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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling systems and more specifically, to the installation of heterogeneous operating systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
The diversity and amount of data managed by information handling systems continues to grow, driving the need for cost effective, scalable systems that can be quickly and efficiently configured for a wide variety of uses and environments. This need has led to the adoption of build-to-order (BTO) computer systems that are custom-assembled to a customer's specifications from a variety of hardware components. The extended time typically required to configure and implement these systems consumes technical resources, has a negative impact on productivity, and contributes to the system's total cost of ownership (TCO). In particular, the initial loading of the system's operating system (OS) can be time consuming and tedious, especially when multiple operating systems are implemented in a heterogeneous operating environment. For example, new computer systems are generally first configured with their initial hardware components, an operating system is selected for installation, and the appropriate drivers for the hardware components comprising the system are located. In the past, the selected operating system and its related drivers were typically installed from locally-attached, physical media such as floppy disks, CDs, or hard disk drives. This approach required an operator to be physically present to not only load the chosen operating system and drivers, but also to make software configuration choices during the load procedure.
Current solutions to addressing this limitation include the implementation of a pre-execution environment, which allows a computer system to boot over a network connection and load a system image file of a predetermined operating system from a remote source. A pre-execution environment can provide other benefits as well. For example, the Dell Server Assistant (DSA), produced by Dell, Inc., provides the ability to configure redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID) and create a utility partition. DSA also has the ability to provide optimized OEM drivers that support installation of different operating systems from a single media image. As a result, time is saved since administrators do not need to be physically present at individual computers to monitor installation and boot from physical media.
However, currently emerging technologies are imposing new challenges to achieving a uniform, unattended process for installing heterogeneous operating systems such as Linux, Novell Netware, and Microsoft Windows. For example, the Windows Vista operating system uses a proprietary Boot Configuration Data (BCD) format, which provides data to the Windows boot manager to load the operating system. The Windows Vista operating system also uses Windows Imaging (WIM), a proprietary, file-based disk image format that stores the main components of the operating system in compressed form. During installation, the image file is decompressed and copied in-whole to the target system as opposed to prior versions of Windows, which were installed file by file in an iterative process. Even more challenging is when different installation procedures are required to load more than one operating system on a system, such as in a dual-boot configuration. These challenges are not limited to DSA. Other vendors face similar challenges in providing a uniform and common installation solution for heterogeneous operating systems. | {
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The quality of foods, drinks, drugs and the like is deteriorated by oxygen, and therefore they are desired to be stored in the absence of oxygen or under the condition with an extremely small amount of oxygen.
Accordingly, containers or packages storing foods, drinks, drugs or the like are often purged with nitrogen. However, the method is problematic in that, for example, the production cost may increase and, when they are once opened, air may flow into them from the outside and thereafter the quality deterioration could be no more prevented. Therefore, various investigations have been made for absorbing oxygen remaining in containers and packages and moving oxygen from them.
Recently, for resin containers or packaging materials, there has been mainly employed a method of making a resin container or a packaging material itself have oxygen absorbability.
As an oxygen absorbent for producing such oxygen-absorbing containers, for example, there is proposed an oxygen absorbent that comprises a polyterpene such as poly(α-pinene), poly(β-pinene) or poly(dipentene) (Patent reference 1), a conjugated diene polymer such as polyisoprene or 1,2-polybutadiene (Patent Reference 2), a copolymer of ethylene and cyclopentene (Patent Reference 3), a styrene-diene copolymer and/or a hydrogenated styrene-diene copolymer (Patent Reference 4) or the like, and a transition metal salt serving as an oxygen absorption catalyst such as cobalt neodecanoate or cobalt oleate.
However, these conventional oxygen absorbents are often difficult to use in some applications since the polymer may be deteriorated with the advance of oxygen absorption reaction and their mechanical strength may significantly lower or the transition metal compound such as a transition metal salt may bleed out.
Patent Reference 1: JP-T 2001-507045
Patent Reference 2: JP-A 2003-71992
Patent Reference 3: JP-T 2003-504042
Patent Reference 4: JP-A 2005-15055
The present inventors have noted a cyclized product of a conjugated diene polymer as an oxygen absorbent free from the above-mentioned problems, and have made studies of its application. Differing from the above-mentioned conventional oxygen absorbents, a cyclized product of a conjugated diene polymer has the advantage of exhibiting its excellent oxygen absorbability even in the absence of a catalyst metal compound.
