A driving arm (5) that is connected directly to an output shaft (4) of an electric motor (3) is connected to a mirror housing (8) through a ball joint (10). On the other hand, a driven arm (6) is connected to the mirror housing (8) through a connection device (11) having two orthogonally intersecting shafts (12, 14). The both arms (5, 6) are disposed in parallel with each other with a level difference being provided therebetween. As a result, the under view mirror is held in an attitude preferable for the stored position thereof and held in an attitude preferable for the use position thereof, when it is moved to the use position.

The present invention relates to a rear under view mirror apparatus for automobiles which is used to confirm from the driver's seat the safety at the under field of the rear zone of the automobile when the automobile is moved backward.
The confirmation of the safety at the rear field or area behind the automobile when the automobile is moved backward is indispensable. Especially, in the case of a box-type automobile such as a bus, wagon, etc., it is difficult to visually recognize or ensure from the driver's seat the rear under field of view. Therefore, the use of a rear under view mirror apparatus is indispensable. A typical example of such an under view mirror apparatus has a construction wherein a stay is secured on a rear portion of the roof of the automobile and a downwardly directed convex mirror is fixed to a forward end of this stay, whereby the driver sees an image of the convex mirror through a back mirror that is provided near the driver's seat so as to ensure the rear under field of view from the driver's seat.
This conventional example is of a fixed type. Therefore, the under view mirror apparatus of this conventional example cannot be stored during an ordinary running of the automobile and so is unpreferable not only from the viewpoint of the enhancement of the visual recognition of the rear field for safety but also from the viewpoint of the outer appearance.
In view of this, the general practice is that the under view mirror apparatus is ordinarily stored within a rear spoiler or deflector, namely a stored position, and, only when the automobile is to be moved backward, the under view mirror apparatus is caused to protrude from the stored position and moved to the position of use, namely, a use position. One example of this is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H1-127430 (1989). This conventional example is such that pulleys and belts are used in combination. However, in this conventional example, the surface of the mirror is only linearly moved from the stored position to the use position. The relative relationship between the surface of the mirror and the automobile remains unchanged. In other words, when the position of the mirror which is suitable for the visual view of the under rear field of the automobile is determined, the mirror is stored into the deflector with its attitude remaining unchanged. As a result, the contour of the housing of the mirror and the contour of the deflector are brought out of coincidence with each other, so that the outer appearance of the combined structure as a whole is not good. On the other hand, when trying to make the outer appearance good, it results that the design of the deflector is limited by a space for the housing of the mirror and so the freedom of design is limited.

Rear under view mirror apparatus for automobiles


A surgical stapling device is provided for clamping and stapling tissue, and for dispensing a fluid such as an adhesive onto the tissue. The adhesive can be stored within one or more rigid chambers within removable cartridge and dispensed from a plurality of passageways within the cartridge. A plurality of staples and staple drivers are located in the cartridge and may be isolated from the fluid. Both linear and rotary members can be provided to dispense the fluid from the cartridge. Alternately, the fluid can be dispensed from the cartridge at any time with an operator actuatable control. A removable staple cartridge cover can be provided to seal the fluid in the cartridge and prevent fluid loss. Alternately, a fluid cartridge can be provided that can mount within a surgical stapling device and dispense one or more firings of a fluid therefrom.

Adhesives and sealants have been contemplated to supplement or replace staple based transaction devices for many years. The primary challenges in accomplishing this are control of getting the adhesive into the correct location at the correct time as well as preventing it from adhering the stapler itself to the treatment site. Adhesives have proven themselves as great short term bonding/sealing mechanisms. Staples on the other have proven themselves a very good long term tissue apposition mechanisms. Therefore the best of both worlds would be to use staples to fasten and adhesives in combination with adhesive initiators to seal the juncture of tissue or tissue cuts.
The primary challenge in the creation of a hybrid adhesive/staple deploying system is the positioning of the adhesive into only the areas of desired adhesion and controlling where the adhesive bonds to the area.
Closure Medical is conducting an FDA clinical trial using a cyanoacrylate adhesive as an internal vascular tissue sealant and internal surgical adhesive. Some adhesives such as the cyanoacrylates, stick well to tissue, but like metallic fasteners, the fastener itself can become a local barrier to tissue regrowth through the fastener. For internal body use of surgical adhesives, the adhesive is used sparingly, not on top of the wound as in external use, but actually in the cut areas of the wound. By minimizing the glue areas across the wound, the surgeon is assured of maximum areas of tissue regrowth and minimal areas of the adhesive barrier. As the tissue regrows together and heals, the adhesive areas within the wound are encapsulated with healed tissue. Thus, internal adhesives are ideal for short term needs to hold cut tissue together so that healing can occur, and can remain as a long term fastener to provide additional strength to the healed tissue. Additionally, the adhesives can be biocompatable, bioabsorbable, and/or flexible, inside the body.
Tissue fastening can be either short term or long term duration. Short term duration fasteners can include a bandage, tape, removable staples, removable suture, adhesives, or absorbable stitches that are meant to provide temporary support until natural healing can occur.
Longer duration fasteners must remain in or on the body, possibly for the life of the patient. Longer duration fasteners include biocompatible implantables such as suture, staples, clips, tacks, clamps, pins, and the like. These long duration fasteners could be inserted subcutaneously in a surgical procedure and, after the patient has healed, cannot be removed without additional surgery. Longer term fasteners can provide short term and long term reinforcement for high force loads that can be 200-400% of normal forces. These high force loads could be caused by violent vomiting, coughing, and, in some cases, chronic overeating. For chronic overeaters that have undergone bariatric surgery to create a small stomach pouch, it is highly likely that a patient will "overload" the new pouch by attempting to eat the same large portions of food imbibed before the surgery.
Adhesives have been used topically as a short term fastener for wound repair. Closure Medical has developed a 2-octyl cyanoacrylate compound with a long carbon chain (eight carbons) that is biocompatible, has good bonding strength, and has received FDA approval for topical use. For short duration topical wound closure, the edges of the wound are brought together and at least one layer of the adhesive is applied along the surface of the wound line to form a barrier that holds the wound edges together. The cyanoacrylate adhesive also acts as a microbial barrier, keeping bacteria out and is eventually removed. Cyanoacrylate adhesives are described in U.S. application 20040190975 by Goodman et al. which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Closure Medical is conducting an FDA clinical trial using a cyanoacrylate adhesive as an internal vascular tissue sealant and internal surgical adhesive. Some adhesives such as the cyanoacrylates, stick well to tissue, but like metallic fasteners, the fastener itself can become a local barrier to tissue regrowth through the fastener. For internal body use of surgical adhesives, the adhesive is used sparingly, not on top of the wound as in external use, but actually in the cut areas of the wound. By minimizing the glue areas across the wound, the surgeon is assured of maximum areas of tissue regrowth and minimal areas of the adhesive barrier. As the tissue regrows together and heals, the adhesive areas within the wound are encapsulated with healed tissue. Thus, internal adhesives are ideal for short term needs to hold cut tissue together so that healing can occur, and can remain as a long term fastener to provide additional strength to the healed tissue. Additionally, the adhesives can be biocompatable, bioabsorbable, and/or flexible, inside the body.
Staple cartridges containing fluids such as an adhesive are described in International publication WO03088845-A2 by R. Heinreich which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Consequently, a significant need exists for a surgical stapling device that has a removable staple cartridge that contains and dispenses a fluid such as an adhesive from one or more rigid and/or non-frangible compartments within the cartridge, that the one or more adhesive compartments are separate from and away from the staples and drivers, and the fluid can be dispensed onto tissue at any time before, during or after one or more of clamping, cutting, and stapling.

Disposable cartridge with adhesive for use with a stapling device


A floral stand which is designed to display flower or branch arrangements in any desired orientation, including horizontally or upside down. The stand is a hollow shell made of a light weight plastic material and formed into any pleasing shape desired for flower display. Inside the shell are located air-tight compartments for holding liquid nutrient. Each compartment includes a hole for insertion of a flower stem into it and a means to grip the stem tightly. The air-tight nature of the compartments, the stem gripping means and the relative difference in pressure between the inside of the water filled compartment and the outside air, prevent the possibility of any significant fluid leakage from the stand in any orientation and under normal handling conditions.

