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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of computer vision. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for detecting features, e.g., facial features, in images, and tracking such features over time in a series of images.
2. Related Art
A subject of interest in the computer vision field relates to the identification and/or tracking of deformable shapes or objects across a series of images. This subject has many applications in biometrics, facial expression analysis, and synthesis. Accurate reconstruction and tracking of deformable objects in images requires well-defined delineation of the object boundaries across multiple viewpoints.
Landmark-based deformable models, such as Active Shape Models (ASMs), allow for object shape detection and delineation in 2-dimensional (2D) images. ASMs are statistical models of the shapes of objects which are iteratively deformed to fit an example of an object in an image. Deformation of the models is limited to shapes provided in a training set of examples. The shape of the object is represented by a set of points, and the goal of the ASM algorithm is to match the model to an input image. ASMs detect features in an image by combining shape and appearance information from the observed image data, and uses a learned statistical shape distribution for a given class of objects to align the contours of shapes to the detected features in the observed images.
A major limitation of landmark-based deformable models is that they ignore the non-linear geometry of shape manifolds of objects in images viewed from multiple viewpoints, which severely limits the ability of such models to detect and track features across a series of images where there is substantial movement of the features. Such changes can result from movement (e.g., rotation) of the subject and/or the imaging apparatus, which can cause aspect changes in the images. Movement of 3-dimensional (3D) objects causes shapes to vary non-linearly on a hyper-spherical manifold. As a result, during tracking, the shape change is mostly smooth, but in certain cases there may be discontinuities. For example, during rotation of a subject's head to the full facial profile, some of the facial features may be occluded, causing drastic changes in shapes. In addition to shape changes, the correspondences between local 2D structures in an image and the 3D object structures changes for the landmark-based deformable models. The local grey level profiles at these landmarks also exhibit dramatic variations. Further, face shape variations across multiple aspects is different across human subjects. For example, a 30 degree head rotation can produce more distinct variations for faces with raised facial features (e.g., eyes and nose) versus faces with leveled features.
There have been several efforts in the past to represent non-linear shape variations using kernel Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and multi-layer perception. The results from non-linear approaches largely depend on whether all of the shape variations have been adequately represented in the training data. Discontinuities in the shape space may cause these models to generate implausible shapes. Kernel methods suffer from a major drawback in that they must learn pre-image functions for mapping shapes in the feature space to the original space, which is time consuming. Other techniques, such as Active Appearance Models (AAMs) and non-linear projections into eigenspaces, cannot adequately track features in images where the features move across a series of images.
Accordingly, what would be desirable, but has not yet been provided, is a system and method for detecting and tracking features in images, wherein moving features can be accurately detected in the images and tracked over time in a series of images. | {
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This invention relates to chemically milling of aluminum and in particular to a method and composition for etching and chemically milling lithium containing aluminum alloys.
Applicants are aware of the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 2,177,751; 2,434,021; 2,647,864; 2,650,157; 2,890,944; 2,940,838; 3,033,795; 3,052,482; 3,171,767; 3,230,172; 3,253,968; 3,301,719; 3,367,874; 3,479,293; 4,264,377; 4,284,468; and 4,592,854. The disclosures of the above patents are incorporated by reference herein.
There are numerous methods and compositions known for etching metals. These prior methods and compositions are severely limited in effectiveness when applied to the lithium containing aluminum alloys, which have recently become available in commercially useful quantities. As a result, the art is generally using acid etchants for lithium containing aluminum alloys, and for alloy 2090 in particular. Acid etch solutions have inherent deficiencies when applied to aluminum alloys and it is desirable to caustic etch aluminum lithium alloys, if an effective etchant and method can be developed.
Lithium containing aluminum alloys have only recently been available to industry in commercial quantities. These alloys are highly desirable, particularly in the aircraft industries, due to their low density and high specific strength, that is, their very high strength to weight ratio. These alloys can have a significant weight saving advantage over conventional aircraft aluminum alloys, such as aluminum alloy 7075 and similar aluminum alloys. This weight and strength advantage makes the aluminum lithium alloys highly desirable since use of these alloys can result in a significant structural weight reduction without any loss in strength. This weight reduction in the aircraft industry translates into a greater payload for the same amount of fuel expended or a greater range for an equivalent payload. These are highly significant factors influencing the profitability and utility of the use of these alloys in the aircraft industry. However, for the alloy to have full utility in the aircraft industry, and in other industries, it must be susceptible to chemical milling so that excessive machining costs are not incurred in producing strong, lightweight parts.
The most desirable etching system for etching conventional aluminum alloys has been a caustic etch system. Caustic etch systems have an inherent advantage over acid etch systems for aluminum. The solubility of aluminum in acids is very low, typically from about 15 to 17 grams per liter at normal operating temperatures. The solubility of aluminum in caustic etchant may be as high as 70 grams per liter, or perhaps slightly more, at normal operating temperatures. Since caustic etchants have the greatest inherent solubility advantage, it would be desirable to etch aluminum lithium alloys in caustic baths. However, conventional caustic baths have proved highly unsatisfactory for lithium containing aluminum alloys. In particular, conventional caustic etch baths have produced highly irregular, coarse etched surfaces which are entirely unsuitable both from a cosmetic and a strength stand point. The surface produced by conventional caustic etchant on lithium containing aluminum alloys is irregular, rough, pitted and has a high degree of stress concentrating structures. These structures reduce the effective strength of the material and eliminate any inherent strength to weight advantage which lithium containing aluminum alloys have over conventional alloys. As a result, the industry regards caustic etchants as unsuitable for lithium containing aluminum alloys and as especially unsuitable for alloy 2090, the preferred alloy for many advanced designs. The art currently uses acid etchant systems, in spite of the low solubility of aluminum in acid and the additional disadvantage of having to find suitable methods of disposing of toxic acid waste products from the acid etchant baths.
Applicants' have discovered a caustic etchant and a method of etching aluminum lithium alloys using the caustic etchant that is effective to produce a smooth chemically milled surface which is free of stress concentrators and has a highly desirable cosmetic appearance. Applicants' caustic etchant has a high solubility for aluminum which permits an etchant solution to be used in an efficient manner to mill a large quantity of lithium containing aluminum material. Applicants' etchant does not contain any highly toxic chemicals so the spent etchant bath can be disposed of without creating an environmental hazard. The composition contains a caustic etchant material such as sodium hydroxide or other inorganic caustic etchant and a high proportion of inorganic sulfide, such as sodium sulfide or equivalent reactive sulfides. The bath may contain a nominal amount of aluminum to increase the activity of the etchant bath. Preferably, a chelating agent, such as an amine chelating agent, preferably triethanolamine or an equivalent chelating agent, is added to the etchant bath. In addition to these chelating agents, just described, we have found that small amounts of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and a soluble carbonate, such as sodium carbonate, are especially beneficial to improving fillet radii and undercut factors. The addition of the chelating agent eliminates the need for adding dissolved aluminum metal to the etchant bath as an activating agent, further extending the useful life of the etchant bath. Dissolved aluminum may be added, if desired. The soluble carbonate, chelating agent and EDTA, in combination, act as etch rate controlling compounds which provide a uniform etch of the alloy, preventing formation of stress concentrating structures and insuring a smooth, desirable milled surface.
Applicants' method of chemically etching or milling lithium containing aluminum alloys includes the preparation of sufficient quantity of the etchant in a suitable container or tank. The aluminum lithium parts to be etched or milled are immersed in the tank for the appropriate period of time to remove the desired amount of material. The components of the etchant, such as sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, can be replenished as they are consumed during etching or milling of the aluminum lithium alloy. Typically, the caustic chemical milling bath contains an inorganic hydroxide, such as sodium hydroxide, in an amount between about 125 to 300 grams per liter, contains an inorganic sulfide, such as sodium sulfide, in an amount between about 35 to 145 grams per liter and a complexing agent, such as triethanolamine, in an amount between about 0.5 to 4 percent by volume. The bath may also contain ethylenediaminetatraacetic acid in an amount between about 1.0 to 10.0 grams per liter and sodium carbonate in an amount between about 2.0 and 20.0 grams per liter of etchant. The remainder of the composition is essentially water. The inorganic sulfide, as noted above, is present in an amount sufficient to provide a sulfur concentration (as sulfide ion) in the bath of from about 15-60 grams per liter.
A preferred composition for the bath is between about 190 to 220 grams per liter of inorganic hydroxide, between about 100 to 120 grams per liter of inorganic sulfide (about 40-50 grams per liter of sulfur, as sulfide) and about 2 percent by volume of complexing agent. A preferred concentration for the additional complexing agent EDTA is between about 1.0 to 5.0 grams per liter, and the preferred concentration of sodium carbonate is between about 2.0 to 8.0 grams per liter of etchant.
Applicant's invention has been found highly effective at chemically milling aluminum lithium alloys, including the hard to mill alloy 2090. To date this etchant has not been as effective at milling conventional aluminum alloys, such as alloy 7075, as are conventional caustic etchant systems. The sodium carbonate, or an equivalent carbonate, is especially helpful, as applicants have discovered, at improving the performance of the bath in etching fillet radii and in reducing undercut, and also substantially increasing the effective life of the bath. The added carbonate greatly reduces replating of lithium (or lithium complex) on the workpiece, which would interfere with the etch rate. The added carbonate effectively removed dissolved lithium from the etch path by precipitating low solubility lithium carbonates and complexes.
The invention may be more fully understood by referring to the following Description of the Drawings and Description of the Preferred Embodiments. | {
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Various methods exist for controlling access to objects in a distributed computing environment. One example of such methods, is an Access Control List (ACL). Typically, an ACL is a list that specifies what access privileges users have to an object. Rights typically include the right to lookup, insert, delete, read, write, lock, or administer files in a directory (abbreviated as l, i, d, r, w, k, a, respectively). Privileges can be granted and revoked by administrators as required.
In a distributed computing environment, there exists a need to synchronize an ACL among a plurality of servers and clients to prevent unauthorized access to protected objects. Maintaining consistency and consensus among the computing elements of the system is a difficult task. | {
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In a known openable and closable member control apparatus, an openable and closable member (e.g., a glass window panel, a slide door, a slide roof panel) of a vehicle is driven to open or close the same with a drive force of, for example, an electric motor. In this openable and closable member control apparatus, an object (foreign object), such as a human body, may possibly be pinched by the openable and closable member at the time of moving the openable and closable member. In order to limit the pinching of the object by the openable and closable member, for instance, JPS63-165682A (U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,333), JPH08-158738A and JP2010-24646A propose an openable and closable member control apparatus, which stops or reverses a moving direction of the openable and closable member in a state where pinching of the object by the openable and closable member is sensed.
Specifically, according to the technique of JPS63-165682A (U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,333), when a degree of speed reduction in a rotational speed of the motor, which drives a glass window panel, exceeds a threshold value, it is determined that an object is pinched by the window panel. Furthermore, in order to limit an occurrence of erroneous pinching determination at the time of starting rotation of the motor, at which the rotational speed of the motor becomes unstable, a mask is applied to limit execution of the process of determining whether the object is pinched by the window panel until elapse of a predetermined time period after the starting of the rotation of the motor.
However, the rotational speed of the motor may possibly be decreased due to a change in a viscosity of grease in the motor caused by a change in the temperature, a change in a voltage of a battery, and/or a change caused by aging of the corresponding component(s). Furthermore, in a power window control apparatus of a wire type, which uses a flexible member (e.g., a wire) as a drive force transmitting element that transmits a drive force from the motor to the window panel, an unstable range of the rotational speed of the motor, in which the rotational speed of the motor is unstable, varies between a case of executing closing movement of the window panel after execution of closing movement thereof and a case of executing closing movement of the window panel after execution of opening movement thereof due to a change in a location of slackness in the flexible member. In order to limit the occurrence of the erroneous pinching determination caused by the change in the rotational speed of the motor discussed above, a masking time period for masking the unstable range after the starting of rotation of the motor is lengthened. However, in such a case, the timing of executing the process of determining whether the object is pinched by the window panel may possibly be delayed, thereby resulting in an increase in a pinching force applied from the window panel to the pinched object.
In contrast, in the openable and closable member control apparatus of JPH08-158738A, which opens or closes the window panel through the flexible member, a masking value of a masking range is set in view of a state of slackness of the flexible member, which varies depending on a moving pattern of the window panel. Furthermore, a rotational angle of the motor is used as the masking value in the process of determining whether the object is pinched by the window panel. In this way, the process of determining whether the object is pinched by the window panel can be made in view of the various factors, which cause the change in the rotational speed of the motor. However, in the technique of JPH08-158738A, a change in a size (dimension) of the flexible member caused by the aging of the flexible member is not taken into account in the computation of the masking value. Therefore, the change in the masking value caused by the aging of the flexible member cannot be compensated. As a result, the masking value may possibly deviate from an appropriate range by a long term use of the flexible member.
In view of the above points, in the openable and closable member control apparatus of JP2010-24646A, the rotational amount of the motor from an upper limit position of the openable and closable member (a position of the openable and closable member, at which the openable and closable member is fully closed) to a lower limit position of the openable and closable member (a position of the openable and closable member, at which the openable and closable member is fully opened) is compared with a predetermined reference value to compute the correction amount of the masking value. Specifically, according to the technique of JP2010-24646A, it is assumed that a change in the rotational amount of the motor, which is measured at the time of moving the openable and closable member through an entire movable range thereof, varies depending on the aging of the flexible member. Thus, the rotational amount of the motor, which is measured at the time of moving the openable and closable member through the entire movable range thereof, is compared with an initial value thereof to compute the correction amount, and thereby the masking value is corrected by the amount, which corresponds to the aging of the flexible member.
However, according to the technique of JP2010-24646A, the correction amount of the masking value is not computed unless the openable and closable member is moved through the entire movable range thereof. Therefore, depending on the moving pattern of the openable and closable member (e.g., repeating of opening/closing movement of the openable and closable member, which stops the openable and closable member in the middle of the movable range of the openable and closable member), the masking value may not be corrected even in the state where the size of the flexible member is changed due to the aging thereof. As a result, the masking value may possibly be deviated from its appropriate range through the long term use of the flexible member.
In order to eliminate the change in the appropriate masking value caused by the change in the size of the flexible member, an automatic tensioner mechanism, which always applies a predetermined tension to the flexible member through, for example, a roller connected to a spring, may possibly be installed to automatically correct the slackness of the flexible member. However, in such a case, the number of components and costs are unavoidably increased due to the installation of the automatic tensioner. | {
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“Mixed reality” generally refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations in which physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time. Interactive input systems that utilize mixed reality, often referred to as “augmented interactive input systems”, are known in the art. Some existing augmented interactive input systems make use of a document camera to track physical objects such as cubes and flashcards that comprise recognizable patterns. Digital content is superimposed on top of the images captured by the document camera. Direct association of the physical objects to digital content allows users to manipulate the digital content through manipulation of the physical objects.
Stereoscopic three-dimensional (3D) input systems have also been considered. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0094398 to Ng et al. discloses a 3D visualization system that can be ported to a laptop or desktop personal computer (PC), or other standard two-dimensional (2D) computing environment, which uses a mouse and keyboard as user input devices. A cursor or icon can be drawn at a contextually appropriate depth, thus preserving 3D interactivity and visualization while only having available 2D control. A spatially correct depth can be automatically found for, and assigned to, the cursors and icons associated with various 3D tools, control panels and other manipulations. This can preserve the 3D experience of interacting with a 3D data set even though the 2D interface used to select objects and manipulate them cannot directly provide a third dimensional co-ordinate. Based upon the assigned position of the cursor or icon in 3D, the functionality of a selected tool, and whether and in what sequence any buttons have been pressed on a 2D interface device, a variety of 3D virtual tools and functionalities can be implemented and controlled by a standard 2D computer interface.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0012675 to Alpasian et al. discloses an apparatus and method for 3D interaction with an autostereoscopic display. A motion tracking system may include video cameras that track a 3D motion of a user within an interaction volume defined by the fields-of-view of the video cameras, as the user moves a light source or other optical marker or an anatomical region of the user within the interaction volume. The motion tracking system may generate 3D tracking data containing position information about the 3D motion. An imaging system may create a virtual scene by tracing 3D virtual objects in virtual space, using the position information in the 3D tracking data. The imaging system may synthesize a plurality of views of the virtual scene, and interlace the plurality of views to generate an interlaced image to drive the autostereoscopic display and to be displayed thereon.
A disadvantage of known augmented interactive input systems is the temporary loss of physical objects that are being tracked. This typically occurs when a recognizable pattern on the object is partially or completely obscured, such as by fingers or hands during manipulation of the physical object in a 3D input space. This can also occur when the recognizable pattern is out of the field of view of the camera, due to a particular orientation of the physical object in relation to the field of view of the camera. When the augmented interactive input system temporarily loses track of the recognizable pattern and then regains tracking of the recognizable pattern, the associated digital content shown on the display disappears momentarily and then re-appears, causing the display to flicker.
Additionally, while some known augmented interactive input systems allow manipulation of recognized image objects from a printed medium, such as paper, these systems do not provide any means of visual feedback on the paper to facilitate manipulation of the recognized image objects.
Improvements are generally desired. It is therefore an object of the present invention at least to provide novel interactive input systems and novel computerized methods. | {
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The aforementioned copending application discloses several variations of a device for converting wind power to electricity, using a wind turbine supported aloft on a specially-designed tethered airfoil. The device includes means for orienting the wind turbine optimally into the wind without requiring rotation of the tethered airfoil. Among the variations set forth are a first embodiment in which the wind turbine is supported on the tethered airfoil via a 3-armed frame and a second embodiment in which the wind turbine is supported on the tethered airfoil via a radially inner and a radially outer support ring, with a plurality of radiating spokes held in tension between them. Of these the second appears to be most economical. In addition, the outer ring provides a rigid leading edge for the airfoil, which may be essential for use in winds above a light breeze. The outer ring also provides a support for the leading and trailing edge flaps of the airfoil. | {
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Generally speaking, a pacing lead permits an implantable medical device (IMD) such as an implantable pulse generator (IPG) or other IMD to sense the activity of the heart and to provide electrical stimulation to the heart. Pacing leads can be either epicardial (e.g., attached to the exterior surface of the heart), or endocardial (e.g., attached to an interior location of the heart). Endocardial leads are normally placed into contact with the endocardial tissue by passage through the venous system, such as through the subclavian vein or other easily accessible veins located near the implant site of the IMD. Thus a transvenous, endocardial lead refers to a pacing lead that contacts cardiac endocardial tissue through a vein.
An endocardial lead is in electrical communication with the heart via an electrode at its distal end and thereby provides an electrical pathway between the IPG and endocardial tissue. Using this electrical pathway, the IPG is able to both pace the heart via electrical impulses and sense cardiac depolarizations.
In the past, various types of transvenous endocardial leads have been introduced into different chambers of the heart including the right ventricle, right atrial appendage and atrium as well as the coronary sinus. These leads usually are composed of an insulator sleeve that contains a coiled conductor having an electrode tip attached at the distal end. The electrode tip is held in place within the trabeculations of endocardial tissue. The distal ends of many available leads include passive fixation designs that may consist of flexible tines, wedges, or finger-like projections that extend radially outward and usually are molded from and integral with the insulator sleeve of the lead. These tines allow better containment by the trabeculations of endocardial tissue and help prevent dislodgement of the lead tip. Active fixation leads, on the other hand, are designed with lead tips that are lodged into the myocardium and may consist of helical coils, small sharp tips, and barbed tines among others.
Once an endocardial lead is implanted within a chamber of the heart, the body's reaction to its presence furthers its fixation within the heart. Specifically, shortly after implant, a blood clot forms about the lead tip due to enzymes released in response to the irritation of the endocardial tissue caused by the electrode tip which can be any one of a plurality of designs, tined, helical, flanged, among others. Over time, fibrous scar tissue eventually forms over the distal end. This scarring usually occurs within three to six months of implantation. In addition, fibrous scar tissue often forms, in part, over the lead's body or insulative sleeve within the vein through which the lead was passed.
Although the state of the art in pacemaker and lead technology has advanced considerably, endocardial leads nevertheless occasionally fail, due to a variety of reasons, including insulation breaks, breakage of the inner helical coil conductor thereof and an increase in electrode resistance. Also, in some instances, it may be desirable to stimulate different portions of the heart than those being stimulated with leads already in place. Due to these and other factors, therefore, a considerable number of patients may come to eventually have more than one, and sometimes as many as four or five, abandoned, unused leads in their venous system and heart.
Abandoned transvenous leads increase the risk that medical complications will develop. Possible complications associated with leaving unused leads in the heart and venous system include an increased likelihood that such a lead may become a site of infection. Development of an infection may, in turn, lead to septicemia, a possibly fatal complication. Unused leads may also cause endocarditis. Furthermore, unused leads may entangle over time, thereby increasing the likelihood of blood clot formation. Such clots may embolize to the lung and produce severe complications or even death. The presence of unused leads in the venous pathway and inside the heart can also cause considerable difficulty in the positioning and attachment of new endocardial leads in the heart. Moreover, multiple leads within a vein may impede blood flow or occlude the blood vessel, causing swelling of the arm.
As serious as the risks associated with leaving an unused lead in place may be, the risks associated with past methods and devices for lead removal were often greater. One technique used to remove a lead was the application of traction and rotation to the outer free end of the lead. This technique, however, could only be done before the lead tip became fixed in scar tissues within the trabeculations of cardiac tissue, such as at the apex of the right ventricle. Since it is very difficult to determine the formation of a clot, even shortly after lead implantation, there exists the risk a clot has already formed. Removal of a lead at that time may cause various sized emboli to pass to the lungs, thereby producing severe complications.
In cases where the lead tip has become attached by fibrous scar tissue to the heart wall, removal of the lead has presented further major problems and risks. Porous lead tips may have an ingrowth of fibrous scar tissue attaching them to the heart wall. Sufficient traction on such leads in a removal attempt could cause disruption of the wall prior to release of the affixed lead tip, causing fatality. Moreover, a sheath of fibrotic scar tissue may further prevent lead removal and endothelium surrounding the outer surface of the lead body and specifically the insulator sleeve, as mentioned above, at least partway along the venous pathway. Such “channel scar” tissue prevents withdrawal because of encasement of the lead. Continual strong pulling or twisting of the proximal free end of the lead could cause rupturing of the right atrial wall or right ventricular wall. Encasement by fibrous scar tissue in the venous pathway and in the trabeculations of cardiac tissue typically occurs within three to six months after the initial placement of the lead.
In the context of implantable leads, and particularly in the context of implantable cardiac leads, there is often a need to remove a lead after it has been implanted in a patient's body for some period of time. In conjunction with lead removal, it is often necessary to apply traction to the lead, in order to pull it free from tissue adhering thereto. It has therefore been recognized for some time that a reinforcement of some type, extending along the lead body would be beneficial, in order to prevent breakage or partial disassembly of the lead during removal. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,996 issued to Bardy et al., a variety of reinforcement mechanisms are disclosed, including cords, filaments, braids, and the like.
More recently, in the context of implantable cardiac leads, the use of cabled or stranded conductors in place of the previously more commonly employed coiled conductors has become more popular. These cabled or stranded conductors, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,873 issued to Shoberg et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,760,341 issued to Laske et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,014 issued to Williams et al. inherently provide an increased tensile strength lead, at least along the segment between the point at which the stranded or cabled conductor is coupled to an electrode and the point at which the conductor is coupled to an electrical connector at the proximal end of the lead. While this new conductor inherently provides a lead of enhanced tensile strength, in most endocardial cardiac pacing leads employing cabled or stranded conductors, the conductor that extends to the distal-most portion of the lead is still a coiled conductor in order to permit passage of a stylet. This distal-most portion of the lead is the portion of the lead that is most likely to be firmly embedded in fibrous tissue. It is therefore desirable that this portion of the lead in particular should be capable of withstanding high tensile forces without breakage.
As the designs of pacing leads have progressed over the years, there has been a general trend toward reduction in the diameter of the bodies of such leads, that is, those that are ≦4 French in diameter. However, as the diameter of the lead body is reduced, the production of a pacing lead that has an adequate tensile strength to allow relatively easy extraction via traction and rotation has become more difficult.
One approach to providing a small diameter lead with a high tensile strength is to fabricate the lead using an inextendible conductor, for example, a stranded conductor as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,014 issued to Williams et al., a cabled conductor as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,873 issued to Shoberg et al., or a tinsel-wire conductor as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,292 issued to Bolduc all incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. Another approach to increasing the tensile strength of a lead including a coiled, normally extensible conductor is to provide a reinforcing fiber or core within the lead, as disclosed in the previously mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,996 issued to Bardy et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,516, both also incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
The previously referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/559,161, entitled, “Medical Electrical Leads with Fiber Core,” which discloses how to fabricate a high strength, small diameter pacing lead. This lead that can be as small as 2 to 4 French in diameter utilizes a fiber core fabricated from a single length of fiber that is d-oubled and twisted together, around which a multi-filar coil is wound. The composite conductor coil/core structure is coupled to a connector assembly at its proximal end and, preferably, to a helical electrode at its distal end. Having such a pacing lead available, there still remains the issue of how to extract such a lead in those patients who require such a procedure. | {
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This invention is related to cellular telephones and, in particular, to cellular telephones equipped with the capability of determining their location using the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system.
It is required for cellular telephone operation for a cellular phone to be aware of what cell it is located within. Cells in the cellular telephone system refer to the area covered by singular cellular tower, and can overlap. While the area in a cell is covered by a single tower, a tower may support multiple cells when sectored antennae are used at the tower. In general, a cellular phone will monitor the control channel of the cellular tower having the strongest signal. Therefore, a cellular phone has a rudimentary knowledge of its location, but not necessarily in terms of latitude, longitude and altitude.
However, there are applications, other than the normal voice communications capabilities of the cellular phone, that may require a more exact knowledge of the phone""s location within a cell. These include, for example, an application providing location sensitive advertising over the cell phone, wherein targeted advertising could be sent to cell phone users within a certain proximity of the advertiser""s location. Other such applications would be the provision of travel directions based on current location and enhanced 911 emergency services from calls made using a cellular phone. As a result, it is known to combine a cellular phone with GPS receiver in a single unit and to allow applications to request that the GPS receiver provide the current position of the unit to the applications, either periodically or upon request of the application.
To improve certain characteristics of its performance, such as time-to-first-fix and sensitivity, it is possible to provide the GPS receiver with various aiding information, such as satellite ephemeris, approximate time and reference location. The reference location is an approximation or estimate of the receiver""s current position, which, when used with other information, allows the receiver to determine which satellites should be visible and to estimate the signal transit times from the respective satellites. Generally, without this aiding information, acquiring the satellite signals and computing the receiver""s exact location could take much longer. This delay could have a serious impact on the performance of mobile location-based services, which tend to be time-sensitive.
Further, it is possible that there are certain locations, such as when the receiver is indoors, where the signal strength from the GPS satellites is not strong enough to provide a location fix. In these circumstances, the reference location could provide a rough estimate of location.
It is therefore desirable to provide a means by which a reference location can be provided to a GPS receiver which is integrated into a cellular phone.
The invention provides a means whereby the reference location for the GPS receiver can be computed to a higher degree of accuracy using information provided over the cellular network, such as the location of the cellular tower, the current positions of the GPS satellites, and the GPS time reference, and also using positions previously determined using actual fixes from the GPS receiver.
In particular, at selected times when a GPS equipped cell phone is operating in idle (non-call) mode receiving a control channel being broadcast on a particular cellular system, the cell phone uses the GPS receiver to compute its own position. These position computations are associated with the control channel to obtain an approximate location for the cell. The positions are also associated with the neighboring control channels that the cell phone is able to receive and with the signal strengths of the received signals. This allows the cell phone to increase the accuracy of reference locations and differentiate between locations within a cell by using xe2x80x9cneighbor listsxe2x80x9d. The accuracy is thereby increased beyond the granularity of the cell but still is not as accurate as the instantaneous position that may be computed by the GPS receiver when an actual position is needed. The accuracy, however, aids the receiver in more quickly computing the precise locations when needed.
The invention also uses the GPS receiver to compute a position when a private system not broadcasting a reference location is detected by the cell phone. Private systems are often located in an indoor environment, where signals from the GPS satellites may be undetectable. When the cell phone detects that it is in the vicinity of a private system, the the cell phone tracks its position until the signals from the GPS satellites are no longer detectable. The last recorded position is then used as a reference location estimate for applications when the cell phone is indoor and in contact with the private system.
The invention also allows the cell phone to form an estimate of the size of the cell which helps to determine if the reference location of the cell is accurate enough for a particular application. Thus, reducing the number of times the GPS receiver needs to be used.
The message described in this invention may therefore be used to first increase the performance of location estimation when a reference location is unavailable and second, to increase the accuracy of a provided reference location without having to use a GPS receiver in real time to obtain the location fix. The GPS receiver is used to obtain location information for a cell during a prior learning phase. The information obtained is stored in the memory of the cell phone and may be later used for higher accuracy location estimates without having to turn on the GPS receiver to get a real time location fix. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention pertains generally to orthopedic measuring devices. More particularly, the present invention pertains to measuring devices which are able to simultaneously measure mutually perpendicular linear displacements and angular displacements about an axis substantially perpendicular to the plane of the linear displacements. The present invention is particularly, but not exclusively, useful for measuring linear and angular displacements of the tibia with respect to the patella for the purpose of testing cruciate ligaments in the knee. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of medicinal chemistry. In particular, the invention relates to optionally substituted 4-substituted-1-(arylmethylidene)-thiosemicarbazide, 4-substituted-1-(arylcarbonyl)thiosemicarbazide and analogs, and the discovery that these compounds are activators of caspases and inducers of apoptosis. The invention also relates to the use of these compounds as therapeutically effective anti-cancer agents.
2. Related Art
Organisms eliminate unwanted cells by a process variously known as regulated cell death, programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Such cell death occurs as a normal aspect of animal development, as well as in tissue homeostasis and aging (Glucksmann, A., Biol. Rev. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 26:59-86 (1951); Glucksmann, A., Archives de Biologie 76:419-437 (1965); Ellis, et al., Dev. 112:591-603 (1991); Vaux, et al., Cell 76:777-779 (1994)). Apoptosis regulates cell number, facilitates morphogenesis, removes harmful or otherwise abnormal cells and eliminates cells that have already performed their function. Additionally, apoptosis occurs in response to various physiological stresses, such as hypoxia or ischemia (PCT published application WO96/20721).
There are a number of morphological changes shared by cells experiencing regulated cell death, including plasma and nuclear membrane blebbing, cell shrinkage (condensation of nucleoplasm and cytoplasm), organelle relocalization and compaction, chromatin condensation and production of apoptotic bodies (membrane enclosed particles containing intracellular material) (Orrenius, S., J. Internal Medicine 237:529-536(1995)).
Apoptosis is achieved through an endogenous mechanism of cellular suicide (Wyllie, A. H., in Cell Death in Biology and Pathology, Bowen and Lockshin, eds., Chapman and Hall (1981), pp. 9-34). A cell activates its internally encoded suicide program as a result of either internal or external signals. The suicide program is executed through the activation of a carefully regulated genetic program (Wyllie, et al., Int. Rev. Cyt. 68:251 (1980); Ellis, et al., Ann. Rev. Cell Bio. 7:663 (1991)). Apoptotic cells and bodies are usually recognized and cleared by neighboring cells or macrophages before lysis. Because of this clearance mechanism, inflammation is not induced despite the clearance of great numbers of cells (Orrenius, S., J. Internal Medicine 237:529-536 (1995)).