The inventors have found an oxygen-absorbing resin composition that comprises an oxygen-absorbing resin (A1) having a cycloene structure in the molecule and a softener (A2) and has a glass transition temperature of not higher than 30° C., as an improvement on the cyclized product of a conjugated diene polymer in point of the oxygen absorbability at room temperature (Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-039044).
However, it could not be said that there may be no further room for improving the oxygen-absorbing resin composition in point of the level of bad smell to be released on oxygen absorption. | {
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The present invention relates to a method of exchanging the displacement element of a refrigerator having a divided housing whose parts can be separated from one another in such a manner that the displacement element becomes accessible. Additionally, the invention relates to a refrigerator designed for implementation of the method.
Refrigerators of this type are low-temperature cooling machines in which thermodynamic circulation processes take place. A single-stage refrigerator essentially comprises a work chamber including a displacement element. The work chamber is connected in a certain manner alternatingly with a high pressure and a low pressure gas source so that the thermodynamic circulation process takes place during the enforced back and forth movement of the displacement element. This causes the operating gas to be conducted in a closed circuit. The result is that heat is extracted from a certain region of the work chamber. In two-stage refrigerators of this type and with helium as the working gas, temperatures down to less than 10.degree. K. can be produced.
For repair and maintenance work there often arises the need to exchange the displacement element. This can be done in such a manner that the refrigerator is shut down and the cold regions of the refrigerator are permitted to warm up to room temperature. Without warm-up, condensible gases would precipitate at the cold surfaces and would endanger the renewed operation of the refrigerator. Since the temperatures at the cold locations of a refrigerator operated with helium are only a few degrees K, the presence of almost all gases normally occurring in the atmosphere are undesirable. After sufficient heating, the housing is opened and the displacement element is exchanged. After closing and thorough rinsing of the housing with the working gas, the refrigerator is put back into use.
A change of displacement elements effected in this manner takes a very long time since the warm-up periods and the restarting periods are added to the actual work times. Moreover, operation of the device or an instrument cooled by the refrigerator is interrupted during these times. For instruments filled with a large amount of liquid helium (100 liters and more) warming the refrigerator merely for an exchange of displacement elements is unfeasible for economic reasons. It requires removal of the liquid helium.
To avoid long interruptions of operation, it is known to effect the change of displacement elements with the aid of a glove box. The use of a glove box makes it possible to effect the exchange of displacement elements in a protective gas atmosphere. In this way, for example, condensible gases can be prevented from penetrating into the work or cylinder chamber of the displacement element and condensing at regions that are still cold. The use of the glove box has the advantage that the exchange of displacement elements can be effected at even lower temperatures, i.e., it is not necessary to wait for the cold regions of the refrigerator and the connected apparatus or instrument to warm up.
However, the use of a relatively expensive glove box is possible only where sufficient space is available. Moreover, the duration of the exchange work is still rather long (at least two hours). The reason for this is, firstly, the need for several rinsing processes in order to produce a sufficiently pure protective gas atmosphere within the glove box and these rinsing processes require the consumption of a relatively large amount of protective gas. Another reason is the difficulty of manipulation by means of the gloves in the glove box. Additionally, there exists the danger that the cold side of the displacement element to be replaced, once it has been pulled out, may touch the walls or gloves of the glove box. This would result in destruction of these parts, which are usually made of thin plastic sheets, and thus in contamination of the protective gas atmosphere. The increases in temperature occurring during the exchange work are not negligible, so that start-up times must still be added to the times for the direct exchange work. Finally, the costs connected with the high consumption of protective gas are quite considerable if helium must be employed. | {
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Roll-up doors may be used in a variety of environments. Such roll-up doors typically include a curtain which may be wound or unwound from a horizontally disposed roller, typically in place above the doorway which is to be blocked and unblocked by the curtain. The door is closed by rotating the roller such that the curtain pays off of the roller to block the doorway. The door is then opened by rolling the roller in an opposite direction. One example of a roll-up door is a door that is actuated like a window shade -- with manual actuation down and a spring-loaded roller for causing the door to roll-up when properly released. Such manual roll-down, spring-loaded roll-up doors are typically used in a light-duty environment. For example, such a door may be used in combination with a heavy-duty door in the exterior doorway of a loading dock in a manufacturing or warehouse facility. In such an installation, the heavy-duty door is typically used to prevent or allow authorized access to the doorway. Typical doors used for this purpose are manual or powered roll-up doors or so-called overhead doors (e.g. a garage-type sectioned door moveable from a vertical blocking position, to an overhead, horizontal storing position). In such an environment, the purpose of the manual roll-down, spring-loaded roll-up door may be to protect the opened doorway and the warehouse beyond from airborne pests such as insects when the heavy duty door is in the open position, but passage through the doorway is not required. To achieve this desirable function, these doors typically include a curtain in the form of a mesh material, with the mesh being small enough to block most insects, but large enough to allow significant air flow through the door. To further aide in preventing the ingress of insects into the warehouse, such doors typically include guide tracks disposed within vertical members for receiving the side edges of the door, and guiding those side edges in a vertical plane. In addition to performing the guiding function, the guide members may also provide some amount of sealing of the side edges of the curtain to prevent passage of insects.