This invention relates to flower holding stands for flower and branch arrangements. In particular, the invention is a floral stand that can be mounted in any desired orientation and location.
This invention is an improvement to an earlier invention, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/743,218 "FLORAL STAND", by Kevin X. Domurat. In the earlier invention embodiment, a multiple orientation flower stand is configured, allowing the stand to be fastened to walls, windows or even ceilings, with flower arrangements projecting downwards and sideways as well more conventionally upwards. The earlier invention flower stand utilizes an outer shell and an inner core to hold the flowers. Watering of the flowers is obtained by two layers of porous material that retain the nutrient fluid and sandwich the flower and branch stems. Angular spring clips are incorporated to hold the stems in place, particularly when the flowers are upside down.
The invention improvement is a change in the stand internal configuration which does away with the need for layers of porous material and spring clips. In the improvement, nutrient fluid is retained within air-tight pockets inside the stand by static and vacuum pressure, and will not leak out in any stand orientation. Specially designed grommets hold the stems tightly and also act as an additional water seal. Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide an improved floral stand which permits flower and/or branch arrangements to be displayed in any desired location, whether vertically, with flowers upside down or conventionally.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a flower holder which will not require additional filling with nutrient fluid or water after its initial filling.
Advantages of the present invention over the prior invention floral stand include its relative simplicity of construction and its ability to hold a greater amount of liquid nutrient for a given flower stand size, thus being able to hold sufficient fluid for the lifetime of the display.
Further objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a study of the following portion of the specification, the claims and the attached drawings.


The present invention is designed to improve a method of deposition of coatings upon a metal or alloy substrate. The coating comprises aluminum or aluminide material interdiffused with a transition metal deposited by chemical vapor deposition which utilizes organometallic precursors to facilitate the deposition of the transition metal. The improvement permits better control of the process and permits coating of complex substrates including those with internal passages or holes. In the embodiment involving a first deposition of aluminum or aluminide coating, applicants have achieved deposition thereon of the transition metal. Platinum is the preferred transition metal to be used in the subject method. A product is taught. This product can be a component from a gas turbine engine.

Protective diffusion layers are particularly advantageous for gas turbine engine components. Such components are subject to high temperatures and oxidizing and hot corrosive environments. Further, many of these parts have complex and intricate designs.
It is already known that aluminide coatings increase the life expectancy of parts made with high temperature alloys when they are exposed to oxidation and corrosion. Currently, these coatings are produced principally by pack cementation and gas-phase chemical vapor deposition. For example, it is known to apply a diffusion layer of aluminum in nickel, cobalt and iron-base alloy parts by pack cementation processes. These involve packing such parts in a bed of powdered mixture consisting of a source of aluminum and an inert filler material and heated to an elevated temperature, for example, 750.degree. to 1100.degree. C., for several hours to diffuse and build up a layer of aluminum on the surfaces of the alloy parts being treated. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,156,042 and K. Brennfleck, PROC. INTERN. CONFERENCE ON CVD, p. 578 (1979).
Regarding more complex structures, U.S. Pat. No. 4,148,275 teaches to diffusion aluminize hollow tubes or the like using a CVD process by connecting the hollow portions to a manifold and to force a carrier gas over a heated bed of a mixture of a source of aluminum and an inert filler and into the hollow portions to carry a portion of volatilized aluminum into the passages.
An alternative CVD method for coating internal channels is the use of organometallics as the vapor transport species. Experimental work with aluminum alkyls has shown that it is capable of satisfactorily coating the walls of channels down to a diameter of 0.25 mm (see J. E. Restall in ALTERNATIVE PROCESSES AND TREATMENTS, Mat. Sci. Technol. 2, 226-231 (1986).
Ion Vapor Deposition (IVD) is a process combining vacuum evaporation and sputtering to also achieve such coatings. This known process is described in G. Rudzki, SURFACE FINISHING SYSTEMS, p. 161 (1983).
Electroplating is an electrochemical process conducted in a solution resulting in the deposition of a is coating on an electrode (see G. Rudzki, Surface Finishing Systems, p. 45 (1983)).
Electrophoretic deposition, which is analogous to electroplating involves the coagulation of resins on the electrode and can be employed to deposit aluminum, as described by T. P. Fisher, Surface Technology, 12, 107 (1981).
It is equally known that the presence of transition metals such as platinum and yttrium is useful. Nevertheless, to date, there are a few methods of applying transition metals to the parts. For instance, CVD from noble metal halides is not efficient due to the proximity of the volatilization and decomposition temperatures (see C. F. Powell in VAPOR DEPOSITION, John Wiley and Sons, New York, p. 310 (1966)). Equally, very few studies of metal-organic deposition have been reported, largely because of the lack of suitable volatile and reactive molecular precursors capable of producing uncontaminated films (see M. Rand, CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION OF THIN-FILM PLATINUM, J. Electrochem. Soc., 120, 686-693, (1973) and J. Gozum, TAILORED ORGANOMETALLICS AS PRECURSORS FOR THIN CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION OF HIGH-PURITY PALLADIUM AND PLATINUM FILMS, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 110, 2688-2689 (1988).
The most common method of platinum deposition is electroplating. In a preferred method, the platinum group metal is applied first, and is diffused at the same time as the aluminum is deposited. Vapor deposition is a technique listed but not exemplified to deposit the platinum group metal. Rather, electro-deposition was exemplified. See British Patent No. 1,210,026 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,776.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,789 proposes to improve the oxidation and corrosion resistance of such articles by first coating the alloy part with a platinum group metal by electro-deposition or other means. Then, the patent teaches to aluminize the platinum plated part by pack cementation.
Recently, a method has been discovered for forming protective diffusion layers on nickel, cobalt and iron-base alloy parts. It comprises the formation of a diffusion layer of platinum, chromium and aluminum on surfaces, either by deposition of platinum and gas phase chrominizing followed by aluminizing or gas phase chrominizing and deposition of platinum followed by aluminizing and deposition of platinum. Simply, this method is directed to a sandwich structure which includes a chromium layer as an intermediate to facilitate the adhesion of a platinum layer to aluminum. Electro-deposition of platinum is a preferred technique, although vapor deposition is mentioned but not exemplified. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,526,814.
Chemical vapor deposition is a process of obtaining an element in solid form by decomposition of a gaseous compound. This is radically different from the physical process of vapor deposition, which is the physical process of condensing elemental vapors. While electroplating and vapor deposition are line-of-sight processes, chemical vapor deposition permits coating of complex structures including the cooling internal passages of the blades. It would be desirable to deposit transition metals to obtain modified coatings into these passages.
Recently, R. Kumar, NEW PRECURSORS FOR CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION OF PLATINUM AND THE HYDROGEN EFFECT ON CVD, Polyhedron, 551 (1988) and H. D. Kaesz, LOW TEMPERATURE OMCVD FOR PLATINUM, Adv. Coat. Surf. Tech., 2,3 (1989) have been able to deposit clean platinum films utilizing new precursors that decompose under mild conditions; the presence of hydrogen in order to obtain pure films is emphasized by the authors.
Fortunately, applicants have discovered a method which overcomes the deficiencies of prior art in preparing modified aluminide coatings on complicated structures and in coating platinum or a transition metal directly on aluminum or aluminide without the necessity of using intermediates to facilitate such bonding.

Transition metal aluminum/aluminide coatings


Embodiments of the invention automate some of the human report generation process with the application of new AI and machine learning technologies plus the automatic generation of cutting-edge infographics, that is also not aesthetically pleasing but also engage the report reading audience. Aspects of the invention employ specific implementations of natural language generation and the recognition of elements of infographics that complimentary to the natural language generation.

Businesses communicate data-centric information mainly by generating reports from a few standard tools such as Excel. Increasingly, Business Intelligence ("BI") tools like Tableau and Qlik are also used to display charts and graphs. These tools were designed to facilitate work by analysts who are using advanced functions to transform the data to gain understanding. Analysts need the most functional tool for this purpose. Yet the vast majority of the people receiving these reports are not analysts. They are executives, stakeholders whose interest is merely to be informed and perhaps take a business decision based on the data within the reports. This creates a conflict between the needs of the analyst and the needs of the stakeholders.
How do you engage with these stakeholders? How do you influence behavior throughout the business when many report recipients never open the document, and of those that do, even fewer take the time to read and analyze the information contained in them.
Business Intelligence has largely failed as a business activity designed to deliver actionable insight to executives because it left a yawning chasm between the delivery of information and the development of insights from that information. This was largely due to the inability to develop a narrative that was relevant to most report recipients. It is these narratives that are vital to the effective transmission of knowledge from one individual to another. This is hardwired into human societal evolution; before the advent of written communication, human beings transmitted knowledge using narratives. Customary laws, religious texts and conventional wisdom were all transmitted through the medium of storytelling, making it the oldest human art. Human beings understand through narrative.
The only way business users generated content-rich, stakeholder-friendly reports was by manually creating the report in PowerPoint or Word. The analysts copy and paste charts and graphs from excel or other tool into Word, then write a narrative of what the chart is conveying. The narrative is the key to transforming static charts and graphs into a more understandable and meaningful report.
Of course, the exercise of creating this report is manual, and extremely time consuming. Also, the types of charts that these report writers may generate at extremely basic, such as those that may be generated in Excel or PowerPoint. Beautifully designed infographics is out of the expertise and know-how of most business users.
Manual work is inherently not scalable and costly. In addition, similar to other knowledge work performed manually, the knowledge of manually generating reports is difficult to retain as a corporate asset with staff turnover.

