An inline measuring device comprises a vibratory-type transducer and a measuring device electronics electrically coupled with the vibratory-type transducer. The vibratory-type transducer includes at least one measuring tube being inserted into the course of a pipeline and serving for conducting a mixture to be measured. An exciter arrangement acting on the measuring tube for causing the at least one measuring tube to vibrate and a sensor arrangement sensing vibrations of the at least one measuring tube and delivering at least one oscillation measurement signal representing oscillations of the measuring tube. The measuring device electronics delivers an excitation current driving the exciter arrangement. Further, the inline measuring device electronics is adapted to produce a measured value representing the physical, measured quantity of the mixture to be measured. Therefor, the measuring device electronics estimates from the excitation current and from said at least one oscillation measurement signal a Coriolis coupling coefficient. This Coriolis coupling coefficient corresponds with an instantaneous coupling between a first natural eigenmode of the measuring tube currently driven by the exciter arrangement and a second natural eigenmode of said measurement tube. In this second eigenmode the measurement tube has an eigenform corresponding with a mode of vibration caused by Coriolis forces induced in the flowing mixture. Due to a variation of a concentration of at least one of a component of the mixture the Coriolis coupling coefficient varies in time.

In the technology of process measurements and automation, the measurement of physical parameters of a medium flowing in a pipeline, parameters such as e.g. the mass flow rate, density and/or viscosity, such inline measuring devices, especially Coriolis mass flow measuring devices, are used, which bring about reaction forces in the medium, such as e.g. Coriolis forces corresponding to the mass flow rate, inertial forces corresponding to the density, or frictional forces corresponding to the viscosity, etc., by means of a transducer of the vibratory-type—hereinafter vibratory transducer—inserted into the course of the pipeline carrying the medium and traversed during operation by the medium, and by means of a measurement and operating circuit connected therewith. Derived from these reaction forces, the measuring devices then produce a measurement signal representing the particular mass flow rate, the particular viscosity and/or the particular density of the medium. Inline measuring devices of this type, utilizing a vibratory transducer, as well as their manner of operation, are known per se to those skilled in the art and are described in detail in for e.g. WO-A 03/095950, WO-A 03/095949, WO-A 03/076880, WO-A 02/37063, WO-A 01/33174, WO-A 00/57141, WO-A 99/39164, WO-A 98/07009, WO-A 95/16897, WO-A 88/03261, US 2003/0208325, U.S. Pat. No. 6,745,135, U.S. Pat. No. 6,691,583, U.S. Pat. No. 6,651,513, U.S. Pat. No. 6,636,815, U.S. Pat. No. 6,513,393, U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,519, U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,136, U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,609, U.S. Pat. No. 5,869,770, U.S. Pat. No. 5,796,011, U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,868, U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,346, U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,345, U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,126, U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,557, U.S. Pat. No. 5,253,533, U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,873, U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,074, U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,898, U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,569, U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,421, U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,610, U.S. Pat. No. 4,491,025, U.S. Pat. No. 4,187,721, EP-A 1 291 639, EP-A 1 281 938, EP-A 1 001 254 or EP-A 553 939.
For guiding the medium, the vibratory transducers include at least one measuring tube with a straight tube segment held in a, for example, tubular or box-shaped, support frame. For producing the above-mentioned reaction forces during operation, the tube segment is caused to vibrate, driven by an electromechanical exciter arrangement. For registering vibrations of the tube segment, particularly at its inlet and outlet ends, the vibratory transducers additionally include an electrophysical sensor arrangement reacting to movements of the tube segment.
In the case of Coriolis mass flow measuring devices, the measurement of the mass flow rate of a medium flowing in a pipeline rests, for example, on having the medium flow through the measuring tube inserted into the pipeline and oscillating during operation laterally to a measuring tube axis, whereby Coriolis forces are induced in the medium. These, in turn, effect that the inlet and outlet end regions of the measuring tube oscillate shifted in phase relative to one another. The magnitude of this phase shift serves as a measure of the mass flow rate. The oscillations of the measuring tube are, to this end, registered by means of two oscillation sensors of the above-mentioned sensor arrangement separated from one another along the length of the measuring tube and are transformed into oscillation measurement signals, from whose phase shift relative to one another the mass flow rate is derived.
The above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,187,721 mentions, further, that the instantaneous density of the flowing medium can also be measured by means of such inline measuring devices, and, indeed, on the basis of a frequency of at least one of the oscillation measurement signals delivered from the sensor arrangement. Moreover, usually also a temperature of the medium is directly measured in suitable manner, for example by means of a temperature sensor arranged on the measuring tube. Additionally, straight measuring tubes can, as is known, upon being excited to torsional oscillations about a torsional oscillation axis extending essentially parallel to, or coinciding with, the longitudinal axis of the measuring tube, effect that radial shearing forces are produced in the medium as it flows through the tube, whereby significant oscillation energy is withdrawn from the torsional oscillations and dissipated in the medium. As a result of this, a considerable damping of the torsional oscillations of the oscillating measuring tube occurs, so that, additionally, electrical exciting power must be added, in order to maintain the torsional oscillations. On the basis of the electrical exciting power required to maintain the torsional oscillations of the measuring tube, the vibratory transducer can also be used to determine, at least approximately, a viscosity of the medium; compare, in this connection also U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,610, U.S. Pat. No. 5,253,533, U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,609 or U.S. Pat. No. 6,651,513. It can, consequently, assumed, without more in the following, that, even when not expressly stated, modern inline measuring devices using a vibratory transducer, especially Coriolis mass flow measuring devices, have the ability to measure, in any case, also density, viscosity and/or temperature of the medium, especially since these are always needed anyway in the measurement of mass flow rate for the compensation of measurement errors arising from fluctuating density and/or viscosity of the medium; compare, in this connection, especially the already mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,513,393, U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,609, U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,346, WO-A 02/37063, WO-A 99/39164 or also WO-A 00/36379. Due to their high accuracy and their high flexibility, inline measuring devices with a vibratory transducer, especially Coriolis flowmeters, are widely used in industry for mass flow and density measurement of single-phase liquids or gases of such devices.
Nevertheless it is also known that the accuracy of such devices may decrease significantly, if a second phase is mixed with the processed liquid. In the application of inline measuring devices using a vibratory measurement-pickup, it has, however, become evident, as also discussed, for example, in JP-A 10-281846, WO-A 03/076880, EP-A 1 291 639, U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,519 or
U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,610, that, in the case of such inhomogeneous media, especially two, or more, phase media, the oscillation measurement signals derived from the oscillations of the measuring tube, especially also the mentioned phase shift, can be subject to fluctuations to a considerable degree and, thus, in some cases, can be completely unusable for the measurement of the desired physical parameters, without the use of auxiliary measures, this in spite of keeping the viscosity and density in the individual phases of the medium, as well as also the mass flow rate, practically constant and/or appropriately taking them into consideration. Such inhomogeneous media can, for example, be liquids, into which, as is e.g. practically unavoidable in dosing or bottling processes, a gas, especially air, present in the pipeline is entrained or out of which a dissolved medium, e.g. carbon dioxide, outgasses and leads to foam formation. As other examples of such inhomogeneous media, emulsions and wet, or saturated, steam can be named. As causes for the fluctuations arising in the measurement of inhomogeneous media by means of vibratory transducers, the following can be noted by way of example: the unilateral clinging or deposit of gas bubbles or solid particles, entrained in liquids, internally on the measuring tube wall, and the so-called "bubble-effect", where gas bubbles entrained in the liquid act as flow bodies for liquid volumes accelerated transversely to the longitudinal axis of the measuring tube.
In particular, such gas bubbles can cause significant errors. To explain this phenomenon of the bubble effect, the "bubble theory" was proposed by Grumski et al. [Grumski, J. T., and R. A. Bajura, Performance of a Coriolis-Type Mass Flowmeter in the Measurement of Two-phase (air-liquid) Mixtures, Mass Flow Measurements ASME Winter Annual Meeting, New Orleans, La. (1984)] and Hemp et al. [Hemp, J. and Sultan, G., On the Theory and Performance of Coriolis Mass Flowmeter, Proceedings of the International Conference on Mass Flow Measurement, IBC technical Services, London, 1989]. This theory is based on the main idea that, on the one hand, a density error, which in operation could be detected between a given true density and a measured apparent density, is proportional to the individual concentrations of the phases, and that the respective mass flow error may be strictly proportional to this density error, on the other hand. In other words, according to this theory, density and mass flow errors may be directly coupled.
While, for decreasing the measurement errors associated with two, or more, phase media, a flow, respectively medium, conditioning preceding the actual flow rate measurement is proposed in WO-A 03/076880, both JP-A 10-281846, U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,136 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,519, for example, describe a correction of the flow rate measurement, especially the mass flow rate measurement, based on the oscillation measurement signals, which correction rests especially on the evaluation of deficits between a highly accurately measured, actual medium density and an apparent medium density determined by means of Coriolis mass flow measuring devices during operation. Especially in U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,519 or U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,136 there are also describe a correction method for mass flow errors. This does also base on said bubble theory essentially, and, thus, uses density errors, detected between a reference and an apparent density, to compensate mass flow errors caused by two-phase or multi-phase mixture.
In particular, pre-trained, in some cases even adaptive, classifiers of the oscillation measurement signals are proposed for this. The classifiers can, for example, be designed as a Kohonen map or neural network, and the correction is made either on the basis of some few parameters, especially the mass flow rate and the density measured during operation, as well as other features derived therefrom, or also using an interval of the oscillation measurement signals encompassing one or more oscillation periods. The use of such a classifier brings, for example, the advantage that, in comparison to conventional Coriolis mass flow/density meters, no, or only very slight, changes have to be made at the vibratory transducer, in terms of mechanical construction, the exciter arrangement or the operating circuit driving such, which are specially adapted for the particular application. However, a considerable disadvantage of such classifiers includes, among others, that, in comparison to conventional Coriolis mass flow measuring devices, considerable changes are required in the area of the measured value production, above all with regards to the analog-to-digital transducer being used and the microprocessors. As, namely, also described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,519, required for such a signal evaluation, for example, in the digitizing of the oscillation measurement signals, which can exhibit an oscillation frequency of about 80 Hz, is a sampling rate of about 55 kHz or more, in order to obtain a sufficient accuracy. Stated differently, the oscillation measurement signals have to be samples with a sampling ratio of far above 600:1. Beyond this, also the firmware stored and executed in the digital measurement circuit is correspondingly complex. A further disadvantage of such classifiers is that they must be trained and correspondingly validated for the conditions of measurement actually existing during operation of the vibratory transducer, be it regarding the particulars of the installation, the medium to be measured and its usually variable properties, or other factors influencing the accuracy of measurement. Because of the high complexity of the interplay of all these factors, the training and its validation can occur ultimately only on site and individually for each vibratory transducer, this in turn meaning a considerable effort for the startup of the vibratory transducer. Finally, it has been found, that such classifier algorithms, on the one hand because of the high complexity, on the other because of the fact that usually a corresponding physical-mathematical model with technically relevant or comprehensible parameters is not explicitly present, exhibit a very low transparency and are, consequently, often difficult to explain. Accompanying this situation, it is clear that considerable reservations can occur on the part of the customer, with such acceptance problems especially arising when the classifier, additionally, is self-adapting, for example a neural network.
As a further possibility for getting around the problem of inhomogeneous media, it is proposed, for instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,610 to install the vibratory transducer such that the straight measuring tube extends essentially vertically, in order to prevent, as much as possible, a deposition of such disturbing, especially gaseous, inhomogeneities. Here, however, one is dealing with a very special solution which cannot always be implemented, without more, in the technology of industrial process measurement. On the one hand, in this case, it can happen, namely, that the pipeline, into which the vibratory transducer is to be inserted, might have to be adapted to the vibratory transducer, rather than the reverse, which can mean an increased expense for implementing the measurement location. On the other hand, as already mentioned, the measuring tubes might have a curved shape, in which case the problem cannot always be solved satisfactorily by an adapting of the installation orientation anyway. It has, moreover, been found in this case that the aforementioned corruptions of the measurement signal are not necessarily prevented with certainty by the use of a vertically installed, straight measuring tube anyway.
Furthermore, it has been found that despite of the compensation of mass flow errors based on reference and apparent density, particularly applied in consideration of said bubble effect, in any cases mass flow errors could not be eliminated perfectly. Especially it has been found that this theory can only explain negative density and mass flow errors, whereas it can not explain positive errors observed in several experiments.