Similarly, the leading edge of such a door typically also includes a seal to seal between the leading edge of the door and the dock surface below. Of course, one knowledgeable of such installations will appreciate that this lower surface may be the dock floor, or a dock leveler disposed on or in that dock floor. The bottom seal may be some type of deformable material to insure a tight seal between the bottom of the door and the dock floor or leveler. In order for the seal to perform most effectively, the door in its closed position must be accurately vertically positioned. Further, the door should not be subject to any vertical creep by virtue of the spring-loaded roller imparting incidental upward movement to the door. | {
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It is well known that pilots and/or navigators must correctly and efficiently evaluate their pre-flight plans and/or current flight information as their lives and/or the lives of their passengers depend on the pilots accuracy and thorough planning. It is therefore desirous to provide a pilot and/or navigator with a new navigational aid specifically designed to improve and encourage pre-planning and/or current flight plan calculating. Nowhere in the prior art (known to the applicants) do they provide such a display means which is specifically designed for use by a navigator. However, several references have attempted to provide display means for various articles, such as maps, stamps, etc. and each of which include a transparent cover and/or overlay, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,170, in which they teach a "WORK SURFACE INFORMATION DISPLAY PAD". The pad comprising a transparent cover over a base layer and a work surface, such as a work table or the like, as the bottom surface of the pad is textured so as to reduce slippage of the pad when on the work surface and the top surface of the pad is textured so as to provide a substitute work surface upon which to write or operate a computer mouse. A further attempt is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,157,626 in which they provide a "MAPS AND CHART HOLDER". The holder having on each of its end portions a container, with the containers being of a shape and size to accept and capture a continuous rolled document. The end containers allow the document to be rolled until the desired information is displayed upon a planar central region between the end containers. Still a further attempt is taught within U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,137 in which they provide a "DISPLAY SYSTEM ADAPTED FOR PHILATELIC MATERIALS". This display system substantially comprising an opaque base having an overlying transparent cover which is removably affixed to the base by adhesive. The base providing attachment zones for receiving philatelic materials such as stamps, while the transparent cover includes further related indicia, whereby, the base and cover in combination provide the display system.
Many devices, too numerous to mention, have been devised for holding a document which enables visual inspection of the document when the document is secured to the holding device. Springboards, clipboards and various variations thereof have been known to the prior art for a number of years. To further aid the protection of the document, some in the prior art have used a substantially transparent material to overlay the document while the document was secured to the springboard or clipboard. Others in the prior art have developed transparent containers for protecting the document while enabling visual inspection thereof. These containers have been made of rigid and flexible plastic materials with various types of closures for securing the document within the container.
For a number of reasons, the aforementioned containers have not found widespread use in the art. In general, these devices were constructed of a number of parts which required assembly to produce the container device. Finally, these prior art devices did not provide means for enabling the visual inspection of both sides of the document contained therein, nor even if the advantages inherent in each of the references were to be combined, the claims of the present invention would not be met. | {
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Cardiac defibrillation in humans requires the delivery of an electrical pulse that is several milliseconds long with peak currents as high as 25 amperes. The total energy in such a pulse is about 30 Joules. In order to deliver such a high current, a capacitor is charged up to a voltage on the order of 750 volts.
Various special batteries have been developed to supply such a high current to charge the capacitor. However, the batteries in use comprise low energy density batteries which occupy a large volume within the defibrillator. In defibrillator devices, the combined volume of the battery and the capacitor(s) is greater than the electronics. Therefore, any reduction in battery size or weight provides significant enhancements to an implantable defibrillator. | {
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Health-enhancing products are drawing more and more attention today, highlighting the recent social trend toward greater health-consciousness. Among such products, the apparel being worn in day-to-day life is being recognized as having the potential to improve and enhance our health. However, while the materials emitting far-infrared and magnetic energies, as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open Nos. 1-935064 and 5-69104, and the carbonized fiber as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 63-199110, are among the known healthy fiber products, these products are primarily intended for the cure of diseases, and there aren't many technologies available for treating fibrous substrates for health-enhancement purposes.