Automated production of data-driven reports with descriptive and rich text and graphical contents


A method for manufacturing a ferroelectric capacitor, includes the steps of: forming a ferroelectric capacitor layer having a lower electrode layer, a ferroelectric layer and an upper electrode layer on a base substrate; forming a titanium oxide layer on the ferroelectric capacitor layer; patterning the titanium oxide layer by high-temperature etching between 200° C. and 500° C. to thereby form a mask pattern; and etching the ferroelectric capacitor layer by using the mask pattern as a mask, to thereby form a ferroelectric capacitor having a lower electrode, a ferroelectric film and an upper electrode.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to methods for manufacturing ferroelectric memory devices having ferroelectric capacitors.
2. Related Art
A ferroelectric memory device (FeRAM) is composed with ferroelectric capacitors, and is a nonvolatile memory that is capable of low voltage and high speed operations. In such a ferroelectric memory device, its memory cell can be composed of, for example, one transistor and one capacitor (1T/1C), such that integration to the level of DRAM is possible. Accordingly, ferroelectric memory devices are highly expected as large capacity nonvolatile memories in recent years.
A ferroelectric capacitor in such a ferroelectric memory device is formed from a lower electrode, a ferroelectric film and an upper electrode. When the ferroelectric capacitor is formed, normally, a layer composed of a material for the lower electrode, a layer composed of a ferroelectric material, and a layer composed of a material for the upper electrode are successively laminated, and these layers are etched and patterned together. As masks that are used for etching, hard masks such as oxide (e.g., SiO2) films are used more in recent years, because resist masks cannot provide sufficient etching resistance (see, for example, Japanese laid-open patent application JP-A-2002-94019). Moreover, when oxide (SiO2) films are not sufficient, the use of titanium nitride (TiN) films as hard masks has been proposed.
When a titanium nitride (TiN) film is used as a hard mask, normally, a second mask pattern composed of SiO2 is formed as a mask for patterning the titanium nitride film, and the second mask pattern is used to form a mask pattern composed of a titanium nitride film. As sufficient etching resistance may not be obtained with the titanium nitride film, normally, the obtained mask pattern composed of a titanium nitride film and the second mask pattern are used together as a laminated hard mask, and ferroelectric capacitor layers are etched together, thereby forming a ferroelectric capacitor.
However, the hard mask described above has a total thickness of about 900 nm, in which the thickness of the SiO2 film is about 700 nm, and the thickness of the TiN film is about 200 nm. On the other hand, a separation between adjacent ferroelectric capacitors is normally about 600 nm. Accordingly, the hard mask described above has a high aspect ratio, and etching of a lower electrode side that is a bottom side of the ferroelectric capacitor may not be favorably etched, and therefore there is a possibility that the adjacent ferroelectric capacitors are conductively connected to each other. In order to prevent conduction between adjacent ferroelectric capacitors, presently, excessive over-etching needs to be conducted. However, when over-etching is conducted excessively, sidewall surfaces of the obtained ferroelectric capacitors become roughened, which makes it difficult to obtain favorable ferroelectric characteristics.

Method for manufacturing ferroelectric memory device


An adjustable armrest mechanism is provided, which is adapted to be coupled to a vehicle frame. The armrest mechanism comprises a base fixed to the vehicle frame, armrest apparatus movably coupled to the base such that the armrest apparatus pivots about a virtual pivot point located in front of the armrest apparatus and the base, and a locking device for releasably locking the armrest apparatus to the base in one of at least two positions.

It is known in the prior art to provide armrests in materials handling vehicles. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0245038 A1 discloses an armrest provided with three separate armrest locations 40A-40C, each corresponding to an operator of a different size. As illustrated in FIG. 4 of the published application, armrest location 40B is spaced further away from an operator than armrest location 40A and armrest location 40C is spaced further away from an operator than armrest locations 40A and 40B. Hence, a taller operator must lean further to the side to rest his elbow than a shorter operator.
It is also known to provide an armrest and control handle assembly, which assembly is adjustable up and down along a linear path. This assembly is costly to manufacture due to the control handle moving with the armrest.
It is further known to provide a fixed armrest against which an operator may lean while driving a materials handling vehicle. However, such an armrest is uncomfortable for shorter operators as they are required to raise their elbows and forearms too high to rest against the fixed armrest. A fixed armrest is also uncomfortable for taller operators as they are required to lean too much to one side such that their elbows and forearms contact the armrest.
An alternative armrest, which allows for armrest adjustment to accommodate a wide range of operator elbow and forearm positions, is desired.

Adjustable armrest mechanism for a materials handling vehicle


The present invention is aimed at providing an output circuit that is of relatively small scale and may perform adjustment to make the output-signal rise slew rate and the fall slew rate equal to each other. An output circuit includes a signal output unit configured to produce at a signal output node a signal that makes transition between a first potential and a second potential, a load circuit having a variable load, and a first switch circuit configured to select one of electrical conduction and non-conduction between the signal output node and the load circuit.

An output circuit of a CMOS type comprised of series-connected PMOS and NMOS transistors is generally used at the signal output part of a semiconductor integrated circuit. A signal that is to be output to outside the circuit is applied to the gates of the PMOS transistor and the NMOS transistor to control the on-and-off state of each transistor. With this configuration, a joint point between the PMOS transistor and the NMOS transistor is electrically coupled to a selected one of the HIGH side (i.e., power supply voltage side) and the LOW side (i.e., ground voltage side). An output signal is output from an output node through a connection between the output node and the joint node between the PMOS transistor and the NMOS transistor.
The CMOS output circuit as described above may preferably be designed such that the rise slope (i.e., rise slew) and fall slope (i.e., fall slew) of an output signal have a substantially identical slope in a balanced manner. To this end, the drive power of each transistor and/or the delay along a path through which the gate input is applied to each transistor may be adjusted to control the rise slew rate and fall slew rate of the output signal independently of each other. With such a method, however, it may be difficult to perform fine adjustment to make the rise slew rate and the fall slew rate equal to each other. That is, it may be difficult to design a balanced CMOS output circuit.
There is another type of system, in which each of the PMOS transistor side and the NMOS transistor side is comprised of a plurality of transistors connected in parallel to each other. The number of transistors driven is changed to control the slew rates of the output signal. This type of circuit, however, has problems in that the circuit scale is increased and in that fine adjustment is difficult due to the fact that changes in the drive power achieved by changing the number of transistors driven are not continuous but stepwise.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2001-508635    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-217840    [Patent Document 3] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-236395