In-line measuring devices and method for compensation measurement errors in in-line measuring devices


In an example embodiment, a method for speculative power saving. The beginning portion of a header (e.g. a physical layer convergence protocol “PLCP” header of a beacon) is processed to determine whether a predefined bit is set that indicates whether the frame contains any delivery traffic indication for buffered multicast and/or unicast frames. If the bit is set, indicating the frame contains no delivery traffic indication of buffered frames, receiving and processing of the frame stops (e.g. the remainder of the PPDU is not processed) and the receiver switches to a power save state. In an example embodiment, if a predefined NULL beacon frame is detected, receiving and processing of the frame (and PPDU) stops and the receiver switches to a power save state.

A multicast packet includes a group address that delivers the same packet to more than one destination. If the destination address refers to all nodes on the network, then the packet is referred to as a broadcast packet.
The use of multicast and broadcast packets conserves the bandwidth of a network because only the transmission of a single packet is necessary rather than sending packets individually addressed to each node. This is valuable for wireless networks having limited throughput available.
If a large group of wireless clients, for example, need to receive a particular video stream, then sending multicast packets really pays off. The use of unicast packets to send the stream to each recipient individually would require many separate video streams, resulting in major performance impacts to the wireless network because of the huge amount of bandwidth that would be consumed by the separate streams. With multicast packets, only one stream is necessary.
The use of multicast packets can also facilitate power saving for wireless clients. For example, in an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 network, an access point (AP) buffers all multicast frames and sends them immediately following the next DTIM (delivery traffic indication message) if any one client associated with the access point enables power saving mode. With power-save enabled, a client radio will wake up each DTIM beacon and stay awake long enough to receive all of the multicast traffic (occurring after the DTIM beacon).
However, not every DTIM beacon has multicast or broadcast traffic. A zero traffic beacon indication (which can be referred to as "a zero TIM" or "Null Beacon") is a TIM where the DTIM is zero, indicating that there are no buffered broadcast or, multicast frames, additionally there are no buffered unicast frames and no frame elements requiring action in the regulatory domain (e.g. no DFS Channel Switch Announcement). For devices operating 24/7 (24 hours a day/7 days a week) there may be substantial amount of time (e.g. 60 hours during the week) that the wireless client is not busy transmitting, but still needs to receive beacon frames from an access point. Receiving and processing zero TIM beacon frames can consume substantial amounts of power in such circumstances. Some devices consume eighteen times as much power in receiving as they do when idle [See e.g. SDC-CF10G 802.11g Compact Flash Module with Antenna Connectors available from Summit Data Communications, Inc., 526 South Main Street, Suite 805, Akron, Ohio—http://www.summitdatacom.com/specifications.htm#SDC-PC2CF_PCMCIA_Adapter_for_Compact_Flash_Modules_with_Antenna_Connector s_].


Embodiments of the invention include a speaker system having the ability to accommodate one or more transmission protocols as well as multiple upgrade paths. One or more replaceable cards sit in a socket or bus system. The cards may include one or more components for receiving a wireless audio signal and decoding the signal. Other cards may include circuits for converting the digital audio signals into analog audio signals. Yet other cards, or other components on cards, may include circuitry for filtering or modifying the audio signals. In some embodiments the main components of the cards may be formed in a re-programmable device that can be updated by a user. In conjunction, these components create a powered speaker system that is constantly upgradeable as various data transmission standards and audio filtering standards mature.