It has been found that a group of proteases are a key element in apoptosis (see, e.g., Thornberry, Chemistry and Biology 5:R97-R103 (1998); Thornberry, British Med. Bull. 53:478-490 (1996)). Genetic studies in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans revealed that apoptotic cell death involves at least 14 genes, 2 of which are the pro-apoptotic (death-promoting) ced (for cell death abnormal) genes, ced-3 and ced-4. CED-3 is homologous to interleukin 1 beta-converting enzyme, a cysteine protease, which is now called caspase-1. When these data were ultimately applied to mammals, and upon further extensive investigation, it was found that the mammalian apoptosis system appears to involve a cascade of caspases, or a system that behaves like a cascade of caspases. At present, the caspase family of cysteine proteases comprises 14 different members, and more may be discovered in the future. All known caspases are synthesized as zymogens that require cleavage at an aspartyl residue prior to forming the active enzyme. Thus, caspases are capable of activating other caspases, in the manner of an amplifying cascade.
Apoptosis and caspases are thought to be crucial in the development of cancer (Apoptosis and Cancer Chemotherapy, Hickman and Dive, eds., Humana Press (1999)). There is mounting evidence that cancer cells, while containing caspases, lack parts of the molecular machinery that activates the caspase cascade. This makes the cancer cells lose their capacity to undergo cellular suicide and the cells become cancerous. In the case of the apoptosis process, control points are known to exist that represent points for intervention leading to activation. These control points include the CED-9-BCL-like and CED-3-ICE-like gene family products, which are intrinsic proteins regulating the decision of a cell to survive or die and executing part of the cell death process itself, respectively (see, Schmitt, et al., Biochem. Cell. Biol. 75:301-314 (1997)). BCL-like proteins include BCL-xL and BAX-alpha, which appear to function upstream of caspase activation. BCL-xL appears to prevent activation of the apoptotic protease cascade, whereas BAX-alpha accelerates activation of the apoptotic protease cascade.
It has been shown that chemotherapeutic (anti-cancer) drugs can trigger cancer cells to undergo suicide by activating the dormant caspase cascade. This may be a crucial aspect of the mode of action of most, if not all, known anticancer drugs (Los, et al., Blood 90:3118-3129 (1997); Friesen, et al., Nat. Med. 2:574 (1996)). The mechanism of action of current antineoplastic drugs frequently involves an attack at specific phases of the cell cycle. In brief, the cell cycle refers to the stages through which cells normally progress during their lifetime. Normally, cells exist in a resting phase termed G0. During multiplication, cells progress to a stage in which DNA synthesis occurs, termed S. Later, cell division, or mitosis occurs, in a phase called M. Antineoplastic drugs, such as cytosine arabinoside, hydroxyurea, 6-mercaptopurine, and methotrexate are S phase specific, whereas antineoplastic drugs, such as vincristine, vinblastine, and paclitaxel are M phase specific. Many slow growing tumors, e.g., colon cancers, exist primarily in the G0 phase, whereas rapidly proliferating normal tissues, e.g., bone marrow, exist primarily in the S or M phase. Thus, a drug like 6-mercaptopurine can cause bone marrow toxicity while remaining ineffective for a slow growing tumor. Further aspects of the chemotherapy of neoplastic diseases are known to those skilled in the art (See, e.g., Hardman, et al., eds., Goodman and Gilman""s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, Ninth Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York (1996), pp. 1225-1287). Thus, it is clear that the possibility exists for the activation of the caspase cascade, although the exact mechanisms for doing so are not clear at this point. It is equally clear that insufficient activity of the caspase cascade and consequent apoptotic events are implicated in various types of cancer. The development of caspase cascade activators and inducers of apoptosis is a highly desirable goal in the development of therapeutically effective antineoplastic agents. Caspase cascade activators and inducers of apoptosis may also be a desirable therapy in the elimination of pathogens, such as HIV, Hepatitis C and other viral pathogens. The long lasting quiescence followed by a disease progression may be explained by anti-apoptotic mechanism of these pathognes leading to persistent cellular reservoirs of the virions. It has been reported that HIV-1 infected T leukemia cells or peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) underwent enhanced viral replication in the presence of caspase inhibitor Z-VAD-fmk. Furthermore, Z-VAD-fmk also stimulated endogenous virus production in activated PBMCs derived from HIV-1-infected asymptomatic individuals (Chinnaiyan, A. et. al. Nature Medicine. 3:333. 1997). Therefore, apoptosis may serve as a beneficial host mechanism to limit HIV spread and new therapeutics using caspase/apoptosis activators may be useful to clear viral reservoirs from the infected individuals. Similarly, HCV infection also triggers anti-apoptotic mechanisms to evade host""s immune surveillance leading to viral persistence and hepatocarcinogenesis (Tai, D. I., et. al., Hepatology 3:656-64 (2000)). Therefore, apoptosis inducers may be useful as therapeutics for HCV and other infectious disease. Moreover, since autoimmune disease and certain degenerative diseases also involve the proliferation of abnormal cells, therapeutic treatment for these diseases could also involve the enhancement of the apoptotic process through the administration of appropriate caspase cascade activators and inducers of apoptosis.
The present invention is related to the discovery that optionally substituted 4-substituted-1-(arylmethylidene)thiosemicarbazide, 4-substituted-1-(arylcarbonyl)thiosemicarbazide and analogs, as represented in Formulae I and II, are activators of the caspase cascade and inducers of apoptosis. Thus, an aspect of the present invention is directed to the use of compounds of Formulae I and II as inducers of apoptosis.
The compounds of the present invention are represented by Formulae I and II:
or pharmaceutically acceptable salts or prodrugs thereof, wherein:
A1 and A2 each independently is optionally substituted and is aryl, heteroaryl, saturated carbocyclic, partially saturated carbocylic, saturated heterocyclic, partially saturated heterocyclic, arylalkyl, or heteroarylalkyl;
Q is S or O; and
R1, R2 and R3 are independently hydrogen, optionally substituted alkyl or optionally substituted cycloalkyl.
A second aspect of the present invention is to provide a method for treating, preventing or ameliorating neoplasia and cancer by administering a compound of one of the Formulae I and II to a mammal in need of such treatment.
Many of the compounds within the scope of the present invention are novel compounds. Therefore, a third aspect of the present invention is to provide novel compounds of Formulae I and II, and to also provide for the use of these novel compounds for treating, preventing or ameliorating neoplasia and cancer.
A fourth aspect of the present invention is to provide a pharmaceutical composition useful for treating disorders responsive to the induction of apoptosis, containing an effective amount of a compound of one of the Formulae I and II in admixture with one or more pharmaceutically acceptable carriers or diluents.
A fifth aspect of the present invention is directed to methods for the preparation of novel compounds of Formulae I and II. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Electronic systems for musical input or musical performance often fail to simulate accurately the experience of playing a real musical instrument. For example, by attempting to simulate the manner in which a user interacts with a piano keyboard, systems often require the user to position their fingers in the shapes of piano chords. Such requirements create many problems. First, not all users know how to form piano chords. Second, users who do know how to form piano chords find it difficult to perform the chords on the systems, because the systems lack tactile stimulus, which guides the user's hands on a real piano. For example, on a real piano a user can feel the cracks between the keys and the varying height of the keys, but on an electronic system, no such textures exist. These problems lead to frustration and make the systems less useful, less enjoyable, and less popular. Therefore, a need exists for a system that strikes a balance between simulating a traditional musical instrument and providing an optimized user interface that allows effective musical input and performance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In recent years, a heat-sensitive color-developing paper has come into wide use, as a heat-sensitive recording material for a facscimile.
Such a heat-sensitive color-developing paper as mentioned above usually forms a printed-image thereon in the manner that the paper surface is so heated as to color-develop the heated portion thereof.
The above-described heat-sensitive color-developing papers have had the problems so far that the surface thereof is liable to be discolored by the change on standing after an image is printed and, in particular, that the storage-stability of a printed-image has been deteriorated, for example, the portion other than the printed portion has also been color-developed as same as in the printed portion, when the portion other than the printed portion has been exposed repeatedly to heat or light.
On the other hand, a heat-sensitive transfer-paper has been proposed to serve as a heat-sensitive material having an excellent storage-stability.
Ordinarily, such a heat-sensitive transfer paper comprises the two components, namely, an image-tranfer-recipient paper and a heat-transfer member, each arranged independently. In this ordinary case, the two components are stored in a rolled form, laid one upon another or separated one from another. When using this type of heat-sensitive transfer-paper, a printed-image may be formed on the transfer-image-recipient paper in such a manner that a colorant containing layer of the heat-transfer member is heated to fuse and the heat-transfer member is then brought into pressure-contact with the tansfer-image recipient paper, so that an image in the portion to be transferred may be transferred to the image-recipient paper.
Such a heat-sensitive transfer-paper, different from heat-sensitive color-paper, requires two composing materials (transfer recipient paper and heat transfer material) in order to get a recording paper having printed images. Therefore, it has such problems as that, for example, control and check must be needed for both of transfer recipient paper and heat transfer material, as the heat-transfer material is composed of support and a colorant containing layer and the foregoing support becomes completely useless after being printed so that the cost of heat transfer material is expensive, as originally the transfer recipient paper and the heat transfer material are separated and the heat transfer material is a thin sheet so that wrinkles are easy to be made on transfer recipier paper and heat transfer material when printing is done while rolled heat-sensitive transfer paper is wound therefore it is liable that printing order goes out of order, troubles occur in winding operation of heat-sensitive transfer paper or running of heat-sensitive transfer paper cannot be done stably.
As a commonly-used heat-sensitive recording material, an ink ribbon having a thermosoftening colorant containing layer on a support is used. In the case of this ink ribbon, the foregoing ink ribbon is contacted to the transfer recipient material, for example paper, and heat is applied imagewisely so that a heat-fusing thermosoftening colorant layer is transfered onto a recording material to form a printing image thereon.
In this ink ribbon, too, the support becomes useless after being printed. Therefore, the cost of the ink ribbon is expensive.
Besides, on the other hand, the foregoing heat-sensitive transfer paper or the foregoing heat-sensitive color-developing paper are used as barcode use or label use. In these case, not only image preservation but also abrasion resistance becomes problem. If the foregoing heat-sensitive transfer paper is used, abrasion resistance is bad, and if the foregoing heat-sensitive color-developing paper is used, both of image preservation and abrasion resistance are bad. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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A progressive mesh (PM) representation encodes an arbitrary mesh as a simple base mesh M0 and a sequence of n refinement operations called vertex splits. The PM defines an array {M0 . . . Mn} of level-of-detail (LOD) approximations, and supports geomorphs and progressive transmission. Unlike multiresolution frameworks based on subdivision, the meshes in a PM have irregular connectivities that can accurately model sharp features (e.g., creases and corners) at all scales.
One challenge in the PM framework is handling texture maps. Hardware rasterization features, including bump maps, normal maps, and multitexturing, allow fine detail to be captured in texture images parametrized over the mesh. Processes that implicate sources for textures include sampling detailed scanned meshes, evaluating solid textures, ray tracing, and 3D painting. In this regard, there are various problems associated with parametrizing texture images over all meshes in a PM sequence.
A single unfolding of an arbitrary mesh onto a texture image may create regions of high distortion, so generally a mesh must be partitioned into a set of charts. Each chart is parametrized by a region of a texture domain, and these parametrizations collectively form an atlas, an exemplary one of which is illustrated in FIG. 9C. For instance, several schemes simplify a mesh and then construct a texture image chart over each simplified face by sampling attributes, e.g., normals, from the original mesh.
For a PM, one might consider re-using chart images defined on faces of M0 for all meshes M1 . . . Mn. However, the problem is that a PM is generally not chart-compliant, in that its vertex splits can change the chart topology when applied indiscriminately near chart boundaries, thereby forcing parametric discontinuities. For example, the vertex split shown in FIG. 1B changes the adjacency of the three colored charts of FIG. 1A, resulting in the discontinuous texture. Fortunately, it is possible to construct a single atlas parametrization for the entire PM sequence. Chart-compliance can be obtained by first defining the charts on the original mesh, and then constraining a simplification sequence to comply with those chart boundaries, as described by Cohen, Olano and Manocha.
With respect to mesh partitioning, there have been several previous techniques that have proposed methods for parametrizing meshes by partitioning into charts. Krishnamurthy and Levoy describe an interactive system in which the user manually lays out chart boundaries by tracing curves. Maillot et al. partition mesh faces according to a bucketing of face normals. Eck et al. use a Voronoi-based partition. These last two algorithms make little effort to adapt charts to surface geometry, so the chart boundaries can hinder simplification, leading to poor LOD approximations.
The technmques of Lee et al. (“MAPS”) and Guskov et al. (“Normal Meshes”) map edges of the simplified base domain back to the original mesh. While the resulting charts adapt to surface geometry, their boundaries cut across faces of original mesh, requiring addition of new vertices and faces. For the applications described in MAPS and Normal Meshes, these additional vertices are only temporary, because the mesh geometry is subsequently resampled. However, the techniques of MAPS and Normal Meshes are not suited to generating a PM from a user-specified mesh, whose connectivity is often carefully optimized, because the imposition of new vertices is a drawback to such an application.
With respect to chart parametrization, several schemes have been proposed to flatten surface regions to establish a parametrization. These schemes typically obtain the parametrization by minimizing an objective functional. The main distinction between the functionals is how they measure the distance of the parametrization from an isometry, which is a mapping preserving lengths and angles.
Maillot et al. base their metric on edge springs of nonzero rest length, where rest length corresponds to edge length on the surface. To ensure that the parametrization is 1-to-1, i.e., to avoid parametric “buckling,” also called “face flipping,” they add an area-preservation term to the metric. However, a downside to the technique of Maillot et al. is that when the texture domain boundary is fixed, it is unclear how edge rest-lengths should be scaled. Another downside is that the weighting between the edge springs and the area-preservation term must be adjusted to produce an embedding.
Eck et al. propose the harmonic map, which weights edge springs non-uniformly. The weights can sometimes be negative, in which case an embedding is not guaranteed. Floater proposes a similar scheme with a different edge-spring weighting that guarantees embedding for convex boundaries. For either method, the parametrization can be found by solving a linear system.
Lévy and Mallet combine orthogonality and isoparametric terms in their metric. To solve the resulting nonlinear optimization, they iteratively fix one texture component, s or t, and solve for the other using a linear optimization. As with Lindstrom and Turk, a term is added, which must be sufficiently weighted to guarantee an embedding.
Horman and Greiner propose the MIPS parametrization, which roughly attempts to preserve the ratio of singular values over the parametrization. However, the metric disregards absolute stretch scale over the surface, with the result that small domain areas can map to large regions on the surface.
With respect to appearance preserving simplification, Cohen et al. introduce texture deviation as the appropriate measure of geometric accuracy when simplifying textured meshes. The texture deviation between a simplified mesh Mi and the original mesh Mn at a point pi ε Mi is defined as ∥pi−pn∥ where pn is the point on Mn with the same parametric location in the texture domain. Cohen et al. track texture deviation conservatively by storing a bounding error box at each mesh vertex. They demonstrate results on parametric surfaces already organized into charts; however, the techniques of Cohen et al. do not begin with an unparametrized mesh, and then seek to form an atlas parametrization that specifically minimizes texture deviation and stretch over all meshes in a PM.
Thus, it would be desirable to improve upon prior art techniques for providing texture mapping in connection with parametrization schemes. To improve upon prior art techniques, it would be desirable to provide a system that allows all meshes in the PM to share a common texture map. Furthermore, it would be desirable to create domains with straight boundaries between chart corners, unlike, for example, the approaches of Maillot et al., Lévy and Mallet and Hormann and Greiner. It would be still further desirable to provide systems and methods for texture mapping PMs that minimize geometric stretch and texture deviation. It would be still further desirable to substantially balance sampling rates everywhere on the surface by optimizing the geometric stretch of a parametrization scheme. Moreover, it would be advantageous to provide a general solution that begins with an unparametrized mesh, and then forms an atlas parametrization that minimizes texture deviation and stretch over all meshes in a PM. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flexible mounting apparatus, and in particular, to an improved universal ball-and-socket mounting apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many known mounting apparatus that connect a movable object to a relatively stationary object in a manner where the movable object is supported on the stationary object at variable angular orientations with respect to both of the objects. As non-limiting examples, U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,885 to Carnevali and U.S. Pat. No. 7,025,315 to Carnevali both illustrate universal ball-and-socket mounting apparatus. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field
The disclosure relates to a transparent conductor, a method of manufacturing the transparent conductor, and an electronic device including the transparent conductor.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic device such as a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) or an organic light emitting diode (“OLED”) device includes a transparent conductor as a transparent electrode.
The transparent conductor may be broadly classified into three types according to a material included therein. The first type is an organic-based transparent conductor such as a conductive polymer, a carbon nanostructure or graphene, the second type is an oxide-based transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide (“ITO”); and the third type is a metal-based transparent conductor such as a metal grid.
However, the conductive polymer typically has high specific resistance and low transparency, and may be easily deteriorated when exposed to moisture and air, a cost for providing the carbon nanostructure is substantially high; and the graphene may not be efficiently formed as a large area transparent conductor. In addition, the manufacturing cost of the transparent conductor including ITO may be substantially high due to the high cost of indium, and a vacuum process is typically used to provide the metal grid, thereby increasing the manufacturing cost. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a 1,2,4-triazole derivative or a non-toxic salt thereof, a method for preparing the same, and a pharmaceutical composition containing the same as an active ingredient.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents are responsible for blocking enzyme, cyclooxygenase (COX) or prostaglandin G/H synthase, to reduce inflammation, pain, or fever. In addition, they inhibit uterus contraction caused by hormones and also inhibit growth of several cancers. Cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) was first discovered in bovine. The COX-1 is constitutively expressed in a variety of cell types. Unlike the COX-1, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is a recently discovered isoform of cyclooxygenase that can be easily induced by mitogen, endotoxin, hormone, growth factor, or cytokine.
Prostaglandin is a potent mediator for various pathological and physiological processes. The COX-1 plays important physiological roles such as in the release of endogenous prostaglandin, the maintenance of the shape and the function of stomach, and the blood circulation in the kidney. On the other hand, the COX-2 is induced by an inflammatory factor, hormone, a growth factor, or cytokine. Therefore, the COX-2 is involved in pathological processes of prostaglandin, unlike the constitutive COX-1. In this regard, selective inhibitors of the COX-2 produce fewer and less side effects in terms of action mechanism in comparison with conventional nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents. In addition, they reduce inflammation, pain, and fever and inhibit uterus contraction caused by hormones and growth of several cancers. In particular, they are effective in decreasing side effects such as stomach toxicity and kidney toxicity. Still furthermore, they inhibit the synthesis of contractile prostanoid, thereby leading to suppression of the contraction of smooth muscles. Therefore, they help in preventing premature birth, menstrual irregularity, asthma, and eosinophilic disease.
Recently, it was reported that nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents are effective in treating large intestine cancer [European Journal of Cancer, Vol 37, p 2302, 2001], prostate cancer [Urology, Vol 58, p 127, 2001], and dementia [Exp. Opin. Invest. Drugs, Vol 9, p 671, 2000].
In addition, it is anticipated that selective inhibitors of the COX-2 would be effective in treating osteoporosis and glaucoma. Utility of selective inhibitors of the COX-2 is well described in publications [John Vane, “Towards a Better Aspirin” in Nature, Vol. 367, pp 215-216, 1994; Bruno Battistini, Regina Botting and Y. S. Bakhle, “COX-1 and COX-2: Toward the Development of More Selective NSAIDs” in Drug News and Perspectives, Vol. 7, pp 501-512, 1994; David B. Reitz and Karen Seibert, “Selective Cyclooxygenase Inhibitors” in Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry, James A. Bristol, Editor, Vol. 30, pp 179-188, 1995].
Various selective COX-2 inhibitors having different structures are known. Among them, a selective COX-2 inhibitor having a diaryl heterocyclic structure, i.e. a tricyclic structure has been widely studied as a potent candidate. The diaryl heterocyclic structure has a central ring and a sulfonamide or methylsulfone group attached to one of the aryl rings. An initial substance having such diaryl heterocyclic structure is Dup697 [Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, Vol 5, p 2123, 1995]. Since then, SC-58635 having a pyrazol ring (Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Vol 40, p 1347, 1997) and MK-966 having a furanone ring (WO 95/00501) were discovered as derivatives of the Dup697.
One selective COX-2 inhibitor, Celecoxib of formula 23 is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,466,823. The Celecoxib is a substituted pyrazolyl benzenesulfonamide derivative.
Another selective COX-2 inhibitor, Rofecoxib of formula 24 is disclosed in WO 95/00501. The Rofecoxib has a diaryl heterocyclic structure with a central furanone ring.
Valdecoxib of formula 25 as another selective COX-2 inhibitor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,272. The Valdecoxib has a phenylsulfonamide moiety with a central isoxazole ring.
The selective COX-2 inhibitors of formulas 23 to 25 are effective inflammatory therapeutic agents with fewer and less side effects in comparison with conventional nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Several different types of manufacturing method for multipole systems have become known. For quadrupole systems used for analytical purposes, honed round rods, which were fitted into suitably ground ceramic rings and secured there, were used initially. Later, hyperbolically ground metal rods were used, which were screwed into internally calibrated glass cages. The glass cages were manufactured on a precisely ground core (KPG method for “calibrated precision glass”) using a hot molding process. DE 27 37 903 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,557) elucidates a method of manufacture which melts four long metal foils onto the hyperbolic interior surfaces of a similarly hyperbolic glass body during the hot molding phase of a KPG method, said foils serving as electrodes.
For the hexapole and octopole systems that are used as ion guides, round rods or capillaries are still used. The rods or capillaries have diameters of around 0.5 to 1.5 millimeters, usually around 0.8 millimeters; they are made from hard-drawn metal, usually stainless steel, and, in some cases, gold plated externally. They are secured by means of tack-welded tabs, which are screwed onto insulating rings with voltage supplies. This method of manufacture is not very reproducible, and the ion guides manufactured in this way are extremely sensitive to collisions and bending forces; they are also sensitive to mechanical or acoustic vibrations, which can cause them to resonate. They then often tear off at the tack-welded securing points. As supplied, the rods or capillaries are not very straight, and they have to be repeatedly restraightened, including after every processing operation.
Such ion guides are generally quite finely worked: the internal diameters of the rod system are usually only between two and four millimeters. Nevertheless, even slight bending, which leads to irregular internal diameters, can considerably reduce the ion transmission, or even block it completely. There is therefore a need for more stable multipole systems and for an inexpensive method of manufacture and inexpensive to manufacture. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The world's leading luxury and upscale hotels, resorts, cruise lines, vacation destinations, and other public venues often differentiate themselves in a competitive market by promising and attempting to deliver exceptional service and convenience to their patrons, such as guests, customers, spectators, visitors, clientele, and other clients (hereinafter referred to collectively as “patrons”). Successfully delivering on the promise of outstanding service not only attracts repeat business, but can also generate greater revenue and increased profitability. At the same time, patrons that these properties attract have elevated expectations of service, including increased levels of attention, convenience, speed and control. The service delivery challenge for the resort is to attend quickly to patrons when the require service, to fulfill patrons' requests in a timely and efficient manner, and finally to locate a patron for delivery of their order.
Despite their high expectations, patrons at luxury and upscale resorts currently face several inconveniences in ordering food, beverages, and other amenities and services while on the beach, at the pool and in other areas of the property. In many instances when patrons desire to place an order, they cannot find a staff member such as a server, a runner, a waiter, a waitress, beach attendant, recreational staff, an employee and other personnel (hereinafter referred to collectively as a “staff member”) of an establishment in the vicinity. Often the patron is unable to attract the attention of the staff member, or the staff member may be busy attending to another patron. Additional problems arise once the order is taken, as the staff member may proceed to take additional orders before submitting initial patron's orders for fulfillment. The result is a delay in entering the initial orders to the resort's computer system (assuming there is a basic computer system) and thus delaying preparation of the order as well.
If a patron becomes tired of waiting for a staff member to take the order, the alternative is to walk, sometimes for great distances, to place an order for food, beverages, or services. Not only are patrons inconvenienced, but they also face the risks inherent in leaving children or personal belongings unsupervised and unprotected on the beach, pool deck, or other resort location.
Once the order is prepared and ready for delivery to the patron, it can be a challenge for the staff member to remember where the patron is located or to find where the patron has relocated. Oftentimes the person who took the order is often not the same person who delivers the order, or the patron has moved and is not seated where the original order was taken. The result is that patrons experience further delay in having their orders delivered.
Once a the item (such as a towel, beverage, food) has been delivered to the patron, and the staff member departs, any problem with the order (i.e., missing utensils or condiments, erroneous or ill-prepared items, etc.) requires the patron to chase after the staff member, walk to a service area, or wait for the staff member to return.
Additionally, since a staff member has no way to know if a patron is interested in ordering food or beverages, staff members may periodically “check-in” with the patron as they circulate on the beach, pool, or other locations, which sometimes results in annoying disturbances for the patron, if the patron has no interest in placing an order.
Furthermore, most resorts do not offer patrons the ability to purchase sundry items, reserve a tee time, tennis court, jet ski, or spa related appointments while seated at the beach or pool.
In an attempt to address some of the aforementioned problems, a limited number of hotels are deploying centrally-located kiosks. Unfortunately, these systems require patrons to leave their seats and walk some distance to place an order at a kiosk location. Again, not only are the patrons inconvenienced, but they also face the risks inherent in leaving children or personal belongings unsupervised and unprotected on the beach, pool deck, or other resort location when having to order from the kiosk location.
Additionally, kiosks do not enable the staff member to locate the patron for delivery of the order, thus requiring additional effort and further inconvenience to the patron if the patron must retrieve the order himself. Furthermore, in many instances there may be a line of patrons waiting to use a particular kiosk creating a further inconvenient experience for patrons when they attempt to place an order for themselves.
Some manufactures have introduced POS (point-of-sale) systems for use by staff at restaurants, which may include wireless handheld terminals, as an extension of the POS systems. These handheld terminals enable staff to input and manage patron orders at a distance. Unfortunately, these devices typically only allow the staff member, to take and transmit the order on behalf of the patron. The patron must still wait for a staff member to arrive so that the patron may initiate an order. Additionally, these systems do not lend themselves in many areas of a resort. For example, there remains the problem of locating the patron in a pool or beach environment after the order is taken. This problem is further exacerbated when the staff member who took the order is not the same person who delivers the order. Thus, centrally-located kiosks for patron use and handheld POS devices for a staff member's use, both are of limited effectiveness and, thus do not fully address the problems of both the patron and the resort.
The impact on the resort caused by these service failures is significant, and includes decreased patron satisfaction, higher costs through service inefficiencies, and missed opportunities to increase property revenues per patron, decreased repeat patron business, and decreased reputation/rating, etc. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present disclosure relates generally to the field of computed tomography (CT), including but not limited to methods and systems for ultra-low dose CT fluoroscopy.
CT fluoroscopy is an invaluable tool for use during CT-guided interventions such as biopsy, drainage, and ablations. In many centers, CT-fluoroscopy is the dominant modality used to guide non-vascular interventions in the chest, abdomen, pelvis, and musculoskeletal system. Most modern CT scanners are capable of performing CT fluoroscopic imaging procedures. For instance, a CT scanner can be programmed to perform CT fluoroscopy data acquisition. There are likely several hundred thousand related procedures performed in the United States per annum, and potentially millions worldwide. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention concerns how to suppress the fluttering of a web of paper or like continuous sheet of any comparable material traveling along a predefined path in a predetermined direction. More specifically, the invention relates to a method of, and apparatus for, web flutter control that take advantage of the Coanda effect, the familiar fluid dynamic phenomenon known also as wall attachment.
The present invention is believed to be of immense utility when applied to web flutter control during the splicing of webs in a web-fed rotary printing press because the web being printed is especially susceptible to fluttering while being spliced to a new web roll according to the customary practice in the printing industry. It is not desired, however, that the invention be limited to this particular application as it is no doubt adaptable for a variety of other applications that may involve machines dealing with traveling webs or like continuous sheets of any relatively pliant material in general.
Several practicable suggestions have been made in the art of controlling the fluttering of traveling webs. According to one such known suggestion, Japanese Patent No. 2,552,595, a pair of confronting, parallel walls are provided on opposite sides of a web path. Optionally, ports are formed in the walls for introducing air jets into the space therebetween, the air jets being directed perpendicular to the traveling web, although these jets are said to be ancillary in nature.
This first known method of web flutter containment relies on the airstreams created by the traveling web itself. As ambient air is entrained and drawn into the spaces between the web and the opposed wall surfaces, the air pressures will build up and balance each other on both sides of the web, keeping the same from fluttering which might otherwise occur even with the slightest fluctuations in web tension. The fluid pressures on both sides of the web will further increase with the introduction of jets from the wall ports, even more positively damping web oscillation. Thus, with or without use of the ancillary air jets, the web is purely fluid-dynamically prevented from fluttering, without contacting any stationary or mobile parts.
Offsetting this strength of the first prior art method are the difficulties arising from the need for provision of walls on both sides of the web path. The walls require means for supporting them, and the resulting apparatus becomes all the more bulky when means are provided for introduction of air jets through both walls into the space therebetween. The necessity of the walls on both sides of the web path manifests itself as a critical drawback when the apparatus is to be utilized for web flutter suppression during web splicing. At the supply roll station of a web-fed rotary printing press, for example, the space for wall installation is available only on one side of the web during splicing, the other side being occupied by a new roll against which the web now being printed is to be pressed for splicing. This prior art apparatus is therefore unapplicable to this end.
Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 58-83346 teaches the use of a hollow structure for conveying ultrathin sheet material therethrough. At the upstream end of this hollow structure there are provided nozzles for creating two airstreams in the upper and lower parts of its interior, the upper stream being higher in velocity than the lower. Ultrathin sheet material is pneumatically transported down the hollow structure, always floating by virtue of the pressure differential caused by the difference between the speeds of the airflows on its upper and lower sides.
This prior art pneumatic transportation system is well calculated to keep ultrathin sheet material straight as it travels through the hollow structure. No consideration is, however, made as to how to keep the material from fluttering. For this reason alone the system is unfit for flutter control of traveling webs, not to mention the fact that its mechanical construction inhibits its use for that purpose during web splicing for the same reasons as have been set forth in connection with the first described prior art.
Japanese Utility Model No. 2,503,149 is explicitly designed to damp web fluttering during web splicing. Employed to this end are baffle plates for damping fluttering of the web which travels close to the new web roll to which that old web is to be spliced. Strategically positioned along the path of the old web, and on its side opposite to that where the new web roll lies, the baffles are intended to keep the old web from fluttering caused by the airflow induced along the surface of the new web roll as the later is driven at the same peripheral speed as the traveling speed of the old web.