The present disclosure provides a membrane humidifier for a fuel cell including: a case; a hollow fiber membrane module covering the case; a housing coupled to both ends of the hollow fiber membrane module; a plurality of hollow fiber membranes arranged in the case; and a hollow fiber membrane guide structure installed at one end or both ends of the hollow fiber membrane module and having a potting material layer formed therein to fix the plurality of hollow fiber membranes.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a membrane humidifier for a fuel cell.
Description of Related Art
A fuel cell includes a fuel cell stack to generate electric energy, a fuel supply system to supply fuel (e.g., hydrogen) to the fuel cell stack, an air supply system to supply oxygen, which is contained in the air and serves as an oxidizer required for an electrochemical reaction, to the fuel cell stack, and a heat and water management system to control the operation temperature of the fuel cell stack.
Referring to FIG. 1, the air supply system of the fuel cell includes an air blower 30 to supply external air to a cathode of the fuel cell stack 10, and a membrane humidifier 20 to humidify the air supplied from the air blower 30 and then supply the humidified air to the cathode of the fuel cell stack 10.
In the case of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell, water is required for the operation of the fuel cell, and a humidifier for humidifying the air is typically used. In order to humidify the air, various methods may be used such as, for example, a bubbler, injection, and an absorbent may be used. However, since the size of a fuel cell used for a vehicle is significantly constrained, fuel cell vehicles use a membrane humidifier that has a relatively small volume and requires no power.
FIGS. 2 and 3 illustrate a conventional membrane humidifier. Such a membrane humidifier includes a housing 100, a hollow fiber membrane module 200, and manifolds 106 and 108. The housing 100 includes an inlet 102 formed on one side end thereof to receive external air (e.g., dry air) from the air blower 30 and an outlet 104 formed on the other side end thereof to discharge humidified air toward the fuel cell stack 10. The manifold 106 is formed on the top surface of the housing 100 proximate to outlet 104 to receive wet air discharged from the stack, and the manifold 108 is formed on the bottom surface of the housing 100 proximate to inlet 102 to discharge the wet air, obtained by humidifying the air from the air blower, to the outside.
Furthermore, the hollow fiber membrane module 200 includes a bundle of hollow fiber membranes 202 housed therein, and the housing 100 having the manifolds 106 and 108 formed therein is coupled to both ends of the hollow fiber membrane module 200 so as to surround the hollow fiber membrane module 200.
The operation of the conventional membrane humidifier having the above-described structure will be described briefly as follows.
As shown in FIG. 3, when wet air discharged from the fuel cell stack is supplied to the inside of the hollow fiber module 200 through the manifold 106 of the housing 100, water contained in the wet air is separated by the capillary action of the respective hollow fiber membranes 202 housed in the housing 100. The separated water is condensed while passing through capillary tubes of the hollow fiber membranes 202, and moved into the hollow fiber membranes 202. At this time, the wet air from which the water is separated is moved to the outside of the hollow fiber membranes 202 and discharged as external air through the manifold 108 of the housing 100.
The external air (e.g., dry air) supplied from the air blower 30 through the inlet 102 of the housing 100 is moved while passing through the hollow fiber membranes 202. At this time, since the water separated from the wet air is already moved into the hollow fiber membranes 202, the dry air is humidified by the water. The humidified air is supplied toward the fuel cell stack 10 through the outlet 104.
Hereinafter, a conventional method for manufacturing the hollow fiber membrane module of the membrane humidifier having the above-described structure and operation will be described as follows.
First, a case is manufactured, and a desired number of hollow fiber membranes are housed therein. Then, a polymer material is injected into both ends of the hollow fiber membranes to fix the hollow fiber membranes to the case. This process is referred to as "potting" or a "potting process." The polymer material used for potting may include a urethane-based resin material, and the potting process may include a dipping process and a centrifugal molding process. The dipping process takes advantage of the use of gravity, as illustrated in FIG. 4, and is performed as follows. First, a case 204 having a bundle of hollow fiber membranes 202 housed therein is inserted into a resin injection device. Then, when a polymer material is injected through an inlet of the resin injection device, the injected polymer material fixes the bundle of hollow fiber membranes while permeating between the densely-housed hollow fiber membranes due to gravity.
FIGS. 5A to 5D are diagrams illustrating such a potting process. The potting process includes preparing a case as in FIG. 5A, putting a potting cap 300 on as in FIG. 5B, inserting the hollow fiber membranes 202 as in FIG. 5C, and injecting resin 310 as in FIG. 5D. As illustrated in FIG. 6, the potting material is injected into the case through a hole 110.
After the potting process, the polymer material is dried, and an end of the potted portion is partially cut by a cutting device. Then, a hollow fiber membrane module having a cross-sectional structure as illustrated in FIG. 6 may be obtained.
In accordance with the conventional method, the potting material repetitively contracts and expands according to temperature changes. As a result of the repetitive contraction and expansion of the potting material, a gap 320 may be formed between the potting material 310 and the case 204 after a predetermined time passes, as illustrated in FIGS. 7A and 7B. Because of the gap 320, air tightness may not be maintained. FIG. 8 is a photograph showing a state in which a gap is formed between the potting material and the case.
In the conventional method, an air flow within the humidifier may apply stress to the polymer hollow fiber membranes. In this case, a hollow fiber membrane may be cut at a portion where the hollow fiber membrane is contacted with the bottom of the potting material 310.
Furthermore, when the polymer hollow fiber membrane is potted by a potting material, the potted portion of the hollow fiber membrane does not function as a humidifying membrane. That is, as the potted portion is formed to a large thickness, the humidification performance of the humidifier decreases. Accordingly, there is a need for a membrane-based humidifier that does not deform under physical stress (e.g., temperature induced expansion/contraction, air pressure, etc.), and therefore does not form a gap, as well as for a membrane that maintains humidification performance even as a thick membrane.


A full-color flat panel display using emission colors of red, green, and blue is increasingly required to have higher definition, higher aperture ratio and higher reliability. A light emitting device of the invention has an insulator referred to as a bank, that is, a black matrix (BM), between pixels on a substrate side where a light emitting element and a TFT are disposed, and has colored layers of red, green, and blue on a sealing substrate side. This enables right and left margins of a pixel to be taken and a width of the bank to be 30 μm or less, preferably, 5 μm to 20 μm.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device having a circuit including a thin film transistor (hereinafter, referred to as a TFT) and a manufacturing method thereof. For example, the invention relates to an electronic device equipped with a light emitting display device having a TFT and an organic light emitting element, as a part.
Note that in this specification, a semiconductor device means overall devices which can function by using semiconductor properties. An electro-optical device, a semiconductor circuit and an electronic device are all included in the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, research on a light emitting device having an EL element as a self-luminous light emitting element has been activated. This light emitting device is also referred to as an organic EL display or an organic light emitting diode. The light emitting device has characteristics such as fast response speed suitable for movie display, or low voltage and low power consumption driving. Therefore, the light emitting device draws attention as a next generation display including a new-generation portable telephone or a personal digital assistance (PDA).
An EL element has a structure in which a layer containing organic compound (hereinafter, referred to as an EL layer), adopted as an emission layer, is interposed between an anode and a cathode. Electroluminescence is produced from the EL layer by applying an electric field to the anode and the cathode.
A low-molecular weight material or a high-molecular weight material can be used for the EL layer in the EL element. A vapor deposition (including a vacuum vapor deposition), a spin coating method, an ink-jet method, a dip method, an electric field polymerization method, or the like is employed as a method for forming the EL layer.
In the case of manufacturing a full-color flat panel display using emission colors of red (R), green (G), and blue (B), a space between different pixels is designed to be wide or an insulator referred to as a bank (or a barrier) is disposed between pixels since the film formation by the above-described film formation method is not so accurate.
In the patent document 1, the applicant describes a structure in which a light-extraction efficiency is improved by disposing a light shielding portion on the edge of an EL element to shield light to be emitted from a transparent electrode to the light shielding portion. Note that in the patent document 1, a light emitting device having a bottom emission structure is described. (Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-83689)
In the patent document 2, the applicant proposes to prevent reflected light by a wiring from reaching eyes of an observer by using a light-absorbing multilayer film as a top layer of a bank and using an organic resin as a bottom layer. Note that in the patent document 2, a light emitting device having a top emission structure is described. (Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-31201)
In addition, in the patent document 3, the applicant describes a structure in which a shielding film is disposed adjacent to an anode or a cathode of a light emitting element in order to prevent an EL light emitting device from having a mirror surface without using a circularly-polarizing film. Note that in the patent document 3, a light emitting device having a top emission structure and a bottom emission structure is described. (Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-33185)
A full-color flat panel display using emission colors of red, green, and blue is increasingly required to have higher definition, higher aperture ratio, and higher reliability. Such requirements a are a major object in miniaturizing each display pixel pitch to make a light emitting device highly precise (increasing the number of pixels) and downsized. Simultaneously, increasing the productivity and lowering the cost are required.

Light emitting device, electronic device, and television device

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


An ultrasound transducer includes a substrate, an ultrasound transducer cell placed on one surface of the substrate and having a lower electrode, a first gap portion placed on the lower electrode and an upper electrode placed on the first gap portion, a first conductive layer placed on the other surface of the substrate and electrically connected to one of the lower electrode and the upper electrode, an electret film placed on the first conductive layer, an insulating layer placed on the electret film, and a second conductive layer placed on the insulating layer and electrically connected to the one of the lower electrode and the upper electrode not electrically connected to the first conductive layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a capacitive ultrasound transducer configured by having an electret and an electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Piezoelectric elements made of a ceramic piezoelectric material PZT (lead zirconate titanate) have been chiefly used as an ultrasound transducer. In recent years, a capacitive ultrasound transducer such as the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-510264 has attracted attention.
The capacitive ultrasound transducer is configured by having a pair of electrodes formed of an upper electrode and a lower electrode facing each other through a gap portion formed therebetween, and transmits or receives ultrasound through vibration of a membranous portion including the upper electrode (also referred to as "membrane" or "diaphragm").
The capacitive ultrasound transducer converts an ultrasound signal into an electrical signal on the basis of changes in electrostatic capacity between the upper and lower electrodes when receiving ultrasound and, therefore, requires application of a DC bias voltage between the upper and lower electrodes particularly at the time of reception.
From the viewpoint of reducing the power consumption and size of an ultrasound transducer, it is preferable to reduce or set to zero the voltage value of the DC bias voltage. As a technique to reduce the DC bias voltage, a technique of producing a potential difference between the upper and lower electrodes of the capacitive ultrasound transducer by providing between the upper and lower electrodes an electret film holding electric charge is known.

