.
In the most general form of the device, the intermediate step before attempting nasal CPAP therapy would be to analyse the patterns of the respiratory parameters that can be obtained from a single pressure transducer. These parameters include, in addition to acoustic rate of breathing, inhaled/exhaled air volume and inhaled/exhaled air flow rate, and provide comprehensive information for the physician to assess the patient's condition. This additional information, coming from the same pressure transducer, is available at marginal additional cost to the acoustic recording and with no additional complexity in home use by the patient.
The measurement of other parameters would provide further information to assist diagnoses and the acoustic and/or other respiratory recordings described above can readily be used in conjunction with other monitors such as ECG and/or pulse oximetry. Suitable monitors are available to measure both these parameters in the home but with increased information comes much higher cost of equipment and increase complexity in using the equipment. The correlation between reduced oxygen saturation and apnea is sufficiently well established to infer oxygen desaturation from the confirmation of an apneic event.
Diagnoses which are not conclusive from examination and home monitoring will continue to be confirmed from full sleep studies in a Sleep Disorders Center.
Thus the prior art monitors and methods are deficient at least in that the resulting therapy is not 100% effective at all times, it is delivered at higher pressure than necessary for substantial periods, the equipment is expensive and has required diagnosis in specialized clinics.

Method and apparatus useful in the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea of a patient


A lateration system comprising at least one transmitter attached to a first object and configured to emit pulses, three or more receivers attached to at least one second object and configured to receive the pulses emitted by the transmitter, and a processor configured to process information received from the three or more receivers, and to generate a vector based on lateration. Lateration is one of multilateration and trilateration. The vector is used by the processor to constrain error growth in a navigation solution.

Personal navigation systems capable of providing highly accurate location information in global positioning system (GPS) denied environments or GPS-disrupted environments are sought after for military, first responder, and consumer applications. These personal navigation systems need to provide accurate position information when GPS is unavailable or unreliable for long periods of time (e.g., hours to days). GPS interruption can occur due to GPS line-of-sight blockage (e.g., buildings, forest canopy, caves, etc.) or due to electrical interference/jamming.
Typically, personal navigation systems use an inertial measurement unit (IMU), or some subset of inertial sensors, to measure changes in position and heading to track the movement of a person, ground vehicle, or air vehicle. Since inertial measurement unit errors accumulate rapidly, additional sensors such as a compass, pressure sensor, or velocity sensors are added to constrain error growth and drift. Furthermore, algorithms based on motion classification or zero velocity update (ZUPT) are used to compensate and constrain distance error growth, but do not adequately constrain heading error. In order to limit the heading error a compass is often used, however, compass accuracy still limits position performance and is inadequate for long, precise GPS-denied missions. Vision-based systems, using either optical flow or image/landmark recognition, can compensate for heading error, but tend to be computationally demanding.
Personal dead reckoning systems for navigating in GPS-denied environments have also been developed. Such systems, which are based on a fusion of inertial sensors, a compass, and a pressure sensor, are limited in accuracy to about 1-5% error over distance traveled. Distance error typically accounts for about 30% of total position error and heading error accounts for about 70% of the total position error.

Ultrasonic multilateration system for stride vectoring


A process for the production of storage-stable epoxy prepregs is provided. In addition, composites produced from the prepregs based on epoxides and acids having groups reactive to free-radical polymerization is provided.