An objection to this third prior art device is that the traveling old web tends to be drawn to the new web roll because of the high velocity airstream created by its rotation, the baffles being positioned only on the other side of the traveling web. Not only drawn, but the old web has actually come into contact with the new web roll, sticking, in the worst case, to the adhesive edge of the new web and thereby itself tearing or breaking. If not completely stuck to the adhesive edge of the new web, the old web has often lessened its adhesiveness as a result of forced contact or rubbing, possibly resulting in splicing failure or improper splicing.
As an additional disadvantage, the web must run in sliding contact with the baffles. The web has frequently had its surface marred, making it impossible to print correctly thereon and deteriorating the quality of the printing. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Conductive polymer has been studied in recent years for its novel electrical and optical properties [R. B. Kaner and A. G. MacDiarmid, Scientific America, 258, 106 (1988)]. Because of its electrical conductivity, it can be used as conductive paints, as electrical connection in flexible electrical circuit boards, as electromagnetic shielding, and as anti-electrostatic coatings. Its optical property leads to potential application as light filters, as thin film light polarizer, as color variable paints, and as nonlinear optical materials. In addition, conducting polymer is an electroactive material that can be reversibly doped and undoped by electrochemical oxidation and reduction. This property leads to possible applications as rechargeable batteries, electrochromic display devices and electrochromic windows.
Common methods for synthesis of conducting polymers lead to intractable materials that are usually not amenable to industrial processing. For example, polyaniline in its conductive form is insoluble in solvents, so it is difficult to be solution-processed. Upon heating, polyaniline decomposes before melting, so it can not be melt-processed. Other conducting polymers also have similar problems of the lack of processability, and this has limited the practical application of conductive polymers.
Most conductive polymers are insoluble in its doped conductive form. Some conductive polymers can be made slightly soluble by converting into its de-doped insulator form. For example, undoped polyaniline has low solbility in N-methylpyrrolidinone and 80% acetic acid [Angelopoulos et al, Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst., vol. 160, p. 151-163 (1988).]. Articles formed from this solution is not electrically conductive and lacks certain desirable optical properties associated with conductive polymers. Re-doping of the solid is difficult and is likely to cause cracking of films due to the insertion of dopant molecules into dense solid.
A method has been devised to make solutions of polyaniline in its conductive form. Elsenbaumer [U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,983,322 and 5,006,278] used a certain organic polar solvent coupled with specific oxidative dopant to dissolve the undoped base form of polyaniline (emeraldine base). The procedure comprises synthesizing conductive polymer in aqueous acidic medium, treated with base, dried, and then redissolve with nitromethane solution of ferric chloride. The multi-step procedure is somewhat cumbersome and the dissolving process is slow. An additional disadvantage is that articles made from this prior procedure may be dedoped because the low molecular weight dopants are relatively easy to escape from the host polymer due to heat (evaporation) or due to dissolving into organic solvent or water.
In order to bind the dopants more strongly to keep the conductive polymer in the conductive form and at the same time provide solubility, there have been efforts to functionalize polyaniline with sulfonic group containing substituents. For example, a sulfonated polyaniline such as poly(aniline sulfonic acid) is soluble in strong acidic and basic aqueous solutions because the sulfonate group is solvated by water molecules [J. Yue, S. H. Wang, K. R. Cromack, A. J. Epstein, and A. G. MacDiarmid, J.Am.Chem.Soc., 113, 2665 (1991)]. Alternatively, long alkyl chain, or alkyl sulfonic chain can be covalently bonded to the aromatic rings of polyaniline to render solubility in either organic solvents or aqueous solvents [L. H. Dao, M. Leclerc, J. Guay and J. W. Chevalier, Synth. Metals, 29, E377 (1989)]. Unfortunately, the covalently bonded side chains invariably affect the electrical and optical properties of polyaniline because of disturbances on the electronic structure arising from the strong electronic effect of the sulfonic group or due to the steric hindrance imposed by a bulky substituent which twists the relatively planar structure of the un-substituted polyaniline and decreases the pi electronic conjugation.
An alternative method involves the formation of colloidal particles of conductive polymers (polypyrrole and polyaniline). In this method a steric stabilizer is chemically grafted onto the backbone of polypyrrole or polyaniline [S. P. Armes and B. Vincent, J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun. p. 288, (1987); S. P. Armes, J. F. Miller and B. Vincent, J. Coll. Interface Sci., 118, 410 (1987); J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun. 88 (1989); Armes et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,180 and 4,959,126.] Since the steric stabilizer uses protonated vinylpyridine units to help stabilizing the colloid in the suspension, the colloid floculates in base solution. The colloidal particles are suitable for casting thin films but may not have sufficient fibrous morphology to allow for stretch or melt processing.
In a previous study of electrochromic device [Yang et al, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 373,195] an electrochemical synthesis method was used to make electrochromic polyaniline with desirable color-switching responses. The electrochromic material was made by electrolysis of a solution of polyelectrolyte and monomeric aniline [Hwang et al, Synthetic Metals, 29, E271-E276 (1989); Zhang et al, Synthetic Metals, 29, E251-E256 (1989), Zhang et al, MRS Symposium Proceedings, (1990); Hyodo et al, Electrochemical Acta, 36, 87-91 (1991)]. Such material is a solid containing the conducting polymer and the polyelectrolyte. The material made by electrochemical polymerization is insoluble in water and other organic solvents, therefore it is difficult to be used in solution processing. The electrochemical polymerization is not easy to develop the large scale production.
It is an object of this invention to provide a processable, electrically conductive polymer composition containing a molecular complex made by template-guided chemical polymerization.
It is a further object of this invention is to provide a template-guided chemical polymerization process for preparing molecular complex.
The present invention uses chemical polymerization to form molecular complex of polyelectrolyte and conducting polymer which is versatile for processing. The synthetic method is suitable for mass production and can be controlled to provide the desirable different properties of the molecular complex. We disclose here the synthetic method and the new materials of different processability:
(1) Aqueous and non-aqueous solutions of the conductive polymer complex that are useful for spraying or casting thin films of conductive polymer. PA1 (2) Colloidal suspension of the conductive polymer complex that are advantageous for coating, painting, printing or for compounding. PA1 (3) Solid state of the conducting polymer complexes that are advantageous for stretch, melt processing, or for compounding. PA1 (1) Aqueous and non-aqueous solutions of the conductive polymer complexes that are useful for spraying or casting thin films of conductive polymer. PA1 (2) Colloidal suspension of the conductive polymer complexes that are advantageous for coating, painting, printing or for compounding. PA1 (3) Solid state of the conducting polymer complexes that are advantageous for stretch, melt processing, or for compounding. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to tripod heads for use in mounting a camera on a tripod, and more particularly to a new and improved tripod head featuring multiple axes locking with one knob.
2. Background Information
A tripod head mounts on a tripod, or other suitable support structure, as an adjustable mounting for a camera. The tripod provides stability while the tripod head enables adjustment of camera position for aiming purposes.
The tripod head usually includes a base that mounts on the tripod and a camera platform on which the camera mounts. Typically, the camera platform can be independently pivoted relative to the base about a selected one of two or three mutually perpendicular axes, and this enables flexibility in aiming the camera at a subject to be photographed.
The photographer first mounts the base of the tripod head on the tripod, and the camera on the camera platform. Then, loosening one or more locking mechanisms on the tripod head to free the camera platform, the photographer pivots the camera to a desired position relative to the subject being photographed and secures the camera platform in position.
Although convenient in many respects, this arrangement involves certain problems that need to be overcome. For example, in aiming the camera it may be desirable to free the camera platform so that the camera can be pivoted about more than one axis simultaneously. This is awkward to do with some existing tripod heads because they include a separate locking mechanism or locking knob for each axis. The photographer must loosen at least two knobs, adjust camera position, and then tighten the knobs while carefully retaining the camera in position.
This problem is overcome in some respects by existing tripod heads having a multiple axis locking arrangement. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,434,829 to Bentzman describes an adjustable tripod head with a camera platform or support bracket that can be moved about a vertical or panning axis as well as a horizontal or tilting axis. Twisting a handle simultaneously locks the support bracket against movement about both axes, and this simplifies adjustment in many respects.
However, the structure employed in the tripod head is somewhat complicated and bulky. In addition, combining tilting axis locking with panning axis locking dictates that the tilting axis be unlocked in order to pan a subject. Doing this may result in the camera tilting out of alignment. In addition, the support bracket can be tilted about only one horizontal axis, and this is not always sufficient for convenient camera alignment.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,802,633 to Moore describes another tripod head that enables panning about a vertical axis as well as tilting about two mutually perpendicular horizontal axes. A single finger knob locks all three axes, and while this three axes arrangement provides greater freedom of camera adjustment, the tilting axes must still be unlocked in order to pan.
Many of these concerns are overcome by the novel tripod head described in the copending application with a compact, multiple axes locking arrangement that includes one knob locking of two tilting axes apart from panning axis locking. However, some larger cameras may require a more secure locking mechanism than provided in the prior art. In addition, it is often desirable to adjust the camera about one tilting axis without upsetting camera alignment about the other tilting axis, and this is often inconvenient to do with a multiple axis locking mechanism. Furthermore, it is sometimes desirable to quickly reorientate the camera ninety degrees on the tripod head for camera aiming purposes, and this is somewhat inconvenient to do with existing tripod heads.
Consequently, it is desirable to have a new and improved tripod head with these added features. One not only having multiple tilting axes locking with one knob apart from panning axis locking, but also a more secure locking mechanism suitable for use with larger cameras that enables adjustment of one tilting axes without upsetting the other, as well as one that includes means for rapidly reorientating the camera on the tripod head. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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When a user calls a call center, a call routing system that handles incoming calls may attempt to connect the user to one of multiple agents attending the call center. However, the attempt to connect to the agent may fail for a variety of reasons. For example, the call may be forwarded to a non-existing business group, the attempt to extend the call may be blocked, a server receiving the call may fail (e.g., when the call is voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), etc. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is an electronic circuit that receives an n-bit digital word and generates an analog output that is proportional to the received digital word. Digital codes are typically converted to analog voltages by assigning a voltage weight to each bit in the digital code and then summing the voltage weights of the entire code.
DACs can be designed for a wide range of applications, including general data acquisition applications and special applications, such as, but not limited to, video or graphic outputs, high definition video displays, ultra high-speed signal processing, and digital video recording.
The major factors that determine the performance quality of a DAC are resolution, speed, and linearity. Resolution refers to the smallest change in the output analog signal that is supported. The resolution determines the total number of digital codes, or quantization levels that will be recognized by a converter. The speed of a DAC is determined by the time it takes to perform the conversion process. Measurement accuracy is specified by a DAC's linearity. Integral linearity, which is also referred to as relative accuracy, is a measure of the linearity over the entire conversion range. It is often defined as the deviation from a straight line drawn between the endpoints and through zero (or offset value) of the conversion range. A DAC may use scrambling to increase linearity in the presence of non-linearities such as mismatches.
The accuracy of a DAC is critical in certain applications. The accuracy of a DAC may be increased by increasing the resolution of the DAC. Increasing the resolution often increases the cost and power requirements of the DAC.
Therefore, what are needed are systems and methods to reduce the impact of increasing the resolution of the DAC to improve DAC accuracy.
The present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the reference number. | {
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The present disclosure herein relates to a Direct Current-to-Direct Current (DC-DC) converter having multi-output terminals, and more particularly, to a DC-DC converter driving device and a method for driving a DC-DC converter using the same.
A DC-DC converter steps up or steps down a direct current input voltage to generate a DC output voltage necessary for a load. The load may include various electronic devices such as a computer or a mobile device. Such electronic devices may include elements for performing various functions. The various elements included in the electronic devices may have different operation voltages. Accordingly, there is a demand for a multi-output DC-DC converter capable of generating various output voltages in one DC-DC converter.
A multi-output DC-DC converter may include a plurality of voltage output terminals in order to generate various output voltages. The plurality of voltage output terminals may output DC output voltages of different voltage levels. The plurality of voltage output terminals are required to output accurate voltage levels required by a load despite of any external factors. For example, an abrupt change in load connected to the plurality of voltage output terminals may be one factor disturbing output of an accurate voltage.
A Single-Inductor Multi-Output (SIMO) DC-DC converter is advantageous in that it is implementable with a lower cost and a smaller area than a Multi-Inductor Multi-Output (MIMO) converter. However, the SIMO DC-DC converter shares a single inductor, and thus interference may occur between output terminals according to a charged or discharged state of the inductor. Accordingly, it is necessary to secure stability and accuracy of output voltages of the SIMO DC-DC converter. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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For the precision finishing and microfinishing of bores using rotating tools, fine boring heads are known which have a cutting edge which is screwed onto an adaptor, forming a connecting piece between the head and the machine spindle. The cutting edge of the head comes to rest at a random position on the 360.degree. circumference. At the end of the machining of the bore, the machine spindle with the fine boring head is stopped and the tool is withdrawn from the bore in the axial direction. The cutting edge thereby produces a more or less deep groove on the bore wall and in many cases this is undesired. In the case of modern, digitally controlled machine tools, the machine spindles can always be automatically stopped in the same, predetermined radial position. The machine can be programmed in such a way that, prior to withdrawal from the finished bore, the tool can be radially displaced by a short distance, so that the cutting edge is no longer in contact with the bore wall and no groove is formed when the tool is axially withdrawn. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Sneeze guards have been used for many years to protect unpackaged prepared food and beverages, when they are displayed in a service line for customer viewing and selection, from certain contaminants. Indeed, state and local laws and regulations require all such food to be shielded from droplet contamination which may be expelled during a cough or sneeze from the nose or mouth of a potential customer.
Accordingly, sneeze guards are well known and widely used in the food service industry. Sneeze guards are customarily used in retail food service such as cafeterias, smorgasbords, salad bars and buffet lines, which provide a service line displaying food for a customer's selection. Sneeze guards must protect the displayed food in the zone of potential droplet contamination. The zone of potential droplet contamination is determined based upon the height and placement of the service line, and the average height, range of the potential customers.
Although sneeze guards are available in several styles and configurations, typically a sneeze guard has either a rigid support frame, or two or more rigid and stationary support posts, and a mounted pane of glass or plastic material which provides the shield or barrier between the displayed food and the customers. Generally, the rigid support frame or support posts of the sneeze guard are permanently affixed to a stationary surface, such as a service counter or cart. In some preferred sneeze guards, one or both ends of the mounted pane of glass or plastic are abutted with another approximately triangular or sector-shaped and preferably transparent pane or sheet comprising a “wing”, which provides a guard against airborne contamination of the displayed food from a person approaching the service food line, serving table, or the like.
Some sneeze guards are designed for use with an attended station in a retail food establishment or an institution. In the attended station, the customer in a service line views the displayed food from the front through a transparent shield or pane, and the selected food is served or handed to the customer by an attendant stationed behind the sneeze guard and service counter. Inc panes of a sneeze guard for use in an attended station service line are generally made so that such panes are completely in front of and over the displayed food or beverages, preventing the items from being handled or touched by the customers.
Sneeze guards are also used for self-service food and beverage lines. In the self-service areas, the customer in a service line also views the displayed food or beverage through a transparent pane, but then reaches under the pane to obtain the selected item. The panes of sneeze guards for use in a self-service area of a service line must be made so that such panes cover the food or beverages from the top and partially cover the displayed food from the front, allowing sufficient space for the customer to reach under the panes to obtain the selected item.
Considering all the potential variables for food service lines, including but not limited to, service counter size and height, size and placement of food containers and dispensers of food/beverage items, and height of customers, a sneeze guard which is not adjustable has severe limitations. It is clear that a non-adjustable sneeze guard must therefore be designed and constructed specifically for each application in order to ensure that the zone of potential droplet contamination is adequately covered. It is also clear that the same sneeze guard unit could not necessarily be used interchangeably for an attended station and for a self-service area service line.
Adjustable sneeze guards are also known. In one type the adjustable sneeze guards may have rigid support posts which may allow the transparent pane to be raised or lowered as appropriate to provide the required zone of protection. Other adjustable sneeze guards have a pivoting mechanism which allows a portion of the support post, or the shield material to pivot, thereby changing the angle of the shield material. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,588,863 B1, issued to Yatchak, et al. discloses such an adjustable sneeze guard, whereby the angle of the shield material relative to the post may be adjusted then held in place using a hand-turned screw on the pivoting mechanism, and Atkins et al. U.S. Pat. No. 9,782,022 discloses an adjustment assembly comprising support columns having integral features for coupling an rotational hinge having a detent mechanism separate from other parts of the arm holding the sneeze guard pane.
In practical application, a sneeze guard is rarely a single shield or transparent pane supported by a rigid frame or support posts at either ends of the pane. There is frequently a need in the food service industry to adjust one or more of the panes: for example, to allow some portion of the sneeze guard to be used as an attended station, while other segments are used for self-service (such as selecting packaged beverage items). Further, in some circumstances the height and angle of some, but not all, of the panes may need to be adjusted to accommodate certain serving items, such as large chafing dishes.
Thus there is a need for a simple, elegant and flexible hinged adjustment mechanism that can be easily installed on any appropriate structure or surface, easily, and preferably independently, rotationally adjusted, and held in place without the need for tightening nuts or screws or locking the rotating portion of the hinge. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Antennas mounted on a moving article, such as a television broadcast receiving antenna mounted on a car, may be non-directional. Non-directional antennas include, for example, an Alford loop antenna and a cloverleaf antenna. To receive radio waves in, for example, VHF and UHF bands by means of such non-directional antennas, one for each of the frequency bands has been used.
An Alford loop antenna and a cloverleaf antenna are formed of many components, are large in size and require complicated manufacturing processes. Accordingly, such antennas for receiving UHF and VHF bands undesirably require a large space to mount them because they are large. In addition, non-directional antennas, such as Alford loop antennas and cloverleaf antennas, are subject to receiving undesired radio waves and, therefore, tend to cause ghosts to appear in a television picture when used for receiving television broadcast ratio waves.
An object of the present invention is to provide an antenna which is small in size and can selectively receive radio waves of plural frequency bands. Another object is to provide an antenna which hardly receives undesired radio waves and substantially non-directional in receiving radio waves. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell system and a control method thereof.
Related Art
In recent years, fuel cell systems have received attention as a new source of power for automobiles. Fuel cell systems are provided with a fuel cell stack that generates power by allowing reactant gases (hydrogen and air) to undergo a chemical reaction, and reactant gas supply devices that supply reactant gases to the fuel cell via reactant gas channels, for example. The fuel cell stack is a stack structure in which from several tens to several hundreds of fuel cells are layered. In this regard, each fuel cell is configured by sandwiching a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) with a pair of separators, and the membrane electrode assembly is configured by the two electrodes of an anode and a cathode, and a solid polymer electrolyte membrane sandwiched by these electrodes.
In order to suppress the consumption amount of reactant gases as much as possible in a fuel cell vehicle with such a fuel cell system as the source of power, it is preferable to stop the supply of reactant gases to the fuel cell stack in a case of power generation being continually performed in an idle operation state such as while waiting at a traffic light, for example. Patent Document 1 proposes a technology to consume the hydrogen and oxygen staying in the fuel cell stack and system to prevent the fuel cell stack from being left as is in a high-voltage state, thereby suppressing degradation of the fuel cell stack, by continually producing generated electric current from the fuel cell stack, i.e. by continuing discharge of the fuel cell stack, even after stopping the supply of such reactant gases.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2006-294304 | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a curved pipe manufacturing method and an apparatus for carrying out the same in which a straight pipe of a stainless steel or the like is pressed into a fixed die having a curved cavity of a circular arc to form a curved pipe.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,206 discloses a curved pipe manufacturing method employing an apparatus as illustrated in FIG. 6, invented by the inventor of the present invention. According to this known curved pipe manufacturing method and apparatus, a work, namely, a straight pipe 65, is pressed with a presser rod 69 into a curved space, which conforms to the shape of a curved pipe to be formed and is defined by a curved cavity 64 formed in a fixed die 61 so as to extend from the entrance opening 62 to the exit opening 63 of the fixed die 61, and a curved mandrel 67 is secured to a movable block 66 so as to be inserted into and extracted from the curved cavity 64 of the fixed die 61, through the exit opening 63 of the fixed die 61, to form a curved pipe. The movable block 66 is turned to extract only the mandrel 67 from the fixed die 61, and then the movable block 66 is turned further to insert an ejecting rod 68, attached to the movable block 66 opposite to the mandrel 67, into the curved cavity 64 of the fixed die 61, from the entrance opening 62 of the fixed die 61, to thereby push out the curved pipe from the fixed die 61 with the ejecting rod 68, characterized in that, in the middle of pressing the work into the curved space by the pressure rod from the entrance opening 62, the action of presser rod 69 is interrupted in pressing the work 65 into the curved space and the mandrel 67 is removed slightly from a curved portion of the work 65 and then the advancement of the presser rod 69 is restarted to press the work 65 further into the curved space to complete the curved pipe.
However, according to the known method and apparatus, inasmuch as in the middle of manufacturing the curved pipe, there comprises the steps of interrupting the action of presser rod in pressing the work into the curved space and slightly removing the mandrel from a curved portion of the work and then restarting the advancement of the presser rod to press the work further into the curved space to complete the curved pipe, there arises problems that the curved pipe accompanies the mandrel 7 during its removal e.g., the curved pipe is extracted from the exit opening 3 together with the mandrel 7 as well as this process for manufacturing a curved pipe is complicated and the apparatus for carrying out the same is also complicated. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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People use a variety of approaches to attain and maintain physical fitness. Physical fitness may include strength, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, speed, balance, coordination, stamina, or other attributes (e.g., ability to perform specific tasks such as jumping or throwing a football). Many aspects of physical fitness can be realized by performing exercises that do not require special equipment, e.g., jogging, or push-ups. However, various exercise tools have been developed to enable individuals to achieve their physical fitness goals efficiently and consistently.
Physical training equipment is available in a variety of forms. From simple weight sets and exercise balls to sophisticated exercise machines typically only found in fitness centers, training tools share a common purpose: to augment the training capabilities of the human body alone. Undeniably, individuals must themselves exert sheer effort in order to achieve their fitness goals, but the tools they use may make the training process more efficient.
Conventional free weights, such as barbells and dumbbells, are renowned for their simplicity and versatility. One can perform many different free weight exercises to target various parts of the body by using gravity to counter muscular contractions. Some devices (e.g., bench racks and Smith machines) use weights in constrained manners (e.g., by constraining a range of motion). Other devices use a combination of weight stacks, rods, pulleys, and other mechanical means to provide gravity-based resistance for specific exercises. Yet other devices (e.g., rowing machines) use other means of resistance, such as hydraulic (shocks-based), water-based, air-based, or magnetic resistance.
These devices have several disadvantages. Free weights and machines are cumbersome. A set of fixed dumbbells, spanning a range of weights that might reasonably be needed to target various parts of the body, takes up a considerable amount of space. Adjustable barbells or dumbbells, which allow the addition or removal of weight plates, solve this problem but require time to make the adjustments. Training machines are typically large and target only a limited range of body parts. Individuals typically find it unaffordable to buy enough machines to target the entire body. Even machines that have been designed to provide a full-body workout while occupying a minimal footprint, e.g., certain machines by Bowflex®, suffer from another drawback shared by all of the foregoing devices: lack of portability. Additionally, many of the foregoing devices are not suitable for all people (e.g., children) to use. | {
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This invention relates to an ink jet recording element. More particularly, this invention relates to an ink jet recording element containing encapsulated particles.
In a typical ink jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water, an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An ink jet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-forming layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
While a wide variety of different types of image-recording elements for use with ink jet devices have been proposed heretofore, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products which have limited their commercial usefulness.
It is well known that in order to achieve and maintain photographic-quality images on such an image-recording element, an ink jet recording element must:
Be readily wetted so there is no puddling, i.e., coalescence of adjacent ink dots, which leads to non-uniform density
Exhibit no image bleeding
Exhibit the ability to absorb high concentrations of ink and dry quickly to avoid elements blocking together when stacked against subsequent prints or other surfaces
Exhibit no discontinuities or defects due to interactions between the support and/or layer(s), such as cracking, repellencies, comb lines and the like
Not allow unabsorbed dyes to aggregate at the free surface causing dye crystallization, which results in bloom or bronzing effects in the imaged areas
Have an optimized image fastness to avoid fade from contact with water or radiation by daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent light
An ink jet recording element that simultaneously provides an almost instantaneous ink dry time and good image quality is desirable. However, given the wide range of ink compositions and ink volumes that a recording element needs to accommodate, these requirements of ink jet recording media are difficult to achieve simultaneously.
Ink jet recording elements are known that employ porous or non-porous single layer or multilayer coatings that act as suitable image receiving layers on one or both sides of a porous or non-porous support. Recording elements that use non-porous coatings typically have good image quality but exhibit poor ink dry time. Recording elements that use porous coatings typically contain colloidal particulates and have poorer image quality but exhibit superior dry times.
While a wide variety of different types of porous image-recording elements for use with ink jet printing are known, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products which have severely limited their commercial usefulness. The challenge of making a porous image-recording layer is to achieve a high gloss level without cracking, high color density, and a fast drying time.
EP 813,978 relates to an ink jet recording element wherein an ink absorption layer is used comprising fine particles, a hydrophilic binder and oil drops. However, there is a problem with this element in that the oil drops will migrate to the surface and cause changes in the appearance of the image.
It is an object of this invention to provide an ink jet recording element that has a fast ink dry time. It is another object of this invention to provide an ink jet recording element that has good image quality.
These and other objects are achieved in accordance with the invention which comprises an ink jet recording element comprising a substrate having thereon an image-receiving layer comprising inorganic particles encapsulated with an organic polymer having a Tg of less than about 20xc2x0 C., the weight ratio of the inorganic particles to the organic polymer being from about 20 to about 0.2.
The ink jet recording element of the invention provides a fast ink dry time and good image quality.
The substrate used in the invention may be porous such as paper or non-porous such as resin-coated paper; synthetic paper, such as Teslin(copyright) or Tyvek(copyright); an impregnated paper such as Duraform(copyright); cellulose acetate or polyester films. The surface of the substrate may be treated in order to improve the adhesion of the image-receiving layer to the support. For example, the surface may be corona discharge treated prior to applying the image-receiving layer to the support. Alternatively, an under-coating or subbing layer, such as a layer formed from a halogenated phenol or a partially hydrolyzed vinyl chloride-vinyl acetate copolymer, can be applied to the surface of the support.
Any inorganic particle may be used in the invention, such as metal oxides or hydroxides. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the metal oxide is silica available commercially as Nalco(copyright) (Nalco Co.), Ludox(copyright) (DuPont Corp), Snowtex(copyright) (Nissan Chemical Co.), alumina, zirconia or titania. In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the particle size of said particles is from about 5 nm to about 1000 nm.
The encapsulated particles used in the invention may be prepared by silane coupling chemistry to modify the surface of inorganic colloids, followed by emulsion polymerization which can be found in xe2x80x9cEmulsion Polymerization and Emulsion Polymersxe2x80x9d, edited by P. A. Lovell and M. S. El-Aassar, John Wiley and Sons, 1997.
Silane coupling agents useful for the modification of inorganic colloids include 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane, 3-aminopropyldiethoxymethylsilane, 3-aminopropyldimethoxymethylsilane, 3-aminopropylethoxydimethylsilane, 3-aminopropylmethoxydimethylsilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropylmethyl dimethoxysilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropylmethyldiethoxysilane, 4-aminobutyltriethoxysilane, 4-aminobutyltrimethoxysilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminoisobutylmethyldimethoxysilane, and other silane coupler agents listed in Gelest catalogue, pp.105-259(1997). Most preferred silane coupling agents for the modification of inorganic colloids used in the invention include 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane, 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane, 3-aminopropyldiethoxymethylsilane, 3-aminopropyldimethoxymethylsilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltrimethoxysitane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropylmethyldimethoxysilane, N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropylmethyldiethoxysilane.
The organic polymer used for encapsulation of the inorganic particles employed in the invention has a Tg of less than about 20xc2x0 C. preferably from about xe2x88x9250xc2x0 C. to about 20xc2x0 C. Examples of these polymers which may be used in the invention include homo- and copolymers derived from the following monomers: n-butyl acrylate, n-ethylacrylate, 2-ethylhexylacrylate, methoxyethylacrylate, methoxyethoxy-ethylacrylate, ethoxyethylacrylate, ethoxyethoxyethylacrylate, 2-ethylhexyl-methacrylate, n-propylacrylate, hydroxyethylacrylate, etc. and cationic monomers such as a salt of trimethylammoniumethyl acrylate and trimethylammoniumethyl methacrylate, a salt of triethylammoniumethyl acrylate and triethylammonium-ethyl methacrylate, a salt of dimethylbenzyl-ammoniumethyl acrylate and dimethylbenzylammoniumethyl methacrylate, a salt of dimethylbutylammoniumethyl acrylate and dimethylbutylammoniumethyl methacrylate, a salt of dimethylhexylammoniumethyl acrylate and dimethylhexylammoniumethyl methacrylate, a salt of dimethyloctyl-ammoniumethyl acrylate and dimethyloctylammoniumethyl methacrylate, a salt of dimethyldodeceylammoniumethyl acrylate and dimethyldocecyl-ammoniumethyl methacrylate, a salt of dimethyloctadecylammoniumethyl acrylate and dimethyloctadecylammoniumethyl methacrylate, etc. Salts of these cationic monomers which can be used include chloride, bromide, methylsulfate, triflate, etc.
Examples of the organic polymers which can be used in the invention include poly(n-butylacrylate-co-vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium chloride), poly(n-butylacrylate-co-vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium bromide),poly(n-butylacrylate-co-vinylbenzyldimethylbenrylammonium chloride) and poly(n-butylacrylate-co-vinylbenzyldimethyloctadecylammonium chloride). In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the polymer can be poly(n-butyl acrylate), poly(2-ethylhexyl acrylate) poly(methoxyethylacrylate), poly(ethoxyethylacrylate), poly(n-butylacrylate-co-trimethylammoniumethyl acrylate), poly(n-butylacrylate-co-trimethylammoniumethyl methacrylate) or poly(n-butylacrylate-co-vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium chloride). | {
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U.S. Pat. No. 2,791,051 to Scheyer discloses a flush mounted picture frame that employs a limited length slot in one of the frame rails. The slot is angled with respect to vertical. A nail is inserted into a wall surface and the picture frame is then hooked on the nail so that the nail enters the slot and an upper surface of the slot rests on the nail. The slot is sized to be larger than the nail. Two slots can be employed, one on the upper and lower rails, respectively, and a pair of nails can be used, the nails wedged in the slots by making the vertical spacing between the nails greater than the vertical spacing between the slots. | {
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(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process for reacting phenol, mono- and di-alkyl phenols having at least one free o-position with methanol and/or dimethyl ether in the gas phase to form o-substituted phenols in the presence of a catalyst of oxides of iron, chromium, silicon and at least one oxide of an alkaline-earth metal, lanthanum and manganese or in the presence of a catalyst of oxides of iron, chromium, a metal from the group comprising germanium, titanium, zirconium, tin, lead, and at least one oxide of an alkali metal, alkaline-earth metal, lanthanum and manganese.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
The production of o-substituted phenols, for example 2,6-dimethyl phenol or 2,3,6-trimethyl phenol, is of considerable commercial interest because of the first of these two phenol derivatives is required for numerous applications, particularly the production of polyphenylene oxide, whilst the second derivative may be used for example as a preliminary stage in the production of vitamin E. Although synthesis processes are known from the patent literature, there has never been a process by which o-substitution products can be obtained highly selectively from phenols having free o-positions with production times that are long enough for practical application. Although phenol can be reacted to form 2,6-dimethyl phenol with a selectivity of the order of 99% in accordance with German Offenlegungsschrift No. 21 27 083, a selectivity of only 95% is obtained where o-cresol is used as the starting material.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 19 48 607 describes a process in which o-cresol is converted into 2,6-dimethyl phenol with a selectivity of around 84%. Conversely, a selectivity of 98% is obtained with o-cresol as the starting product according to German Offenlegungsschrift No. 24 28 056. Where phenol is used, however, a selectivity of only 96,5% is achieved, falling to 92% after 150 hours. According to German Offenlegungsschrift No. 25 47 309, 2,4,6-trimethyl phenol is obtained in a yield of 95% by methylating p-cresol, 2,3,6-trimethyl phenol being obtained in a yield of 94% from m-cresol, whereas according to German Offenlegungsschrift No. 23 29 812, 2,3,6-trimethyl phenol is obtained in a yield of 82% from m-cresol. | {
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This invention relates to an apparatus for fulling a knitted or woven fabric, and more particularly, to an apparatus for fulling knitted or woven fabrics capable of being fulled and particularly, fabrics of wool or blended wool wherein the fabric is first cooled to a temperature below the freezing point, impregnated with moisture so as to cause the moisture to permeate into and adhere to the fabric and dried to a desired moisture content whereby any strain which might otherwise be potentially present in the fabric when the fabric is woven and/or finished can be eliminated.