Ultrasound transducer and electronic device


To provide a semiconductor device with a digital-controlled DC-DC converter capable of stable feedback operation while minimizing area, the semiconductor device includes a DC-DC converter whose characteristic is determined by the control parameter, a flash memory and a processor that controls the flash memory, both of which operate at a power supply based on the output of the DC-DC converter. The control parameter is stored in the flash memory, and the control parameter is read out from the flash memory and set in the DC-DC converter by the processor while the DC-DC converter is operating.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, a system and a control method, for example, a semiconductor device with a non-volatile storage device and a DC-voltage converter (hereinafter referred to as a DC-DC converter or simply a converter), a system and a control method including the same semiconductor device.
As a DC-DC converter, there are analog control and digital control systems. A typical DC-DC converter of analog control method and of the digital control method includes configurations as shown in FIG. 11, for example. FIG. 11A shows the configuration of an analog-controlled DC-DC converter, FIG. 11B shows the configuration of a digital-controlled DC-DC converter.
In the analog-controlled DC-DC converter, the transistor MP1, MN1 are switched by a gate driver to generate an output voltage Vout by switching the current flowing through the inductor (coil) Lout and the capacitor Cout. The output voltage Vout generated is compensated, such as phase by a compensation circuit including a resistor and a capacitor, and is compared with the reference voltage by the comparator CMP1. By comparison, a difference between the output voltage Vout and the reference voltage, or an error, is provided from the comparator CMP1 to the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) generation circuit.
In the PWM generation circuit, a comparator CMP2 compares the periodic saw wave with the error, and a pulse-width PWM signal corresponding to the error is generated and supplied to the gate driver. Since the pulse width of the PWM signal varies according to the magnitude of the error, the duty that is the ratio of the high-level period (or low-level period) to one period, changes in accordance with the error. Thus, for example, a period in which the transistor MP1 is turned on, will change in accordance with the error, in the DC-DC converter, and feedback operation is performed so as to reduce the error, i.e., the output voltage Vout of the voltage value corresponding to the reference voltage is generated.
A digital-controlled DC-DC converter has a configuration in which a compensation circuit and the PWM generation circuit provided by an analog-controlled DC-DC converter are realized by a digital circuit. In FIG. 11B, the compensation circuit is configured by the Proportional-Integral-Differential (PID) control circuit, the PWM generation circuit is configured by a comparator CMP2 that compares the saw wave from the counter and the output of the PID control circuit. Because of a digital control, the output from the comparator CMP1 is converted into a digital signal by the analog and digital conversion circuit (hereinafter, referred to as the ADC circuit), and supplied to the PID control circuit. In the digital-controlled DC-DC converter shown in FIG. 11B, for example, when the power is turned on, the soft start control circuit operates, the gate driver operates on the basis of the signals from the soft start control circuit.
Techniques for the digital-controlled DC-DC converter with a PID control circuit are described, for example, in Japanese Patent No. 6,445,348 (Patent Document 1).

Semiconductor device, system, and control method


An integrated optoelectronic semiconductor component is presented, which can equally process light signals of any polarization direction. Such semiconductor components are used for digital optical telecommunications. The semiconductor component has active (A) and passive (B) waveguide sections, which comprise a number of semiconductor layers (SP) with so-called multiple quantum well structures. The semiconductor layers (SP) are deposited by a process known as selective area growth (SAG). A portion of the semiconductor layers has a lattice constant which is smaller than the lattice constant of a substrate (SUB). This creates a biaxial tensile strain in these layers. The tensile strain is optimized in the active waveguide sections (A) to attain polarization independence. Furthermore a process is described whereby such a semiconductor component can be manufactured.

A configuration of such a component is known from the published European patent application EP 616 243. It describes an optical space switch which contains optical waveguides with active, i.e. controlled light-amplifying or light-absorbing waveguide sections, and passive waveguide sections, i.e. which conduct unamplified light. The optical waveguides contain a semiconductor layer structure whose layers have a different layer thickness in the active waveguide sections than in the passive waveguide sections. A process is also indicated whereby the active and passive waveguide sections can be deposited in a single coating process. This process utilizes the fact that no semiconductor material grows on substrate areas coated with a dielectric layer, and that the growing rate between sections masked with a dielectric layer increases as a function of the size of the adjacent masked surface.
The described optical space switch however has the disadvantage that its operation is polarization-dependent, i.e. light signals of different polarization directions receive different amplification or are absorbed in the active waveguide sections.
In addition, a wavelength converter with continuous active waveguides is known from an article by M. Schilling et al: "Wavelength converter based on an integrated all-active three-port Mach-Zehnder interferometer", El. Lett. Vol. 30 No. 25, 1994. This semiconductor component is also polarization-dependent and needs an expensive control with high power consumption for the different active waveguide sections.
An article by M. Aoki et al: "New Photonic Device Integration by Selective-Area MOVPE and Its Application to Optical Modulator/Laser Integration", IEEE Microw. and Opt. Tech. Let. Vol. 7, No. 3, 1994, describes in detail the method used in patent application EP 616243, which is known under the name of Selective Area Growth (SAG), for the example of a monolithic integrated semiconductor component with a laser and a modulator. So-called multiple quantum well structures are used as semiconductor layer structures which are semiconductor layers with alternately small and wide energy gaps. Energy gap means the energy difference between the valence band and the conductivity band of the semiconductor. The article recommends the process for the monolithic integration of a line of other components, particularly for photonic integrated circuits. However, the components manufactured in accordance with this process also have the disadvantage that they are polarization-dependent.
A further article by G. Coudenys et al: "Novel Growth Techniques for the Fabrication of Photonic Integrated Circuits", Mat. Res. Symp. Proc. Vol. 240, 1992, pages 15-26 cites a disadvantage of the selective area growth method in that the composition of the material of the growing semiconductor material, and therefore its lattice constant, changes in lateral sections masked with a dielectric layer.
An article by M. Joma et al: "Polarization Insensitive Semiconductor Laser Amplifiers with Tensile Strained InGaAsP/InGaAsP Multiple Quantum Well Structure", Appl. Phys. Lett. Vol. 62(2), pages 121-122, 1993, describes an optical amplifier with active tensile-strained multiple quantum well structures which operates independently of the polarization. This component however contains no passive waveguide sections and is manufactured in accordance with a process which does not enable the integration with passive waveguide sections.

Monolithic integrated optoelectronic semiconductor component and process for manufacturing the same

Alcatel Alsthom Compagnie Generale d'Electricite


An electrical connector includes a crimpable tubular body including a receiving portion for receiving a wire conductor via an opening at a longitudinal end of the tubular body. The tubular body provides a permanent electrical connection to the wire conductor only upon at least a portion of the tubular body being crimped. The receiving portion has a tapered shape and inward projections for engaging the wire conductor to provide sufficient frictional force to resist removal of the wire conductor from the receiving portion prior to crimping, without providing a permanent electrical connection between the tubular body and the wire conductor. In one implementation, the electrical connector is a butt connector with two such receiving portions for splicing together two wires. In another implementation, the electrical connector is a ring connector that terminal on the other end with a washer-like disk that can be secured to a terminal.

In many electrical and electronic environments, it is often necessary to splice two electrical wires together. Splices may be required when one or more wires are broken and must be reconnected or when an electrical component is being replaced with a different component. For example, a butt connector is typically used in line with two wires to spice the wires together. The butt connector is configured as a substantially cylindrical tube with two ends that respectively receive the two wires to be connected. Upon crimping the butt connector, the two wires are permanently spiced together. A ring connector has a first end that is similar to one end of a butt connector, which can be permanently secured to the end of a wire via crimping. The other end of the ring connector terminates in a flat, disk-like ring that can be affixed to an electrical terminal with a threaded nut or the like. In each case, a person securing the wire(s) to the connector must simultaneously control the position of the wire ends, accurately position the wire ends within the connector, and manipulate a crimping tool around the electrical connector to complete the connection.
A number of common work site situations can further complicate such splicing operations. It can be difficult to keep wires in a desired position, and simultaneously coordinating the positions of two wires, a butt connector, and a crimping tool can be challenging, particularly in tight spaces. Furthermore, because wires are generally considered to be unsightly, they are frequently located in hard to reach locations resulting in limited access to already difficult to handle wiring. For example, motorized equipment and vehicles, such as automobiles and boats, may require splicing of wires that are situated in tight, hard-to-reach places where manipulating of wires, connectors, and tools is problematic.
There is therefore a long felt need for an electrical connector that includes features which enable a splice or connection to be more easily performed even in the above-mentioned adverse situations. More specifically, an electrical connector is needed that allows wires to be more easily positioned in the connector even when the wires are unwieldy and even when the splicing must be performed in a limited access situation.

Electrical wire connector with temporary grip


A graphite material device (1), wherein the graphite material device is provided, internally and/or externally, with at least one conductive pattern (2) and/or at least one sensor (2) and wherein the graphite material device is used as any one of a carbon brush, a brake disc, a bushing and a bearing.

Devices comprising graphite are used in many different technologies. Usually these devices are used as consumption or wearing parts, such as for instance carbon brushes in electrical applications, brake disks in vehicles and as bushings and bearings.
In some applications there is a need to be able to monitor, e.g. the wear of the graphite devices and other parameters that affect the quality and utilization ratio of these devices.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,877,216B2 a brake system, such as brake disk is described having a sensor-wear material embedded within the friction material of the brake.
There is a need to be able to provide devices such as brake discs, but also other consumption and wearing parts, with monitoring possibilities to improve and monitor the security, duration and life length of these devices.