Furthermore, certain particles, when bonded to underwear and hosiery, are known to provide deodorizing and antibacterial effects as well as greater appeal to the sense of touch. Examples of such products include underwear that is topically bonded with an odor-absorbing titanium compound like sodium carbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 52-21951); socks treated with metallophthalocyanine for improved antibiotic and deodorizing effects (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 63-112701, Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 7-9906); and antibacterial undershorts/panties topically bonded with bivalent or trivalent iron salt (Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 2-3402).
Among other known products are fragrant pantyhose having textile fabrics bound together with an acrylic-acid binder and using microcapsules containing fragrance as a wall material (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 4-100901); pantyhose containing a mixture of polyoxyalkylene glycol and sulfonic-acid metal salt for improved touch (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 4-241101); non-woven fabric treated with chitin and chitosan derivatives for greater antibacterial and antifungal effects (publication of unexamined patent application No. 4-272273); pantyhose made with an ideal mixture of polyamide fiber that is free of titanium oxide for better transparency, flatness, gloss and fit (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-157902); a fiber product treated with chitosan solution for the improved absorption and dissipation of perspiration (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-228249); a dress shirt treated with a combination of polysulfonic acid and quaternary ammonium salt for better antistatic effect (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-268476); socks, pantyhose and other hosiery bonded with epigallo catechin gallate (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 10-195701); a thermal cloth bonded with ceramic powder (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-269761); a fiber structure treated with ascorbic acid for a more refreshing feel and pain-relieving effect (Registered Japanese Patent No. 2562233); socks bonded with tourmaline to reduce foot perspiration and relieve fatigue (Registered Japanese Utility Model No. 3040113); and socks treated with mineral salt (Registered Japanese Utility Model No. 3028232). However, these products have a long way to go in fulfilling the demands of today's health-oriented society.
Compared to such metals as iron, copper or aluminum, metallic titanium is a relatively newly discovered metallic material. The physical properties of titanium—namely its low weight and high strength, the latter of which is exhibited even at high temperatures—have found use in many fields. In the industrial sector, titanium is used in jet engine in the aeronautics and space industry, and in the tubing and tube sheets in the heat exchangers of nuclear and thermal power generators in the energy industry. Titanium is also used in eyeglass frames, golf club heads and other articles of everyday life. Moreover, titanium is likely to expand its range of applications.
The use of metallic titanium in everyday articles, health and medical articles and cosmetics is relatively well known. Examples include barber's scissors with titanium film coatings (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 62-268584); the utilization of far-infrared rays through dissolved metallic titanium (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 61-59147, 1-155803 and 3-112849); bedding (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-322695); cooking utensils (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-140593); eye masks (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 10-71168); health-maintenance devices (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 11-285541 and 11-285543); health bands (Registered Japanese Utility Model No. 3045835); and health slippers (Registered Japanese Utility Model No. 3061466). However, no attempt has been made to bond fiber materials, such as clothing and garments, with metallic titanium for health-enhancement purposes.
As mentioned earlier, there are no known technologies that use metallic titanium for functional water or the like, except that a relevant technology is applied to the drinking-water production system that takes advantage of electro-osmosis with the use of metallic titanium as a negative electrode (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 50-40779). While much is anticipated regarding the potential applications of titanium in the fields of bioactive materials, food ingredients and medical products, to date none of those potential applications has taken shape.
The inventors of the present invention have studied the effective use of titanium for health purposes, and as a result have developed a highly functional water—which contains dissolved titanium obtained by combusting the metallic titanium at high temperature generated by the combustion gas, which is in turn produced by burning oxygen and hydrogen in high-pressure water within a pressure-resistant container—along with a method and apparatus for manufacturing the same. A patent application has already been filed for the above invention (Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-136932). The present invention is intended to apply the titanium-dissolved water obtained through the above manufacturing method and apparatus for use in the treatment of fibrous substrates. | {
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Folding swabs, folding cards and other types of folding disposable applicators for dispensing liquids are known. Examples of these applicators may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,369,267 to Friedland, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,084,910 to LaRosa; U.S. Pat. No. 4,140,409 to DeVries; U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,013 to Kaufman; U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,574 to Redmond, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,400 to Hoyt, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 7,121,409 to Hamilton, et al.; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2005/0047846 to Narang, et al.; and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2006/0283727 to Nelson, et al.