A typical home audio system has one or more input sources coupled to an amplifier or receiver, which in turn is coupled to a set of speakers. In operation, an audio signal generating source, such as a CD (Compact Disc) player is connected to an amplifier input through an input cable. The CD player reads information from the disk, generates an audio signal from the information, and sends a low-level or line-level audio signal to the amplifier over the input cable. The amplifier, in turn, amplifies the signal and drives various speaker outputs that are in turn connected to speakers by speaker wires.
Although twenty years ago home audio systems typically included only two speakers, present "surround" systems now include five or seven speakers for the main audio plus a subwoofer to produce low frequency effects. Commercial applications, such as retail stores or shopping malls may include dozens or hundreds of speakers. Connecting such large number of speakers generally requires a commensurate number of speaker wires originating from the amplifier. Although commercial facilities may be designed with structures equipped to distribute speaker wires, along with other electrical distribution, homes are generally not so equipped. Instead, a typical home includes wires for electrical distribution hidden within walls that are covered by solid wall coverings during construction. It is very difficult to add additional wires within walls once a home is constructed, and thus exposed speaker wire is often an unsightly, though necessary, requirement for most home audio installations.
There have been developments with "powered" audio speakers, which typically include integral amplification and active crossover networks, but these systems lie at the periphery of mainstream home audio. One type of powered speaker that is pervasive in home audio is a powered sub-woofer. Other powered systems include desktop computer speakers, docking systems for personal audio devices, professional audio speakers, and "pro-sumer" monitor speakers.
There have also been some developments with powered "wireless" audio speakers, but these systems are generally proprietary "closed loop" systems, including a particular transmitter being required to operate with a particular receiver. Requiring such matched systems frustrates many consumers of audio products because it generally binds them to purchasing pre-packaged systems, which lack flexibility and may not meet requirements of many consumers. In addition, current wireless speaker systems tend to be small, inexpensive, and characterized by low fidelity.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other limitations of the prior art.

Self-powered audio speaker having modular components


An apparatus for preparing pet food has a base and a lid. The base is engageable with a container of the pet food and the lid is moveable relative to the base between an open state for allowing engagement and disengagement of the container and a closed state for preventing disengagement. The apparatus includes a scanner for reading a pet food identifier on the container. The scanner is adapted to read the pet food identifier and provide it to a controller. The controller is adapted to obtain food preparation parameters from an external database and to cause the apparatus to then prepare the pet food according thereto.

A common and age-old problem is that pets, especially dogs, love warm moist meals. And we, feeling that our pets are like our children, love to pamper them. Our pets love what we eat, and we love to feed them what they love. Much of that might be because they see us eating moist warm aromatic meals, and they wish to emulate us, but then we serve them dry pebbly things that, while probably healthy enough for them, are nothing like what we are serving ourselves. While we sometimes serve them moist food from cans, it is just not the same as what we are eating, and they know the difference. And fresh food made from wholesome human-quality ingredients is always healthier than whatever is in those cans and bags, and we know the difference. If dogs are truly "man's best friend", then they deserve to be treated as such and to eat the way we do . . . warm moist healthful meals that smell and taste fresh and delicious. And the same applies to cats and other cherished pets.
Efforts have been made to satisfy our desire to pamper our pets with warm meals by the marketing of pet food with instructions to add hot water, stir, and serve. But such products have proven to require too much effort and time and have therefore failed to take hold in the marketplace. Some pet owners take it upon themselves to add water to dry pet food and warm it in a microwave, or to spoon canned pet food into a bowl and warm it in a microwave, but few pet owners are devoted enough to go to so much effort, and frankly, warmed pet food smells terrible, and accentuates the poor quality of and lack of freshness in its ingredients. Anyone who has smelled canned dog food hot out of the microwave knows how unappealing it is. And anyone who has gone to the trouble of heating their pets' meals on a stove or in a microwave knows that is takes on average fifteen minutes, and that those seem like the longest fifteen minutes of the day, as their pets wait patiently, drooling profusely, nearby.
There is the need, and it may be an objective of the invention, to provide a simple appliance that creates warm moist fresh and healthful meals for pets. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention, to create such warm moist fresh and healthful meals for pets quickly. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention, to provide a simple system for creating such quick warm moist fresh and healthful meals for pets. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention to provide a simple method for creating such quick warm moist fresh and healthful meals for pets. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention, to provide a simple method for creating such quick warm moist fresh and healthful meals for pets using a simple appliance and/or system. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention to provide an appliance, system and/or method wherein the food is prepared optimally and differently according to its ingredients. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention to provide an appliance, system and/or method wherein the ingredients are automatically recognized, and the food is automatically prepared optimally and differently according thereto. There is the additional need, and it may be an additional objective of the invention to provide an appliance, which automatically recognizes the ingredients of a pet food and automatically prepares the pet food optimally and differently according to those ingredients. Further needs and objectives will become apparent upon perusal of the disclosure herein.

Petfood preparation apparatus with food identification system


A double side grinding apparatus for thin disklike work comprises a pair of rotatable grinding wheels having opposed circular grinding faces provided by respective end faces and so arranged as to be movable relative to each other axially thereof, and work rotating means for rotating the thin disklike work about its own axis while supporting the work in a grinding position between the grinding faces so that opposite surfaces of the work to be worked on face the respective grinding faces of the pair of the wheels, with an outer periphery of the work intersecting an outer periphery of each grinding face and with the center of the work positioned inwardly of the grinding faces.

The present invention relates to double side grinding apparatus for thin disklike work, and more particularly to an apparatus for simultaneously grinding opposite surfaces of thin disklike work such as semiconductor wafers.
Apparatus for grinding opposite surfaces of work at the same time are already known which comprise a pair of rotatable grinding wheels having respective grinding end faces opposed to each other for positioning the work as placed in a pocket (aperture) of a rotatable disklike carrier. In this case, the grinding faces of the wheels need to be greater than the work in outside diameter. The carrier is usually formed with a plurality of pockets as equidistantly spaced apart and arranged on a circumference closer to the outer periphery of the carrier. While a portion of the carrier is positioned also between the pair of grinding wheels along with the work, the thickness of this portion of the carrier must of course be smaller than the distance between the pair of wheels as positioned for grinding, i.e., the thickness of the finished work.
The semiconductor wafers present in use include those measuring about 200 mm (8 inches) and those measuring about 300 mm (12 inches) in outside diameter. The wafers of either type (as finished by grinding) have a thickness of about 0.8 mm which is extremely small as compared with the outside diameter. For use in grinding such wafers which are relatively great in outside diameter, the grinding wheels have an increased outside diameter, and the carrier to be rotated with the wafer accommodated therein also has an increased size, consequently rendering the apparatus large-sized. Further because the wafers are thin, the carrier portion to be positioned between the grinding wheels along with the wafer must be greatly reduced in thickness. The grinding force acts on the carrier placed between the grinding wheels, especially on the pocket portion thereof, through the work accommodated. When reduced in thickness, this portion has impaired strength and encounters difficulty in smoothly moving the work. For this reason, it has been difficult to grind opposite surfaces of wafers.
The same problems as above are also experienced with thin disklike workpieces other than wafers.

Double side grinding apparatus for flat disklike work


Water soluble polymers having formula I: Y-(L1)n1-(C(O))n2—(R1)n3—R2 are claimed. The polymers may contain multiple water soluble, immunogenicity reducing moieties and multiple active moieties. The polymers may be linked to a protein, or a peptide having up to twelve amino acids.

The synthesis of well defined polymer-protein/peptide hybrids is a rich and newly emerging field of research. These hybrid materials have potential applications in medical, biopharmaceutical and other life science areas [1-5]. Until very recently, the synthesis of polymer protein hybrids has been largely restricted to conjugates in which the synthetic polymer component is either poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) or poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide). PEGylation increases the proteolytic stability, reduces the immunogenicity and enhances the plasma half life of proteins [1]. Some PEGylated proteins are approved drugs, for example, PEGASYS™ (PEGylated interferon α-2α) marketed by Roche is used to treat hepatitis C, a liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus.
The synthesis of copolymer-protein hybrid materials has been so far restricted to a few acrylate/methacrylate monomers due to; (a) the difference in solubility between monomers: for instance, the preparation of a copolymer containing a monosaccharide derived acrylate (hydrophilic) and taxol acrylate (hydrophobic) would be very challenging (b) widely different reactivity between monomers (c) the lack of reactivity of many biologically relevant molecules, for example the acrylate of the anti-cancer and Anti Alzheimer's drug candidate curcumin could be synthesized but cannot be polymerized via free radical polymerization methods because the molecule is a radical scavenger.