As compared with fabrics knitted or woven from synthetic fiber or from synthetic fiber blended with natural fiber other than wool fiber, knitted or woven fabrics, particularly containing wool, have been found to have the disadvantage that the diameter of the fibers of the fabrics increases upon absorbing an excess amount of moisture, this leading to an increase in the rate of bending of the yarns formed of such fibers and resulting in an increase in the dimensions of the fabrics, that when the moisture is evaporated from the fabrics in the reverse way, the rate of bending of the yarns decreases and the dimensions of the fabrics diminish, and that since an internal strain remains potentially within the fabrics due to an external force which acts on the fabrics when the fabrics are woven, unwound and/or wound, the fabrics experience gradual deformation resulting in variation in the dimensions of the fabrics as time goes by. In order to eliminate variation in the dimensions of the fabrics, it has been commonly practiced that the fabrics are immersed into warm water or steam or that heated steam is jetted thereagainst and then dried after any excess moisture has been evaporated therefrom. However, such a conventional method can not fully eliminate potential internal strain from the fabrics. Thus, after the thus treated fabrics have been cut into pieces having predetermined shapes and dimensions or such fabric pieces have been sewn together and pressed, the cut and/or sewn fabric pieces tend to gradually vary in dimensions and the garment loses its shape. | {
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Navigation applications allow a user to map routes. Furthermore, the incorporation of GPS units and navigation applications provide users to get turn by turn directions from such application when operating a moving vehicle. Furthermore, navigation applications have evolved to provide rudimentary traffic information to users. However, current navigation applications fail to offer more information than a general sense of the traffic conditions, such as emergency event notifications. It is with respect to these and other considerations that embodiments of the systems and methods described herein have been made. Also, although relatively specific problems have been discussed, it should be understood that systems and methods described herein should not be limited to solving the specific problems identified in the background. | {
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1. Field
The present invention relates generally to a drum type washing machine, and more particularly to a drum type washing machine including a balancer capable of rapidly reducing vibration of a spin tub.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a drum type washing machine rotates a drum so that the laundry loaded in the drum moves upward and then drops from the top to the bottom of the drum, thereby washing the laundry. The drum type washing machine includes a housing forming an external appearance of the drum type washing machine, a water reservoir accommodated in the housing to receive water therein, a spin tub rotatably installed in the water reservoir, and a driving motor generating rotational force by receiving electric power so as to rotate the spin tub connected to a rotating shaft of the driving motor.
In addition, the drum type washing machine is provided with a shaft flange formed at the center thereof with a rotating shaft and fixed to a rear surface of the spin tub so as to uniformly transfer the rotational force of the driving motor to the rotating shaft, and a balancer fixed to the rear surface of the spin tub so as to rapidly reduce vibration generated when the spin tub is rotated.
The shaft flange includes a hub section for installing the rotating shaft, and a plurality of arm sections extending radially outward from the hub section so as to be fixed to the rotating shaft. The balancer includes a balancer housing formed with an annular race that allows a mass accommodated in the balancer housing to move in the circumferential direction, and a ball movably installed in the annular race so as to serve as the mass. The balancer housing includes first and second balancer housings coupled to each other through fusion welding while forming the race therebetween.
However, according to the balancer having the above structure, the ball accommodated in the balancer housing is subject to centrifugal force during the rotation of spin tub, so the ball repeatedly collides with the first and second balancer housings. If the ball applies such impact to the first and second balancer housings for a long period of time, the connection part between the first and second balancer housings is weakened, so that the first balancer housing is separated from the second housing. In this case, the ball accommodated in the race of the balancer housing may move out of the race. | {
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One of mankind's greatest challenges has been the design of an odorless litter box which does not have to be cleaned very often but is easy to clean when such is necessary. This challenge is documented by the issuance of literally hundreds of patents over the years for new types of litter boxes and litter box apparatus. As a result of this effort, granular kitty litter material was developed to reduce the odors associated with pet waste and to make it easy to clean a litter box. While kitty litter material achieves both of these objectives to some degree, to most people the smell is still quite objectionable. Accordingly, many people change all of the kitty litter material in the litter box even through the cat may have only used the litter box once or twice. As a result, a lot of essentially unused kitty litter ends up being thrown out and, thus, is wasted.
In trying to solve the kitty litter wastage problem, a number of litter box arrangements have been developed which separate the pet's solid waste matter or excrement from the granular kitty litter material. Many of these devices are kitty litter sifting devices which sift the kitty litter from the solid pet excrement. Such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,505,226 to Carlson; 4,359,966 to Casino; 4,325,822 to Miller; 4,217,857 to Geddie; 3,908,597 to Taylor; 3,796,188 to Bradstreet and 3,141,441 to Russell.
Another interesting pet waste disposal device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,047,499 to Janecek. The Janecek device has an intermediate resilient portion which is folded to form a pouring channel for disposing of the waste matter having been deposited on the device. While interesting, this device does not sift litter material from the waste. Accordingly, this device would result in the wastage of a lot of kitty litter material.
While all of the devices disclosed in the aforementioned patents undoubtedly work as intended, there still remains a need for a device which not only sifts kitty litter from pet excrement but is also easy to use. Such a device would also preferably sift the kitty litter material from the pet excrement very quickly. In addition, such a device would preferably be very easy to reinstall in the litter box after it has been used. | {
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Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a binary threshold value setting circuit for setting a threshold value in case of binarizing an analog signal. | {
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As a matte clear coating composition to be applied to an aluminum member, a clear coating composition containing silica fine particles as a matting agent has widely been known.
In a general use environment, an aluminum member, such as an aluminum wheel, is subjected to washing or the like for the purpose of cleaning. During the cleaning, the aluminum member is often wiped with a cloth or the like.
However, such wiping using a cloth or the like has been problematic in terms of the abrasion load applied to the coating surface; as a result, the gloss in the abraded portion increases compared with the original matte state (the glossiness increases). Such a defect more significantly occurs when a hard contaminant, such as brake dust is attached to an aluminum wheel of an automobile or the like.
As an example of an aluminum material made of a matte-coated aluminum base material, Patent Document 1 discloses a satin-touch aluminum material in which an effect coating film formed of a coating composition containing an effect pigment, and a coating film with a dried coating film thickness of 10 to 50 μm formed of a clear coating composition containing 5 to 60 parts by mass of spherical resin microparticles with an average particle size d50 of 10 to 50 μm per 100 parts by mass of coating-film-forming resin solids content are sequentially formed on an aluminum base material. | {
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Currently, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), due to their advantages such as low radiation, small volume, low power consumption and the like, have gradually replaced conventional cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, and are widely applied in notebook computers, portable android device (Pad), flat-screen TVs, etc. Liquid crystal (LC) molecules have double refractive indices (ne, no), and have different polarization and refraction effects on light under different arrangement states, thus functioning as light valves. The function of liquid crystals as light valves can be used to adjust light field intensity of a backlight, so as to achieve gray scale display, and further achieve color display in conjunction with color filtering function of a light filter. Depending on driving manner, the liquid crystal displays can mainly be divided into a passive-matrix type and an active-matrix type.
At present, mainstream products in the market are all driven in an active-matrix manner. As shown in FIG. 1, an existing liquid crystal display panel includes a first substrate (color filter substrate) 1 and a second substrate (array substrate) 2 arranged opposite to each other, and a liquid crystal layer 3 formed between the first substrate 1 and the second substrate 2. Flat panel pixel design, in which the first substrate 1 and the second substrate 2 keep parallel in a horizontal direction, is generally adopted in the existing liquid crystal display panel. When a viewer looks at the display screen from a front viewing angle (0° direction in FIG. 1), a cell thickness d of each sub-pixel is substantially the same, i.e., d=d0, an optical path difference of each sub-pixel is also the same, i.e., Δn*d=Δn*d0 (wherein Δn=ne−no), and thus ratios of liquid crystal light efficiency to transmittance for red/green/blue (R/G/B) sub-pixels are the same. When viewed from an oblique angle θ (i.e., viewing angle), the liquid crystal molecule has an optical path difference of Δn*d0/cos θ=Δn*dθ, that is, an increased optical path difference, so liquid crystal light efficiency and transmittance for red/green/blue (R/G/B) light vary differently, and thus brightness ratio is no longer constant. That is to say in the case of a large viewing angle, transmittance varies among pixels of different colors. In FIG. 2, CF0 (λ) is a transmittance spectrum of the liquid crystal panel at the front viewing angle of 0° viewing angle, CF30 (λ) is a transmittance spectrum of the liquid crystal panel at the oblique viewing angle of 30° viewing angle, and CF60 (λ) is a transmittance spectrum of the liquid crystal panel at the oblique viewing angle of 60° viewing angle. As shown in FIG. 2, in a long wavelength range of 635 nm˜700 nm, transmittance of red light rises as the viewing angle changes from 0° to 60°; in a short wavelength range of 450 nm˜490 nm, transmittance of blue light drops as the viewing angle changes from 0° to 60°; transmittance of light of middle wavelength keeps substantially the same. In other words, if the viewing angle increases constantly, transmittance of red light (λ≈700 nm) increases, whereas transmittance of blue light (λ≈440 nm) decreases, and therefore, color cast (bias towards red color) may occur at an oblique viewing angle, which affects picture quality. | {
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The present invention relates to a turkey product and a method of cutting the turkey to provide a product in the form ready for cooking, and more particularly relates to such a product and method wherein a turkey breast can be supported and stabilized in a proper position for cooking.
Turkeys are conventionally eviscerated and dressed and sold either as whole turkeys or as turkey parts. One of the parts that is in substantial demand is the turkey breast, which is marketed either boned or bone-in. Customers often prefer the bone-in turkey breast because it is less expensive and is considered by some to be more flavorful than a boned turkey breast. However, a bone-in turkey breast is not stable in the usual desired cooking position and tends to roll to one side or the other from a desired position.
Such bone-in turkey breasts are normally prepared by severing the rear portions of the turkey from the breast at a point along the back, and then severing the wings.
By the present invention, a turkey product is provided that includes the breast, a portion of the upper back and the wings, which is normally an intermediate form of cutting of a turkey, rather than the final form. Heretofore, it has not been the practice or the desire of the art to present a product for cooking in this form. | {
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Various fuel injection control valves have been proposed; in one such known arrangement, a sleeve is frictionally retained in a passage guideway through which a magnetic core is guided. The magnetic coil is sealed from fluid by two O-rings, one of which is seated on the sleeve at the outside thereof adjacent the passage through the housing of the valve, and the other one is seated in a ring groove of the magnetic core. The outer O-ring is securely pressed against the housing of the valve and against the sleeve when the sleeve and valve are connected together. The other O-ring, that is the O-ring sealing the core, is seated at the inside of the sleeve, with biased compression. This arrangement is comparatively complex and does not ensure sealing of fluid with respect to the electrical portion of the valve, or its electric operating control, particularly over long operating periods. In due course, the seal may not be tight anymore. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to electronic devices and, particularly, to an electronic device with a switching assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable electronic devices, such as portable computers, usually use a switching assembly to fasten a cover assembly to a base assembly. The switching assembly usually includes at least one hook. The hook usually protrudes out from the cover assembly. When the electronic device is in an unfolded state, the hook is exposed and prone to damage due to accidental or inadvertent collisions.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an electronic device with a switching assembly to overcome or at least alleviate the above-mentioned problem. | {
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1. Field
This disclosure is generally related to improving performance of cellular networks. More specifically, this disclosure is related to a method and system for dynamically generating and adapting hyper cells in response to network conditions. Various embodiments are also related to selecting optimal transmit points for virtual channels.
2. Related Art
In traditional cellular networks, the location of each transmit point is carefully planned. Each transmit point creates a cell and is assigned a unique cell identifier (ID) to define the control channel and data channel so that simultaneous transmit point to user equipment (UE) communications can be supported for each cell. A single cell serves each UE, and the network maintains the association between the cell and the UE until handover is triggered.
As the demand on mobile broadband increases, networks are deployed more densely and heterogeneously with a greater number of base stations. Cells become smaller and a corresponding greater number of cell edges are created. Cell ID assignment becomes more difficult and the frequency of handovers increases as the UE moves between cells. Further, the density of the cells creates much interference between neighboring cells.
In one approach, LTE Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) scenario 4 specifies that one or more remote radio heads (RRHs) share a same cell ID as a macro cell to which the RRHs are connected. However, LTE CoMP scenario 4 (available at http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/html-info/36819.htm) only allows fixed sharing of a single cell ID between a macro cell and all RRHs controlled by it. There is handover and changing of the cell ID when the user moves away from the macro cell and the connected RRHs. Such an approach is insufficient for addressing the problems of interference, complex cell ID assignment, and frequent handovers. | {
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1. Field of the invention
The present invention concerns an ionization cell for mass spectrometers.
In particular, the invention applies to mass spectrometers in which the heated electrical filament emitting electrons is replaced by a cold cathode of the micropoint type.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The advantages of a cold cathode over a tungsten filament heated to 1,800.degree. C. are well known:
the very high energy efficiency, which is practically 100%, each electron emitted having been taken from the emitting source in a ratio 1/1, unlike the tungsten filament that has to be heated with a high current for it to be able to emit electrons by a thermo-electronic effect; the orders of magnitudes of the powers employed are 10 W for a heated filament compared to 0.2 W for a cold source, PA1 the rapid reaction of the device, both on turning it on and on turning it off: in the case of sudden air entry, the system can be deactivated instantaneously, unlike a tungsten filament that will burn because of its thermal inertia; this rapid reaction additionally makes it feasible to cut off the power supply to the device when the instrument is not in measuring mode and to turn it on again to carry out a measurement, PA1 the directionality of the emitted beam: the electrons are emitted perpendicularly to the surface of the micropoint array, unlike a filament in which the electrons are emitted in all directions, and PA1 the absence of heat dissipation: the device emitting electrons by the field effect does not generate any heat and consequently does not disturb the operation of the temperature-sensitive detection pre-amplifiers.
However, reliability and operational capability are not assured at pressures in the order of 10.sup.-4 mbar.
At this pressure and above, the micropoint type cold cathode is degraded because of the excessively high number of ions formed between the cathode and the anode, constituting an ionization cage. The positive ions formed between the cathode and the ionization cage return to the negative cathode. | {
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In educational and business situations, there is recognition of the need for improving the abilities of groups working on information intensive projects, in both the quality of the results and the efficiency with which information-intensive work is done. A significant portion of business and educational endeavors involve the joint conduct of information-intensive or inquiry-based projects by multiple individuals or even multiple sub teams. Such projects often include a broad range of problem solving activities, such as defining the problem, finding and analyzing information, formulating conclusions, hypotheses and alternatives, and in many cases developing an answer or course of action, and others. Such group or collaborative projects also often result in the production of one or more reports to convey the findings and/or recommendations or views to others.
A large number of workers are classified as knowledge workers and routinely formulate understanding about and solutions to rather unstructured or arbitrary problems. Research shows that most knowledge workers are assigned to teams for at least some portion of their work and that most teams are fairly large in their numbers of members. In addition, many if not most knowledge workers have professional or personal areas of interest in which they may pursue inquiry and the development of various documented understanding and reports as well. Informal communities of interest—whether professional or personal—are common, and individuals often seek each other out on an ad-hoc or informal collaborative or cooperative basis as well—sharing information and ideas about professional issues or personal hobbies and interests and the like.
Despite the prevalence of formal groups and informal collaborative networks such as but not limited to social networks for conducting information-intensive projects together, computerized support for generalized, collaborative inquiry based projects is lacking. Most teams or collaborating individuals utilize at best a loose collection of computerized tools such as the Internet and search engines to find information, E-mail, tools such as Outlook, in some cases social networking tools to seek out others and communicate, and document production tools like Power Point or web authoring tools to produce results. In some instances, the teams may use tools like Lotus Notes or others to share documents and control versioning. However, generalized computer-based collaboration systems tend to focus on the mechanics of communication and document change management control, as opposed to providing support and additional value to the group or collaborative thinking, problem solving and information process itself.
In contrast, teams that work on very specialized project types may utilize specific specialized computerized systems that have a highly shared set of tools and provide a specific shared context for the group and team members—such as product development teams using CAD/CAM systems for product design. However, the team or group or collaborative support for information intensive, generalized or arbitrary problem solving to date has been lacking in a generalizable set of shared tools and problem solving context that assists significantly in the structure, content, or process of the problem solving work itself, or indeed for the content and problem solving process of the collaboration that occurs.
A familiar type of generalized collaboration computer support, for example, coordinates documents through version control allowing for participants to see versions, changes and attribute those changes to contributors. Another type of generalized computer supported collaboration is through email, instant messaging, the email conversation threads of SIG's and discussions, and other similar approaches. Generalized collaboration computer platforms largely at best are focused on the mechanics and management of the communication and document control, as opposed to the project content or group problem solving process.
As a result, the problems in supporting multi-user and collaborative or team work in inquiry based projects are many. One particular problem is the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the interaction between individual knowledge work and group or collective or collaborative work. For example, typically, although an assignment is made to the individual to support the groups' goals and objectives, the individual knowledge workers often work independently using techniques they have found to be successful in the past, and typically utilizing more personal support through word processors, search engines and browsers, spread sheets, specialized tools like statistical packages, hand written notes, and other tools and approaches accepted and appropriate to the particular discipline. In many situations, meetings and points where group work needs to be pulled together cause additional work for the knowledge worker or sub team outside of their individual project content work, as they prepare summary or other review documents for group or collaborative session or reviews. Upon return from group meetings, the individual workers in this type of situation often largely revert to a work mode in the appropriate tools and manner for their detail efforts, which remain relatively hidden from the group as a whole. There is therefore often extra effort and time to translate to and from the personal detail work approach to the meeting formats, presentations, and group discussions, and little if any additional insight tends to be gained from this work. Collaboration between individuals occurs at best through joint text or other document authoring, or the sharing of documents augmented by emails and other communications. These problems are not confined to formal collaborative groups, but exist for informal cooperating groups working through for example social networking systems as well.
In many cases, knowledge workers and individuals have generally learned their generalized, information intensive problem solving approaches throughout their education in schools and universities and through “trial and error”, and in some cases personal mentoring, on the job. There tends therefore not to be a shared problem solving and inquiry project process context to assist in discussions about the process or approaches being used by individuals and the group.
An additional problem with most group work supported by generalized computer systems or tools today is that the final presentation, written document or other similar media is often the most available or only documentation of the problem/project and as such only records the final solution and findings of the team, and little about the process and little about what was examined and rejected, and little about the process, rationale etc. This final report or product in many circumstances transfers very little depth of understanding to future work.
There is therefore a significant need for a system and method that enables generalized multi-user and group information-intensive thinking and problem solving in a collaborative or cooperative manner to address these and additional needs and problems. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a laser diode and a laser diode package structure, and particularly relates to a flip chip type laser diode and a flip chip type laser diode package structure.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional schematic view illustrating a conventional laser diode. Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional laser diode 10 includes a substrate 11, a first semiconductor layer 12, an emitting layer 13, a second semiconductor layer 14, a patterned insulating layer 15, a first electrode 16, a second electrode 17, and two conductive wires 18. The first semiconductor layer 12 is disposed on the substrate 11. The emitting layer 13 is disposed on a part of the first semiconductor layer 12. The second semiconductor layer 14 is disposed on the emitting layer 13 and forms a ridge mesa. The patterned insulating layer 15 covers a part of the second semiconductor layer 14. The first electrode 16 is disposed on the first semiconductor layer 12, the second electrode 17 is disposed on an area of the second semiconductor layer 14 that is not covered by the patterned insulating layer 15, and one end of each of the conductive wires 18 respectively extend from the first electrode 16 and the second electrode 17.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional laser diode 10 is electrically connected with an external part through bonding wire. However, the bonding wire structure takes up more space. For example, a width of one single solder pad in the bonding wire structure takes up 100 micrometers, making it difficult to reduce the conventional laser diode in space. | {
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Gelled air-treating compositions are known. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,691,615 to Turner, et al.; 2,927,055 to Lanzet; 3,969,280 to Sayce, et al.; 3,997,480 to Singleton, et al.; 3,956,173 to Towle; 4,056,612 to Lin; 4,071,616 to Bloch; 4,128,507 to Mitzner; 4,178,264 to Streit, et al., and 4,318,476 to Claffey et al.
A disadvantage of the conventionally gelled air-treating compositions, however, is their inefficiency in regard to perfume release. It has been found that large amount, often 30% by weight or more of the volatile perfume components incorporated in the prior art gel products during manufacture, in fact, is not released to the environment, but rather is entrapped in a gel residue. Thus, at the point the consumer can no longer detect a noticeable release of perfume, the product is discarded by the consumer, even though the gel residue contains undiffused fragrance. Beneficially, the gelled air freshner dispensers should provide essentially complete utilization of the perfume with adequate levels dispensed from the gel composition during its useful life.
It is an object, then, of the present invention to provide an aqueous-based gel air-treating composition that exhibits improved fragrance transmission efficiency during its useful life.
It is a further object of the present invention to substantially reduce the concentration of the volatile perfume constituents remaining in the residue portion of the gel at the end of its useful life.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an aqueous-based gel air-treating composition that exhibits greater fragrance-release per unit weight of product at a given perfume load.
To achieve the aforesaid objects, it is primarily an object of the present invention to provide an aqueous-based gel air-treating composition which incorporates air or other inert gaseous material into its gel base composition.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method for the manufacture of the air-treating composition of the present invention.
These and other objects and advantages will be more readily apparent upon reading the detailed description of the invention, a summary of which follows. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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With respect to photosensitive materials which lose the qualitative values by exposing them to light, known packaging bags can shield light completely. In such cases, the package is required to have not only complete light-shielding properties, but also freeness from ill effects on photographic performance, various physical strength (bursting strength, tear strength, impact puncture strength, Gelbo test strength, tensile strength, and the like), and have excellent heat sealing properties (heat-sealing strength, sealing properties against foreign matter, hot sealing strength or chronological heat sealing strength, and the like), anti-static properties, amenability to recycling, amenability to incineration, and the like. The following techniques, for example, have so far been disclosed for meeting these characteristics.
A film for packaging a photosensitive material having at least one layer of a light-shielding film comprised of a polyethylene based polymer and not less than 1 wt % of a light-shielding material, with not less than 50 wt % of the total polyethylene based polymer being linear low-density polyethylene (JP Patent Kokoku JP-B-2-2700). A packaging material for a photosensitive material comprised of a layered material made up of a substrate and a polyethylene based polymer layer formed on at least one surface of the substrate, in which the polyethylene based polymer layer is formed of not less than 50 wt % of linear low density polyethylene substantially free of a light shielding material and in which the layered material has a light-shielding layer sufficient for light shielding (JP Patent Kokoku JP-B-2-2701). An easy-to-open packaging material for a photosensitive material comprised of an inner light-shielding heat-sealable film layer containing a lubricant, a light-shielding material and not less than 50 wt % of the high-pressure low-density polyethylene resin, an aluminum foil layer layered on the light-shielding heat-sealable film layer, with a peeling strength of 400 g/15 mm width or more and having an anchor coating layer towards the light-shielding heat-sealable film layer, and a heat-resistant flexible sheet layer layered on the aluminum foil layer and having heat resistant properties of not less than 5.degree. C. with respect to the light-shielding heat-sealable film layer (JP Utility Model Kokoku JP-B-2-19226). | {
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The present invention relates to a curing composition for the fast curing of coating compositions containing acrylic polyols.
In the coating of automobiles, for example, a coating is desired that provides a lustrous appearance and has good corrosion resistance. Such coatings are usually applied in several coating layers with typically a pigmented base coating composition applied followed by a clear topcoat. In some instances, the topcoat may contain pigments which provide a color to the topcoat, or a single pigmented coating composition may be used. Acrylic polyol based coating compositions are particularly useful for these applications. Especially desirable are acrylic polyol based clear coating compositions which can be used as "universal" clear coats over a variety of basecoats to provide a hard, durable finish.
Although such acrylic polyol based coating compositions have excellent properties as automotive coatings, both on metal and plastic substrates, the length of time required for curing can be a drawback. The curing time for such coatings is labor sensitive and a fast cure of the coating is preferred, while at the same time maintaining a useful gel time, i.e. the coating composition should not gel when being used until sufficient time has lapsed for spraying or otherwise applying the coating composition. Typically, a gel time of about one hour is desired to allow sufficient time for application.
Accordingly, acrylic polyol based coating compositions are desirable that will provide not only a suitable gel time but also a rapid cure. | {
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Quetiapine has been used in the treatment of severe mental illness in approximately 70 countries including the US, Canada, most Western European countries, and Japan. Quetiapine is a dibenzothiazepine derivative with a relatively broad receptor binding profile. It has major affinity to cerebral serotonergic (5-HT2A), histaminergic (H1), and dopaminergic D1 and D2 receptors, moderate affinity to α1- and α2-adrenergic receptors, and minor affinity to muscarinergic M1 receptors; it demonstrates a substantial selectivity for the limbic system. This receptor avidity profile with relatively higher affinity for the 5-HT2A receptor compared to the D2 receptor is considered to be, at least in part responsible for the antipsychotic characteristics and low incidence of extrapyramidal side-effects of quetiapine.
The efficacy of quetiapine in reducing positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia has been proven in several clinical trials with placebo-controlled comparators. Quetiapine has also demonstrated robust efficacy for treatment of cognitive, anxious-depressive, and aggressive symptoms in schizophrenia. Quetiapine has also proven efficacy and tolerability in the treatment of moderate to severe manic episodes, and in the treatment of juveniles with oppositional-defiant or conduct disorders, and in the treatment of the geriatric population with dementia. Data indicate that quetiapine is also effective in the treatment of bipolar depressive symptoms without increasing the risk of triggering manic episodes, and in the treatment of borderline personality disorder. In comparison with other atypical antipsychotics, quetiapine has a favorable side-effect profile.
In clinical trials, only small insignificant prolongations of the QT interval were observed. Weight-gain liabilities and new-onset metabolic side-effects occupy a middle-ground among newer antipsychotics. As a result of its efficacy and tolerability profile, quetiapine has become well established in the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
Recently though, in addition to large interindividual variability and weight gain, reports surfaced on treatment emergent diabetes (TED), associated with chronic administration of quetiapine. Additionally, the therapeutical dose of quetiapine is relatively high, forcing the production of pharmaceutical compositions with relatively high concentrations of the active ingredient (up to 60%). Making tablets of such a high concentration of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) is difficult, particularly due to the bad tabletting properties of the API.
An advantageous alternative would therefore be to improve the drug's bioavailability, leading to an improved formulation that can lower the total necessary therapeutical dose and/or reduce side-effects such as TED and/or weight gain, and avoid the need for repeated administration. That formulation would help maintain regimen adherence by otherwise reluctant psychiatric patients. | {
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It is known that it is extremely difficult to treat PCB or other such halogenated aromatic compounds. This has led to considerable efforts directed toward the removal or decomposition of halogenated aromatic compounds. Methods for accomplishing this using a reaction process that takes place in the presence of an alkali include the alumina-alkali process disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 2,951,804. U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,028 discloses a method of reacting alkali and a PCB content of up to 50,000 ppm in a mixture of alkyl or alkylene sulfoxide and polyol, thereby reducing the content to several ppm. Other examples include Canadian Pat. No. 1,181,771 which discloses a method employing melted sodium, and Italian Patent No. 22,215 which discloses a method using alkaline earth metal on which PEG is adsorbed.
Each method has its good points. However, with the prior art techniques it is not possible to further remove halogenated aromatic compounds from samples having a low concentration thereof, so that the halogenated aromatic compound content is further reduced to the extent that the inclusion thereof is substantially not recognizable; it is not yet possible to reduce the halogenated aromatic compound concentration to i ppm or below. Moreover, it is widely known that heating the solvent used in the prior art methods to a high temperature of 120.degree. C. or over in the presence of an alkali or alkali metal has a chemically destablizing effect that promotes solvent decomposition and polymerization, degrading the basic function of the solvent. | {
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Yagi antennas are used in high frequency applications such as satellite radio transmission. There presently exists a population of 4 billion people that are generally dissatisfied and underserved by the poor sound quality of short-wave or terrestrial radio broadcast systems. This population is primarily located in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia. FIG. 1 shows an overview of a satellite broadcast system 10 comprising various broadcast stations 2 for transmitting multiple audio signals, for example, to a satellite 4, which in turn transmits these signals to the receivers 9. The satellite broadcast system 10 is particularly useful for providing high-quality broadcast programming to users in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia. The present invention relates to a low-cost antenna that can be mounted on a portable radio receiver 9 for reception of satellite radio transmissions. This invention is particularly useful for the reception of satellite signals where a receiver antenna gain on the order of 9 dbi together with a noise figure on the order of 1 dB are required due to the low power flux density available at the receiver location.
Yagi antennas generally consist of three types of elements: reflector, radiator, and directors. The radiator (e.g., a folded dipole) is an active element that receives the power concentrated by the parasitic elements. The reflector is a parasitic element with an inductive quality. The directors are also parasitic elements but with a capacitive quality. Yagi antenna systems use the parasitic elements in combination with active elements to control the direction and width of the beam. The Yagi antenna optimizes gain by using specific director lengths and spacing between the directors and the driven element (e.g., the radiator).
In addition, the Yagi antenna typically employs a balun (e.g., a half wavelength coaxial line) to achieve a 180 degree phase shift of the signal. Specifically, as seen in FIG. 2, a coaxial cable 32 is physically connected to the driven element (e.g., folded dipole) 40. The inner sheath 38 is connected to one side of the folded dipole 40 and the feed cable 34, and the opposite inner sheath 39 is connected to the opposite side of the dipole. The outer sheath 36 is connected to ground. As the signal travels around the inner sheath from 39 to 38 it becomes 180 degrees phase shifted from the original signal. This cable and dipole arrangement is cumbersome and prevents an antenna arrangement from being constructed on a simple printed circuit board. A need exists for a more compact means to drive the components of a Yagi antenna.