A process for the integration of a cryogenic air separation plant and an oxy-combustion power plant is presented. This process includes producing a pressurized nitrogen stream and a pressurized oxygen stream, burning a fuel stream thereby generating a steam stream from a boiler feed water stream, wherein the stream is used for work expansion within the oxy-combustion power plant. This process also includes heating the pressurized nitrogen stream and the pressurized oxygen stream with a compressed air stream, thereby forming a heated pressurized nitrogen stream and a heated pressurized oxygen stream. This process also includes heating the heated pressurized nitrogen stream to form a hot pressurized nitrogen stream, work expanding the hot pressurized nitrogen stream to a lower pressure thereby forming a hot exhaust nitrogen stream and recovering energy, and heating the boiler feed water stream by indirect heat exchange with the hot exhaust nitrogen stream.

It is believed that there are global warming effects that are being caused by the introduction of increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One major source of carbon dioxide emission is the flue gas that is exhausted as a result of a power generation plant's combustion process. Therefore, there have been several efforts by governments and utility companies worldwide, to reduce these emissions.
There are two principal types of power plants that are based on combustion processes: coal combustion and natural gas combustion. Both of these processes produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct when generating power. Efforts have been made to increase the efficiency of the burner, and therefore the basic combustion process itself. The intent of these efforts has been to reduce carbon monoxide (the result of imperfect combustion), oxides of nitrogen, and other pollutants. However, since the production of carbon dioxide and water are the basic products of the chemical reaction of combustion, the most efficient technique to minimize the carbon dioxide emission is to capture as much of the carbon dioxide as possible as it is being created by the power plants. In order to truly maximize the efficiency of this technique, existing coal combustion plants, which represent a large portion of the power generation plants worldwide, must also be targeted. The oxy-combustion technique is very interesting, and has significant advantages, since it can be adapted to existing facilities.
Traditional power plants use air as the source of oxidant to combust the fuel (typically coal). Steam is generated by indirect heat exchange with the hot combustion products. The steam is then expanded in turbines to remove useful energy and thereby produce power. The combustion process produces carbon dioxide as a by-product, which is mixed with the residual nitrogen of the combustion air. Due to the high content of nitrogen in the inlet air (78 mol %), the carbon dioxide is diluted in the flue gas. To insure full combustion, the power plants must also run with an excess air ratio that further dilutes the carbon dioxide in the flue gas. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the flue gas of an air combustion plant is typically about 20 mol %.
This dilution of the carbon dioxide increases the size and the power consumption of any carbon dioxide recovery unit. Because of this dilution, it becomes very costly and difficult to recover the carbon dioxide. Therefore, it is desirable to produce flue gas with at least about 90% to 95 mol % carbon dioxide, in order to minimize the abatement cost. The current technology for carbon dioxide recovery from flue gas utilizes amine contact tower to scrub out the carbon dioxide. However, the high amount of heat that is needed to regenerate the amine and extract the carbon dioxide reduces the amine processes cost effectiveness.
In order to avoid the dilution of carbon dioxide in the nitrogen, the power generation industry is switching to an oxy-combustion process. Instead of utilizing air as an oxidant, high purity oxygen (typically about 95% purity or better) is used in the combustion process. The combustion heat is dissipated in the recycled flue gas concentrated in the carbon dioxide. This technique makes it possible to achieve a flue gas containing between about 75 mol % and 95 mol % carbon dioxide. This is a significant improvement over the previous concentration of about 20 mol %, which is obtained with air combustion. The purity of carbon dioxide in oxy-combustion's flue gas ultimately depends on the amount of air leakage into the system and the purity of oxygen being utilized. The necessary high purity oxygen is supplied by an air separation unit.
Since pure oxygen, hence power input and capital cost, is required in the oxy-combustion process to facilitate the capture of carbon dioxide, the whole process, including the oxygen plant, the power plant itself, and related integrated concept must be very efficient to minimize the power consumption. Otherwise, the economics of the carbon dioxide recovery will become unattractive to the operator of the power generation plant. In summary, the carbon dioxide capture with oxy-combustion is appealing in terms of pollution abatement, however in order to achieve it, the capital expenditure and the power input must be minimized to avoid a prohibitive increase in power cost.
Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to reduce the cost of the air separation plant and in particular the production of oxygen. Since free atmospheric air is used as feed for the plant, the cost of oxygen is directly related to the power consumption and equipment cost of compressors, cold box, distillation, purification. With large quantities of oxygen being used for power generation (oxy-combustion and IGCC) oxygen plant size is increasing rapidly to 7-10 thousand tonnes per day requiring multiple trains of oxygen. In petrochemical applications (partial oxidation, Gas-to-Liquid, Coal-to-Liquid etc.), the need for oxygen is very large and reaching 20-30 thousand tonnes per day.
It is typical for oxygen plant used in oxy-combustion for pulverized coal power plant that low purity oxygen at about 95 mol % is the main product and there is no need for nitrogen gas. Without nitrogen production, it is not possible with traditional technique to co-produce pressurized nitrogen to improve the efficiency of the system. The power consumption of such oxygen plant is directly related to the air pressure feeding the cryogenic distillation column system. The lower the pressure, the more efficient the air separation plant. For this type of application, the air pressure is usually about 3-4 bar abs.
Waste nitrogen from such oxygen plant must be generated at low pressure for atmospheric venting in order not to waste pressure energy. The piping and exchangers of waste nitrogen circuit must therefore be oversized to have low pressure drop otherwise the air pressure must be raised, hence resulting in higher power consumption.
By operating the air separation process at low feed air pressure at about 3-4 bar abs., the power consumption can be minimized when compared with traditional oxygen plants operated at 5-6 bar abs. However, at low feed air pressure, the front end adsorption equipment for moisture and carbon dioxide removal becomes problematic since the lower the pressure, the more moisture is carried in the feed air. Adsorption is exothermic and with more moisture being adsorbed, higher temperature rise in adsorbent bed cannot be avoided, which is not favorable for adsorption. Adsorption capacity is also further reduced at low pressure due to low partial pressure of CO2, requiring lower temperature air cooling equipment to minimize the adsorbent quantity.
It can be seen from the above description that the air separation equipment cost increases rapidly when the air pressure is lowered to reduce power consumption. Low pressure drop results in expensive voluminous piping, exchanger, and distillation columns. Adsorption equipment becomes very large and very costly.
As mentioned above, the plant size requirement is also increasing and the larger equipment, in particular the distillation columns and adsorption bottles, exceeds the limit of transportability. Cryogenic equipment capacity must be reduced to cope with maximum transportable equipment size such that higher number of trains is needed. It is obvious higher equipment and installation costs will occur.
If the nitrogen product of the low pressure column can be utilized at elevated pressure (for example as in the case of integrated oxygen plant for Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) application) then an alternative solution would be the elevated pressure process. In this process, the low pressure column's pressure is raised to 3-6 bar abs instead of 1.3-1.6 bar of the low pressure plant. Due to the elevated pressure of the low pressure column, the feed air pressure becomes much higher at about 10-16 bar abs. When compared with the low pressure solution, the elevated pressure air separation process offers several advantages:                more compact front end purification unit due to higher feed air pressure        smaller distillation columns, especially the low pressure column, due to higher operating pressure        smaller heat exchangers and piping due to higher operating pressure        more compact equipment means more capacity per shippable train
The main penalty of the elevated pressure process is the much higher power consumption due to higher air pressure. If the pressure of nitrogen product from the plant can not be valorized, or if there is no need for pressurized nitrogen, then this approach cannot be justified economically under most circumstances due to the expense of the additional power consumption.
It is useful to note that the separation energy of oxygen for elevated pressure process is about 0.2-0.24 kWh/Nm3 or 20-30% better than the separation energy of low pressure plant (about 0.26-0.30 kWh/Nm3), taken into account the energy credit of nitrogen product. This type of elevated pressure air separation process is described in many publications and patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,224,045, 5,081,845, 5,421,166, 5,231,837, 6,116,052 etc.
Because of the advantages of elevated pressure cycle, there exist many techniques developed to efficiently recover the energy of pressurized nitrogen in order to utilize this cycle when pressurized nitrogen is not required.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,950,957 describes a process wherein the nitrogen from the elevated pressure oxygen plant is heated by recovering heat from the air compressor outlet. The nitrogen is further heated by the flue gas of an air and fuel combustion of a steam generator; it is then expanded in a turbine for power recovery. The exhaust of the turbine is sent back to the steam generator for further heat recovery. By exchanging low level heat at the outlet of the turbine with high level heat supplied to heat the nitrogen prior to expansion, thermal efficiency of the boiler can be preserved and additional power can be recovered from the turbine to drive the air compressor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,045 describes the injection of the nitrogen into the gas turbine to recover its pressure energy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,370 describes an arrangement wherein the oxygen of an air separation plant is used in an external process to produce a hot stream of fluid of temperature less than 600° C., which is used to heat nitrogen prior to expansion for power recovery.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,076,837 describes a similar approach as U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,370 for application with a chemical process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,862 proposes moisturizing and heating nitrogen then expanding it to recover power for blast furnace application. Almost all of the techniques were developed using integration with a gas turbine to recover the pressure energy of the nitrogen produced by the elevated pressure process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,395 proposes to expand nitrogen for power recovery. Power savings is further achieved by mixing the chilled nitrogen of the turbine exhaust with gas turbine's air inlet to lower the inlet temperature.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,541 proposes to use the elevated pressure plant for remote gas process such as Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) to minimize equipment cost, the nitrogen is simply expanded for power recovery.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,723 suggests expanding the heated nitrogen to drive some ASU's compressor.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,659B1 suggests heating nitrogen by heat exchange with the gas turbine exhaust then expanding in case there is no combined steam cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,901 describes a process that introduces pressurized oxygen and fuel on the shell side of the heat recovery boiler, then work expand the resulting flue gas recover energy.
In coal combustion boiler the hot flue gas at about 2000° C. generated from the combustion of coal with oxygen is used to vaporize boiler feed water at high pressure to produce steam. Steam is then expanded to low pressure (vacuum) in multiple steam turbines to produce electricity. The boiler utilizes very hot flue gas to generate superheated steam as high as 570° C. Because of the large temperature difference, the ratio of flue gas flow to the steam flow is quite small. By vaporizing steam at multiple pressures, the low flow ratio of flue gas can be optimized for high temperature water vaporization. However, at the low temperature range, the low flow ratio of flue gas is not sufficient to preheating the boiler feed water and providing heat for de-aeration. In fact, in case of supercritical steam cycles, almost 70% of the total heat duty is provided for this medium and low grade heat up to the critical temperature of water at about 340° C. To complement for this shortage, steam extraction at various interstage levels are required. This steam extraction, even at low pressure, deprives the turbines of the expanding steam, hence reducing the power output of the power plant and its thermal efficiency. A typical arrangement for steam extraction and heating of boiler feed water is illustrated in FIG. 1.
Based on the above there is a need to provide an integration process between the oxygen plant and the oxy-combustion coal power plant such that an elevated pressure oxygen process can be used to reduce the capital cost of the oxygen plant. The thermal integration must also provide efficient power recovery of the pressurized nitrogen and improving the performance of the boiler.