Living copolymer-protein/peptide hybrids for biomedical applications

Research Foundation of The City University of New York


An input circuit commonly uses input ports of a microcomputer for a plurality of contact input terminals such as switches provided on the way to the ground. Transistors (Q1) to (Q8) whose bases are connected with contact input terminals (IN1) to (IN8) are provided. Groups of transistors, such as odd-numbered transistors and even-numbered transistors, are made selectable or non-selectable together by a selection output from an I/O port (P01) or (P02) of a microcomputer (12), and collector currents of a plurality of transistors (Q1, Q2; Q3, Q4; Q5, Q6; Q7, Q8) which are not simultaneously selected are converted into voltages using common resistors (R1) to (R4). These voltages then are fed to I/O ports (P1) to (P4). Accordingly, even upon a rise of a contact input from a ground potential due to the ON resistance of switches (SW1) to (SW8), the states of the contacts can be judged precisely.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an input circuit to commonly use input ports of a microcomputer, such as an automotive electronic control unit, that has multiple contact inputs, such as switches, on the way to a ground. The invention also relates to an electronic control unit with such an input circuit, and particularly to those suitably used to judge the states of contacts between large power loads and the ground.
2. Description of the Related Art
A microcomputer, such as an automotive electronic control unit, has a multitude of contact inputs for various controls. The number of I/O ports of the microcomputer are predetermined. Microcomputers with fewer I/O ports generally are smaller and less expensive than microcomputers of comparable performance with more I/O ports. Accordingly, it is desirable to use a microcomputer with fewer I/O ports if this microcomputer can satisfy a desired performance. However, the number of I/O ports seldom coincides with the number of the contact input terminals. An input circuit is provided to commonly use one I/O port by a plurality of contact input terminals if there is a shortage of I/O ports.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-185293 and FIG. 4 disclose a block diagram of an electronic control unit (ECU). With reference to FIG. 4, a typical prior art input circuit 1 is at an input side of a microcomputer 2. In this input circuit 1, contact inputs given from corresponding contact input terminals in1 to in8 by eight switches sw1 to sw8 can be judged using six I/O ports p01, p02, p1 to p4 of the microcomputer 2.
One end of each switch sw1 to sw8 is grounded, whereas the other end thereof is connected with the corresponding contact input terminal in1 to in8. The respective contact terminals in1 to in8 are connected with low-side terminals of loads (a lamp load 1 is connected with the contact input terminal in1 in FIG. 4), and high-side terminals of the loads are connected with high-side terminals of batteries b. Accordingly, the respective contact input terminals in1 to in8 take a ground potential when the switches sw1 to sw8 are turned on while being open or having a specified high level when the switches sw1 to sw8 are turned off.
In order to read the potentials at the respective contact input terminals in1 to in 8, cathodes of diodes d11 to d81 are connected with the corresponding contact input terminals in1 to in 8, and anodes thereof are connected with anodes of corresponding diodes d12 to d82 arranged in inverse series via resistors r11 to r81. Cathodes of the diodes d12 to d82 are connected in pairs which become common inputs, and are connected with the respective I/O ports p1 to p4 as input ports of the microcomputer 2 via resistors r1 to r4 and resistors r5 to r8. On the other hand, ends of pull-up resistors r12 to r82 at one side are connected with nodes t1 to t8 between the resistors r11 to r81 and the anodes of the diodes d12 to d82. The other ends of the pull-up resistors r12, r32, r52 and r72 are commonly connected and those of the pull-up resistors r22, r42, r62 and r82 are commonly connected, and these ends are further connected with a high-level power supply Vcc via control transistors q1, q2. Selection outputs are given to bases of the control transistors q1, q2 from the I/O ports p01, p02 as output ports of the microcomputer 2. The control transistors q1,q2 are of the p type. The control transistors q1, q2 are turned off not to be selected when a high-level voltage VDD (5 V) is outputted from the I/O ports p01, p02, whereas they are turned on to be selected when a low-level voltage (ground potential) is outputted therefrom.
Accordingly, if the control transistor q1 is selected and the control transistor q2 is not selected when the I/O port p01 is held low and the I/O port p02 is held high, potentials at the nodes t1, t3, t5, t7 corresponding to the odd-numbered contact input terminals in1, in3, in5, in7 are pulled up to the high-level potential Vcc by the pull-up resistors r12, r32, r52, r72. At this time, if the corresponding switches sw1, sw3, sw5, sw7 are off, a voltage vref lower than the potential Vcc by a predetermined voltage such as a voltage between an emitter and a collector of the transistor q1 or forward voltages of the diodes d12, d32, d52, d72 is fed to the I/O ports p1 to p4 of the microcomputer 2. On the other hand, if the switches sw1, sw3, sw5, sw7 are on, the respective nodes t1, t3, t5, t7 take the ground potential, which is fed to the respective I/O ports p1 to p4.
The nodes t2, t4, t6, t8 corresponding to the even-numbered contact input terminals in2, in4, in6, in8 of the non-selected side take the ground potential if the corresponding switches sw2, sw4, sw6, sw8 are on. However, since the diodes d22, d42, d62, d82 are shut off, there is no influence on the potential fed to the I/O ports p1 to p4. If the switches sw2, sw4, sw6, sw8 are off, the corresponding contact input terminals in2, in4, in6, in8 are open since the transistor q2 is off, wherefore there is no influence on the potential fed to the I/O ports p1 to p4.
In this way, when the I/O port p01 is held low and the I/O port p02 is held high, the states of the switches sw1, sw3, sw5, sw7 connected with the odd-numbered contact input terminals in1, in3, in5, in7 can be judged. When the I/O port p02 is held low and the I/O port p01 is held high, the states of the switches sw2, sw4, sw6, sw8 connected with the even-numbered contact input terminals in2, in4, in6, in8 can be judged. As compared to a case where the I/O ports are caused to correspond to the respective contact input terminals in1 to in 8, the contact inputs can be judged using a smaller number of ports.
There are many large power loads in an automotive electronic control unit, including the lamp load 1, a wiper motor and a heating coil, and their load currents may be drawn directly by the switches sw1 to sw8. A contact resistance when the switches sw1 to sw8 are on is, for example, 0.2 (Ω). Accordingly, if a load current of, e.g. 10 (A) flows, the potentials at the respective contact input terminals in1 to in8 rise to 2(V) from the ground potential when the switches sw1 to sw8 are on with the input circuit 1 constructed as above.
On the other hand, a low-level voltage VIL recognizable by the I/O ports p1 to p4 of a general inexpensive microcomputer 2 is about VDD×0.2 (V). Accordingly, if VDD=5(V), VIL=1 (V). If the potential rises from the ground potential by as much as 2(V), the microcomputer 2 erroneously recognizes the switches sw1 to sw8 to be off even though they are on.
To solve such a problem, the electronic control unit must not depend on the low-level recognizable voltage and must use a microcomputer having a high low-level recognizable voltage VIL (=VDD×0.5(V)) or a microcomputer having an analog-to-digital converting function, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-185293. This requires an expensive microcomputer that is not generally used.
An object of the present invention is to provide an input circuit capable of precisely judging the states of contacts even upon a rise of a contact input from a ground potential due to the on-resistance of a switch, and an electronic control unit provided with such an input circuit.

Input circuit and an electronic control unit provided with such an input circuit


There is provided an improved fluorescent lamp comprising a tubular glass bulb, an internal electrode provided inside of said tubular glass bulb, a fluorescent layer provided on an inner surface of said tubular glass bulb, an external electrode having an opening portion and provided on an outer surface of said tubular glass bulb, and a heat radiation sheet fitly provided on said tubular glass bulb, in which a temperature rise in the glass bulb caused by heat generated by discharge at the time of lighting is inhibited by the heat radiation function of the heat radiation sheet and a reduction in the illuminance caused thereby can also be inhibited.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a fluorescent lamp and, more specifically, to a fluorescent lamp comprising an internal electrode provided inside a tubular glass bulb, an external electrode provided on an outer surface of the glass bulb, and a fluorescent layer formed on an inner surface of the glass bulb wherein the inside of the glass bulb is filled with a rare gas and the fluorescent layer is excited by ultraviolet light generated by discharge in the rare gas to emit light.
2. Background Art
FIG. 5 shows a configuration of this type of fluorescent lamp 90 of the prior art, which comprises a tubular glass bulb 91, an internal electrode 92, an external electrode 95, and a fluorescent layer 94. Inside the tubular glass bulb 91 which is sealed at both ends, the internal electrode 92 is provided at the center of the bulb 91 and a rare gas 93 is filled. The fluorescent layer 94 is formed on the inner surface of the glass bulb by suitable means such as coating. The external electrode 95 which also functions as a reflector is provided on the outer surface of the glass bulb 91 by affixing an aluminum foil, for example. Opening portions 94a and 95a each of which has an opening angle .alpha. from the center of the glass bulb 91 are formed in the fluorescent layer 94 and the external electrode 95 at the same position, respectively. Thus, the area of the formed fluorescent layer 94 is outwardly and indirectly covered with the area of the external electrode 95.
When voltage is applied between the internal electrode 92 and the external electrode 95 of the fluorescent lamp 90 configured as described above, discharge occurs between the both electrodes 92 and 95, whereby the fluorescent layer 94 is excited to emit the light which is radiated outward from the opening portions 94a and 95a. At this point, the light emitted from the fluorescent layer 94 to the glass bulb 91 is reflected by the external electrode 95, returns, passes through the fluorescent layer 94 and is radiated from the opening portions 94a and 95a.
However, in the fluorescent lamp 90 of the prior art described above, the amount of the emitted light is apt to decrease gradually with the passage of time after the start of lighting. Particularly, in the case of application where the lamp is turned on each time it is used and its use time is short, for example, when it is used as a writing light source for electrophotographic (PPC) printers or a reading light source for facsimiles, nonuniform density of the resulted matter occurs due to a sudden change in the amount of the light during a period of about 1 minute from the start of lighting, thereby deteriorating its printing quality.