A compactly designed Yagi antenna is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,612,706. However, this antenna merely reduces the distance between two rods and is not well suited for radio receiver portability. It is more convenient to have a Yagi antenna that can be folded for transportation. Further, it would be advantageous to have a less costly implementation than the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,612,706.
Removal of the balun is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,898,410. A log periodic dipole array antenna system achieves impedance matching by adjusting the distance between a focusing element and one of several dipoles or driven elements. The antenna system therefore has plural active elements and, correspondingly, impedance matching requirements for each of these elements. A need exists for a low-cost antenna having a simple active element impedance matching design.
A performance limitation of the Yagi antenna is the signal loss caused by cables and connectors between the antenna feed point and the low noise amplifier input stage. There is currently a requirement to match the antenna feed point to a standard impedance (such as 50 ohms) which can be accommodated by off-the-shelf connectors and cables, and then again match the impedance to the low noise amplifier input stage. This sequential impedance matching requirement incurs line and connector losses, which in turn detrimentally affect the performance of the Yagi antenna.
As shown in FIG. 3, some patch and Yagi antenna systems 10 use dual circular polarization outlets which can be costly due to the type and number of components. For example, the system shown requires two outlets, that is, a right-hand circular polarization outlet 18 and a left-hand circular polarization outlet 16, two low-noise amplifier (LNA) input stages 24 and 26, an electronic polarization switch 14, and at least two housing mounts 12 and 13.
Manufacturing costs are also a contributing factor to the expense of the receivers 9. It is known in the art to use coaxial cables 20 and 22 to connect the LNA input stages 24 and 26 to the antenna outlets 18 and 16 to achieve impedance matching. However, as mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,968, balanced low impedance feeders have been recommended, but have not often been adopted in practice. This is because such feeders, when engineered for dipole and Yagi-Uda array matching impedances, are dimensionally awkward to manufacture and install. Further, since the folded dipole and the director elements are separate from the low noise amplifier (LNA), two fabrication procedures are needed, thereby increasing the likelihood of problems due to manufacturing tolerances. Thus, a need exists for a low cost Yagi antenna design that is easily mass-produced with a low error tolerance.
It is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,485, to use antennas embedded in substrates in microwave frequency applications where a feedpoint and via are used as an input to a low noise amplifier, thereby obtaining optimum impedance matching. However, these diagonally-fed electric microstrip dipole antennas are patch antennas that are constructed on at least two layers of a dielectric substrate. These types of patch antennas cannot be designed for high gain without using an array of patches, thereby incurring a negative effect on complexity and size.
Accordingly, a need exists for a more simple means of impedance matching of a Yagi antenna with only one driven element. A need also exists for an active antenna system that is low cost and readily mass-produced while providing reasonably high gain, directivity and noise performance. A foldable design is desirable to keep the antenna compact for travel. | {
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The present invention generally relates to medical devices, systems, and methods. In specific embodiments, the invention provides devices, systems, and methods for suturing tissues in open surgery, minimally invasive surgical procedures, and the like.
Although many aspects of surgery have changed radically over the last several decades, some surgical techniques have remained remarkably constant. For example, as was true fifty years ago, suturing remains a common technique for approximation of tissues, ligation of tissues, affixing tissues together, and the like.
Suture has been used in open surgical procedures for generations to therapeutically treat diseased tissue and to close surgical access sites and other wounds. More recently, the use of minimally invasive surgical techniques has expanded, with surgical therapies often being performed at internal surgical sites. Although a wide variety of visualization techniques (including laparoscopes and other endoscopic viewing devices, fluoroscopy and other remote imaging modalities, and the like) have been developed to allow surgeons to view these internal surgical sites, and although a large variety of new tissue treatment techniques have been developed (including ultrasound techniques, electrosurgical techniques, cryosurgical techniques, and the like) and are now widely available, many modern surgical interventions continue to rely on suturing.
A wide variety of alternatives to suturing of tissues have been developed, and have gained varying degrees of acceptance in certain surgical procedures. Staples and tissue adhesives are used quite frequently in many open and minimally invasive surgical settings, and a variety of tissue welding techniques have also been proposed. Nonetheless, suturing remains ubiquitous in surgery, as suturing provides a number of advantages over many of the alternatives.
Suture's advantages include the large knowledge and skill base that surgeons have developed over the years. Additionally, a variety of off-the-shelf, pre-packaged surgical needles with suture are available from a large number of suppliers at very reasonable cost. Surgeons are able to precisely control the location of suture stitches by grasping the suture needle and first pushing it and then pulling it through the target tissue. In open surgery the surgeon may manually grasp the suture needle directly with his or her hand, although both open and minimally invasive procedures are often performed by grasping the needle with a needle grasping tool and manipulating the tool to place the suture stitches. The results obtained using suture are highly predictable, although dependent on the skill of the surgeon. In light of its advantages, the use of suture does not appear likely to disappear any time soon, with even modem robotic surgical techniques often making use of suture.
Although suture remains popular in surgery at least in part due to its significant advantages, suturing is not without disadvantages. In particular, placing a large number of suture stitches can be tiring and quite time-consuming. Manipulation of a suture needle can be difficult even in open surgery due to the limited space that is often available around the target tissues. The challenges of manipulating suture needles may be even greater in minimally invasive surgical procedures, where the needles are often manipulated using long-handled tools extending through a small aperture, typically while viewing the procedure on a display which is offset from the surgical site. Tying knots with a desired amount of tension and the like may call for intricate and precise manipulation of the suture, further complicating and delaying open and minimally-invasive surgeries. In fact, the time spent closing/suturing the access site may be significantly greater than the time spent treating the underlying target tissues for many procedures.
There have been a variety of proposals for modifications to standard surgical suturing structures and methods to try to address the above disadvantages. At least some of these proposals may seek to rely on specialized and/or proprietary suturing needle systems, which could increase costs and preclude their wide acceptance, especially in third world countries. Unfortunately, many proposals for modifying existing suturing techniques may also decrease the surgeon's control over the placement of the suture, such as by relying on an automated or indirect mechanical movement of a device to drive a suture needle into and/or through tissues. While these new proposals have in the past or may in the future gain varying degrees of acceptance in one or more surgical procedures, standard suturing techniques continue to predominate throughout surgery in general.
In light of the above, it would be desirable to provide improved suturing devices, systems, and methods. It would be generally desirable to maintain some, most, or all of the advantages of standard suturing techniques, preferably while decreasing the time required for suturing, the strain on the surgeon, the training involved in achieving competence or time-efficiency in suturing techniques, or the like. It would be particularly advantageous if these improvements could be provided without requiring extensive capital investments for new equipment, without significant increases in complexity of the suturing process, or without having to resort to specialized or proprietary suturing needles and the like. | {
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In a typical permanent magnet AC motor, such as a brushless DC motor or a permanent magnet AC servo motor system, for example, the motor winding is on the stator and is in a three-phase configuration. Energization of the windings is controlled through a six-transistor bridge circuit, where the transistors are operated in a switching mode according to the motor position, or the position of the rotor in a rotary motor, and motor force commands, such as torque commands. Three of the transistors are connected to the positive supply bus and the remaining three transistors are connected to the negative supply bus. Sinusoidal or trapezoidal excitation of the winding may be achieved by pulse width modulation (PWM) control of the switching transistors. A back-biased diode, or flyback diode, is commonly connected across each of the emitter-collector circuits of the switching transistors to bypass transients from the switching control of the inductive motor load. The motor windings can also be energized in a controller manner by other amplifier topologies such as a linear transistor amplifier topology.
In motor drive systems of the type discussed above, when the control system fails, it is often necessary to actively bring the motor to zero speed assuming the minimum possible amount of hardware/control is working. In order to do so, many motor control systems include dynamic braking capability. In a dynamic braking mode, the motor usually operates as a generator and either dissipates energy into the motor windings, or dissipates energy into a resistive load. Such dynamic braking may be achieved in both brush-type motors as well as brushless motors, or AC servo motors.
One simple way to brake a motor is to use a relay to disconnect the motor form the power source (electronic drive or AC line) and then put a three phase short across the motor windings. In this manner, the kinetic energy of the motor is dissipated in the motor coil resistances.
Another prior art technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,118,241 to Kazlaukas entitled “Dynamic Braking System for Electrical Motors.” Therein, the electronic drive power transistors short the motor terminals line to line. Dynamic braking is achieved by simultaneously rendering conductive the three transistors connected to a positive bus, or the three transistors connected to a negative bus. This technique is referred to as a “three phase short” technique. When three such transistors are simultaneously rendered conductive, current flows from one or more motor windings to one of the supply busses through one or two of the conductive transistors and returns to other motor winding or windings through one or more of a plurality of back-biased diodes. This arrangement provides dynamic braking regardless of rotor position. The braking operation may be achieved using the three transistors connected to the positive bus or by using the three transistors connected to the negative bus. If sufficient control is provided, the dynamic breaking system may alternate between transistors connected to the positive bus and those connected to the negative bus, thus sharing the load between all transistors. When the three transistors connected to a bus are simultaneously rendered conductive, they essentially short circuit the winding and dynamic braking is provided. When all 6 transistors are simultaneously rendered non-conductive motor current flows through one or more of the plurality of normally back biased diodes and the magnitude of the dynamic braking current is reduced. Pulse width modulation (PWM) control of the conductive intervals may be used to control the degree of braking through controlling the magnitude of the braking current. This transistor shorting modulation technique adds the benefit of allowing the peak current flowing in the motor as a result of the three phase short to be limited in a controlled manner. Limiting the maximum current limits possible damage to the power transistors and also prevents excessive current in the motor which might demagnitize it.
However, one major disadvantage of these aforementioned techniques is that the current that flows when the short occurs does not all go towards stopping the motor. In a three phase permanent magnet motor, at higher speeds, the short circuit current is almost entirely set by the back electromotive force (“back EMF”) applied over the motor winding inductance. The back EMF is the voltage that occurs in electric motors where there is relative motion between the windings of the motor and the external magnetic field from permanent magnets or electro magnets. The back EMF is in quadrature (ninety degrees out of phase) to the current that flows in the motor winding inductance. Since the short circuit current is almost entirely set by the back EMF divided by winding inductive impedance at higher speeds, the short circuit current is almost entirely in quadrature to the back EMF, meaning almost all the current does not create stopping torque.
Stopping the motor as fast as possible in case of a control fault is advantageous, particularly at high speeds. If the motor does not stop fast enough there may be damage to the machine incorporating the motor or even human injury. If the current control circuitry or current limiting circuitry of the motor drive does not act to stop the motor fast enough, the motor drive may fault due to an over current condition causing the braking to stop. Additionally, if the motor is operating at high speeds and the motor is shorted according to the prior art techniques, the resulting current may be high enough that damage may be caused to the windings of the motor or the permanent magnet, or even to the motor drive.
Thus, there remains a need for a system for efficiently stopping a motor in a dynamic braking mode that avoids the problems of the previous systems, including those described above, and uses the minimum amount of control circuitry to insure high reliability. In particular, it would be useful to maximize the stopping torque per ampere of the dynamic braking current to more efficiently brake the motor. | {
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A storage battery pack, having a plurality of secondary batteries (cells) connected in series, which has an electronic circuit to average cell voltages of the cells, has been known. As for averaging cell voltages, an active method, in which electricity is transferred between the cells, is gathering attention.
An electronic circuit adopting the active method has a transformer and a switching element for activating the transformer, accumulates electricity in a primary coil during the time the switching element is turned on, and outputs electricity accumulated in the primary coil to a secondary coil when the switching element is turned off. An averaging of cell voltages in secondary batteries is performed by repeating such an operation to provide a cell connected with the secondary coil with electricity, in an electronic circuit adopting the active method (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2002-223528, No. 2011-83182, No. 2013-13268). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Molecular sieves of the crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite type are well known in the art and now comprise over 150 species of both naturally occurring and synthetic compositions. In general, the crystalline zeolites are formed from corner-sharing AlO.sub.2 and SiO.sub.2 tetrahedra and are characterized by having pore openings of uniform dimensions, having a significant ion-exchange capacity and being capable of reversible desorbing an adsorbed phase which is dispersed throughout the internal voids of the crystal without significantly displacing any atoms which make up the permanent crystal structure.
One of these synthetic zeolites is EMC-2, which is composed of sodalite cages arranged in a hexagonal array and has been designated as having the EMT framework structure by the International Zeolite Association (See, Atlas of Zeolite Structure Types, W. M. Meier and D. H. Olson, 3d Edition (1992), Butterworth-Heinemann). The EMC-2 zeolite is synthesized using the organic directing agent 18-crown-6-ether. Synthesis of this zeolite as well as structure characterization has been reported in the following: F. Delprato et al., Zeolites, 10, 546-552 (1990); Ch. Baerlocher, Acta Cryst., A46, C177 (1990).
As synthesized, the EMC-2 zeolite has a SiO.sub.2 /Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 ratio from about 6.5 to about 10.0. Applicants have successfully treated EMC-2 zeolites with a fluorosilicate salt to simultaneously remove aluminum atoms and insert silicon into the framework, thereby giving a SiO.sub.2 /Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 ratio of about 6.6 to about 11.2. The zeolite obtained from this process has been identified as LZ-281, has retained the EMT framework structure and at least 50% (preferably 90%) of the relative X-ray crystallinity of the starting EMC-2 zeolite. It is also observed that the LZ-281 zeolite has increased acidity and cracking activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,770 discloses a process for treating a zeolite with a fluorosilicate salt. The '770 patent discloses treating a zeolite Y with a fluorosilicate salt, thereby removing aluminum atoms from the framework and inserting silicon. However, the '770 patent does not disclose treating an EMC-2 zeolite. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to devices for elevating the user thereof above the ground. More specifically, it pertains to stilt devices providing means by which the feet of a user may be vertically elevated above the ground for work or amusement.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Stilts, sometimes referred to as "Tom Walkers", have long been used by children and adults as amusement devices. A simple stilt of the prior art included a long wooden pole or stick to which a foot platform was attached at some vertically elevated distance from the ground. The user would place each foot on a platform of one of a pair of such stilts. The pole would usually extend to somewhere near the shoulder of the user. Such stilts were quite awkward and attempts were made to refine the construction thereof. An example of an early refined stilt construction is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,613,535.
In a somewhat related area, foot elevating devices have also been developed for artificial limbs or for individuals having one leg shorter than the other. An example of such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,736,902.
In more recent years, stilts or leg extension devices have been developed for workers who need to be elevated to some extent above the ground or floor. For example, such devices have been utilized by sheetrock installers, plasterers and painters to eliminate or reduce the use of scaffolds and ladders. Such devices may be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,802,217; 2,832,079; 3,058,120; 3,102,272; 3,346,882; 4,255,822; 4,569,516. While most of these devices appear to be useful in their intended purpose, they are primarily utility devices lacking the flexibility, versatility and mobility desired for amusement devices. | {
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A merchant may use a payment processor provided by a third-party service provider to processor payments by various customers of the merchant. The third-party service provider may also store a set of payment profiles (e.g., credit card information, automatic clearing house information, bank information, user contact information, billing address, etc.) corresponding to the customers. The set of payment profiles may be stored by the third-party service provider according to a first file format. In certain instances, the merchant may wish to use a different service provider than the third-party service provider, and may desire to migrate the set of payment profiles from the third-party service provider to the other service provider, which in some cases may tore payment profiles according to a second file format that is different from the first file format.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, wherein showings therein are for purposes of illustrating embodiments of the present disclosure and not for purposes of limiting the same. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to methods of scrolling on a touchpad. Specifically, the invention relates to a method of activating a scrolling function by performing touchdown in a pre-defined location, and then controlling various scrolling functions by using gestures to control the direction of scrolling.
2. Description of Related Art
As portable electronic appliances become more ubiquitous, the need to efficiently control them is becoming increasingly important. The wide array of electronic devices that can benefit from a means of controlling scrolling include, but should not be considered limited to, MP3 players, portable video players, digital cameras and camcorders, mobile telephones, and other portable devices. However, even desktop devices such as desktop computers can take advantage of a method of scrolling that is quick and efficient.
One of the main problems that many portable electronic appliances have is that their very size limits the number of ways in which communicating with the appliances is possible. There is typically a very limited amount of space that is available for an interface when portability is so important. For example, mobile telephones that require a telephone number keypad are now replacing many personal digital assistants (PDAs). Typically, PDAs require a keyboard for data entry. The inventors of the present invention were involved in the discovery and development of a touchpad that is disposed underneath a telephone keypad. Hiding the keypad under the telephone keymat made the best possible use of the limited space available for data entry.
Other developers and users of portable electronic appliances have seen the benefits that come from using a circular touchpad. The very nature of a circular touchpad enables continuous circular motion in a same direction. However, a circular touchpad typically provides less functionality for other touchpad functions, such as cursor manipulation. Thus, it would be an advantage to provide improved scrolling functions on a typical rectangular or even a square touchpad shape.
Consider a personal digital assistant (PDA). A PDA often has to provide a full keyboard in order to enter characters from an alphabet. Even more difficult is the problem of having to deal with graphical interfaces. PDAs and even mobile telephones are becoming small but portable computers with all of the information that might be carried in a larger computing device. Furthermore, graphical interfaces present some unique challenges when providing a user interface.
The difficulties described are not unique to PDAs and mobile telephones. Even less complex devices are being pressed to provide more and more functionality. Consider an MP3 audio player that enables a user to list items such as songs, and then move through that list in order to select a song to play, or to move to a playlist.
One feature of these portable electronic appliances that is common to all of those listed above and other appliances not mentioned or which are under development, is the need to quickly and easily move or scroll through lists and make selections. It should be noted that all of the portable electronic appliances listed above have or will soon have touchpads disposed somewhere on or within the appliances. This evolution is only natural considering the complex functions and graphical interfaces that they use. However, these portable electronic appliances presently lack a means for providing better control when scrolling through lists.
Thus, it would be an improvement over the prior art to provide a system and method for providing rapid access to scrolling through a list.
When considering how to provide a scrolling feature, it should be realized that an important issue to consider is the size or range of the list that will be used. For example, it may be desirable to control a portable electronic appliance where the lists are very large, and it may be advantageous to move fast and slow while using the same device. For example, the number of songs that can be stored on many MP3 players is now into the thousands. Being able to rapidly move to a song location may require a lot of time, depending upon the interface that is provided for scrolling.
A good analogy to this situation is tuning a radio that has a wide dynamic range. A radio typically has a simple hand-operated control. Tuning a radio to frequency 95.1 MHz over an entire range of 85-105 MHz is to control 1 part in 200. Using a single-turn “knob” or potentiometer, a single turn or revolution of the knob changes the frequency setting from a minimum of 85 MHz to maximum of 105 MHz. Thus, it becomes obvious why it is very hard to get the “fine” control that is necessary to dial into 0.1 MHz resolution. Fine and coarse control can also be thought of as slow and fast incrementing or decreasing of values.
Prior art solutions for this problem have included a multi-turn potentiometer or knob. In this scenario, the knob can be turned multiple revolutions where one revolution might be equal to 2 MHz. In this way, it becomes much easier to dial in 0.1 MHz resolution (i.e., 0.1/2.0=> 1/20th revolution). But now a new problem has arisen. In order to move over the entire frequency range of 20 MHz will now require ten complete turns of the knob, which now becomes an annoyingly slow procedure. Interestingly, most radios and many industrial controls rely on this “many-turns-of-the-knob” solution.
Another prior art solution is to provide two knobs. One knob is for coarse control, and the other knob is for fine control. This solution is apparently common for industrial or laboratory equipment, but it is rare for consumer devices. This disparity is a good example of the fact that it is not user friendly or impossible because of space constraints to provide more controls.
Thus, the problem becomes one of being able to provide the ability to move quickly over the entire dynamic range in a single turn, while at the same time being able to easily change an operating mode from a coarse tuning mode to a fine tuning mode and thus dial-in quickly to a fine resolution.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for providing user input using a touchpad where the manner in which a pointing object touches the touchpad enables fine or coarse input, without having to resort to other mechanisms for changing the resolution of input.
The present invention solves more than just the problem of scrolling through lists. The present invention can be applied to controls that are used in any type of system that can receive input from an electronic or mechanical knob. If a system can be coupled to a touchpad, the touchpad can provide coarse or fine input that is presently provided through multiple knobs, or poorly with just a single knob. Thus, what is needed is a system and method for providing touchpad input to any system that utilizes knobs, sliding actuators or other non-touchpad means to provide analog input. What is also needed is a system and method for providing electronic devices with input that can be analogized to the turning of knobs or other similar actuators.
It should be noted that one method of scrolling is through the use of a dedicated or non-dedicated scroll zone on a vertical or horizontal edge of a touchpad. The user slides a finger up or down along the scroll zone. However, when a user reaches an edge of a scrolling zone, the user is required to lift a finger and move it back in order to keep scrolling in a same direction. This is a disadvantage of a linear scrolling region, regardless of whether or not the scrolling region is dedicated to scrolling or not.
Before describing the invention in more detail it is useful to describe the capacitance-sensitive touchpad technology of CIRQUE® Corporation. The CIRQUE™ Corporation touchpad is a mutual capacitance-sensing device and an example is illustrated in FIG. 1. In this touchpad, a grid of row and column electrodes is used to define the touch-sensitive area of the touchpad. Typically, the touchpad is a rectangular grid of approximately 16 by 12 electrodes, or 8 by 6 electrodes when there are space constraints. Interlaced with these row and column electrodes is a single sense electrode. All position measurements are made through the sense electrode.
In more detail, FIG. 1 shows a capacitance sensitive touchpad 10 as taught by Cirque® Corporation includes a grid of row (12) and column (14) (or X and Y) electrodes in a touchpad electrode grid. All measurements of touchpad parameters are taken from a single sense electrode 16 also disposed on the touchpad electrode grid, and not from the X or Y electrodes 12, 14. No fixed reference point is used for measurements. Touchpad sensor control circuitry 20 generates signals from P,N generators 22, 24 that are sent directly to the X and Y electrodes 12, 14 in various patterns. Accordingly, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the number of electrodes on the touchpad electrode grid, and the number of drive pins on the touchpad sensor control circuitry 20.
The touchpad 10 does not depend upon an absolute capacitive measurement to determine the location of a finger (or other capacitive object) on the touchpad surface. The touchpad 10 measures an imbalance in electrical charge to the sense line 16. When no pointing object is on the touchpad 10, the touchpad sensor control circuitry 20 is in a balanced state, and there is no signal on the sense line 16. There may or may not be a capacitive charge on the electrodes 12, 14. In the methodology of CIRQUE® Corporation, that is irrelevant. When a pointing device creates imbalance because of capacitive coupling, a change in capacitance occurs on the plurality of electrodes 12, 14 that comprise the touchpad electrode grid. What is measured is the change in capacitance, and not the absolute capacitance value on the electrodes 12, 14. The touchpad 10 determines the change in capacitance by measuring the amount of charge that must be injected onto the sense line 16 to reestablish or regain balance on the sense line.
The touchpad 10 must make two complete measurement cycles for the X electrodes 12 and for the Y electrodes 14 (four complete measurements) in order to determine the position of a pointing object such as a finger. The steps are as follows for both the X 12 and the Y 14 electrodes:
First, a group of electrodes (say a select group of the X electrodes 12) are driven with a first signal from P, N generator 22 and a first measurement using mutual capacitance measurement device 26 is taken to determine the location of the largest signal. However, it is not possible from this one measurement to know whether the finger is on one side or the other of the closest electrode to the largest signal.
Next, shifting by one electrode to one side of the closest electrode, the group of electrodes is again driven with a signal. In other words, the electrode immediately to the one side of the group is added, while the electrode on the opposite side of the original group is no longer driven.
Third, the new group of electrodes is driven and a second measurement is taken.
Finally, using an equation that compares the magnitude of the two signals measured, the location of the finger is determined.
Accordingly, the touchpad 10 measures a change in capacitance in order to determine the location of a finger. All of this hardware and the methodology described above assume that the touchpad sensor control circuitry 20 is directly driving the electrodes 12, 14 of the touchpad 10. Thus, for a typical 12×16 electrode grid touchpad, there are a total of 28 pins (12+16=28) available from the touchpad sensor control circuitry 20 that are used to drive the electrodes 12, 14 of the electrode grid.
The sensitivity or resolution of the CIRQUE® Corporation touchpad is much higher than the 16 by 12 grid of row and column electrodes implies. The resolution is typically on the order of 960 counts per inch, or greater. The exact resolution is determined by the sensitivity of the components, the spacing between the electrodes on the same rows and columns, and other factors that are not material to the present invention.
Although the CIRQUE® touchpad described above uses a grid of X and Y electrodes and a separate and single sense electrode, the sense electrode can also be the X or Y electrodes by using multiplexing. Either design will enable the present invention to function.
The underlying technology for the CIRQUE® Corporation touchpad is based on capacitive sensors. However, other touchpad technologies can also be used for the present invention. These other proximity-sensitive and touch-sensitive touchpad technologies include electromagnetic, inductive, pressure sensing, electrostatic, ultrasonic, optical, resistive membrane, semi-conductive membrane or other finger or stylus-responsive technology. | {
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1. Technical Field
The invention disclosed broadly relates to data processing and more particularly relates to linguistic applications in data processing.
2. Background Art
Text processing word processing systems have been developed for both stand-alone applications and distributed processing applications. The terms text processing and word processing will be used interchangeably herein to refer to data processing systems primarily used for the creation, editing, communication, and/or printing of alphanumeric character strings composing written text. A particular distributed processing system for word processing is disclosed in the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 781,862 filed Sept. 30, 1985, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,735, entitled "Multilingual Processing for Screen Image Build and Command Decode in a Word Processor, with Full Command, Message and Help Support," by K. W. Borgendale, et al. The figures and specification of the Borgendale, et al. patent application are incorporated herein by reference, as an example of a host system within which the subject invention herein can be applied.
Previous work has described procedures for reducing the number of candidate words that have to be examined relative to a specific misspelled word to find a list of the best matched candidate words. One technique looks only at those words that differ in length by less than two characters and which retain the same initial character. Another technique uses a vector fetch approach which assigns each word in the dictionary a magnitude value based on the confusability of the characters in the word and only those words within a specific magnitude range of the misspelled word are retrieved. These techniques have been supplemented by double indexing ambiguous or silent first letters (e.g., phonograph under "P" and "F," knight under "K" and "N") to improve their performance in standard office environments.
Independent of these spelling aid techniques, statistical methods for determining similarities between strings have been developed and even implemented as integrated circuits. Methods such as the SOUNDEX system have been used to cluster names with similar phonetic characteristics to provide candidate file entries that then have to be screened manually for relevance.
Although these methods provide sets of candidate words, they have not integrated the morphological and phonetic components of language and, therefore, the candidates that they produce may be irrelevant or ranked in implausible order. | {
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The present invention relates to a down hole drill having a mechanism for changing the frequency of drill operation. The invention includes several embodiments demonstrating various means and methods for changing frequency. The present invention may be used to change frequency of drill operation during continuous operation of the drill, without having to remove the drill from the hole in which it is operating and without having to cease the drilling operation. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a concentrator which can be plugged into a bus backplane to insert other devices connected to the bus into a token ring network having a primary and a secondary ring. More specifically the invention relates to a concentrator which is used alone or in conjunction with a second identical concentrator to provide a set of externally configurable datapaths for connecting the bus backplane with primary and secondary rings in the network.
2. Description of the Related Prior Art
The invention involves token ring networks, primarily networks that conform to the ANSI FDDI standards X3.148, X3.139 and X3T9.5 (currently in draft form). However, while the devices specifically described herein conform to these standards, the invention is also applicable to other token ring standards.
In a token ring network the stations or "nodes" on the network are connected in a loop in which information signals propagate in a single direction. Thus, signals sent from one node to another will ordinarily pass through a number of intervening nodes in the course of travel along the ring. This arrangement raises a number of issues when it is desired to add nodes to, or remove them from, the network.
Specifically, the ring must be physically broken and its operation interrupted in order to add or remove a node. This is further complicated by the nature of the transmission medium, e.g. optical fiber or copper wire, that interconnects the nodes.
These problems have been addressed by the use of concentrators which are connected into the token ring and provide electrical and/or optical connections to various devices that can operate as token ring nodes. In a concentrator, the signal pathways are electrical, and thus, they can be switched electrically. They can therefore be switched fast enough to insert the nodes or chains of nodes into, or remove them from, the token ring without significantly interrupting the signal flow in the ring. Also, since these nodes can be electrically connected to the concentrator, they need not be provided with fiber optic interfaces and this reduces their cost.
The concentrators may also be provided with connectors that enable them to be plugged into backplanes to which token ring nodes are connected, thereby facilitating the physical connections between these nodes and the concentrators.
There are a number of different node arrangements which must be accommodated by the concentrators and this has required the use of different concentrator designs for these arrangements. In turn, this requires the manufacture and stocking of different concentrators. The present invention is directed primarily to a reduction in the costs associated with these factors.
The ANSI FDDI standards support several different types of ports, namely, A ports, B ports, M ports and S ports. Each port accommodates a particular type of connection. For example, an A port connects to the incoming primary ring and the outgoing secondary ring of the token ring network, a B port connects to the outgoing primary ring and the incoming secondary ring, an M port which operates only on a concentrator and connects the concentrator to a station or to another concentrator connects to the same incoming and outgoing ring, and an S port which operates on a station or a concentrator and connects a concentrator to a single attachment station or a single attachment concentrator connects to the same incoming and outgoing ring. The operating characteristics of these ports are set forth in more detail in FDDI standard X3T9.5, which is currently in draft form, relevant portions of this draft standard are attached hereto as appendix A. Although the hardware for these ports is basically the same, firmware configures the ports for the particular uses. The FDDI standard permits connections between A ports and B ports and between M ports and either A ports and B ports. However, two M ports may not be connected together. What is needed is a concentrator with a number of ports and datapaths which can be readily configured to accommodate the connection of various arrangements of devices to the token ring network. | {
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1. Technology Field
The present invention relates to a data moving method for a flash memory module, a memory controller using the method, and a memory storage apparatus using the method.
2. Description of Related Art
Digital cameras, mobile phones, and MP3 music players have undergone rapid growth in recent years, so that consumer demand for storage media has also drastically increased. Since a rewritable non-volatile memory has the characteristics of non-volatility of data, low power consumption, small volume, non-mechanical structure, and fast reading and writing speed, the rewritable non-volatile memory is the most adaptable memory to be applied in a portable electronic product, such as a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a notebook computer, and so on. For instance, a conspicuous solid state drive (SSD) is a storage apparatus which utilizes a flash memory as its storage medium. Therefore, the flash memory industry has become a very popular part of the electronic industry in recent years. A flash memory module has a plurality of physical blocks, and each of the physical blocks has a plurality of physical pages, wherein data must be written into a physical block according to the sequence of the physical pages in the physical block. In addition, a physical page containing data has to be erased before it is used for a new data writing operation. Particularly, each physical block is the smallest erasing unit, and each physical page is the smallest programming (i.e., writing) unit.