L'Air Liquide Societe Anonyme pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude


The color measurement device and an image forming apparatus using the same includes a light source for irradiating a color measurement object with white light; a diffraction grating for dispersing the light reflected from the color measurement object; and a line sensor formed of multiple pixels that generate an electric signal corresponding to the intensity of the light dispersed by the diffraction grating, wherein the light source includes a light-emitting diode having a peak value of emission intensity in a wavelength zone of 380 nm to 420 nm, and a plural types of fluorescent members each having a peak value of fluorescence intensity in a wavelength zone of 420 nm to 730 nm.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color measurement device which measures the color of a patch for color measurement formed on a color measurement object, and an image forming apparatus, such as copying machines and printers of an ink-jet type and an electrophotographic type, provided with the color measurement device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, color image forming apparatuses such as a color printer and a color copying machine are required to enhance an image quality of an output image. Particularly, the stability of an image gradation or an image color gives large influence on a quality of an image. However, in the color printer, a color tone of an obtained image results in changing the color tone due to a change of an environment such as temperature and humidity and service in a long period. Accordingly, in order to realize a stable color tone, it is necessary to detect the color tone of the image by using a color measurement device, and to feed back the color measurement result to an image formation condition of the image forming apparatus.
Conventionally, the following types of color measurement devices are known as the color measurement device which measures the color tone of a color measurement object such as printed matter. First, a filter type (tristimulus-value direct-reading type) color measurement device is known which irradiates the color measurement object with white light, receives the reflected light with a photo-sensor through color filters of RGB, and thereby measures the intensity of every color component. In addition, a spectroscopic color measurement device is known which disperses the wavelength of the reflected light by using a diffraction grating, a prism or the like, then detects the intensity of every wavelength with a line sensor, and determines the spectral reflectivity of the color measurement object by performing a calculation in consideration of the wavelength distribution of the detected dispersed light, the wavelength distribution of light of a light source, a spectral sensitivity of a sensor and the like.
FIG. 16 illustrates a structure of a spectral color measurement device.
A spectral color measurement device 100 has a line sensor 101 which detects the dispersed light which has been dispersed. A light source 102 is formed of a white LED, a halogen lamp, an LED of three colors of RGB or the like. The light source 102 has the luminescence wavelength distribution which covers the whole visible light.
White light 105 which has been emitted from the light source 102 is incident on a color measurement object 104 at an illuminating angle of approximately 45 degrees, and turns into scattered light according to optical absorption properties of the color measurement object. A part of scattered light 106 is taken in a lens 107 to turn into parallel light, and then is incident on a diffraction grating 108 at an incidence angle of 0 degree, thereby being dispersed. The dispersed light which has been dispersed is incident on the line sensor 101.
Lights having different wavelength ranges are incident on pixels of the line sensor 101, respectively, and the intensity of every wavelength of a dispersed light which has been reflected by the color measurement object 104 is obtained from an output obtained from each pixel.
In such a spectral color measurement device, a tungsten lamp or the like which has an output in a wide wavelength zone has conventionally been used as a light source. However, a fine distortion of an optical system, which is produced by heat emanated from a light source, results in lowering the color measurement precision, and there are requirements for the color measurement device to be miniaturized and the like. Then, in recent years, a white LED which is small, can provide high luminance and generates a small amount of heat has been desired to be used as a light source. A conventionally well-known white LED includes a blue light-emitting chip, for instance, formed of an InGaN system, and a yellow fluorescent member, and emits light having a luminescence spectrum as is illustrated in FIG. 9. Light to be emitted from the blue light-emitting chip to be used here has a central wavelength of generally approximately 450 nm, and fluorescent light to be emitted from the yellow fluorescent member used here has a central wavelength of approximately 570 nm.
However, on the other hand, when measuring the color of the color measurement object such as printed matter with these color measurement devices, it is desired to measure the intensity in a wavelength zone that is equal to or more than 380 nm, or equal to or less than 780 nm in strict color measurement or in a wavelength zone of 400 nm to 700 nm even in the case of simple color measurement, as is described in JIS 28722, for instance. When the general white LED described previously is used as a light source, such a problem occurs that S/N properties are lowered and exact color measurement cannot be performed, because outputs in the vicinity of 400 nm and in the vicinity of 700 nm, and an output in a region (portion A in FIG. 9) between a luminescence center and a fluorescence center are low.
With addressing problems, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-093273, a precision for a signal in the wavelength region in which the output is low is compensated by using a calculation technique such as interpolation and extrapolation based on reflection characteristics which have been determined separately. In addition, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-014545 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-298579, an output from the above-described wavelength zone is obtained by using a plurality of LED packages.
However, the calculation technique which calculates reflection characteristics and is proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-093273 is different from a method of calculating original signal components, and still has a difficulty in a viewpoint of the accuracy of color measurement. In addition, even though the color tone of the image is detected in such a state that a color measurement precision thus cannot be secured, and the color tone is fed back to a process condition of the image forming apparatus, the stability of the color tone cannot be expected.
On the other hand, the method proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-014545, or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-298579 results in causing such a problem again that the color measurement precision results in being lowered due to the increase of calorific value or the size of the color measurement device becomes large, because a plurality of LEDs is used.

Color measurement device and image forming apparatus


A memory is provided with at least one temporary store and write abort circuitry having a control signal store and gating circuitry responsive to an output from the control signal store. Write circuitry loads data and an associated address in the temporary store during one write cycle and transfer circuitry transfers the data to the associated address during a subsequent write cycle when the write operation is not to be aborted. Read circuitry includes a comparator for comparing a read address with an address in the temporary store and transfer circuitry includes selection circuitry to select an output of data either from the temporary store or the memory dependent on the output of the comparator circuitry, an output from the temporary store being prevented if the control signal store indicates that the write operation is to be aborted.

Memory systems of the type referred to above input data during a write cycle and usually memory cell contents are updated as soon as possible after data is input during a write cycle. In some cases it is desirable to abort the write operation before the data stored in the memory is changed but the time during which a write cycle can be safely aborted is usually very short.
The present invention provides an improved memory design and memory operation in which write cycles may be safely aborted. In a preferred embodiment a write abort signal may be provided at any time up to the start of a next memory read or write cycle.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a improved memory design which operates with conventional read and write cycle timing but includes additional circuitry to allow write abort operations.
The invention is particularly applicable to memory designs as described in our copending U.K. Patent Application No. 9116480.6. The disclosure in that copending application is incorporated herein by cross reference.


The present invention relates to processes for the facile synthesis of diaryl amines and analogues thereof. The processes of the present invention produce diaryl amines in high yield and purity. The present invention also relates to intermediates useful in the process of the present invention.