These disposable applicators provide advantages in dispensing and are generally considered to be economical for dispensing small quantities of liquids such as, for example, hand sanitizer and then discarded after a single use. However, these applicators have not gained acceptance for dispensing and applying relatively larger volumes of medical liquids, particularly surgical prep solutions. One problem with these disposable applicators is they are designed for dispensing small quantities of liquids. Typical amounts of liquid are less than 0.5 milliliters. These current conventional designs are configured to be grasped between two or three fingers. Some of the current conventional designs also disclose a swab, felt or foam applicator tip to aid in application of the dispensed liquid.
While some of the current, conventional designs indicate they can be provided in various sizes, scaling up these designs to handle relatively larger volumes of liquids such as, for example, surgical prep solutions would be unsatisfactory. For example, finger griping would become problematic with a larger article both because of the awkwardness of holding the larger applicator with the fingers and the increased weight of the larger quantity of liquid. These large volumes of liquids may gush or over-saturate an applicator head causing waste or difficulty in accurately dispensing and applying a uniform quantity of liquid. Larger foam or swab applicator heads can become distorted and compressed during the folding typically needed to activate the dispenser. Distorted or compressed applicator heads may reduce the amount of liquid dispensing, reduce the control over the rate and uniformity of liquid dispensing and have a negative impact on liquid distribution. A larger card will also make it more difficult to fold the article to activate and initiate dispensing with one hand.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need for a medical liquid applicator system that holds relatively larger quantities of liquids, including but not limited to surgical prep solutions, than conventional disposable folding card-type applicators and yet is so inexpensive that it can be discarded after only a single use. There is also an unmet need for a medical liquid applicator system that holds relatively larger quantities of liquids than conventional disposable folding card-type applicators that is also easy to activate with one hand and that is also able to accurately and conveniently dispense liquids. Moreover, there is an unmet need for an applicator head assembly for use with such a medical liquid applicator system that enhances fluid flow and provides more uniform distribution of liquid. | {
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Shower door assemblies typically include a header coupled between fixed portions of a shower enclosure or a portion of a building structure (e.g., a wall, a ceiling, a joist, a door frame, etc.). The header may include an internal track for receiving a door assembly. The door assembly may include a door panel and one or more rollers, such as bearing wheels or the like, for rolling engagement with the internal track of the header. Typically, the door assembly is installed in the header with the roller(s) in rolling engagement with the internal track. The door is configured to move relative to the header along the track between an open position and a closed position to allow a user to enter and exit the shower enclosure. However, with traditional shower door assemblies, when a shower door is moved between an open and a closed position, the door may sometimes move or jump in a vertical direction from the track (e.g., due to an obstruction or an object in the path of the door), thereby causing the door to derail from the track.
Some shower door assemblies include features integrated within the header for preventing the shower door from jumping and derailing from the track. However, these integrated features make it difficult to install the shower door onto the header track because the features are typically fixed at a position directly above the track and door. Furthermore, the clearance or gap between these features and the track is typically large to allow for installation of the door onto the track, which can permit an undesirable amount of vertical movement (e.g., jumping) of the door when the door is moved along the track.
It would be advantageous to provide an improved shower door assembly that includes features intended to prevent derailing of a shower door from its track. These and other advantageous features will be apparent to those reviewing the present disclosure. | {
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This invention relates to a hydrogel-forming system with hydrophobic and hydrophilic components which forms a hydrogel with a crosslinked polymer network structure.
Up until recently, hydrogels have been based only on hydrophilic components. The need for a new class of hydrogels having both hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments has been highlighted by the increasingly available new therapeutic proteins, peptides and oligonucleotides that are mainly of a hydrophobic nature because it is difficult to homogeneously disperse hydrophobic drugs or hydrophobic bioactive molecules within a totally hydrophilic polymer hydrogel to achieve predictable drug release profiles. Moreover, apart from the need to more effectively handle hydrophobic drugs, hydrogels with hydrophobic and hydrophilic components have the advantages over totally hydrophilic-based hydrogels in maintaining structural integrity for relatively longer periods of time and in mechanical strength.
Despite the need for and advantages of hydrogels having both hydrophilic and hydrophobic components, there are only a few reported studies on these. All these studies rely on either synthesis of copolymers from appropriate monomers without crosslinking or rely on the physical blending of hydrophobic and hydrophilic polymers. The synthesis of copolymer involved copolymerization of polylactide oligomer and polyethylene glycol and did not provide a hydrogel with a crosslinked polymer network or hydrophobic property. The method of physical blending has the major flaw of poor integration between hydrophilic and hydrophobic components, i.e., lack of uniformity throughout the composition.