Hence, in order to improve the operation efficiency, a memory controller of a memory storage apparatus groups the physical blocks of a flash memory module into a data area and a spare area.
Physical blocks in the data area are used for storing data written by a host system. To be more specific, a memory management circuit converts a logical access address accessed by the host system into a logical page of a logical block and maps the logical pages of the logical blocks to physical pages of the physical blocks in the data area. Namely, in the management of a flash memory module, the physical blocks in the data area are deemed used physical blocks (for instance, the physical blocks already contain data written by a host system). Additionally, the memory management circuit records the mapping relationship between the logical blocks and the physical blocks of the data area in a logical block-physical block mapping table, and the logical pages of each logical block are sequentially mapped to the physical pages of the corresponding physical block.
Physical blocks in the spare area are used for substituting the physical blocks in the data area. In particular, a physical block already containing data has to be erased before it is used for a new data writing operation, and thus the physical blocks in the spare area are used for writing updated data to substitute the physical blocks originally mapped to the logical blocks. Hence, the physical blocks in the spare area are either blank blocks or available blocks (i.e., these blocks do not contain data, or these blocks contain data marked as invalid data).
That is to say, when the storage space of the memory storage apparatus is formatted, the physical blocks in the data area are mapped to the logical blocks and considered already containing update data. Subsequently, when the host system is about to store data into a logical page of a logical block, the memory controller selects a physical block from the spare area and writes the data into a physical page of the selected physical block, so as to complete the data update at the logical page.
Along with the development of semiconductor technologies, the page capacity of each physical page in a flash memory module has been increasing. For instance, each physical page in an existing flash memory module is usually designed to store 8 kilobytes (KB) of user data (i.e., the page capacity is 8 KB). However, an operating system (OS) of a host system (e.g., a personal computer) usually stores data in a smaller unit (e.g., 4 KB). For instance, the OS may merely update the preceding 4 KB of data at one logical page. After other access operations are done, the OS then updates the succeeding 4 KB of data in this logical page. Hence, the updated data belonging to the same logical page may be stored in several physical pages. For instance, when the preceding 4 KB of data in one logical page is updated, the updated 4 KB of data and the invalid 4 KB of data are written into one physical page. When the succeeding 4 KB of data in this logical page is updated, the invalid 4 KB of data and the updated succeeding 4 KB of data are written into another physical page. Afterwards, when the data in the logical page need be arranged, the updated data of this logical page is read from the physical pages and written into a blank physical page. Accordingly, how to effectively move the data belonging to the same logical page from the physical pages to a blank physical page for improving the performance of the memory storage apparatus has become one of the major subjects in the industry.
Nothing herein should be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art of any portion of the invention. Furthermore, citation or identification of any document in this application is not an admission that such document is available as prior art to the invention, or that any reference forms a part of the common general knowledge in the art. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bipolar voltage controlled optical switch for single-mode light using two intersecting waveguides.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An optical switch is a switching circuit which enables signals in optical waveguides to be selectively switched from one path to another by using electro-optic effects.
Known optical switches include total-internal-reflection (TIR)-type optical switches and directional-coupler-type optical switches. TIR-type optical switches are attractive because of their simple structure and mechanism, but have the disadvantage of poor crosstalk characteristics and a high operating voltage for single-mode light. Note that most of the TIR-type switches have been used for multi-mode light. In this case, although these switches have a relatively low operating voltage, the switches have high excitation dependency.
Directional-coupler-type optical switches usually have two separate waveguides. In these switches, asymmetric changes are electrically induced in the refractive indexes of the waveguides so as to switch signals in the waveguides from one path to another or vice versa. However, these switches are so complex in structure due to the presence of a gap between the waveguides that fabrication errors are often generated. For improving this, a .DELTA..beta.-reversal type directional-coupler switch has been proposed, however, it requires complex electrodes.
On the other hand, a directional-coupler-type optical switch with no gap between waveguides, i.e., with intersecting waveguides, has been proposed (See: M. Papuchon and Am. Roy, "Electrically Active Optical Bifurcation: BOA", Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 31, No. 4, Aug. 15, 1977). This optical switch comprises a central waveguide, a pair of input waveguides connected to an end of the central waveguide, and a pair of output waveguides connected to the other end of the central waveguide. In this switch, the entire central waveguide is a refractive-index-changed region. As will be explained later, such as BOA switch requires high refractive index change, so that a relatively high operating voltage is also required. As a result, the switching speed is decreased. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods designed to maximize the efficiency of manufacturing products. More particularly, the present invention relates to a turnkey system for relating product design information to manufacturing capabilities across a range of manufacturers and manufacturing equipment. The present invention relates to systems and methods to enable manufacturers to optimize productivity.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Goods manufacturers have long been the driving force of much of the country's economy. This community is competing in world markets and must strive for benchmarking goods and services as “best in class.” One type of manufacturer of interest in regard to the present invention is the machined component parts manufacturer, although that is not a limitation of the present invention. This type of manufacturer generally uses processes involving the machining and fabrication of metals, sheet metal, and composite materials based upon customer specifications. Machining companies must be prepared, equipped and trained to produce a wide variety of precision parts for companies that design and assemble guidance systems, space communications devices, navigation equipment, pressure vessels, and advanced medical devices, among many others.
However, a competitive global market and substantial pressure to reduce pricing has produced considerable challenge for today's manufacturers. Specific challenges small and medium manufacturers are facing include: Aggressive competition from the European Market, Mexico and Southeast Asia Aging ownership of companies without transition plans Contraction of supply chain options Stringent supply chain requirements for quality, delivery and cost The nation's changing demographic that is forcing large companies to diversify their supply chains to reflect their customer baseAs a result, there has been a substantial decline in the number of such businesses and, relatedly, the number of people employed in this traditional manufacturing sector. As indicated above, the machining sector includes, generally, those organizations that build the parts that go into end-use products, from aircraft to motor vehicles. That job loss may have a detrimental effect on the country's future ability to manufacture supplies that it needs. Further, it may widen existing income gaps between service sector and manufacturing sector jobs, increase competition for low-skill jobs, and reduce the manufacturing sector's competitive edge as the aging skilled workforce is not replaced.
The competition for manufacturers involved with private (commercial) and public (government, including defense) customers is increasing dramatically, even after many years of contraction of prime and second-tier manufacturers in the defense industrial base. Over approximately the last 25 years, the number of US-based Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) defense industry manufacturing suppliers has been reduced from 130,000 to 30,000 due to, among other things, mergers and acquisitions by major defense contractors. That contraction has resulted in the direct and indirect elimination of more than two million jobs in the defense sector. In addition, the associated pricing pressures have produced the effect of extending the necessary useful life of many product types, including critical weapon systems, not only because of order reductions, but because of reduction in research and development spending and the procurement of fewer new products. For example, many aircraft in the current operational Air Force are more than 20 years old. Those and other defense systems are expected to be useable for much longer periods of time, while the availability of replacement parts for those systems diminishes as the number of replacement parts required drops over that time period while remaining a critical need to ensure that the system at issue remains viable for its expected service life.
Most Prime (direct contractual relationship with the customer) and Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) contractors have recognized these pressures and are defining new strategies that will dramatically change the requirements for the supply chain and suppliers within that chain. For example, the aerospace and defense and commercial Primes and OEMs are transforming themselves from original manufacturers into final assemblers in response to: increased competition in both commercial and defense sectors; downward cost pressures from the Department of Defense increased outsourcing to foreign suppliersThe reconfiguration requires 1st Tier suppliers to manage the bulk of the supply chain and requires 2nd and 3rd Tier suppliers to convert their operations to high mix/low volume production and upgrade the skill sets of their production workers.
This country's SME manufacturers have been the foundation for many industry manufacturing supply chains. Yet, many SME manufacturers face significant barriers that prevent them from participating in the supply chains of today, and certainly of tomorrow. These barriers include complex legal and financial bid requirements; a lack of access to technology; the lack of a skilled workforce; the lack of an innovation culture; and the lack of a culture to strive for “continuous improvement.” Other significant barriers include the inability of the workforce to read and/or translate technical data packages into shop floor level manufacturing specifications and proper pricing and shortage of skilled workers. In general, it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete effectively in the manufacture of products as such products become more sophisticated, require the use of complex design and manufacturing tools, are the subject of variations in their design and manufacture, and the workforce becomes less capable of matching the equipment design and operation sophistication.
In order to assist manufacturers of any size to rapidly respond competitively to product manufacture requests, what is needed is a system and related method to enable them to generate or obtain effective technical data packages and have the ability to carry out the steps necessary to perform in a timely and cost effective manner. Unfortunately, most manufacturing supply chains are vulnerable to interruption to some degree due to a range of limitations to be described herein. Anywhere along that chain, the manufacturer may be prone to a switch from a profitable operation to a manufacturing nightmare. For example, manufacturers with Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) manufacturing machines use high quality mechanical and electronic components to produce precision parts to the required specifications, and they require control instructions established by software programs to establish the proper operation sequence (process), tool path, travel rate, rotational speed and direction, and any number of other detailed part or tool manipulations. Any of the steps carried out along the way from initial product design to fabrication completion may be subject to error.
It is to be noted for the purpose of describing the present invention that, in general, there are two basic steps to creating an actionable CNC program under current manufacturing methods: 1. Development of the process plan (sequence of operations); and 2. Generation of the computer programming codes that are tool path codes based on part geometry and sequence of operations, an example of which is commonly referred to in the manufacturing community and herein as the G-code used to control numerically controlled and CNC machine tools as developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance.Individual manufacturers tend to create their own CNC programming codes suitable for their own machines in their own facilities. In general, those codes cannot be translated for use on different machines located in different facilities. Therefore, if that particular manufacturer is no longer available as a supplier, the production of the product using the proprietary G-codes must be re-created in a new facility with different CNC machinery. That can be an acute problem for others in the supply chain leading to the product consumer.
The current process for designing and manufacturing parts using CNC machining has a variety of limitations identified above and noted herein in greater detail. Those limitations can generally be characterized as falling into the following specific categories: 1) purchasing issues; 2) installation issues; 3) design issues; 4) holding fixture issues; 5) conversion issues; 6) process planning issues; 7) machine coding and language issues; 8) Posting issues; and 9) prove out issues. Each limitation will be described in turn.
There is an inherent lack of communication between purchasing agents and shop floor personnel. This lack of communication involves, but is not limited to, what type of machine, tool orientation or axis, tooling to employ with the machine, machine options suitable for the manufacturing project and so forth. That is, each participant may have a specific opinion about how best to approach the task. Each suggestion may have merit but the bottom line is that this uncertainty and impingement on decision making slows the manufacturing process and tends to lead to customized problem solving. Further, this communication problem can obscure the function of purchasing the right equipment for the project, resulting in further delays related to equipment purchase lead time requirements. Moreover, the uncertainty can result in the decision to acquire a machine considered suitable without an effective evaluation as to whether existing tooling otherwise considered inefficient will suffice for the project. Finally, CNC machine code files, which is, in effect, software, often must be purchased in a form that is compatible with the coding structure of the machine or machines at the shop, regardless of any original coding that may have been associated with the manufacturer of the part, including any proprietary coding structure (referred to herein as the Post code). Unfortunately, there may be compatibility issues between the purchased Post code and the required machine configuration.
When a machine is purchased for the purpose of carrying out a particular manufacturing project, that machine is setup using the supplier's installation schedule. That schedule may or may not be compatible with the manufacturer's needs. In addition, the machine's operating parameters, including its controller configuration are ordinarily pre-set at the factory. That configuration may be inaccurate or incompatible and is generally not checked by the installer. Further, safety barriers on the machine may not be properly checked to fit the manufacturer's needs. Other common problems associated with an initial machine purchase that lead to delays in the installation portion of the overall process of moving from a product order to its manufactured completion include, but are not limited to, different delivery times for machine parts, power supply delays and compressed air installation delays.
The manufacture of complex and other parts using sophisticated CNC machines requires substantial design skills. Many company design staff, whether trained engineers, inexperienced interns or high school graduates, particularly at small and medium enterprises, lack the knowledge and understanding of CNC operations and full CNC machine capabilities. As a result, the Computer Aided Design (CAD) portion of the overall manufacturing process may be delayed as design staff gain sufficient understanding of the CNC equipment. Even then, the designers tend to model the desired part incorrectly leading to design geometries that are incompatible with CNC machine functions. Correcting those errors causes a delay in the process. In addition, most available CAD models are not designed to generate manufacturing configurations that are compatible with existing CNC machine configurations. This forces Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) programmers on the shop floor tasked with programming the manufacturing machine to re-create a compatible CAD model before proceeding with CAM programming. In some instances, the “on-the-fly” configuration changes that result from the inconsistency between CAD and CAM may not be saved for future reference, leading to the possibility of a repeat of the same delayed design correction process.
An important aspect of the product machining process is the holding fixture or fixtures used to retain a work piece in position during the machining process. These holding fixtures and related tooling usually are not included in the technical data package. That is not particularly unusual as the technical data package ordinarily is not specific to that level of detail. Any fixtures that may be called out are as likely as not to be outdated for the selected CNC machine. Further, any fixtures that might be called out in a technical data package may be disregarded because their associated controlling programs are incompatible with the control arrangements for the CNC machine to be used. Manufacturers may attempt to address their holding fixture needs for a project by attempting to retrofit old fixtures to conform to new fixture needs. That effort alone requires additional tooling for the fixture retrofit and extends the time associated with this step of the entire manufacturing process. As with other stages of the existing manufacturing process, the holding fixture stage often involves customized one-time efforts and the records of the fixture making and/or selection process are not maintained. As a result, that “learning” is not transferred, either within that facility or manufacturer or to another manufacturer who may have an interest in acquiring it. Finally, a manufacturer may settle on a holding fixture arrangement for a particular part or set of parts and never deviate from that arrangement, thereby avoiding the opportunity to make improvements to enhance machine compatibility and/or increase the efficiency of the fabrication process. Both of these effects will lead to delays in the optimal manufacturing process.
As noted earlier, an aspect of the fabrication process is the conversion of control files supplied in a technical data package into coding suitable for use with the particular CNC machine selected for the task. Initially, conversions are made, often without checking for errors in the original files, such as unintended geometry errors, before making the conversion. The errors thus are converted to create post codes that are wrong. Further, the coding errors that may be translated may also extend to the corresponding features and tolerances for other related tooling and tool paths during the CAM process. These features and tolerances and their related programming may therefore also require correction. Moreover, the native programming codes are generally modeled to process the part production at either the high end or the low end of a specified tolerance range. That is, they are not normalized to a midrange of the tolerance. This may result in production of multiple parts that provide no leeway for tolerance ranges of other parts that should be coupled to the manufactured part. If the machine codes are instead provided based on middle of the tolerance scale geometries, fewer finished part errors are likely to occur. Finally, in some instances, the CAD models of the technical data package imported into the Post coding are not accurately convertible, resulting in an incomplete or corrupted machining model. They must then be reconfigured or the process started from scratch to address the resulting errors. This, too, is a delay in the overall fabrication process.
The traditional manufacturing process plan often calls for the use of too many machines and too many setups. That is, an optimal manufacturing process will involve the use of only enough CNC machines necessary to make the part and only enough tool switch-outs to complete the manufacture, no more and no less. The use of extra machines and extra setups causes delays in the overall process. Further, present processes have delays resulting from the selection of the wrong fixtures and tools. Moreover, in many plants, there is insufficient interaction between the machine programmers and the fixture and tooling personnel. As a result, machine crashes may occur due to poorly designed fixture clearances.
The array of CAD and CAM programs is wide and variations can occur within the same organization. These variations can happen due to differences in CAD platforms employed to generate CAD programs, and differences in CAM platforms and programs used to generate G and M Post codes for CNC machine control. It can be seen, then, that computer program and coding differences across platforms, across departments of an organization and between functions may slow the manufacturing process at a minimum, and cause substantial errors in the manufacture of a part. The CAM programmers may be restricted by existing fixture design geometries and/or incorrect part model geometry received from the CAD programming when they program the CNC machines. Nevertheless, while they may note that G and Mo coding instructions they receive from the CAD programming may not be applicable for the machines in use, they must still proceed with those Post codes. This process of incompatible functions and restrictions on programming corrections delays the manufacturing process.
Once the process plan has been generated for the manufacture of a part, tooling and fixture files designated by the created CAD program is imported into a CAM program to generate a “smart” model of the part, which is the CAD part model with attached CAM data used to “prove out” the manufacture of the part on the designated CNC machine or machines. Next, Post coding is initiated to generate G and M codes for the CNC machine selected to prove out the CAD/CAM model. Based on the model and G and M codes, it may be necessary to acquire or produce special tooling and/or fixtures to ensure the proper setup for the prove out machine. This stage of the manufacturing process may be slowed substantial by the need to create custom tooling and/or fixtures. In addition, there may be Post coding and prove out related delays.
In regard to Post coding problems at the prove out stage, it is to be noted that the people on the floor assigned to program the CNC machine must choose the correct machine controller Post code—if included in the CAM Post library provided by the CAM programmer. Otherwise, the machine programmer may have to modify existing Post codes to meet those controller configurations. If commercial Post writing software is employed for the machine, those manual modifications made by the machine programmer that third-party Post writing software may automatically make changes to those manual modifications, or the manual modifications may carry through all Post writing generated by the third-party software. The manual changes may not be sufficient or complete. These modifications and any inconsistencies with respect to the third-party Post writing software may result in CNC machine errors and, possibly, crashes. These errors and delays slow the prove out process.
In addition to the Post coding difficulties that may be experienced in the prove out of suitable CNC machine operation for part production, there are often difficulties at the machine. One delay results from the setup person at the machine seeking to interact with the CNC programmer to discuss adjustments that he/she observes are required. Alternatively, the setup person may simply make the changes without providing any feedback to the CNC programmer. Upon that occurrence, a revision change is not carried back through the CNC, CAM or CAD programming, leading to the misperception that the designated programming is satisfactory. Backups of machine programs revised are often not made. Therefore, any setup changes that were made that corrected a discovered problem must be repeated on the next run of parts using that machine and the original CNC program. Ultimately, the setup person has substantial impact on the efficiency of the process as that person installs all fixtures and tooling, loads the CNC control program and activates a dry run. The setup person runs a single part, may make further machine adjustments to bring the part into tolerance and to machine the part properly. As often as not, machine crashes will occur from operator error, which delays the manufacturing process.
The prove out stage of the manufacturing process may take months under the current manufacturing process. That delay slows company productivity and idles an array of employees. Eventually, when a part manufacture process has been proven, the process plan and the G and M codes written are specific to the single machine where the prove out occurred, changes made may not have been documented adequately, and the process established is not easily transferred to other machines, particularly those with different controllers. Therefore, the existing process may continue production delays even when at the production stage after prove out has, in theory, been completed.
The current CNC machine fabrication processes can take anywhere from two to 10 months from initial part fabrication conception to production ready. That time frame is unacceptable in today's economic environment, where efficiency is of substantial importance. What is needed is a system and related method to substantial reduce the manufacturing preparation process. Further, what is needed is a system and related method to make compatible an array of CAD and CAM programming options, Post coding and available CNC machines and machine setups so as to substantial minimize or eliminate the errors inherent in the use of different devices to get to production readiness. | {
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An MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) transmission scheme in which plural antennas are used between a base station and a user equipment terminal (which is typically a mobile station and may be a fixed station) is used for communications. According to the MIMO transmission scheme, plural streams which are formed by replicating a signal stream to be transmitted, for example, are multiplied by weighting factors, and then directional beams are generated. By using the directional beams, quality of transmission signals or a transmission speed can be improved. The weighting factor used for the MIMO transmission scheme is called a precoding vector or a precoding matrix.
In an E-UTRA (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access) system and an LTE (Long Term Evolution) system, which are standardized in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), an MIMO transmission scheme with four transmission antennas at the maximum in downlink is used. FIG. 1 shows an arrangement of reference signals in the LTE system (see non-patent document 1). The reference signal may be defined as a predetermined bit sequence used by a receiver to receive and demodulate other symbols. Alternatively, the reference signal may be simply defined as a reference signal known to both a transmitter and a receiver. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 1, reference signals to be used for channel estimation of transmission signals from the first and second antennas are multiplexed into first, fifth, eighth, and twelfth OFDM symbols. In addition, reference signals to be used for channel estimation of transmission signals from the third and fourth antennas are multiplexed into second and ninth OFDM symbols.
[Non-patent document 1] 3GPP, TS36.211 (V8.1.0), “Physical channels and modulation (Release8),” Nov. 2007. | {
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In recent years, various information recording media, such as magnetic recording media, thermal recording media, and optical recording media, have been developed and put to practical use. The present inventors have hitherto made studies on optical, physico-chemical, or electric characteristics of liquid crystal materials, and, up to now, have proposed a liquid crystal charge-transport material which focuses on charge-transport properties of a specific liquid crystal system (for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 76820/1998).
The present invention has been made as a result of attention to a property of a liquid crystal material such that the charge-transport properties of the liquid crystal material are stably varied upon phase transfer between a plurality of liquid crystal phases, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel information recording medium which records information upon the application of thermal energy and reads the recorded information by detecting the value of photoelectric current generated by light applied to an information recorded portion and, in addition, can realize multi-valued information recording or analog information recording. | {
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This invention relates to temperature-controlled electronic devices such as temperature-controlled resistance strain gauge bridges.
The concept of controlling the temperature of an electronic device to minimize a change in the characteristics of the device with temperature, hereinafter referred to as thermal shifts, is well known.
A known pressure transducer comprises a silicon diaphragm having a four-arm, active, resistance strain gauge bridge formed thereon, the four resistors of the bridge being diffused into the silicon diaghragm at the areas of maximum strain. A constant current, or a current fed by way of a resistor from a source of a constant voltage is applied to opposed first and second junctions of the bridge. If the resistance of the resistors in the bridge remains constant the voltage between the first and second junctions also remains constant. A strain in the diaphragm due to an applied pressure or force results in a change in the resistance of the bridge resistors and this change is detected by detection means coupled to the third and fourth opposed junctions. The detection means would often include an amplifier and the output of the bridge could be expressed in a current per unit pressure or force.
If the temperature of the device remains constant then the resistance of the resistors and hence the output of the bridge for a given strain in the transducer would remain constant provided that the strain coefficients of the bridge strain gauge resistors are matched.
However, if the temperature of the diaphragm changes due to changes in operating and/or ambient temperature then the values of the bridge resistors will change with a corresponding change in the voltage across the first and second junctions of the bridge and this is manifested as an error in the measured output signal.
Any change in temperature could also affect the operation of other associated devices, such as the measuring amplifier which would result in a change in the amplifier offset voltage, drift in the amplifier output signal and the like.
It is therefore important to maintain constant the temperature of such electronic devices or to provide some means of compensating for temperature change.
One known pressure transducer comprising a silicon diaghragm and a four arm active bridge as hereinbefore mentioned includes two other sets of silicon resistors deposited on the substrate in a non-active area. One temperature measuring set of the resistors is arranged to provide a signal representative of the temperature of the diaphragm to the input of an amplifier, the output of which is arranged to provide an output current to the other, heating set of resistors thereby to heat the diaphragm and to maintain it at a predetermined temperature. A control feedback loop is provided in known manner between the output and input of the amplifier to maintain the temperature substantially constant and to prevent fluctuations about the predetermined temperature.
This known arrangement maintains the temperature of the diaphragm approximately constant and reduces errors in the output of the bridge. However, as the temperature control is determined by the temperature sensing resistors on the non-active area of the diaphragm, temperature gradients across the silicon substrate and variations of these temperature gradients with ambient temperature limit the accuracy to which the temperature of the active area of the diaphragm can be controlled. | {
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Conventional fault tolerance (FT) systems are typically based on lockstep execution of redundant hardware. That is, custom hardware ensures that a primary machine and a secondary machine are synchronized by driving the same clock signal to CPUs and Input/Output (I/O) subsystems of both the primary machine and the secondary machine; given the same initial state, and fully deterministic CPUs, two machines driven by the same clock signal remain in lockstep. Similarly, motherboards and chipsets are kept in lockstep by using a single system clock source. Custom logic is often used to compare I/O outputs of all motherboards, and initiate corrective actions such as failover on output mismatch.
Virtual machine technology has become widely recognized, and as is well known, a virtualized computer system is often provided with FT capabilities so the virtualized computer system may continue to operate properly in the event of a failure of one of the virtual machines (VMs) running thereon. However, FT in virtualized computer systems has specific requirements that make hardware-based fault tolerance less convenient. First, a VM rather than a primary machine is a primary unit of management in a virtualized computer system. In particular, while some VMs running on a host computer might need FT, other VMs might not. Although it is not uncommon to aggregate many VMs on the same host computer, the number of VMs with FT requirements is generally small relative to the total number of VMs running on the same host computer. Thus, it is inefficient to use customized hardware to provide FT when some VMs running on the host computer do not need FT.
Second, virtualized workloads are mobile. For example, techniques exist to migrate VMs across host computer systems. In such environments, individual host computer systems are treated as members of a larger resource pool. As such, the use of custom FT hardware is inconsistent with an individual host computer's being a member of a larger resource pool.
Third, in some virtualized computer systems, guest operating systems operate under an illusion of utilizing the same virtual hardware, regardless of the underlying physical hardware. This improves VM mobility, and speeds up hardware upgrade cycles since the VMs are generally unaware of upgrades to the physical hardware of the host computer system. Some conventional, hardware-based FT systems use modified kernel drivers to shield a guest operating system in a VM from detected hardware failures. However, in such systems, the guest operating system is generally aware of the special nature of FT hardware, even though this is inconsistent with a guest operating system's illusion of utilizing the same virtual hardware.
In addition to the above-identified issues involved with providing FT in virtualized computer systems, full host lockstep execution to provide FT is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve due to increases in CPU speed. In addition, CPUs might be internally non-deterministic, and I/O based on a newer PCI-Express interface may be less synchronous than that based on an older PCI interface, thereby making hardware-based FT less reliable. Further, custom hardware used for FT is more expensive than commodity hardware. | {
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Display panels or monitors continue to increase in resolution, such as 1080p, 4k×2k, etc. Many image sources have a lower resolution than the displays. When the panel displays these sources in a display with higher resolution, traditional scaling techniques do not produce high fidelity results with rich details and sharp edges. Examples of these traditional techniques include one-dimensional poly phase scaling (1D scaler), bilinear interpolation, bi-cubic interpolation, edge-guided (2D) scaling, etc. Super resolution techniques offer a solution to bridge the gap between advanced, higher resolution displays and lower resolution video sources.
Multi-image super resolution techniques construct a high resolution image from multiple low resolution images by fusing information among them. These algorithms can bring some details with smaller ratios of magnification in zooming. When larger ratios of magnification are needed, they cannot give enough details. Further, even at smaller ratios, if the motion is not in the right range, the ability of these techniques to reconstruct high frequency details suffers. These techniques also require many hardware resources and complex logic.
Different types of single frame super resolution (SFSR) techniques exist. Typically, these processes may involve using comparisons between the original low resolution image and various scaled versions of the low resolution image to generate the high resolution image at the desired magnification, or higher resolution. However, they generally do not recover enough details and can even suppress details that look like noise. In fact several of the algorithms use techniques similar to non-local means noise reduction. These approaches keep the sharpness of edges at the expense of more random details. Because the techniques prefer edges over details, the edges have abrupt transitions, making the resulting image look like an oil painting with hard edges between colors.
The original low resolution image provides the best source for details and edges which can be taken as examples for the resulting higher resolution image, if a match can be found Using the original image provides details and edges that are more natural when compared to other intermediate layers in most self similarity super resolution (SSSR) processes. Using the original low resolution image, often referred to as layer 1×, has benefits. However, a problem arises because in most SSSR processes more than 90% of the high-resolution examples come from the closest low resolution layer (25-33% increase in magnification) and not the 1× layer. Typically, this results from a comparison of the data in the closest low resolution layer and the original layer using the sum of absolute differences (SAD) or a weighted sum of square distance (SSD) process. The closest lower resolution layer to the desired high resolution layer typically has the smallest differences. This results in the data from the closest lower resolution layer being used, rather than the data from the original low resolution layer. | {
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Services oriented architecture (SOA) is becoming a popular choice in building a flexible information technology (IT) infrastructure that can adapt quickly and economically to fast changing needs Repeatable tasks or “services” with well-defined interfaces, that are independent of the computing platforms and underlying applications, serve as the building blocks for this architecture. These “services” can be choreographed through composite applications in support of horizontal processes. As such, one process has different service choreographed patterns which represent different types of transactions for the same operation It is advantageous to do the choreograph coverage analysis because it will characterize all the possible interactions among services to serve requests.
Existing approaches focus on the source code to do program control structure coverage analysis such as, for example, statement coverage, blanch coverage, condition coverage, path coverage and so on. Such coverage analysis takes a source program as input, and inserts software probes into the source code. Using these software probes, existing approaches monitor the test run of the program and determine the coverage measures. Such coverage analysis does not provide process level test coverage analysis (for example, an entity process level coverage analysis) that can test the structural integrity of a distributed activity.
As such, the functional integrity of individual services may not guarantee the overall integrity of the process (that is, of the entity process). Existing approaches do not cover the errors that are introduced due to inconsistencies in message formats or differing coding assumptions across modules. Such coverage analysis will not provide the level of confidence in a software solution to clearly understand whether it meets an entity's requirements.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the limitations of the existing approaches | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to rotating electric machines which have a coil formed by arranging each corresponding pair of end portions of electric conductors to adjoin each other and welding them at end surfaces thereof, and to methods of manufacturing the rotating electric machines.
2. Description of Related Art
There are known rotating electric machines which have a coil formed by arranging each corresponding pair of end portions of electric conductors to adjoin each other and welding them at end surfaces thereof.
For example, Japanese Patent No. JP3303854B2 discloses an automotive alternator which has a stator coil formed by welding a plurality of substantially U-shaped conductor segments to one another. More specifically, each of end portions of the conductor segments has a cut (or notch) formed therein. Each corresponding pair of the end portions of the conductor segments are arranged to have parts thereof where no cut is formed adjoin each other, and then welded at end surfaces thereof. Consequently, with the cuts formed in the end portions of the conductor segments, it is possible to weld each corresponding pair of the end portions of the conductor segments with a reduced heat input to the pair of the end portions during the welding.
On the other hand, however, due to the cuts, it may become easy for the molten metal mixture to sag outside the pair of the end portions of the conductor segments during the welding. Consequently, it may become difficult for the molten metal mixture to form a uniform weld bead shape. As a result, the strength of a weld formed between the pair of the end portions of the conductor segments may become uneven and thus local stress concentration may occur in the weld. | {
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Most echo ultrasound imaging apparatus of the prior art generates images of structures within a body wherein the brightness of individual pixels corresponds to the magnitude of local discontinuities in the acoustic impedance at corresponding points in the body.
A new class of ultrasound imaging equipment, which produces images of structures within a body wherein the brightness of pixels corresponds to a local value of ultrasound attenuation at a corresponding point in the body have recently been described. U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,892 to Johathan Ophir and Nabil Maklad is incorporated herein, by reference, as background material. That patent describes apparatus which utilizes differential measurements of echo intensities along A-lines to estimate local tissue attenuation. A raster scan is used to generate images from such A-line measurements. U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,163 to Flax et al also describes a method for determining local tissue attenuation from the positions of zero crossings in A-line signals.