Protein kinases are involved in various cellular responses to extracellular signals. Recently, a family of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) has been discovered. Members of this family are Ser/Thr kinases that activate their substrates by phosphorylation [B. Stein et al., Ann. Rep. Med. Chem., 31, pp. 289–98 (1996)]. MAPKs are themselves activated by a variety of signals including growth factors, cytokines, UV radiation, and stress-inducing agents.
One particularly interesting MAPK is p38. p38, also known as cytokine suppressive anti-inflammatory drug binding protein (CSBP) and RK, was isolated from murine pre-B cells that were transfected with the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) receptor, CD14, and induced with LPS. p38 has since been isolated and sequenced, as has the cDNA encoding it in humans and mice. Activation of p38 has been observed in cells stimulated by stress, such as treatment of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), UV, anisomycin, or osmotic shock, and by cytokines, such as IL-1 and TNF.
Inhibition of p38 kinase leads to a blockade on the production of both IL-1 and TNF. IL-1 and TNF stimulate the production of other proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 and IL-8 and have been implicated in acute and chronic inflammatory diseases and in post-menopausal osteoporosis [R. B. Kimble et al., Endocrinol., 136, pp. 3054–61 (1995)].
Based upon this finding, it is believed that p38, along with other MAPKs, have a role in mediating cellular response to inflammatory stimuli, such as leukocyte accumulation, macrophage/monocyte activation, tissue resorption, fever, acute phase responses and neutrophilia. In addition, MAPKs, such as p38, have been implicated in cancer, thrombin-induced platelet aggregation, immunodeficiency disorders, autoimmune disease, cell death, allergies, osteoporosis and neurodegenerative diseases. Inhibitors of p38 have also been implicated in the area of pain management through inhibition of prostaglandin endoperoxide synthase-2 induction. Other disease associated with IL-1, IL-6, IL-8 or TNF overproduction are set forth in WO 96/21654.
Many molecules possessing medicinally important properties against various targets, including MAPKs, comprise diaryl amines. One example of this is a class of molecules identified as potent p38 MAP kinase inhibitors (see, e.g., WO 99/58502 and WO 00/17175). However, although they are effective as drugs, there are few ways to make aryl amine-containing molecules without a significant amount of by-product. Palladium-catalyzed couplings of an aryl amine and aryl halide have been the traditional strategy to produce a molecule comprising a diaryl amine. However, problems with over-addition of the aryl halide partner to the amine have traditionally resulted in low yields and purities when a primary aryl amine is employed. For this reason, primary amines are not commonly employed substrates for this transformation, which has limited the scope of the palladium-catalyzed coupling reaction.
Accordingly, the need exists for a process for the facile synthesis of diaryl amines and analogues thereof that avoids the problem of over-arylation, to obtain diaryl amines in high yield and purity. There also exists a need for intermediates produced by such a process.

Processes for the facile synthesis of diaryl amines and analogues thereof


An electrical splice connector includes a housing, a conductive member retained within the housing and defining a longitudinal axis, and at least two biasing members circumferentially disposed about the longitudinal axis of the conductive member and biased toward the conductive member. Each of the biasing members is configured to urge conductors inserted into the housing into electrical contact with the conductive member.

Electric cables are broadly employed in a variety of industries and applications, including applications in communications, telecommunications, automotive, and/or appliances. Some electrical cables distribute power across vast power grids or networks, moving electricity from power generation plants to the consumers of electrical power, and moving electricity from one power grid to another power grid. Other electrical cables are employed in wiring homes and/or businesses.
Electrical cables generally include a conductive core (typically copper or aluminum) and may include one or more layers of surrounding insulating material. Some power cables include multiple twisted conductive wires. Electrical cables are constructed to carry high voltages (greater than about 50,000 volts), medium voltages (between about 1,000 volts and about 50,000 volts), or low voltages (less than about a 1,000 volts).
It is sometimes desirable to periodically form a splice or a junction in the cable, for example to electrically connect two electrical devices or to distribute electricity to additional branches of a power grid. Such branches may be further distributed until the grid reaches individual homes, businesses, offices. As one example, a single power cable supplying electrical power to a group of several buildings is commonly branched to each of the buildings. As used in this specification, the terms "splice" and "junction" are used interchangeably, and in each case refer to the portion of an electrical system where an incoming cable is connected to at least one outgoing cable.
Connecting incoming cables with one or more outgoing cables can potentially result in heating the cables at the junction, or heating the electrical connector employed to form the junction. It is desirable to quickly and conveniently form the splice in a manner that is configured to minimize electrical heating of the cables.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.


The Roof-Rain Gutter Cleaning Tools which are comprised of two parts such as the rain gutter cleaning devices to clean fallen leaves and twigs from the rain gutter and the plate rake consisting of telescopic fiberglass rod for cleaning roof surfaces which also function jet water flashing by manipulating faucet provided at the rear end of the fiberglass rod that is connected with the water hose; As such that, the roof surfaces and rain gutter cleaning operation is performed with use of ladder the top step of which is safely tightened with rope to a gutter hanger strap whereby the cleaning person climb up to nearby the rain gutter wherein the hanger panel of the debris dispensing inlet unit is set up on the outer wall of the rain gutter while linking the inlet unit with the debris-leaves transmission tube the lower end of which fixed with plastic bucket.

This invention is very much concerned about the practical possibility wherein the rain gutter cleaning job should be done along with the cleaning of debris, twigs and leaves scattered over the roof surfaces and valleys, and at the same time it can be done in washing down the surfaces of the roof, valleys and rain gutters of the house. In order to achieve complete cleaning job of the roof and rain gutter, the instant invention is designed to utilize the debris-leaves disposal system in combination with the raking device which is also possible washing down roof and rain gutter by means of connecting water hose to the rear end of the hollow fiberglass rod which is devised with a faucet and female threaded therein to connect with the water hose for the final cleaning operation of the roof and rain gutter.
In addition, this invention is regarded that all individual elements for the said cleaning devices could be easily assembled and activated, while assuring that the cleaning job could be performed in keeping the ground surface underneath the rain gutters around the house from scattering unwanted debris, twigs and leaves, while prospecting inexpensive supply to the consumers.
Udelle, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,590, describes that Rain gutter leaf guard and cleaning device is comprised with typical rain gutter, leaf guard assembly, angled top long pole and female threaded means to connect with garden hose on the end wall of the leaf guard assembly with meshed cover hinged on top of outer wall of the rain gutter, and the device is manipulated with the long pole to open or close the leaf guard assembly. Maraschielio, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,402, describes the rain gutter cleaning tool, wherein the gutter cleaning tool is devised with operating gripper jaw mechanism at the forward end of a long pole with a fixed handle at the rear end having means manipulating the gripper jaw grappling debris and leaves on the rain gutter which is activated on the ground level.
McDermott, U.S. Pat. No. 5,853,209, which describes angle adjustable rain gutter cleaning apparatus to be operated from the ground level wherein the debris gripper jaw is activated to pick up debris and leaves from the rain gutter selectively by means of cable control. Morrow, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,863, wherein the rain gutter cleaner is operated by attaching it to the existing rain gutter and then connecting it to the water hose. U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,397 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,866 are described wherein they are operated by means of electricity or motor power for rain gutter cleaning.
Also referenced with are:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,590
U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,706
U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,585
U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,239
U.S. Pat. No. 5,916,092
This invention is centered to make perfect cleaning job of roof and rain gutters of a house such that it is necessary appropriately install ladder with the topmost step tightened to a rain gutter hanger strap with rope, and then the debris dispensing inlet is set up at the outer wall of the rain gutter by clinging therein with the folding panel. The debris dispensing inlet is then connected with the debris transmission tube by hooking up by means of the hooking devices provided respectively on outside walls of the rectangular lower portion of the debris dispensing inlet and the rectangular connector at the top of the transmission tube.
Similarly installed is the bucket which is hooked up at the lower end of the transmission tube. To begin with the cleaning job, the debris, twigs and leaves on the roof and valley must be raked down to the rain gutter with use of the right-angled rake which is fixedly installed at the forward end of the telescopic hollow fiberglass rod that is extendible to a point near the rooftop from the upper step of the ladder.
The rain gutter cleaning is usually carried out manually with use of flower-scoop that moves the debris and leaves gathered therein into the debris dispensing inlet thus to flow into the bucket through the transmission tube thereon. When the debris and leaves in the gutter nearby are cleared, the debris and leaves beyond the cleared points can be gathered with use of the rake by adjusting the length of the fiberglass rod, and when the gutter hanger strap hinders raking, it needs just press the plate rake forward by pushing the rod thereto, thus the spring biased plate rake flattened to allow it pass underneath the hanger strap, and then it is possible to gather the debris and leaves behind the hanger strap. In this way, the roof surface and rain gutters are cleared with the debris, twigs and leaves, the roof surfaces and rain gutters are flushed with water by connecting the female threaded rear end of the fiberglass rod with the water hose by means of manipulating faucet that is located by the rear end portion of the fiberglass rod.
The flushing water is properly controlled for jetting forward or backward, such that when the spring forced plate rake pressed forward and flattened in parallel with the underneath surface, the spouting water running forward, and the plate rake is vertically returned by the biased spring force, the rushing water from the nozzle of the rod is running reverse direction in hitting against the interior wall surface of the plate 5rake.