The invention relates to a process for the production of storage-stable epoxy prepregs and to composite components (mouldings) produced therefrom. The prepregs and components are produced by mixing acids and epoxides, where at least one of the two components comprises groups amenable to free-radical polymerisation. It is optionally possible to add, to the mixture, other epoxides and/or acids not amenable to free-radical polymerisation, and also free-radical initiators, e.g. photoinitiators. This mixture or solution is applied by known processes onto fibre material, e.g. carbon fibres, glass fibres or polymer fibres, and polymerised by radiation or plasma methods.
The polymerisation reaction, e.g. at room temperature or at up to 80° C., gives thermoplastics or thermoplastic prepregs which can then subsequently be subjected to a forming process. Elevated temperature can then be used to crosslink the acid-functionalised constituents with the epoxides already present in the system. It is thus possible to produce dimensionally stable thermosets and, respectively, crosslinked composite components.
Fibre-reinforced materials in the form of prepregs are used in many industrial applications because of their ease of handling and increased efficiency during processing, compared with the alternative wet-layup technology.
Industrial users of systems of this type demand not only lower cycle times and better storage stability values—at temperatures including room temperature—but also the possibility of cutting the prepregs to size without the problem of contamination of the cutting tools by the, often sticky, matrix material during automated cutting-to-size and layup of the individual prepreg layers.
Various moulding processes, e.g. the reaction transfer moulding (RTM) process, comprise the introduction of the reinforcing fibres into a mould, closing of the mould, introduction of the crosslinkable resin formulation into the mould, and subsequent crosslinking of the resin, typically by introduction of heat.
One of the limitations of a process of this type is that insertion of the reinforcing fibres into the mould is quite difficult. The individual layers of the woven fabric or laid scrim must be cut to size and adapted to the various geometries of moulds. This can be both time-consuming and complicated, particularly if the mouldings are also intended to comprise foam cores or other cores. Premouldable fibre reinforcement systems permitting easy handling and use of existing methods for forming processes would be advantageous.
Within the field of crosslinking matrix systems in addition to polyesters, vinyl esters and epoxy systems, there are a number of specialised resins. These include polyurethane resins; because these are tough, damage-tolerant and strong they are in particular used for the production of composite profiles by pultrusion processes. A disadvantage noted with such systems is that the isocyanates used may be toxic.
Prepregs and composites produced therefrom, based on epoxy systems, are described in WO 98/50211, EP 309 221, EP 297 674, WO 89/04335 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,657. WO 2006/043019 describes a method for the production of prepregs on the basis of epoxy-resin polyurethane powders. Prepregs based on pulverulent thermoplastics as matrix have also been disclosed. WO 99/64216 describes prepregs and composites, and also a method for production thereof by using emulsions with polymer particles sufficiently small to permit single-fibre coating. The viscosity of the polymers of the particles is at least 5000 centipoise, and these polymers are either thermoplastics or crosslinking polyurethane polymers.
EP 590 702 describes powder impregnation methods for the production of prepregs in which the powder is composed of a mixture of a thermoplastic and a reactive monomer and, respectively, prepolymers. WO 2005/091715 likewise describes the use of thermoplastics for the production of prepregs.
Prepregs with a matrix based on 2-component polyurethanes (2-C PUR) have been described. The 2-C PUR category comprises the traditional reactive polyurethane resin systems. In principle this is a system made of two separate components. While the critical constituent of one of the components is always a polyisocyanate, e.g. polymeric methylenediphenyl diisocyanates (MDI), the second component is a polyol or polyol mixture or an amino or amine-polyol mixture. The two parts are not mixed with one another until shortly prior to processing. This is then followed by chemical hardening through polyaddition, with formation of a network made of polyurethane and, respectively, polyurea. 2-component systems have a limited processing time (operating time, pot life) after the mixing of the two constituents, since the onset of reaction leads to gradual viscosity increase and finally to gelling of the system. Effective processability time may be determined by numerous variables: reactivity of the reactants, catalysis, concentration, solubility, moisture content, NCO/OH ratio and ambient temperature are the most important [see: Lackharze, [Coating Resins], Stoye/Freitag, Hauser-Verlag 1996, pp. 210/212]. The disadvantage of the prepregs based on 2-C PUR systems of this type is that only a short period of time is available for the processing of the prepreg to give a composite. The storage stability of prepregs of this type is therefore no more than a number of hours, rather than days.
Apart from the different underlying binder, moisture-curing coatings largely correspond to analogous 2C systems both in terms of their composition and in terms of their properties. In principle, the same solvents, pigments, fillers and auxiliaries are used. These systems are unlike 2C coatings in that for reasons of stability they cannot be exposed to any moisture at all before they are applied.
DE 102009001793 and DE 102009001806 describe a method for the production of storage-stable prepregs essentially composed of A) at least one fibrous substrate and B) at least one reactive pulverulent polyurethane composition as matrix material. The systems may also comprise poly(meth)acrylates as co-binder or polyol component. In DE 102010029355 compositions of this type are introduced into the fibre material by a direct melt impregnation process. In DE 102010030234 the method is pretreatment with solvents. These systems have the disadvantage of high melt viscosity and, respectively, the use of solvents which at some stage require removal, and can also have attendant toxicological disadvantages.
In view of the disadvantages and problems associated with the above described conventional systems, it was an object of the present invention to provide novel prepreg technology that can lead to a simpler process for the production of prepreg systems which give no handling problems.
A particular object of the present invention was to provide an accelerated process which can produce prepregs and which, in comparison with known technology, may give a markedly increased storage stability period and/or processing time, for example operating time, and pot life.