Fluorescent lamp with heat radiation sheet member


A rotor of an induction motor according to the present invention is a rotor including a squirrel-cage secondary conductor, wherein the rotor slot is constituted by an outer circumferential slot formed near an outer circumference of the rotor and an inner circumferential slot communicating with the outer circumferential slot and formed inside of the outer circumferential slot, a circumferential width TC of an innermost circumference of the outer circumferential slot is smaller than a circumferential width TD of an outermost circumference of the inner circumferential slot, and a circumferential width of the outer circumferential slot is smaller as the outer circumferential slot approaches to the outer circumference of the rotor.

Conventionally, for a rotor of an induction motor, there have been proposed many shapes such as shapes of slots and shapes for reducing a power factor, a stray load loss, noise, and the like by providing slits on an outer circumference.
For example, a shape of a rotor is proposed as follows for a high-performance induction motor including a rotor iron core having a plurality of slots and a secondary conductor contained in these slots of the rotor iron core and formed by aluminum die casting. In this induction motor, slits that are not coupled to these slots are provided on a rotor surface side of enclosed slots of the rotor iron core, respectively, and each of these slits is set to have a circumferential dimension in a range from 1.0 millimeter to 3.5 millimeters and a radial dimension in a range from 1.0 millimeter to 2.5 millimeters so as to be able to always reduce its power factor, stray load loss, noise, and the like (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).

Rotor of induction motor, induction motor, compressor, air blower, and air conditioner


A turn signal on a front-fork shock-absorber includes a shock-absorber fixed on the front-fork of the front wheel of a motorcycle, and a light emitter fixed in a recessed space formed on an outer surface of a hollow housing fitted around the front-fork rod. A light penetrable plate is closed on the recessed space, and the light emitter is connected by wires also connected with the circuit of the turn signals of a motorcycle after the wires extends through the hollow housing and through a tube route in the front-fork rod. So the light emitter is lit up blinking and synchronously with the turn signals of the motorcycle for making up an auxiliary warning for boosting traffic safety.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to turn signals on a front-fork shock-absorber, particularly to one to be fixed on a housing of a front-fork shock-absorber of a motorcycle and to be lit up synchronously with the turn signals of a motorcycle for boosting warning effectiveness to obtain more safety in running of the motorcycle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Turn signals on automobiles and motorcycles are indispensable for indicating the direction to be turned for warning to keep traffic safe for walkers and vehicles on a road. The turn signals of a motorcycle are generally located at the right and the left side of a center light and of s taillight. So walkers and drivers coming from the front and from the rear of the motorcycle may be able to see the turn signals, but those walking or running at the two sides of the motorcycle may not be easy to see the turn signals owing to the position. So traffic accidents may be possible to occur for this reason. This is a flaw in the design of the existing turn signals, which is not so ideal and has to be improved to obtain true safety in riding a motorcycle.

Turn signals on a front-fork shock absorber


A refining plate for refining lignocellulosic material including: a radially outer peripheral edge and a substrate surface; a refining zone having a plurality of substantially radially disposed bars and grooves between the bars, wherein the bars protrude upward from the substrate surface and the grooves each have a groove width, and a steam channel traversing the bars and grooves of the refining zone, wherein the steam channel has a radially outer end radially inward of the outer peripheral edge of the plate and the steam channel has a width substantially greater than the groove width.

This invention relates to a disk refiner for ligno-cellulosic materials, and generally to disk refiners used for producing fiberboard and mechanical pulps for medium density fiberboard (MDF), thermomechanical pulps (TMP) and a variety of chemi-thermomechanical pulps (CTMP), which are collectively referred to as mechanical pulps and mechanical pulping process. In particular, this invention relates to steam flow through disk refiners in mechanical pulping processes.
A disk refiner may be used in a thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP) refiner in which the pulp material, such as wood chips, is ground in an environment of steam between a rotating grinding disk (rotor) and a stationary disk (stator) (or a pair of rotating disk rotors) each with radial grooves that provide the grinding surfaces. The rotor may operate at rotational speeds of 1000 to 2300 revolutions per minute (RPM).
Wood chips are fed to the center of the opposing disks of a disk refiner. The chips are broken down between the disks as centrifugal force pushes the chips towards the disk outer circumference. The refiner plates generally include a pattern of bars and grooves which provide repeated compression actions on the chips. The compression action results in the separation of lingo-cellulosic fibers out of the raw chips. The fiber separation transforms the raw chip material into fiber pulp suitable for a final product, such as fiberboards.
While the chips are retained between the disks, energy is transferred to the chips via the refiner plates attached to the disks. The energy is in the form of high centrifugal and compression forces applied to break-down the wood chips. The refining process also generates high frictional forces that causes water in the chip feed material to convert to high pressure steam.
In most disk refiners, the steam from the disk refiner flows in the same direction, e.g., radially outward from between the disks, as the fiber material exiting the refining disks. By way of example, typically between 60% and 100% of the steam produced between the disks in a refiner flows in a forward direction, which is the same direction as the fiber material moving between the refining disks. These percentages for forward flowing steam vary depending on refiner plate patterns and process conditions. After exiting the outer periphery of the fiber disks, the forward flowing steam carries fiber pulp through blow lines downstream of the disk refiner. The pressure of the forward flowing steam is released as the refined fiber pulp material exits the blow lines and enters bins and other relatively low pressure vessels. In MDF, the forward flowing steam typically adds little value to the pulping process and the pressure energy in the forward flowing steam is generally not used. In mechanical pulping, some systems allow for the recovery of heat energy in the forward flowing steam from a discharge cyclone, and other systems vent the forward flowing steam to atmosphere. When recovered such as via a heat exchanger, the heat from forward flowing steam from the mechanical refining processes is typically used for paper machine dryers and on pulp drying equipment
High pressure steam is needed in the feeding side of the refiner in MDF and other mechanical pulping systems. Steam is used to soften the wood to improve the performance of the refiner and produce fiber. High pressure steam for refining is usually provided a combination of back-flowing steam from the refiner and fresh steam, usually generated by a boiler. Fresh steam is expensive to produce in terms of energy consumption. There is a long felt need for sources of high pressure steam for pulping processes.
A source of high pressure steam is the steam generated during mechanical refining. High pressure steam is generated between refining disks in a disk refiner. In a traditional refiner, up to 40% of the high pressure steam generated between does not flow in a forward direction with the chip feed material. To the extent that the high pressure steam between the disks can be extracted without loss of pressure, the high pressure steam may be directed to a steaming vessel in a chip feed system of a mechanical refining plant.
A known technique to capture high pressure steam from the disks is to allow the steam to back flow against the movement of chip material between the refining disks and through the feeding system to the chip pre-steaming vessel. High pressure back flow steam has been used in the pre-steaming vessels. Separate piping has been added to refiners to allow back flow steam to bypass the conveyors and feeding devices from the feeding system, and allow the back flow steam to move with little resistance from the refiner inlet to the pre-steaming vessels.
The amount of back flow steam is generally reduced by the use of directional (low energy) refiner plates. Low energy plates typically reduce steam generation by 10 to 50% in a refiner and reduce the amount of back flow steam by 20 to 70%, as compared to conventional higher energy refiner plates. While directional MDF refiner plates are advantageous in reducing the energy required to drive a disk refiner, the reduction in the available back flow steam increases the amount of high pressure steam needed for a mechanical refining plant.
There is a long felt need for techniques to reduce the amount of high pressure steam needed to be produced at high energy costs for a mechanical refining plant. In particular, there is a long felt need to capture a greater amount of high pressure steam from the refining process than is presently captured using directional (low-energy) refiner plates in mechanical refining plants.