It is possible to directly determine the slope of the attenuation vs. frequency characteristic of a propagation medium from samples of a signal which has propagated through that medium. However, in the context of an ultrasound attenuation scanner, that method requires that a radio frequency ultrasound signal, which has propagated through the medium, be sampled at a rate which is at least twice as high as its highest frequency component in order to avoid aliasing error. This requires high speed sampling circuits which can significantly increase the cost and complexity of a scanner. | {
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The MicroTCA is a computer platform specifications formulated by the PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group (PICMG). The MicroTCA uses standard Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) module to construct modularized communication platforms of low capacity and low cost, and is primarily applied to small telecom equipment of a central office or enterprise-class communication equipment. Currently, the latest version of the standard is PICMG MicroTCA.0 R1.0.
FIG. 1 shows a MicroTCA carrier structure in the conventional art. In a MicroTCA carrier, a carrier is composed of a frame, Power Module (PM), MicroTCA switching control module (such as MicroTCA Carrier Hub, MCH), and AMC. Several carriers and a Cooling Unit (CU) constitute a shelf. The MicroTCA in the conventional art is applicable to a cabinet which is 300 mm in depth, or placed in a cabinet 600 mm deep in the back-to-back mode.
FIG. 2 shows a structure of an MCH in the conventional art. The MCH is a switching control module of the MicroTCA carrier, and is the central node of the whole system. The MCH includes a MicroTCA Carrier Management Controller (MCMC) unit, data switching unit, clock unit, and Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) unit. The MCMC unit is a management module of the whole system, and primarily manages the AMC and PM. The IPMB-L is the connection for the MCH to manage the AMC, and the IPMB-0 is the connection for the MCH to manage the PM. The data switching unit is divided into seven switching interfaces which range from Fabric A to Fabric G, and provides data switching of at most 12 AMC cards. The clock unit implements the clock function of the system, including selecting a clock source, generating a system synchronization clock, and driving the generated system clock to each connected AMC card. The CLKx is configured to identify the clock type, and the JTAG unit is configured to perform the test function of the system.
The MicroTCA.0 R1.0 standard defines the maximum height of the MCH to be 6 HP (about 3 cm), which may be implemented through at most 4 Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). That is, one MCH is composed of 4 PCBs, and the 4 PCBs of the MCH are limited to a 6-HP height. The first PCB enables the MCMC to manage the MicroTCA carrier, and provides the basic switching functions (Fabric A port). The second PCB is configured to implement the Fabric B port for system clock and data switching; the third and fourth PCBs provide Fabric C-to-Fabric G ports (namely, Fat Pipe) of Fabric switching on the data plane. Meanwhile, as defined in the standard, the connector between the MCH and the backplane is composed of 4 tongues, where tongue 1 provides a connection pin between the MCMC unit and JTAG unit, tongue 2 provides a connection pin of the clock unit, and tongue 3 and tongue 4 provide connection pins of the Fat Pipe (namely, ports from Fabric C to Fabric G).
FIG. 3 shows redundancy clock architecture of a MicroTCA carrier in the conventional art. In the MicroTCA.0 R1.0 standard in the conventional art, the MCH implements the clock functions. The MicroTCA system adopts a star clock topology. In the backplane, it is defined that an MCH slot is located at the central node of the star topology, and only the MCH can provide enough pins for connecting with other AMCs. Therefore, the clock module needs to be implemented on the MCH.
FIG. 4 shows implementation of a clock in a MicroTCA carrier in the conventional art. Like the traditional ATCA clock implementation solution, this implementation solution sets a clock module on the central node (namely, MCH) of the system. One clock module includes a clock source selecting unit, phase-lock unit, and clock drive unit. The clock source selecting unit is configured to select a clock source. The clock source refers to any clock source input to the clock module, for example, Global Positioning System (GPS) clock source, Building Integrated Timing Supply System (BITS) clock source, cascaded clock source from the upper stratum, or line clock source from the AMC. The phase-lock unit is configured to perform phase-lock synchronization for the selected clock source, and then obtain a system synchronization clock. The drive unit is configured to input the system synchronization clock into the connected AMC.
In a specific example, typically the MCH provides three types of clocks for the MicroTCA carrier. Clock 2 (CLK2) is one of the optional clock sources provided by each AMC for the clock module in the MCH. Clock 1 (CLK1) and clock 3 (CLK3) are active and standby system synchronization clocks provided by the clock module in the MCH for each AMC.
The clock sources input to the MCH include GPS clock, BITS clock, cascaded input clock, and AMC line clock. Universal input modes are as follows: GPS clock, cascaded input clock, and BITS clock are input through the interface provided by the panel, and the clock sources provided by each AMC are input through the backplane. Interlocking exists between the clock modules located on the active and standby MCHs. After phase-lock synchronization, the MCH outputs the system synchronization clock to each AMC.
FIG. 5 shows an AMC port configuration table in the conventional art. This configuration table is defined by the SCOPE organization, which defines the port assignment of the AMC in detail. This assignment scheme will be an important basis for port assignment in the next version of the AMC standard and MicroTCA standard. That is, the AMC port assignment shown in FIG. 5 will apply in formulating the AMC-related standards. The AMC may provide 4 communication clock channels, including two input clock ports (TCLKA, TCLKC), which receive the system synchronization clock from the active and standby MCHs, and two output clock ports (TCLKB, TCLKD), which provide line clock sources for the MCH. The AMC also provides 21 data ports: 4 public area ports (port 0-3), 8 Fat Pipe switching ports (Ports 4-11), and 9 extended area ports, where port 12 is configured to provide a data update channel through direct interconnection between AMCs.
FIG. 6 shows assignment of multi-frame cascaded clocks in a MicroTCA carrier in the conventional art. In the case of multi-frame cascading in the MicroTCA carrier, a clock module is set on the MCH of each carrier. FIG. 4 shows details of the clock module. In the case of multi-frame cascading, clock modules are also set on the MCH of the slave frame, and each such clock module is consistent with the clock module in the MCH of the master frame and also includes a clock source selecting unit, phase-lock and crystal oscillation unit, and drive unit, etc. In this case, the drive unit of the active MCH in the master frame outputs the system synchronization clock to the active MCH in each slave frame through cascaded connection. By analogy, the standby MCH in the master frame provides the system synchronization clock for the standby MCH in each slave frame.
In the process of implementing the present invention, the inventor finds that, in the conventional art, the clock system in practice involves the following defects because the clock module in the MicroTCA is implemented on the MCH, the MCH is limited to physical specifications, and switching, management and clock functions need to be implemented concurrently:
First, the MicroTCA standard defines the physical specifications of the MCH. Due to limitation of the physical space, the clock implementation is difficult. For example, if the required clock precision is enhanced stratum 3, the clock board requires the height of the constant-temperature crystal oscillator to be more than 1 cm, and at least two PCBs need to be deployed on the MCH. In order to implement clocks of enhanced stratum 3 or higher stratum, the physical size of the MCH specified in the standard is hardly accomplishable.
Moreover, in the case of multi-frame cascading, the configuration of the clock module in the slave frame is consistent with the configuration of the clock module in the master frame. In practice, however, some units (such as phase-lock unit) in the clock module of the slave frame may be left idle. Therefore, such configuration in the conventional art increases the system cost. | {
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Rotary hydraulic actuators of various forms are currently used in industrial mechanical power conversion applications. This industrial usage is commonly for applications where continuous inertial loading is desired without the need for load holding for long durations, e.g. hours, without the use of an external fluid power supply. Aircraft flight control applications generally implement loaded positional holding, for example, in a failure mitigation mode, using the blocked fluid column to hold position.
In certain applications, such as primary flight controls used for aircraft operation, positional accuracy in load holding by rotary actuators is desired. Positional accuracy can be improved by minimizing internal leakage characteristics inherent to the design of rotary actuators. However, it can be difficult to provide leak-free performance in typical rotary hydraulic actuators, e.g., rotary “vane” or rotary “piston” type configurations. | {
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} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a waving lotion for cold waving. More specifically, it relates to a waving lotion for cold waving having no substantial mercaptan odor and generating no substantial or less of a mercaptan odor when applied to the hair, which is formulated by incorporating (a) p-nitro acetophenone methyl-.beta.-naphtyl ketone, or a similar compound and (b) a cyclodextrin into a conventional waving lotion.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is well known in the art, permanent waving lotions are composed of (i) waving lotions containing, as a main component, reducing agents, that is, mercapto compounds such as thioglycolic acid and cysteine and (ii) neutralizers containing oxidizing agents such as sodium bromate and hydrogen peroxide. However, the use of conventional waving lotions involves problems in that conventional waving lotions per se have a specific mercaptan odor and that conventional waving lotions generate a large amount of mercaptan having an extremely unpleasant odor when applied to the hair. Thus, the use of conventional waving lotions is not desirable for consumers and beauticians from the viewpoints of environmental health.
Various attempts have been made to eliminate the above-mentioned unpleasant mercaptan odor. Typical conventional methods for eliminating the unpleasant mercaptan odor are incorporated into waving lotions to thereby sensuously mask the unpleasant mercaptan odor. However, the amount of mercaptan generated during the application processing of waving lotions to the hair is very large and mercaptan odor is a typically unpleasant odor regulated as a polluting odor. Accordingly, mercaptan odor included in, for example, the entire space of beauty salons cannot be completely masked by perfume-utilizing masking methods. On the other hand, some people dislike the perfumes having strong odor generally used in the masking methods due to their strong and heavy odor.
For the above-mentioned reasons, it is considered that the mercaptan odor per se must be eliminated from waving lotions in order to fundamentally solve the above-mentioned problems of unpleasant odor. However, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, if deodorants capable of suppressing the vaporization of mercaptans through chemical reactions are incorporated into waving lotions, or if deodorants are separately applied to the hair simultaneous with the application of waving lotions, mercaptans such as thioglycolic acid and cysteine contained as a main component in waving lotions are reacted with the deodorants to inhibit the desirable reducing effect essential for waving lotions and, therefore, the waving effect or power of waving lotions is disadvantageously decreased. Furthermore, after the deodorants are consumed, undesirable mercaptans are again generated. | {
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1. Field
This document relates to a display device.
2. Related Art
As the information technology is advancing, the markets of display devices, connection mediums between users and information, are expanding. Accordingly, the use of flat panel displays (FPDs) such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), an organic light emitting display (OLED), a plasma display panel (PDP), and the like is increasing. Among them, the LCD that implements high resolution and is available to have a large size as well as a small size is commonly used.
Some of the foregoing display devices, for example, the LCD or the OLED device, are driven by a timing driver, a gate driver, a data driver, and the like, that drive a plurality of subpixels disposed in a matrix form.
In this case, however, it is not easy for the timing driver driving the display device to adjust the frequency of a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), or if an actually output value is different from a designed value, it is not easy to change it, which, thus, needs to be improved. | {
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The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to paging for millimeter wave (mmW) shared radio frequency spectrum band.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, or a New Radio (NR) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or access network nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
When a base station has information to transmit to a UE in a power saving mode (e.g., idle mode), the base station may transmit a paging message to prompt the UE to enter a connected state to receive the information. Paging messages are typically broadcast on a channel that is received by a group of multiple UEs. In some cases, mmW transmissions may be directional transmissions to improve coverage. Due to the directionality of these mmW transmissions, wireless communications systems operating in a mmW spectrum may use beam sweeping to transmit broadcast messages in multiple directions. Because beam sweeping involves redundant transmissions in different directions, fewer time resources are available for each broadcast transmission. Given these time limitations, a single mmW broadcast may provide enough time to send a full set of paging information to a UE. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to electric hotplates with a hotplate body having a sealed cooking surface, which is generally made from cast iron and is provided on its underside with heating resistors in the form of wire coils received in ribs in an embedding material (cf U.S. Pat. No. 3,300,621).
2. Description of the Prior Art
The cast iron hotplate body of such hotplates is normally surrounded by a pressed on sheet steel trim ring, which has an inverted U or V-shape. They are fitted into the mounting opening of a mounting plate or cooking hob, in that the trim ring is placed on the mounting plate and the hotplate is braced downwards by a clamp (U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,093,754, 2,664,492, British Pat. No. 1 341 753 and DE-OS No. 29 09 776). The connection to a power supply is normally by means of screwed down flexible lines (U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,581). However, hotplates with plug-in connections are also known, which are inserted from above in connector sockets (German Pat. No. 1 021 967).
Wide trim rings are known for use in connection with glass cooking hobs, in order protect the glass plate from the hotplate temperature and for this purpose shielding rings are also provided (U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,603).
Clamps acting in the edge region are frequently used for securing the hotplates (DE-AS No. 1 130 574, U.S. Pat. No. 3,561,020). If in the case of glass mounting plates, the mounting openings are much larger than the diameter of the hotplate body, use has been made of centering means and in part shimmed seals (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,838,249, 4,491,722 and U.S. patent application No. 245,541, applied for on 19.3.1981, in conjunction with Ser. No. 968,048, filed on 12.12.1978 in the name of Karl Fischer and entitled "Electric cooker plate").
However, it is also conventional practice to use hotplates which do not have a sealed cooking surface and generally comprise spirally wound tubular heaters. These are arranged in optionally interchangeable trays with edges, which rest on a mounting opening of a hob. They are connected by means of plugs fitted to the ends of the tubular heaters and these are laterally inserted into connector sockets. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Published European Patent Application No. 0,034,871 disclosed that esters of alkanoic acids can be prepared via rearrangement of .alpha.-haloketals in the presence of a Lewis acid such as a zinc salt. The process is described therein in terms of the preparation of esters of a variety of useful alkanoic acids.
General precedents for the transformation of .alpha.-haloketones to esters are published, e.g., in the following literature.
Treatment of .alpha.-bromoisobutyrophenone with silver nitrate in refluxing ethanol was reported to give a 40% yield of .alpha.,.alpha.-dimethylphenylacetic acid: A. C. Cope and E. S. Graham, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 73, 4702 (1951), and D. J. Paslo and J. P. Sevenair, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 93, 711 (1970). A very recent modification using silver (I) on an .alpha.-haloketone was reported by C. Giordano, et al., Tetrahedron Letters, 1385 (1982). Also, .alpha.-halocyclobutanone ketals are known to thermally rearrange to cyclopropanecarboxylates, J. Salaun and J. M. Conia, Tetrahedron Letters (1968), p. 4545. However, the use of silver salt catalysts dictates against the commercial use of such chemistry for the production of arylalkanoic acids and that prior art does not disclose procedures for preparing high yields of the desired ester intermediates. Process research studies continue to discover more efficient and less costly methods to prepare a variety of commercially significant arylalkanoic acids which have varied practical uses. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a multi-layer structure roller and a method for producing the same, which is capable of being used for forming a roller used in order to carry out a polishing (gloss) process or an embossing (grained pattern) process on the surface of a thermoplastic resin sheet (or film) or a roller in order to make a film of an extremely thin film.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when making or processing a film of a thermoplastic resin sheet (or film), especially, when forming a sheet by cool-caking the melted or softened resin film, and simultaneously, carrying out a polishing (gloss) process or an embossing (grained pattern) process, a rubber roller and a metal roller formed with a mirror face or an emboss face (a face having an asperities pattern) are used generally.
FIG. 6 shows a general situation when the process is carried out by using a metal roller 80 and a rubber roller 81 as described above. In the case of FIG. 6, a demineralizating-range or melted sheet is pressed between the metal roller 80 and the rubber roller 81 to be pressed with each of rollers 80 and 81, thereby the emboss pattern or polishing on the surface of the metal roller 80 is transferred onto the sheet 82. At this time, the rubber roller 81 is deformed elastically, whereby a surface-rolled area 84 formed by the metal roller 80 and the rubber roller 81, which sandwich the sheet 82, is to be surface-rolled.
The case of FIG. 6 has the following advantage. That is, generally, when the sheet is transferred by pressing between a combination of the higher-degree metal roller and the metal roller, the surface-rolled consists only of lines, whereby the transfer is not sufficient. However, in the case of FIG. 6, the surface-rolled area 84 is to be rolled because of the elastic deformation of the rubber roller, resulting in sufficient transfer.
As shown in FIG. 7, the process may be carried out by providing a metal-made endless belt 92 between a metal roller 90 and rubber roller 91. In FIG. 7, the metal-made endless belt 92 is wound and hitched between the rubber roller 91 and a cooling roller 93, in which the surface of the endless belt 92 is a mirror face or an emboss face. A sheet 94 is pressed between the rubber roller 91, wound with the endless belt 92, and the metal roller 90, having the mirror face or the emboss face. The endless belt 92, wound on the rubber roller 91, and the metal roller 90 are pressed on the sheet 94 to transfer the polishing or the emboss pattern on the metal roller 90 or the endless belt 92 onto the sheet. At this time, the rubber roller 91 is elastically deformed, with the result that a surface-rolled area 95, formed between the metal roller 90 and the endless belt 92 (the rubber roller 91) in the state that the sheet 94 is sandwiched between them, is to be surface-rolled. Therefore, the case shown in FIG. 7 has an advantage of obtaining sufficient transfer.
However, when the process is carried out by using the metal roller 80 and the rubber roller 81 as shown in FIG. 6, produces a disadvantage whereby the surface of the sheet 82 rolled with the rubber roller 81 becomes rough. Further, another disadvantage is produced, in which the sheet 82 is crumpled by increasing the temperature of the rubber roller 81, namely, deficiency by exfoliation of the sheet.
When the process is carried out by using the endless belt 92 as shown in FIG. 7, for the endless belt 92 as an intermediate, the sheet 94 and the rubber roller 91 are not directly rolled, resulting in no disadvantages such as deficiency by exfoliation or the rough face as shown in FIG. 6.
The method used for carrying out the process using the endless belt 92 as the intermediate is an extremely effective method, however, the method produces a disadvantage in that the apparatus increases in complexity and cost. Further, another disadvantage, a snake-inhibiting device for preventing the endless belt 92 from snaking, is needed. And still another disadvantage, the device has to be larger in order to increase the endurance of the endless belt 92.
It is extremely difficult to process the aforementioned precision emboss process (the emboss of about 10-100 .mu.) onto the metal roller or the surface of a metal plate. In some cases, only engraving onto the small area (e.g., 9 inch.times.9 inch) of the metal plate is possible, therefore, the engraved metal plate is used as a transferring plate or as an original plate of a replica in order to be used as the transferring plate replicated by, for example, electro-forming (a sculpturing method for correctly replicating the same metal model as the original plate by applying electroplated coatings).
The aforementioned transferring plates are all flat plates, thereby the micro-emboss sheet should be produced with use of a batch type of, for example, vacuum press, resulting in the disadvantage of critically low productivity.
As a consequence, in order to dramatically increase the productivity of the micro emboss sheet, a method has been required, in which the transferring plate of the flat plate is processed to a roller-shape to securely form a required micro emboss roller. | {
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A flash memory device is a non-volatile memory device, which may be referred to as a Flash Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM or E2PROM). Nonvolatile memories are able to store data, even with power turned off. Memory cell arrays of flash memory devices (e.g., a NAND-type flash memory device) may be divided into a plurality of blocks, and each of the blocks may be constructed with a plurality of pages. In addition, each of the pages may be constructed with a plurality of memory cells sharing one word line. In general, each block may include 16, 32, or 64 pages, and each page may include 512 Bytes or 2048 Bytes of memory cells.
A flash memory cell may be defective as a result of a fabrication defect, or a flash memory cell may become defective during operation. A block including one or more defective memory cells may be referred to as “Bad Block”. If a number of bad blocks in a flash memory device exceeds a regulatory standard (e.g, more than 5), the flash memory device may be regarded as being defective.
However, a flash memory device including a number of bad blocks less than the regulatory standard may be capable of operating with the bad block(s). Using a copy-back operation, for example, data stored at any first page is stored at another page different from the first page. In this case, the first page may exist in a bad block and store valid data. The second page may exist in a block without defects.
If a bad block occurs, valid data stored at the bad block may be temporarily stored in a buffer memory (e.g., a DRAM or SRAM) by a page unit, and then written in another block of the defective flash memory. Since this copy-back operation reads data by a page unit and writes the read data again, it may have an undesirably long duration. | {
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The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and more particularly to providing single telephone number access to multiple communications services.
In conventional telecommunications systems, a number of different telecommunications services are offered to subscribers. Each telecommunications service requires a unique telephone number. Examples of telecommunications services that require a unique telephone number are automatic routing services, voicemail services, facsimile services, paging services, cellular phone services and personal 800 numbers. One of the drawbacks of each service requiring a different telephone number is that managing and publishing multiple telephone numbers for a subscriber that uses multiple communications services can prove to be quite cumbersome. For example, a subscriber may have to provide a first telephone number for facsimile services, a second telephone number for voicemail services, and a third telephone number for cellular services. Thus, a subscriber must remember all of the unique telephone numbers and must make clear to people whom the subscriber gives the telephone numbers what services are associated with what telephone numbers. Oftentimes, a party confuses the mapping of telephone numbers to services and reaches the wrong service when dialing the telephone number that was given to the party. For instance, a caller may dial a number thinking that he will reach a person and instead the caller reaches a facsimile machine.
Another drawback of conventional systems is the lack of flexibility regarding the telecommunications services that are provided to subscribers. A subscriber may need to provide access to different services to different people at various times. For example, a subscriber may need to have phone calls directed to the subscriber""s workplace during the work week but may need to have phone calls directed to his home or cellular phone on weekends. The subscriber may also wish to limit the people that may reach the subscriber by phone on the weekends. Still further, the subscriber may wish to provide other people with access to his voicemail. Unfortunately, with conventional systems such configurability of telecommunications services is not available.
The present invention provides a service node or platform for providing multiple communications services on behalf of a party known as a subscriber. The platform may be implemented using a computer system such as a server system that has an interface for interfacing with a telephone network. The platform may provide service for multiple subscribers. Each subscriber may have a single phone number through which access to all of the services that are provided by the platform may be realized.
The platform may provide a variety of different telecommunications services. For example, the platform may provide voicemail messaging services, facsimile messaging services, electronic mail messaging services, paging services, call routing services, and other types of services. Thus, the single platform may receive voicemail messages, electronic mail messages, pages, facsimile messages, and phone calls for the subscriber. The services that are available to respective subscribers may be configurable such that different subscribers have different services. The billing associated with using these services may also be configurable to be billed to a single account, a corporate account or to separate accounts.
The platform is readily configurable. The subscriber may select an override option that dictates how all calls will be processed. For example, a subscriber may configure the platform so that all calls are forwarded to a given destination, a messaging option or that a page is sent to the subscriber. The subscriber may also choose the different service options that are available to different callers. The callers may have to enter identification information and based upon the identification information, different service options are made available to the callers.
The platform may include speech recognition capabilities. These speech recognition capabilities may allow written messages to be converted into audio output and for audio messages to be converted into text or representations or other forms of written output. The written output may be directed to a printer, a facsimile, a computer system or other suitable output destination.
The platform may advise the subscriber of events via a pager. These events may be, for example, incoming calls. Pages may be sent that identify the incoming calls and the phone numbers to which the incoming calls are destined. Such pages may be resultant in a scrolling display that lists the respective calls and the respective phone numbers.
The platform may provide audio messages that advise a subscriber of events. These events may include a receipt of different types of messages and receipt of pages. The audio response may be generated and output to the subscriber while the subscriber is on a call. The audio output may be at a volume that is substantially lower than typical speaking volume so as to advise the subscriber of the event but without significantly interrupting the call of the subscriber.
The platform is able to combine messages of different types. For example, e-mail attachments may be made to facsimile messages. The resulting combination of facsimile message and e-mail message may be sent to a destination specified by the subscriber. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In recent years, a movement has gained traction to replace incandescent light bulbs with lighting fixtures that employ more efficient lighting technologies as well as to replace relatively efficient fluorescent lighting fixtures with lighting technologies that produce a more pleasing, natural light. One such technology that shows tremendous promise employs light emitting diodes (LEDs). Compared with incandescent bulbs, LED-based light fixtures are much more efficient at converting electrical energy into light, are longer lasting, and are also capable of producing light that is very natural. Compared with fluorescent lighting, LED-based fixtures are also very efficient, but are capable of producing light that is much more natural and more capable of accurately rendering colors. As a result, lighting fixtures that employ LED technologies are expected to replace incandescent and fluorescent bulbs in residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
Unlike incandescent bulbs that operate by subjecting a filament to a desired current, LED-based lighting fixtures require electronics to drive one or more LEDs. The electronics generally include a power supply and a special control circuitry to provide uniquely configured signals that are required to drive the one or more LEDs in a desired fashion. The presence of the control circuitry adds a potentially significant level of intelligence to the lighting fixtures that can be leveraged to employ various types of lighting control.
Lighting control systems for traditional or LED-based lighting fixtures generally employ a central controller to control a group of lighting fixtures. The central controller is configured to send commands or signals to each of the lighting fixtures in the group, and the lighting fixtures will respond to the commands or signals to turn on or off, dim to a desired level, and the like. As such, the lighting control decisions are made by the central controller based on inputs received by the central controller, and the lighting fixtures are simply controlled in response to these lighting control decisions. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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A device, such as a portable computer or laptop, may include a speaker. The speaker may be disposed adjacent to a display or a keyboard. The speaker may require porting in order to allow the sound generated by the speaker to reach the user. Without porting, the speaker sound may be muffled. Generally, porting of the speaker may require large holes or speaker grills disposed on a case or enclosure of the device. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Hard ceramic materials are known and are used extensively in such applications as metal cutting and boring tools, metal drawing dies, wear-resistant machine parts and the like. It is also known that the service properties such as wear, high temperature and chemical resistance of such materials may be enhanced by the application of one or more thin coatings of, for example, metal carbides, metal nitrides, or ceramics. Great strides have been made in improved performance of these coated substrates, for example in machining applications, by refinement of the substrate compositions and by applying various combinations of superimposed layers of coating materials. However, increasingly stringent use conditions, for example use at high cutting speeds or in extremely high temperatures and/or corrosive environments, are placing increasing demands upon the performance of such materials. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storage subsystems. More specifically, the present invention relates to buffers used to transfer data between a host computer system and a storage subsystem.
2. Description of the Related Art
With increasing memory capacity, a mixture of information (e.g., program files, setup files, user data, etc.) can be conveniently stored on a single storage subsystem such as an advanced technology attachment (ATA) flash disk or a removable flash memory card. Data is commonly transferred to the storage subsystem from a host system through the use of a buffer, which temporarily stores the data while it is being written to non-volatile storage. The buffer uses volatile memory that is faster than the non-volatile storage of the subsystem, enabling the subsystem to receive write data at a transfer rate that exceeds the write speed of the non-volatile storage. If power is lost after the host finishes writing to the subsystem but before the data is fully written to non-volatile storage, the host may treat the write operation as successful, even though it is not.
The mixture of information written to a storage subsystem through the buffer may include critical data, such as financial data or executable files. Reliability of the transfer in these situations is typically more important than the speed of the transfer. On the other hand, when the storage subsystem is used to transfer and store non-critical data such as video and audio data, performance is typically critical. Unfortunately, existing storage subsystems do not provide an efficient and effective mechanism for managing the tradeoff between performance and the risk of data loss. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Carbon-carbon composites are widely used for aircraft brake friction materials. Carbon-carbon is attractive because it is lightweight and can operate at very high temperatures, and because it can, pound for pound, absorb a great deal of aircraft energy and convert it to heat. A major drawback with the use of carbon-carbon for this application is the high cost of raw material used to make the parts. Expensive carbon fiber is a significant component; sometimes up to 45% fiber is used in the composite. Fiber costs can often be the single largest contributor to the cost of making a friction material. Another drawback is that the manufacture of carbon-carbon is a time-consuming process. The overall process for making a carbon brake disk is measured in weeks, and even months. Long cycle times are undesirable in a modern manufacturing environment. It is highly desirable to provide a process that has a reduced cost and shortened cycle time for making a carbon-carbon composite.
The invention disclosed herein addresses the major drawbacks of manufacturing carbon-carbon composites: cost and cycle time. These drawbacks have been identified and discussed in the parent U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/970,558, filed on Nov. 14, 1997, and incorporated by reference herein. One way of overcoming these drawbacks to manufacturing carbon-carbon composites is to replace the fiber preform with a graphitizable foam that would result in significantly lowered manufacturing and processing costs. The foam preform should have predominantly and uniformly open cells to allow for the subsequent densification of the foam preform. The foam preform should have the necessary mechanical integrity and be physically robust for ease of handling during subsequent processing. The thermo mechanical properties (e.g. thermal conductivity/diffusivity) of a carbon-fiber preform can be attained by a foam preform only if it is graphitized. Therefore, the foam preform must be graphitizable. If these requisite properties are accomplished, a further benefit can be attained with the use of a graphitizable foam preform as opposed to a carbon-fiber preform. A graphitizable foam preform will have the requisite physical and thermo-mechanical isotropy. Carbon-fiber preforms (made from both random fiber and non-woven methods) are profoundly anisotropic in that properties such as thermal conductivity vary according to the orientation of the fibers. The graphitizable foam preform, which does not include fibers, reduces the degree of bulk anisotropy and would be very useful in the development of carbon-carbon composite discs for applications such as friction discs in aircraft brakes. | {
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The present invention relates to a clamp for holding an elongated object or component, such as a pipe or a wire harness, in order to fix the object to a substrate or workpiece, such as an automobile body. In particular, the present invention relates to an antivibration clamp for an elongated object, designed to prevent vibration transmission to or from the object.
Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 4-44581 (Publication 1) discloses a clamp for an elongated object, e.g., a pipe or the like, designed to prevent occurrence of fluttering noise caused by vibrations. This clamp comprises a base and an object-holding portion supported by the base. The object-holding portion includes a curved wall defining a recess for receiving an object therein, and a resilient holding finger extending obliquely from the top of the curved wall, or its vicinity, toward the recess of the curved wall to press against the outer surface of the object. The inner wall surface of the curved wall is coated with a soft buffering resin material. The soft buffering resin material absorbs fluttering noise of the object held in the curved wall.
Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 4-75289 (Publication 2) discloses an antivibration clamp for an elongated object, e.g., a pipe or the like, designed to prevent vibration transmission to or from the object. This antivibration clamp includes an object holding portion composed of a pair of clamp members openably connected with one another by a thin hinge. Opposed surfaces of the clamp members are provided with an antivibration portion made of noise isolating/absorbing soft resin material to clamp an object between the opposed antivibration portions to avoid the object being pulled-out. The antivibration portions cover the outer surface of the object to obtain vibration-proof effect.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-79432 (Publication 3) discloses an improvement of the clamp disclosed in Publication 1. Soft buffering resin material provided on the inner wall surface of the curved wall holds an object while preventing the object from being displaced in the axial direction. An aim of the improvement is to reduce the risk of a strong force applied in the axial direction of the object causing peeling of the soft buffering resin material. Specifically, the clamp of Publication 3 is directed to fixing the soft buffering resin material to the curved wall in such a manner that the soft buffering resin material extends along opposite side edges of the recess of the curved wall in a C-shape, to clasp the side edges so as to prevent the peeling.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-248145 (Publication 4) discloses a cord clamp formed with a plurality of cord-holding portions and intended to facilitate an operation of inserting a cord therein, and to prevent a returning force of the cord-holding portions from deteriorating under a high temperature. This cord clamp is formed with a gap between the adjacent cord-holding portions to isolate them from one another, and a resilient member is inserted into the gap. The resiliency of the resilient member in the gap is utilized to prevent the returning force of the cord-holding portions from deteriorating in a high temperature environment, such as an engine compartment.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-230674 (Publication 5) discloses a pipe clamp comprising an automobile-body connection portion or base, a pipe binding portion or pipe-holding portion, separated from the base, and a coupling portion made of a soft material and embedded between the automobile-body connection portion and the pipe-binding portion through a two-color molding process. The soft coupling portion interposed between the automobile-body connection portion and the pipe-binding portion is utilized to absorb vibrations of the pipe held by the pipe-binding portion so as to prevent vibrations from being transmitted to the automobile-body connection portion.