Process for the production of storage-stable epoxy prepregs, and composites produced therefrom, based on epoxides and acids amenable to free-radical polymerisation


There is disclosed a furnace having an air flow path for heated air and combustion products that passes through a condensing heat exchanger. Condensate forming in regions of negative and positive pressure is separately conducted to a unitary condensate trap of minimal vertical height incorporating therein separate traps for handling the high and low pressure gaseous environments. The condensate is drained through a common outlet port into the atmosphere or into a drain pipe.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a furnace for providing heated circulation air to an interior comfort space, and is more particularly directed to a condensate trap for a gas fired forced air furnace of the type having a heat exchanger.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In conventional gas-fired forced air furnaces a thermostat senses the temperature in the comfort zone relative to a predetermined set point temperature. When the temperature is below the set point, the thermostat closes to supply thermostat ac power to the furnace as a call for heat. This initiates a sequence of events that ultimately causes the furnace to come on. An inducer motor is enabled to flow combustion air across the burners, and through a condensing heat exchanger, after which a gas valve is actuated to supply gas to the gas burners. An ignition device is also actuated to light the burners. A flame sensor then proves burner ignition and sends power to a burner delay timer. Then after a predetermined blower delay time, which varies with furnace design, the furnace blower is actuated. The blower moves circulating room air from a return air duct through the furnace heat exchanger to pick up heat from the heated combustion products (carbon dioxide and water vapor) from the gas burners. The heated circulate air then goes into a hot air plenum and is distributed through hot air ductwork back to the comfort space. When the comfort space air is warmed sufficient to reach the thermostat set point, the thermostat terminates the call for heat. When this happens the blower and burners go through a shut off sequence and the furnace awaits the next call for heat.
The present invention mainly deals with handling of large amounts of condensate that form in the condensing heat exchanger and also in the inducer housing. When the inducer motor is in operation a substantial step-up in pressure occurs between the condensing heat-exchanger and intake of the inducer housing on the one hand, and the outflow of the inducer housing on the other hand. Typically there is negative pressure (relative to atmospheric pressure) at the intake, and positive pressure at the outflow. In the prior art a trap 110, shown in FIG. 5, and having a single chamber has been used to simultaneously trap condensate forming in both pressure compartments. In this trap a first tube 112, in fluid communication with a source of high pressure, leads downward to terminate beneath the surface of a reservoir 117 of water. An overflow drain 115 is situated a distance A above the terminus of the tube. A second tube 114, connected to a source of negative pressure, also has a terminus beneath the surface of the reservoir. Condensate forming within the sources drips or flows through the tube 112, 114 into the reservoir 117. The overflow drain is located a distance B beneath the top of the chamber. In operation the water levels 116, 118 within the tubes 112, 114 are displaced toward and away from the termini of the tubes in accordance with the pressure heads in their respective sources. It is evident that the distance A is a measure of the amount of positive pressure that can be withstood by the trap before gases from the positive source are forced through the end of the tube to bubble into the chamber. Also distance B is a measure of the amount of negative pressure the trap can handle before the reservoir contents are sucked back into the negative source. Thus the sum A+B is a lower limit on the vertical dimension of this single-chambered trap.
Older furnaces typically create positive pressure of about 11/2 inches (3.8 cm) of water, and negative pressure of about 21/2 inches (6.3 cm) of water, so that the trap only had to be 4 inches (10.2 cm) tall. Modern high flow furnaces can produce about 4 inches (10.2 cm) of positive pressure and 4 inches (10.2 cm) of negative pressure, requiring the trap to be at least 8 inches (20.3 cm) tall.
Also, on older furnaces pressure differentials within the inducer housing due to rotation of the inducer wheel or fan impaired the drainage of condensate from the housing. Condensate would then build up in the housing and eventually hinder the inducer's ability to move flue gases through the furnace.


Arrangements described herein allow integration of TSN and wireless systems (e.g. 5G systems) by forming a virtual bridge over the wireless system. A two-level scheduling scheme is provided, where data is mapped into separate virtual queues based on the respective priority of the data. Each virtual queue is given a permission to allocate transmission resources (e.g. timeslots) at certain windows in accordance with a schedule. During each window, transmission resources are then allocated for the respective queue from a set of transmission resources. By applying two levels of scheduling (scheduling when to schedule), different scheduling rules can be applied for different priority data (different virtual queues). In addition, higher priority data can be scheduled with a higher priority (e.g. before the scheduling of lower priority data). This allows minimum performance criteria for certain types of data (certain Quality of Service data flows) to be guaranteed across the wireless system.

Time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a set of standards under development within the IEEE 802.1 working group to improve the real-time capabilities of standard Ethernet. TSN provides guaranteed data delivery with deterministic and bounded latency and extremely low data loss. TSN supports both time-critical and best-effort traffic over a single standard Ethernet network. TSN includes various standards, which can be grouped into time synchronization, ultra-high reliability, bounded low latency, and resource management. TSN finds applications in systems where very low latency is important, such as real-time audio/video streaming and real-time control systems.

Virtual time-sensitive networking bridge over a 5G wireless system