Refiner plates having steam channels and method for extracting backflow steam from a disk refiner


A webbing exit protection boot for a webbing of a vehicle seat belt has an aperture for the webbing, a stiff lower part confining a lower section of the aperture at least in part and a flexible upper part confining an upper section of the aperture.

Webbing exit protection boots for seat belts in vehicles like passenger cars, commercial vehicles or trucks are typically used to protect and guide the seat belt and the webbing, respectively close to the lower anchor point. At the anchor point the seat belt is connected to the vehicle body or the like. The lower anchor point and the initial progress of the seat belt are usually covered by a hard trim part. For such designs the webbing proceeds through a cutout of the hard trim part.
Commonly used are so-called cover-on slice designs which allow routing of the seat belt webbing through a hard trim integrated cutout. Although this solution ensures a minimal cutout when the seat belt is at its stored position some applications like, for example, a commercial vehicle rear row seat belt require a larger routing envelope from the lower anchorage point.
A further solution is the so-called stapled sleeve design providing webbing protection by a cover attached to a lower part of the webbing. This design, however, generally is not suitable for hard trims due to the large exposed cutout section around the protective sleeve. Such cutout is typically open for dirt collection and see-through issues.
Examples of vehicle seat belt systems are disclosed in the following publications. WO 99/02368 discloses a guide for a seat belt webbing with an escutcheon for passing the webbing, wherein the escutcheon is received by a mounting attached to a seat frame. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0012417 A1 shows a cover for a webbing which extends along the backside of a seat from the upper end of the backrest to the seat cushion. U.S. Pat. No. 6,585,289 B1 discloses a seat belt system with an inflatable section which is arranged inside an outer belt section. G 83 15 256 shows a guide for the webbing with a slot for guiding the webbing and an edge lining with a low friction coefficient. DT 24 33 281 A1 discloses a protection device for a seat belt which covers the edge(s) of the webbing.
It would be desirable to improve the guidance of a seat belt webbing.

Webbing exit protection boot for a webbing of a seat belt and seat belt system


The invention provides isolated nucleic acids molecules, designated 25869, 25934, 26335, 50365, 21117, 38692, 46508, 16816, 16839, 49937, 49931 and 49933 nucleic acid molecules. The invention also provides antisense nucleic acid molecules, recombinant expression vectors containing 25869, 25934, 26335, 50365, 21117, 38692, 46508, 16816, 16839, 49937, 49931 or 49933 nucleic acid molecules, host cells into which the expression vectors have been introduced, and nonhuman transgenic animals in which a 25869, 25934, 26335, 50365, 21117, 38692, 46508, 16816, 16839, 49937, 49931 or 49933 gene has been introduced or disrupted. The invention still further provides isolated 25869, 25934, 26335, 50365, 21117, 38692, 46508, 16816, 16839, 49937, 49931 or 49933 proteins, fusion proteins, antigenic peptides and anti-25869, 25934, 26335, 50365, 21117, 38692, 46508, 16816, 16839, 49937, 49931 or 49933 antibodies. Diagnostic and therapeutic methods utilizing compositions of the invention are also provided.

The enormous variety of biochemical reactions that comprise life are nearly all mediated by a series of biological catalysts known as enzymes. Enzymes are proteins which possess specific properties that enable them to catalyze a series of reactions, allowing metabolic pathways to degrade and to reconstruct products needed to maintain organisms. By the binding of substrates through geometrically and physically complementary reactions, enzymes are stereospecific in binding substrates as well as in catalyzing reactions. The stringency for this stereospecificity varies as some enzymes are more specific to the identity of their substrates, while others are capable of binding multiple substrates and can catalyze numerous types of reactions.
Examples of enzymes include, for example, carboxylases, fatty acid desaturases, serine/threonine dehydratases, hexokinases, peptidyl tRNA hydrolases, dual specificity phosphatases, phospholipases and transporters. Such enzymes have the ability to, for example: (1) hydrolyze an ester linkage and/or liberate the free acid form of a substrate, e.g., hydrolysis of a triglyceride and/or liberation of free fatty acid(s) and glycerol; (2) catalyze the formation of a double bond, preferably, at positions up to 9 carbons from the carboxyl end of a molecule, e.g., a fatty acid, such as a polyunsaturated fatty acid; (3) catalyze the phosphorylation of a sugar, e.g., an aldohexoses and a ketohexoses (e.g., glucose, mannose, fructose, sorbitol and glucosamine); (4) catalyze sugar metabolism; (5) transfer a phosphate from a phosphate donor (e.g., ATP) to a sugar, e.g., an aldohexoses and a ketohexoses (e.g., glucose, mannose, fructose, sorbitol and glucosamine) to form a phosphorylated sugar, e.g., glucose-6-phosphate; (6) catalyze the removal of a phosphate group attached to a tyrosine residue in a protein target, e.g., a growth factor receptor; (7) catalyze the removal of a phosphate group attached to a serine or threonine residue in a protein e.g., a growth factor receptor; (8) hydrolyze covalent bond between peptide and tRNA within peptidyl-tRNAs; (9) catalyze the hydrolysis of phosphatidyl-inositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) producing diacylglycerol and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate; (10) transport of a substrate or target molecule (e.g., a Ca2+ ion) from one side of a biological membrane to the other; and (11) be phosphorylated or dephosphorylated. Accordingly, there exists a need to identify additional human enzymes, for example, for use as disease markers and as targets for identifying various therapeutic modulators.


A hybrid battery comprising at least two nonaqueous electrochemical systems is described. The first cell comprises an anode of an alkaline earth metal or alloy thereof, and the second cell comprises an anode of an alkali metal or alloy thereof. The first cell is preferably an alkaline earth metal/oxyhalide cell, more preferably a calcium/oxyhalide cell or cells. The second cell is preferably an alkali metal alloy/oxyhalide cell, more preferably a lithium alloy/oxyhalide cell or cells. Such a cell combination is particularly useful for power a down-hole well tool. The down-hole tool is powered by the first cell during a surface test and as the tool descends into the well until all of the calcium is discharged. Then, the second cell powers the down-hole tool for the remainder of the down-hole procedure.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the conversion of chemical energy to electrical energy. More particularly, this invention relates to a power source that is particularly useful at elevated temperatures such as those found in well drilling operations as well as at very low temperatures down to −40° C., and lower.
In certain applications such as oil exploration, batteries are required that can operate at temperatures up to 200° C. and even higher. Batteries that are commonly used in such high temperature applications are based on oxyhalide chemistries, such as lithium/thionyl chloride cells or lithium/sulfuryl chloride cells. These cells are highly advantageous for high temperature use because the oxyhalide liquid cathode materials are stable at elevated temperatures. Furthermore, when pure lithium metal is used as the anode material, oxyhalide cells are useful at very low temperatures, down to −40° C., and lower, as well as at relatively high temperatures.
Regardless of the cathode chemistry, at about 180° C. lithium-based cells become extremely hazardous. Lithium metal melts at about 180° C. and can react violently with liquid catholytes or liquid electrolytes in solid cathode cell systems. The operating temperature of lithium can be extended upward somewhat through the use of certain alloys, for example, aluminum or magnesium. Since these lithium alloys have higher melting temperatures than pure lithium, cells having them as an anode material can be used at temperatures up to about 200° C., and higher. The drawback is that lithium alloys operate poorly at lower temperatures. Lithium alloy cells that can run safely at temperatures above 180° C. typically cannot deliver useful performance below about 70° C. This is a serious problem in most oil exploration applications where it is highly advantageous to test down-hole tools and their battery power sources at the surface under ambient conditions to confirm they will function properly when down-hole.
Accordingly, what is needed is a battery system that is functional at both ambient temperatures (25° C. or lower) and at temperature up to about 200° C. and higher. Such a battery system does not currently exist.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,815 to Peled et al. describes using calcium as the anode material in an oxyhalide cell. Calcium is a very attractive choice for use in an oxyhalide liquid cathode cell in some regards. First, it gives very high cell potentials close to what is obtained with lithium, and secondly, it has a much higher melting point than lithium. This means that calcium-containing cells are useful above 180° C. without becoming hazardous. However, calcium reacts with oxyhalide liquid cathode materials during cell discharged, thereby undergoing a self-discharge reaction that consumes active materials. This self-discharge reaction severely limits discharge efficiency, leading to low discharge capacity. Because of this severe limitation, calcium/oxyhalide cells have never come into practical use.