While the clamp disclosed in Publication 1 (Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 4-44581) has an antivibration function based on the soft buffering (antivibration) resin material covering an object held in the curved wall, a higher antivibration effect can be obtained only by increasing the thickness of the antivibration resin material. However, the antivibration resin material increased in thickness causes a problem of deterioration in the object holding force due to resulting increased softness or flexibility, which is likely to cause wobbling movements of the object in the curved wall. Further, as pointed out in Publication 3 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-79432), the antivibration resin material tends to be peeled by a strong force applied in the axial direction of the object.
As to the clamp disclosed in Publication 2 (Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 4-75289), a higher antivibration effect can be obtained only by increasing the thickness of the antivibration resin material, and the soft antivibration resin material increased in thickness is likely to cause wobbling movements of an object in the curved wall, similarly to the clamp in Publication 1. Further, because the object-holding portion is composed of the pair of clamp members openably connected with one another by the thin hinge, undesirable labor and time are required for swingably moving one of the clamp members about the hinge to open the object-holding portion, inserting an object into the holding portion, and then closing the clamp member.
While Publication 3 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-79432) is intended to prevent peeling of the soft buffering resin material, it is difficult to obtain a sufficient antivibration effect. If the thickness of the soft buffering resin material is increased to obtain a sufficiently enhanced antivibration effect, the holding force will be likely to deteriorate, as with the clamp in Publication 1.
The cord clamp in Publication 4 is intended to prevent the returning force of the cord-holding portions from deteriorating under a high temperature. For this purpose, the resilient member is inserted into the gap between the adjacent cord-holding portions, and the resiliency of the resilient member is utilized to maintain the returning force of the cord-holding portion even if the body of the cord-holding portion has a returning force that deteriorates at a high temperature. This cord clamp is neither designed for the purpose of antivibration, nor has it a sufficient antivibration function. Further, the cord clamp in Publication 4 is devoid of a resilient holding finger extending obliquely from the top of the curved wall of the cord-holding portion toward the recess of the curved wall so as to press against the outer surface of the elongated object to prevent pullout of an object held in the cord-holding portion. Publication 4 does not include any suggestion of absorbing vibrations acting from an object to a resilient holding finger.
In the pipe clamp in Publication 5, a coupling portion made of a soft material is provided between the pipe-binding portion for holding a pipe and the automobile-body connection portion to be fixed to an automobile body. Thus, a fixing force between the pipe held by the pipe-binding portion and the automobile-body connection portion is likely to deteriorate. | {
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The following paragraphs contain some discussion, which is illuminated by the innovations disclosed in this application, and any discussion of actual or proposed or possible approaches in this Background section does not imply that those approaches are prior art.
Mechanical friction during drilling operations is a known problem which is enhanced in long narrow, highly inclined, directional, and “horizontal,” boreholes. A directional well is typically drilled to position a reservoir entry point. Directional wells are initially drilled straight down to a predetermined depth and then gradually curved at one or more different points to penetrate one or more given target reservoirs. A horizontal well is commonly defined as any well in which the lower part of the well bore parallels the oil zone. Horizontal drilling allows a single wellbore at the surface to penetrate oil or gas-bearing reservoir strata at horizontal or near horizontal angles to the dip of the strata. The angle of inclination used to drill the well does not have to reach 90° for the well to be considered a “horizontal” well. Horizontal drilling has become one of the most common and popular forms of drilling for recovery of hydrocarbons from subterranean formations used today. Extended-Reach Drilling has evolved from simple directional drilling to horizontal, lateral, and multi-lateral step-outs. Since extended-reach drilling employs both directional and horizontal drilling techniques, the utility of the present invention is applicable to extended-reach drilling as well.
Friction reducers are typically either liquids or solid particles. Liquids form a film between two surfaces minimizing contact and consequently friction. Liquid additives include among others glycol, oil, ester, and fatty acid ester-based lubricants. The efficiency of such liquids as friction reducers depends heavily on the type of drilling fluid in which the liquids are used. The effectiveness of liquids may be lost altogether in high-solids drilling fluids.
Solid particles are less dependent on the type of drilling fluid used and various forms have been used. One example of a solid lubricant is glass beads, which were originally thought to act like small ball bearings downhole. Later, the beads were considered by some to slide instead of act like a ball bearing, but in either event, the beads were found to reduce friction. Another example of a solid lubricant is polymer beads, which, like glass beads, form a slippery lubricant between the borehole and the drill string. Still another similar example is plastic beads.
As used herein, the term “beads,” includes, besides preferably spherical particles, rotational elliptic particles, egg shaped particles, e.g., particles which are rotationally symmetric to one axis, droplet shaped particles, pellets, and also less symmetrical particles like spheres with protrusions. Most preferably, the beads are in the shape of substantially perfect spheres.
The size of beads has been considered important, as larger beads (for example, greater than about 75 μm) tend to be filtered out in solids control equipment. On the other hand, fine beads (for example, about 44-88 μm) pass most shale shaker screens but tend to be removed by desilters. Generally, a size in the range of about 40 to 60 mesh is considered most preferred. Beads typically have a density comparable to the desired density of the drilling fluid, or may have a lower density to lighten the fluid column.
With more and more drilling for the recovery of hydrocarbons involving or including horizontal drilling, the use of beads as lubricants has shown the problem of gravity migration and settling of beads on the lower side of the borehole. However, beads also reduce drill pipe and casing wear in high angle directional and horizontal wells by preventing metal to metal contact. The beads form a layer or sheath between such metals to reduce friction.
Moreover, beads do not typically influence drilling fluid properties, except for a negligible increase in viscosity and possibly a slight decrease in 10 minute gel strength. Consequently, there is continued interest in new and better beads for use as drilling fluid lubricants, particularly in directional and horizontal wells. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Absorbent bodies for absorbent articles, such as disposable diapers, panty diapers, sanitary napkins, incontinence guards and the like, are commonly manufactured by delivering fibrous bodies on a moving web and thereafter compressing the bodies by passing the bodies through the nip between a pair of rollers. By adjusting the nip between the rollers, a desired density of the fibrous bodies can be obtained in order to give the bodies sufficient mechanical strength and appropriate capillary action. If the fibrous bodies have portions with different basis weight, such as a thicker portion in the central crotch part of an absorbent article, the compressing of the thin portion can be made by a pair of rollers having a cut-out to accommodate the thick portion of the body, the compressing of the thick portion being made by a separate pair of rollers or by the inner wall of an appropriate dimensioned cut-out. If the thick portion is not wholly accommodated in the cut-out, the parts thereof lying outside the cut-out have to pass a portion of the nip between the rollers, which is dimensioned for compressing the thin portion of the fibrous body. If this occur, there is a great risk that the desired density in the thin portion of the body will not be obtained. Furthermore, the parts of the thick portion lying outside the cut-out will be compressed to an unduly high density, the fibers in the body might break and capillary action might be lost in these parts. The thick portion can also be so thick that it can not be compressed to such an extent that it can pass the nip between the rollers, leading to a stand still in the manufacturing process. For these reasons the area of the cut-out is made somewhat larger than the area of the thick portion of the fibrous body. The difference between the areas of the cut-out and thick portion of the fibrous body is of course dependent on the accuracy of registration of the thick portion of the bodies laid on the moving web and the cut-out or cut-outs on the rotating rollers. However, even if the accuracy is high, such a difference in areas must be present in order to ensure that the thick portion of each fibrous body will be accommodated within the cut-out or a cut-out in the pair of compressing rollers.
As a consequence of the difference in areas of the thick portion of the fibrous body and the cut-out in the roller there is, in the thin portion, a boundary region around the edge of the thick portion that remains uncompressed after passage of the nip between the rollers. This boundary region has very little mechanical strength and will easily break. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to the use of snake venom as an analgesic.
Although pain is a crucially important physiological response, it also results in unnecessary suffering and agony. The control and relief of pain is an important branch of medicine. Pain may come about both as a result of disease as well as a result of medical treatment such as chemotherapy. In either case, it is important to alleviate the pain as much as possible so as to enable the sufferer to function normally.
Two neural pathways relating to pain act concurrently in the body: (1) a sensory pathway which senses tissue damage and subsequently produces a feeling of pain; (2) an analgesic pathway which reduces the feeling of pain and prevents the flow of information about the pain to the central nervous system (CNS), thus allowing the organism to maintain it""s normal activity in spite of an injury. Anesthesia can be realized either by use of a drug which inhibits peripheral nerves that act as pain sensors or by enhancement of the natural analgesic system. Since these are different pathways, they are affected by different substances. For example, aspirin and lidocaine are active on the peripheral sensory pathway, while morphine and related substances are active on the analgesic system.
The most efficient analgesics currently in use are morphine-related substances of opiatic origin. It""s well known that the brain makes a variety of endogenic opiates, and this explains the powerful effect of these substances. Their action on neurons is mediated by specialized receptors. Signals regulated by these receptors prevent the flow of information from the peripheral pain neurons to the CNS. These CNS neurons are also sensitive to a variety of other chemical substances including catecholamines (serotonin, noradrenalin etc.), neuroactive peptides (neurotensin) and inhibitory amino acids (glycin and GABA).
Out of some 4000 currently living species of snakes, approximately 400 species are known to be venomous. The venomous species are classified into five families, one of which is the Viperidae family, commonly known as vipers. Snakes of the Viperidae are distributed in Europe, Asia and Africa, and comprise 8 genera, one of which is the genus Vipera. The genus Vipera comprises the following species: V. berus; V. lebatina; V. russelii; V. superciliaris; V. ursinii; V. aspis; V. latifii; V. bornmulleri; V. ammodytes; V. xanthina; and V. mauritanica. The species V. xanthina has been further classified into three sub-species: V. xanthina raddei, V. xanthina xanthina, which is found generally in southern Europe, and V. xanthina palestinae which is found in Israel.
Snake venom comprises a large variety of different substances. Out of several hundreds of estimated compounds, it is believed that only 4-8 are involved in the toxic effect of the venom. Despite functional similarity, snake venoms differ considerably in their chemical composition. Each species possesses it""s own characteristic venom composition. To date, only a few hundred compounds from some 400 venomous snake species have been characterized. These include enzymes, toxins, growth factors, etc. Most of the isolated venom compounds are of unknown function.
Traditionally, snake venom is considered a source of toxic substances. However, it is also a source of analgesics. Doctors who treated patients bitten by a South American snake (Crotalus durissus terrificus) reported that although these patients were in a life-threatening condition, they felt no pain. A neurotoxin product isolated from snake venom was regarded as a new type of analgesic at the First Congress of Neurotoxicology (1977) in Yugoslavia. These and other observations lead to attempts to isolate anesthetic compounds from snake venom.
Bevan, P. and Hiestand, P. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258:5319-5326 describe a single chain polypeptide isolated from Vipera russelli russelli venom by cation exchange chromatography. The polypeptide competes with the binding of monoamines and opiate ligands to their respective receptors, and injection of the polypeptide intracerebroventricularly in rats causes marked sedation. The authors state that the polypeptide is a large and highly charged molecule which is unlikely to pass the blood-brain barrier. The polypeptide was found to be a moderately potent toxin, similar to the crude venom.
Dutta, A. S. and Chaudhuri, A. K. N. (1991) Indian J. Exp. Biol. 29:937-942 describe experiments carried out with crude venom of Vipera russelli on mice and rats. The venom was injected intraperitoneally and intravenously, and was found to produce alterations in general behavior patterns connected with the CNS. The venom showed significant analgesic activity in one assay, but no activity in two other assays.
WO 91/01740 published Feb. 21, 1991 discloses the use of lyophilized Crotalus atrox whole venom in a pharmaceutical composition for external use. The composition has analgesic, hyperaemizating and spasmolysant activity.
Giorgi, R., Bernardi, M. M. and Cury, Y. (1993) Toxicon 31:1257-1265 describe analgesic effects evoked by low molecular weight substances extracted from Crotalus durissus terrificus venom by ultrafiltration. The extract was administered to mice subcutaneously, intraperitoneally and orally.
CN 1,072,344 published May 26, 1993 discloses a snake toxin ointment containing a commercial snake toxin enzyme (source not given), a leukocyte peptide factor and Bingpian, a known Chinese analgesic medicine. The ointment functions as an antibiotic with no toxicity or side effects.
Pu, X. C., Wong, P. T. H. and Gopalakrishnakone, P. (1995) Toxicon 33:1425-1431 describes a neurotoxin purified from king cobra venom by gel filtration and HPLC. The toxin was administered i.p., p.o. or i.c.v. to mice and found to have a potent analgesic effect.
U.S.S.R. Patent No. 435,824 describes an analgesic composition prepared from Nayaksin dry cobra venom. This snake is from the Naja species which belongs to the Elapidae family.
For over 20 years, an ointment named Viprosalum or Viprosal has been available in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe for the relief of pain. This ointment is a mixture of a viper venom (European species) dissolved in Vaseline together with Lanolin, camphor and solicilate.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an analgesic substance isolated from snake venom which is substantially non-toxic.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a substantially non-toxic fraction isolated from the venom of Vipera xanthina, the fraction having an analgesic effect.
Further in accordance with this aspect of the present invention, there is provided a pharmaceutical composition for use as an analgesic comprising a substantially non-toxic fraction isolated from the venom of Vipera xanthina.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the pharmaceutical composition is for topical use.
Although all of the experiments described below which illustrate the invention involve the sub-species Vipera xanthina palestinae (hereinafter V. palestinae). It is to be understood that this sub-species serves only as an example for the entire species Vipera xanthina. As stated above, each venomous species possesses it""s own characteristic venom composition.
The fraction provided by the invention combines a number of properties previously unreported as appearing together in the same material. These properties include: (1) derivation from Vipera xanthina venom; (2) possession of analgesic activity; (3) substantially no toxicity; (4) substantially purified; and (5) active when administered topically. This substance has been named xe2x80x9cZephalinxe2x80x9d.
In the present specification, the term non-toxic is defined as the non-occurrence of pathological phenomena as a result of using pharmacological levels of Zephalin which have an analgesic effect. The term substantially non-toxic is defined as including acceptably low toxicity as well as non-toxicity.
Although Zephalin is a purified fraction of the crude venom, it apparently comprises more than one substance. The present invention includes not only Zephalin but also various products which may be purified from Zephalin and which possess the properties of Zephalin. The invention also includes derivatives of these products, which retain the properties of Zephalin. In the case of proteinaceous material, such derivatives would include proteins or polypeptides in which one or more amino acids have been added, deleted and/or replaced. Other chemical modifications are also contemplated.
Zephalin may be used to prepare a pharmaceutical composition for use as an analgesic. Such a composition would also comprise a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier or excipient such as a mixture of Lanolin and Vaseline. The composition may be prepared for parenteral use, for example in a saline solution, or for topical use in an ointment, cream or salve. In order to afford relief to a subject suffering from pain, the pharmaceutical composition would either be injected or applied topically at an appropriate location. Other possible modes of application would be oral and rectal. Any pharmaceutical composition would generally include a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier or excipient in addition to the active ingredient. As Zephalin sometimes acts after a lag period, it is to be expected that it will be especially effective with respect to chronic pain, although it may be used to treat any type of pain. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Massive computing capability has traditionally been provided by highly specialized and very expensive supercomputers. As technology advances, however, inexpensive desktop and server hardware has steadily supplanted expensive high end systems. More recently, inexpensive hardware has been gathered together to form computing clusters. The individual computers in a compute cluster are typically not as expensive or reliable as their supercomputer and mainframe forbearers but overcome those limitations with sheer numbers.
The drawback of compute clusters is that they are difficult to maintain and to program. In order to harness the power of a compute cluster, a program must be split into a great number of pieces and the multitudinous results later reconciled and reassembled. Furthermore, the program itself must be fault tolerant because there is a risk of individual failures amongst the great number of inexpensive computers.
Desktop and gaming computers often conserve central processing unit (CPU) resources by employing a graphics subsystems dedicated to drive one or more computer displays. A graphics processing unit (GPU) is at the heart of the graphics subsystem. The CPU is a general purpose processor designed to efficiently run a great variety of algorithms. Graphics processing, however, consists of a limited and well known set of algorithms. GPUs are specialized processors that are very good at graphics processing but not necessarily good at other tasks.
Another recent development is the identification of algorithms, other than graphics algorithms, that are well suited for GPUs. These algorithms currently require expert programming in order to put them into a form that a GPU can run. Further optimization is required to for a GPU to run the algorithm well. The effort is often worthwhile because the speedup can be orders of magnitude faster. Unfortunately, properly configured computing systems having the software tools required for developing algorithms to run on GPUs are rare. As such, expertise in the required programming techniques is rare and difficult to develop.
Systems and methods for providing GPU powered compute clusters and for deploying non-graphics applications to efficiently run on those GPU powered compute clusters are needed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Snap hooks in the safety and lifting industries take a variety of different forms and have an equally wide number of different applications. Such applications include use in fall arrest systems and in the lifting of heavy objects by means of a crane or other lifting devices.
The safe lifting of heavy objects and the prevention of falls is of primary importance on construction sites and in situations where individuals may be working at heights, around areas of excavation, or where a personal fall or the dropping of an object that is being lifted could result in property damage, serious injury or death. Furthermore, in many jurisdictions the employment of a fall arrest system to prevent personal injury is not only desirable, but is a statutory requirement. Commonly fall arrest systems involve the placement of a harness or belt around an individual and then the subsequent use of a rope, cable or strap to secure the harness or belt, and hence the individual, to a solid structure. For example, individuals working on bridges, towers or tall buildings will commonly wear belts or safety harnesses that include a lifeline typically comprised of a rope or strap having its free end secured to the structure upon which they are working. In the logging industry, and in situations where individuals are working on utility poles, a worker is often fitted with a safety belt or harness having a rope or strap that is connected to the belt or harness at one end, is passed around the tree or pole, and that has its free end connected to an opposite side of the belt. At least one end of the rope or strap is usually fitted with a snap hook to enable it to be readily engaged and disengaged from the safety belt or support structure.
In theory, should a worker slip or fall while wearing a safety belt or a harness that is securely attached by way of a lifeline to a solid structure, the worker will only be allowed to fall a short distance after which his decent will be stopped and he will be suspended until he can regain his balance or be rescued. In practice the safety harness and fall arrest systems currently in use do not always function as designed and accidents, injuries and fatalities sometimes occur. One type of failure that can have disastrous results is a failure of the hook used on the end of a lifeline. Similarly, the failure of a hook used in the lifting of heavy objects can be equally dangerous.
Due to their convenience and ease of use, snap hooks having a gate keeper that encloses the hook bowl are probably the most widely used method to secure the end of a lifeline to an object. For the same reasons such hooks are commonly used in a extremely wide variety of other applications, including for the lifting of objects. Unfortunately, simple snap hooks can become unintentionally opened through the application of a force against their gate keeper. As a result, others have proposed and developed a variety of different locking mechanisms that assist in maintaining the gate keeper in a closed position (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,062,092 dated Dec. 13, 1997; U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,585 dated Oct. 31, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,441 dated Nov. 2, 1993; U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,564 dated Dec. 3, 1996; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,630 dated Apr. 27, 1999.) While such locking mechanisms have reduced the likelihood of an unintentional opening of the hook, they are generally limited in their ability to prevent the gate keeper from becoming dislodged from the end of the hook bowl or bill through the application of forces or loads that may be applied directly to the gate keeper.
For ease of use, many gate keepers require the application of a single force to either the keeper or its lock in order to “open” the hook. In some instances others have designed keeper and lock structures that require the application of two discrete forces to open the hook, one force directed to the lock and one force directed to the keeper. Nevertheless, even in such cases it has been found that situations as innocuous as leaning against a hook that is bearing against a solid surface can be sufficient to cause an accidental disengagement of the gate keeper from the hook's bill. Where that occurs the hook may unintentionally become dislodged and present a significant threat to the safety of personal and equipment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ultra compact valve unit for regulating pressure and to a liquid ejection device provided with such a valve unit.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejection device includes an inkjet-type printer (hereinafter referred to as a “printer”). Printers are provided with replaceable ink cartridges (hereinafter referred to as a “cartridge”). A printer accomplishes printing by ejecting (discharging) ink, which is supplied by a cartridge, from a recording head. There are several conventional methods for supplying ink from a cartridge to a recording head. The pressure on the ink must be suitably regulated so as to stably discharge ink droplets from the recording head. Therefore, printers include a valve unit (differential pressure valve or pressure reducing valve) to regulate ink pressure according to the ink supplying method used.
JP-T-2000-03877 discloses a differential valve built into a cartridge. This cartridge is mounted on a carriage and referred to as an on-carriage cartridge.
JP-A-2001-199080 discloses a carriage provided with a sub tank. The sub-tank recording device detects the amount of ink in accordance with the intensity of the magnetic line of force of a permanent magnet that varies depending on the floating position of a float member by means of electromagnetic conversion element such as a Hall element arranged on a side wall of the sub tank. The ink supply valve opens when the amount of detected ink is less than a predetermined amount.
JP-T-2003-041964 discloses a recording device including a main body provided with a cartridge holder. In this recording device, a cartridge is installed in the cartridge holder on the main body, and a valve unit is mounted on the cartridge. This kind of cartridge is referred to as an off-carriage cartridge.
JP-A-2005-186344 discloses a valve unit provided with a pressure reducing valve that reduces the pressure of a liquid within a pressure chamber containing liquid to a predetermined pressure. This pressure reducing valve is provided with a pressure receiving member that is elastically deformable, a spring used for pressure regulation, and an operating lever and the like. Therefore, the valve unit is large.
Whatever the type, conventional valves are large. Thus, a problem arises when developing compact and portable printers, since a corresponding compact valve unit is not available. The ink supplied to the recording head is regulated to a suitable ink pressure. Conventionally, valve units that regulate ink pressure differ according to the method in which ink is supplied. Therefore, it has been difficult to design a valve unit that would be commonly usable among recording devices that use different ink supplying methods. For example, if an ink pressure regulating valve unit could be built into a recording head, the valve unit could be used commonly among recording devices that employ different methods for supplying ink. However, the recording head would be enlarged since conventional valve units have a large structure. Therefore, there has not been as yet in fact a valve unit that could be built into a recording head.
Furthermore, the outer packaging member (case and the like) of a conventional valve unit is readily permeable to gas since it is typically formed of resin. Thus, the liquid content of the ink within the cartridge may evaporate, and gas that penetrates the interior of the cartridge produces bubbles in the ink. Therefore, the problem of gas permeability that causes moisture evaporation and bubbles must be reduced in such valve units. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Wireless phone systems are commonly used in PBX serviced areas as well as in the public cellular phone system. Wireless voice systems are designed to allow only registered mobile phones to originate-and receive calls. This presents a problem when the user must make an emergency call while traveling in an area which is serviced by a phone system in which the user is not registered. Current protocols in some wireless voice systems (e.g., DECT systems) allow an unregistered mobile phone to make a call if the call is designated as an "emergency call". However, current protocols do not allow an unregistered mobile phone to receive a call for any reason.
When an emergency call is received by a telephone system, it is typically forwarded to an Emergency Service Answering Point (ESAP) where a specially trained operator handles the call. If the ESAP loses the connection to the caller, the ESAP may not be able to provide emergency service without re-establishing the telephone link. If the call was placed from the public switched telephone network (PSTN), the emergency operator receives the number of the telephone making the call from the telephone system, and hence, can call the party back to continue the call. Furthermore, the emergency operator can determine the location from which the call was made since the telephone number is associated with a unique geographical location.
Such call backs are not possible with current wireless systems since an unregistered telephone does not have a phone number in the system. In public cellular systems, the limited amount of information that can be transferred to the ESAP forces further compromises usefulness. In these systems, the location of the caller is deemed to be more important than a call-back number. Since the systems are set up to transfer only a single identifying number, the cellular systems transfer a number identifying the antenna on which the call was received. This provides some localization of the user; however, this location information is, typically, limited to localization within a few miles. If the call was transferred to another antenna because of congestion at the closest antenna, this localization information is even less usefil.
Broadly, it is the object of the present invention to provide an improved wireless telephone system.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a wireless telephone system in which an unregistered telephone can make an emergency call and receive a call back from an emergency operator.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a wireless telephone system in which the emergency operator can receive both location and call-back information.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This disclosure is related to the field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) apparatus and methods. More specifically, the disclosure is related to NMR apparatus configured for measurement of surface and bulk NMR properties of very small liquid samples, for example, to detect the presence of certain substances in the very small liquid sample.
More particularly, the disclosure relates to methods and apparatus for using NMR for differentiation of fluid properties in the bulk of a fluid sample and in a layer of the fluid that interacts with a surface. In one aspect, methods and apparatus according to the disclosure relate to using NMR for rapid quantitative determination of cell conjugation. In another example aspect, methods and apparatus according to the disclosure relate to using NMR in toxicology as a rapid presumptive screen for certain classes of drugs. In yet another aspect, methods and apparatus according to the disclosure relate to using NMR in disease diagnosis to evaluate either the presence of an antigen or the presence of an antibody in a serum or other fluid sample.
The description herein and its background will be approached in the context of detecting the presence of an antigen in a sample. There is no intention to limit the generality of the present disclosure to the field of detecting the presence of an antigen in a sample.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a test that uses antibodies and color change to identify a substance. In direct-ELISA a labeled primary antibody reacts directly with an antigen. Indirect-ELISA uses an unlabeled primary antibody in conjunction with a labeled secondary antibody. Since the labeled secondary antibody is directed against all antibodies of a given species, Indirect ELISA can be used with a wide variety of primary antibodies.
Antibody-sandwich ELISAs is a very useful type of immunosorbent assay for detecting antigens because they are frequently between 2 and 5 times more sensitive than those in which the antigen is directly bound to a solid phase. To detect the antigen, wells of microtiter-sample size plates (typically having volume of about ⅓ cubic centimeter and coated surface of about 1 square centimeter) are coated with a specific (capture) antibody followed by incubation with test solutions containing an antigen. Unbound antigen is washed out and an antigen-specific antibody is conjugated to an enzyme (i.e., a developing reagent) is added, followed by another incubation. Enzyme labeled antibody can be produced in a laboratory animal that produces passively adsorbed antibody, or from a different species immunized with the same antigen that is captured. Unbound conjugate is washed out and a substrate is added. After another incubation, the degree of substrate hydrolysis is measured. The amount of substrate hydrolyzed is proportional to the amount of antigen in the test solution.
NMR signals as used in methods according to the present disclosure arise from the nuclei of hydrogen atoms in water molecules. Once generated, the magnitude of the NMR signal decays according to transverse (T2) and longitudinal (T1) relaxation properties of the water-containing material being analyzed. Spin-spin (T2) relaxation occurs when a given ensemble of oscillating hydrogen nuclear axis spins lose coherence. Loss of spin coherence is caused by macroscopic and microscopic fluctuations in the static magnetic field experienced by a freely diffusing nuclear axis spin. The former is commonly referred to as T2* relaxation and the latter as T2 relaxation. T2 relaxation contains information about the microscopic environment experienced by the hydrogen nuclei in the water-containing material. T2 relaxation can be measured independently from T2* by means of a specialized series of RF pulses and delays, called a CPMG (Can Purcell Meiboom Gill) pulse sequence. A CPMG pulse sequence removes the effects of static magnetic field macroscopic inhomogeneities to specifically measure the contribution from the microscopic environment, by creating a series of spin echoes. The relaxation time is significantly shorter for a molecule proximate a sample chamber surface or wall area, as compared to a molecule in the bulk volume. This is typically an effect of paramagnetic centers at a wall surface that causes the relaxation time to be shorter.
T2 measurements can be carried out in real time during an analyte-induced response. T2 changes as a function of measurement time and the rate of T2 change can be correlated to a quantitative amount of analyte. The measured T2 values can be influenced by several assay, instrument, measurement, and processing parameters. For example, the measured T2 values may depend on the static magnetic field strength and homogeneity and the total spin echo measurement time. Additional parameters and variables may include valency and size of the analyte, and sample temperature. As a result, T2 values may increase or decrease with time.
Sample mixing and loading, as well as T2 measurements, can be completed in tens of seconds, making sample incubation the rate-limiting step for magnetic resonance switching (MRSw) measurements. Incubation times may be as long as several hundreds of minutes. NMR measurement of spin-lattice (T1) relaxation and diffusion can be completed in few minutes that is longer than T2 measurement, but can provide valuable information related to fluid-surface interaction. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Sophisticated System on Chip (SoC) designs are rapidly evolving. The SoC designs being developed today have millions and millions of gates. The complexity of the designs combined with the use of devices using the SoC designs in industrial products of very high importance has made design verification an essential element in the semiconductor development cycle. Thus, prior to manufacture, the hardware designers frequently employ simulators and/or emulators to verify the functional behavior of the electronic devices and systems fabricated in accordance with their designs. One type of verification system for a hardware device under test (DUT) is a transaction-based acceleration verification process that generally provides an effective way to increase verification productivity, speed up time-to-market, and deliver greater confidence in the final SoC product. It provides a processor based simulation acceleration/emulation system, which is in communication with a workstation that sends data to and from the DUT. Such data can include digital test vectors or real signals from a logic system in which the DUT is intended for.
Various mechanisms/models have been employed in the art in order to transfer data comprising channel packets between the components of the emulation system. FIG. 1 depicts a conventional models to stream data between components of an emulation system 100. As illustrated, there is a hardware accelerator 102 and a host workstation 104. The hardware accelerator 102 comprises one or more producers 106. The one or more producers 106 are configured to produce one or more channel packets. The host workstation 104 comprises one or more consumers 108. The one or more consumers 108 are configured to receive the one or more channel packets produced by the one or more producers 106. In order to stream the one or more channel packets, from the one or more producers 106 to the one or more consumers 108, a dedicated accelerator memory 110 is allocated for each of one or more channels through which the one or more channel packets are routed. Each dedicated memory 110 is configured to handle its corresponding channel traffic. Thus, when a synchronization is requested by the one or more channels, then their corresponding memory 110 is uploaded separately by the corresponding one or more channel packets. Because each memory 110 read requires a PC latency, therefore this model requires multiple PC latencies as the multiple memories 110 are accessed/read separately. Due to the presence of multiple PC latencies, the speed of the operation becomes very slow.
Therefore, there is a need for methods and systems that addresses the above mentioned drawbacks of the conventional technique employed for data streaming in the emulation system, and thereby able to achieve optimal performance and higher speed for streaming of the data between the hardware accelerator and the host workstation in the emulation system. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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