Hybrid battery for use over extended temperature range


A method for generating a seed value for use in symmetric encryption includes creating and storing a first data set and generating a hashed value based on the first data set. A replacement position in the first data set is selected, and at least a portion of the hashed value is written into the first data set at the replacement position. A seed portion of the first data set is selected as the seed value. By varying a number of iterations, a balance can be struck between performance (fewer iterations) and security (more iterations).

The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Computer-based cryptography techniques are widely used for encrypting and decrypting data communications. Generally, encryption approaches are classified as symmetric or asymmetric. In symmetric cryptography, the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt the data. In asymmetric approaches, different keys are used for encryption and decryption.
Many symmetric cryptography approaches require a seed value as input for use in generating a unique key value for a particular data set. For example, certain block ciphers such as Data Encryption Standard (DES) use keys that are generated from random seed values. In some such approaches, theoretically perfect security is achieved when the seed value is a truly random value; this is because a truly random value is not predictable and therefore extremely difficult to guess. Further, the mechanism used to generate a truly random value is normally extremely difficult for a malicious party to reverse-engineer based only on possession of example seed values. In practice, however, generating truly random values is difficult, and therefore a variety of pseudo-random seed value generation approaches are also used.
An example of a known approach for generating a random seed value involves counting the number of process threads that are instantiated by a computer operating system in a specified time. Historically, this and other techniques for generating truly random or pseudo-random seed values have been either extremely time-consuming in terms of computer processing time, or non-random. Both are undesirable.
For example, in certain client-server business applications where all communications between the client and server are encrypted and decrypted, transaction processing may be perceptibly slower when a slow seed generation technique is used. Customers of these applications and the vendors who provide them would prefer an approach in which seed generation requires minimal time.
Further, having a non-random seed generator affects security. Several known approaches for generating seed values have bugs or other characteristics such that the seed values are not truly random. Indeed, nearly all seed generation approaches that profess to be truly random are, in fact, pseudo-random, as described in B. Schneier, "Applied Cryptography" (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2nd ed. 1996), at pp. 44–46. If a pseudo-random seed value generator creates the same seed value twice, and a malicious party obtains two different ciphertexts that have been encrypted using a key based on the same seed value, in theory this provides the malicious party with valuable information that can be used to determine the key values and, ultimately, retrieve the original plaintext. This is undesirable.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for an improved approach for generating seed values for use in symmetric encryption.

System and method for generating encryption seed values


A lock for locking a lid to a receptacle has a bolt extending into aligned holes in overlapping parts thereof. A handle is detachably connected to an outer end of the bolt for pulling the bolt. An expansion mechanism in the form of wedges, a chain or other mechanisms, expands to an expanded geometry larger than the aligned holes to prevent withdrawing the bolt, and contracts to a contracted geometry which is at most equal to the dimension of the aligned holes for allowing withdrawing of the bolt. An actuator mounted in the bolt engages the expansion mechanism for moving it from the expanded geometry to the contracted geometry when the actuator is pushed. A biasing spring engaged to the actuator biases it in the withdrawing direction.

The present invention relates to locking mechanisms, and, in particular, to a new and useful locking mechanism for containers having bodies and lids with overlapping portions, or cabinets or drawers with overlapping parts, and especially for outside receptacles such as trash cans and recycle bins.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,722,711 issued to the present inventor and incorporated here by reference, discloses a lock for a receptacle and cover with overlapping parts and aligned holes through the overlapping part. A bolt extends into the holes with a handle at one end of the bolt for pulling the bolt out of the aligned holes in a withdrawing direction. An expansion mechanism at an opposite end of the bolt expands to prevent withdrawing of the bolt. Several embodiments of the expansion mechanism are disclosed, any of which are combinable with features of the present invention where appropriate. An actuator mounted for movement to the bolt is pushed to contract and unlock the mechanism in U.S. Pat. No. 6,722,711 and the lock includes a release mechanism for removing the actuator and pushing the remaining parts of the lock into the aligned holes in case the lock has become jammed in the holes. The release mechanism releases the actuator, however, and not the handle as in the present improved invention.
The present invention, like the inventor's previous patent, solves the problem of keeping animals out of household trash containers thus preventing the mess that often is the result of an animal getting into the garbage can and rummaging through the contents of the container. The present invention can also keep young children out of drawers or cabinets.
Others have attempted to incorporate locking mechanisms in the design of a trash receptacle, such as hinged handles that engage grooves or ridges in the cover to inhibit the removal of the lid, or straps that attempt to hold the lip in place, or even levers that clamp the cover onto the container while in the upright position. See, for example: U.S. Pat. No. 2,717,167 for a Container Cover fastener; U.S. Pat. No. 3,363,924 for a Releasable Tension holder for Removeable Receptacle Covers; U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,964 for Trash Can Protector; U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,656 for Trash Receptacle Having Lid Fastening Means; U.S. Pat. No. 4,489,851 for Container Cover Lock; U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,488 for Locking Device for Garbage Can Lid; U.S. Pat. No. 4,666,054 for Animal Proof Storage Container Apparatus; U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,144 for Garbage Can Lid Latch; U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,161 for Container Having Twist-Locking Cover; U.S. Pat. No. 5,419,598 for Lock for Trash Bins; U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,341 for Gravity Actuated Container Lock; U.S. Pat. No. 5,599,050 for Lid-Locking Device for Trash Containers; U.S. Pat. No. 6,290,093 for Device for Locking the Cover of a Container, and Container So Equipped; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,339,944 for Locking Mechanism for Trash Can Receptacle and Other Doors.
The problem with prior designs is that they fail to function if the can is knocked over and the animal can then use one or more limbs to paw their way to "unlock" the securing mechanism. The present invention takes advantage of the fundamental difference between primate and non-primate animals. The fact that primates have an opposing thumb makes it impossible for non-primates to release the "lock" mechanism of the invention and then remove the lock to permit opening of the cover.
Also see the patents which were cited in the inventor's previous U.S. Pat. No. 6,722,711, namely: U.S. Pat. No. 3,596,554 to Low et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,596 to Davis, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,853 Lipschitz; U.S. Pat. No. 4,471,980 to Hickman; U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,726 to Medard; U.S. Pat. No. 5,061,112 to Monford, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,180, to Mlynarczyk; U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,815 to Gignac et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,347 to Holtman et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,494,323 to Huang; U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,551 to Bowers; U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,957 to Raffini; U.S. Pat. No. 6,077,011 to Walker; U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,261 to Hahka; U.S. Pat. No. 6,338,591 to Lilienthal, II; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,386,789 to Chausse et al.
Various locking mechanisms are known and used in a variety of other fields as well. U.S. Pat. No. 6,077,011, for example, discloses a Push Button Panel Fastener, which utilizes captured balls that can be engaged against the recess of a pin for detachably connecting two parts to each other.
The present invention improves on the inventor's prior patent by providing even better expansion mechanisms and an improved release scheme in case the lock becomes jammed in the receptacle.


An active device array substrate includes a substrate, a first gate driving circuit, a second gate driving circuit, active devices, scan line structures and data lines. The substrate has an active region, a first peripheral region and a second peripheral region. The first and the second gate driving circuits are respectively located at the first and the second peripheral regions. Active device are arranged in an array at the active region. Each scan line structure includes a first scan line, a second scan line and an auxiliary pattern. The first scan line having a first terminal end and the second scan line having a second end are connected to a same row of the active devices respectively. A gap is between the first terminal end and the second terminal end. The auxiliary pattern is disposed on the gap and overlaps the first terminal end and the second terminal end.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an array substrate and a repairing method thereof, and more particularly, to an active device array substrate and a repairing method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, with the gradual advancement of the flat panel display technology, the flat panel display products gain popularity in the market, and the vendors have been further developed the technologies for the flat panel displays toward miniaturization and low production cost. In order to lower the production costs of the flat panel displays, a technology to produce a multi-stage shift register directly on the substrate of the panel has been existed, so as to replace the conventional gate driver IC and thus to achieve the purpose of reducing the production costs of flat panel displays. In order to reduce the device size and reduce the resistance-capacitance delay (RC delay) phenomenon, a technology to simultaneously drive one scan line by two sets of the multi-stage shift registers which are disposed at the right and left sides of the substrate has also been existed, which is also known as the "bilateral synchronous driving circuit".
However, since in the bilateral synchronous driving circuit, the same scan line is driven by two sets of the multi-stage shift registers, the abnormal driving may occur to the whole scan line when either side of the driving circuit has defects. For example, when the pull-down circuit in the driving circuit of one side has defects, the voltage at both ends of one same scan line can not be simultaneously pulled down and the large voltage difference is generated. Accordingly, large current produced by such large voltage difference may be transmitted to the driving circuit, which damages the control board which provides signals, so that the panel can not be displayed normally. In general, the positions of the defects are unable to be determined in a short time to immediately repair the damage caused by the current return, such that those defective panels must be discarded. Accordingly, the production costs may be significantly increased.

Active device array substrate and repairing method thereof


An object of the present invention is to provide a light-emitting apparatus reduced in the optical self-absorption of the light-emitting device and assured of excellent light extraction efficiency. The inventive light-emitting apparatus comprises a substrate, a semiconductor light-emitting device provided on the substrate with or without intervention of a submount, and an encapsulating structure for encapsulating the semiconductor light-emitting device, wherein the encapsulating structure has a bottom parallel to the bottom of the semiconductor light-emitting device and the side surface of the encapsulating structure is tilted with respect to the bottom.

As for the light-emitting apparatus using a semiconductor light-emitting device, there have been conventionally known, for example, a light-emitting apparatus where as shown in FIG. 1, a light-emitting device is mounted on a lead frame and the entirety is resin-encapsulated in a cannonball shape, and a light-emitting apparatus where as shown in FIG. 2, a reflector is provided on a substrate, a light-emitting device is mounted on the substrate constituting the bottom of a recess formed by the substrate and the reflector, and the inside of the recess or the entire recess is resin-encapsulated. Furthermore, in the light-emitting apparatus shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of light-emitting devices are mounted on a substrate with the intention of mass production, the surface thereof is encapsulated with a sealant or the like, and individual devices are divided by dicing or the like to have a profile of the side surface being nearly perpendicular is known (see, for example, Kokai (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication) No. 8-78732). In the Figures, 2 indicates a light-emitting device, 4 indicates a substrate, 5 indicates a reflector, 6 indicates a sealant, 7 indicates a mounting-side lead frame, 8 indicates a power supply-side lead frame, 9 indicates a bonding wire, 10 indicates a p-electrode, and 11 indicates an n-electrode. In these light-emitting apparatus, when a material having an intermediate refractive index between the light-emitting device and the air is employed as the encapsulating material, the total reflection inside of the light-emitting device is reduced, but optical self-absorption of the light-emitting device still occurs along the beam trajectory shown by A in the Figures and this gives rise to low light extraction efficiency of almost about 1.2 to 1.5 times the efficiency when encapsulation is not applied.
Furthermore, as for the radiation intensity distribution (or luminous intensity distribution) of light in a light-emitting apparatus using the light-emitting device shown in FIG. 1 or 2, the light is concentrated in one direction mainly by providing a reflector or a lens. In addition, in the configuration of FIG. 3, the main purpose is so that energization of a device can be confirmed by lighting of the light-emitting device, and productivity of the light-emitting apparatus is important, but the light extraction is not improved.
In general, the refractive index of the light-emitting device takes a value of 2.4 to 3.7, and the refractive index of air takes a value of 1.0. A resin having a refractive index of about 1.5 intermediate therebetween is usually used for the encapsulating resin. In order to allow the light emitted from the light-emitting device to go out into air through the encapsulating resin, the angle (θ) between the light incident on the encapsulating resin/air interface and the interface must be larger than the critical angle (θc) represented by the following formula:θc=cos−1(n2/n1)(wherein n1 is the incidence-side refractive index and n2 is the output-side refractive index).
The critical angle (θc) calculated from the refractive index above of the encapsulating resin is about 48°, and if the angle between the interface and the incident light when measured from the interface (reflection surface) to the normal direction of the interface is less than this value, light does not go out of the encapsulating resin. Also, the p-type layer, n-type layer and active layer constituting the light-emitting device generally have a light absorptivity of approximately from 1×10 to 1×104/cm, and therefore particles of light that are multiply-reflected in the encapsulating resin are absorbed by the light-emitting device to inhibit the light extraction.
In the light-emitting device itself, as is known, the light extraction efficiency can be enhanced more than in the conventional nearly rectangular light-emitting device by adjusting the geometric dimension such as the height of the upper clad layer with respect to the active layer and the angle of the side surface of the device (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,229,160, 6,323,063 and 6,570,190). However, in the light-emitting apparatus loaded with a light-emitting device, it is not known to enhance light extraction efficiency by adjusting the geometric dimension.


A light source apparatus includes a light source, a detection unit configured to detect light emitted by the light source, a determination unit configured to determine a target brightness, and a control unit configured to periodically perform control of light emission from the light source, wherein the control unit divides one period of the control into a first period during which the light source is caused to emit light that is to be detected by the detection unit and a second period during which the light source is caused to emit light at the target brightness, and during the first period, drives the light source using a driving signal with a value smaller than a value during the second period, and the detection unit detects light emitted by the light source during the first period.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light source apparatus and a method for controlling the light source apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, more and more users of display apparatuses expect a higher level of image quality such as brightness stability, brightness gradation characteristics, and contrast. There have also been an increasing number of opportunities of using light emitting diodes (LEDs) as alight source for a backlight of a liquid crystal display apparatus.
In a light source apparatus such as the backlight, the emission brightness of a light source (the light source provided in the light source apparatus) may change as a result of an environmental change such as a temperature change or a temporal change.
Thus, a technique has been proposed in which light emitted by the light source is detected by a light sensor (brightness sensor) and in which the emission brightness of the light source is feedback-controlled so as to make a detected value from the light sensor constant (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H11-295689). Such feedback control allows the emission brightness of the light source to be kept constant and enables a reduction in the brightness unevenness of light emitted by the light source apparatus.
Furthermore, when the liquid crystal display apparatus displays a black image, a liquid crystal panel fails to completely block light emitted by the backlight, leading to black floating.
Thus, a technique has been proposed which involves reducing the emission brightness of any of a plurality of light sources provided in the backlight that corresponds to a low-brightness area of input image data. Such control of the emission brightness is called "local dimming control". Such local dimming control allows black floating to be suppressed to increase the contrast of a displayed image (an image displayed on a screen). Furthermore, the contrast of the display apparatus can further be improved by performing local dimming control and correcting the input image data so as to reduce a change in display brightness (brightness on the screen) resulting from a change in the emission brightness of the light source.
Examples of a method for controlling the emission brightness (the amount of light emission) of the light source include pulse-amplitude modulation control (PAM control) and pulse width modulation control (PWM control).
The PAM control is a control method of changing the value (pulse amplitude) of a driving signal (voltage or current) supplied to the light source to change the emission brightness of the light source.
The PWM control is a control method of changing the time (pulse width) for which the driving signal is supplied to the light source, that is, the lighting time of the light source. In the local dimming control and the feedback control, the emission brightness of the light source is generally controlled by performing PWM control.

Light source apparatus and method for controlling same


An apparatus (213) and corresponding methods (FIG. 7) to facilitate maintaining crypto synchronization while processing communication signals in a communication unit includes a vocoder (215) configured to convert input audio band signals to vocoder output frames; a crypto processor (217) configured to encrypt the vocoder output frames to provide encrypted output frames; and a synchronizer (219) configured to substitute in a predetermined manner synchronization information corresponding to an encryption state of the crypto processor for a portion of the encrypted data in a portion of the encrypted output frames to provide resultant output synchronization frames suitable for synchronizing a decryption process at a target communication unit.

Communication systems and secure communications in such systems are known. Typically security is provided using some form of crypto key to encrypt information that is sent from the originator or sending party or unit. The target or receiving party or unit then decrypts this information using the same or a corresponding crypto key to yield the information in its original form. To enhance security the crypto key may change from time to time, for example with every frame. Typically this change is a deterministic change that depends on the state of the encryption or decryption processes. The originating unit and target unit have to make sure their crypto keys are synchronized or else the target unit will not be able to successfully decrypt the information. Given the deterministic nature for the change this is straight forward, except, for example, when a frame or packet is added, such as for example an overhead packet added by the system, in which case crypto synchronization may be lost. Known approaches sometimes devote entire frames or packets or other overhead means just to synchronization information, but this tends to waste channel capacity or result in long delays to re-establish synchronization and thus poor audio quality.

Crypto-synchronization for secure communication