The invention herein provides a hydrogel with both hydrophobic and hydrophilic components without relying on the copolymer approach or physical blending but instead relies on hydrophobic and hydrophilic components which are convertible into a one phase crosslinked polymer network structure by free radical polymerization.
In one embodiment herein the invention is directed to a hydrogel-forming system which comprises from 0.01 to 99.99% by weight of (A) a hydrophobic macromer with unsaturated group, e.g., vinyl group, terminated ends and from 99.99 to 0.01% by weight of (B) a hydrophilic polymer which is a polysaccharide containing hydroxyl groups which are reacted with unsaturated group, e.g., vinyl group, introducing compound; wherein the total of the percentages of (A) and (B) is 100%.
Preferably, the hydrophobic macromer is biodegradable and very preferably is prepared by reacting diol obtained by converting hydroxy of terminal carboxylic acid group of poly(lactic acid) to aminoethanol group, with unsaturated group introducing compound.
Preferably, the hydrophilic polymer is dextran wherein one or more hydroxyls in a glucose unit of the dextran is (are) reacted with unsaturated group introducing compound.
In one case, the hydrophilic polymer can be dextran-maleic acid monoester as described in PCT/US99/18818 which is incorporated herein by reference.
In another embodiment, a hydrogel preferably a biodegradable hydrogel is formed by the free radical polymerization, preferably by photocrosslinking, of the hydrogel-forming system of the embodiment described above, which has a three dimensional crosslinked polymer network structure. In one alternative of this embodiment, a drug of weight average molecular weight ranging from 200 to 1,000, as exemplified by indomethacin, is entrapped in the three dimensional crosslinked polymer network for controlled release therefrom. In another alternative of this embodiment, a water soluble macromolecule of weight average molecular weight ranging from 1,000 to 10,000, e.g., a polypeptide, as exemplified by insulin, is entrapped in the three dimensional crosslinked polymer network for controlled release therefrom. In still another alternative of this embodiment, a synthetic or natural polymer, e.g., of weight average molecular weight ranging from 10,000 to 100,000, is entrapped in the three dimensional crosslinked polymer network for controlled release therefrom.
The term xe2x80x9chydrogelxe2x80x9d is used herein to mean a polymeric material which exhibits the ability to swell in water and to retain a significant portion of water within its structure without dissolving.
A biodegradable hydrogel herein is a hydrogel formed from a hydrogel forming system containing at least one biodegradable component, i.e., component which is degraded by water and/or by enzymes found in nature.
The term xe2x80x9ccrosslinked polymer network structurexe2x80x9d is used herein to mean an interconnected structure where crosslinks are formed between hydrophobic molecules, between hydrophilic molecules and between hydrophobic molecules and hydrophilic molecules.
The term xe2x80x9cphotocrosslinkingxe2x80x9d is used herein to mean causing vinyl bonds to break and form crosslinks by the application of radiant energy.
The term xe2x80x9cmacromerxe2x80x9d is used herein to mean monomer having a weight average molecular weight ranging from 500 to 80,000.
The term xe2x80x9cunsaturated group introducing compoundxe2x80x9d is used herein to mean compound that reacts with hydroxyl group and provides a pendant or end group containing an unsaturated group, e.g., a pendant group with a vinyl group at its end.
The weight average molecular weights herein are determined by gel permeation chromatography.
The number average molecular weights herein are determined by gel permeation chromatography. | {
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Return-oriented programming (ROP) exploits are an increasingly common form of malicious software (malware) that may circumvent certain defenses that mark locations of memory as non-executable. An ROP exploit works by stringing together a large number of existing segments of executable code that each end with a “return” instruction (known as gadgets). Each ROP gadget is typically short, and typically does not correspond to an existing procedure or even an existing instruction boundary in the executable code. The attacker constructs a malicious stack including a series of return addresses pointing to the desired sequence of gadgets. The ROP exploit is performed by causing the processor of the computer to execute software using the malicious stack instead of the legitimate system stack. For example, the malicious stack may be introduced by smashing the stack, using a buffer overflow exploit, pivoting to a new stack, or otherwise corrupting the system stack.
Certain ROP exploits may be prevented by maintaining a “shadow stack” in parallel with the ordinary system stack (also called the “legacy stack”). The shadow stack maintains a copy of the legacy stack in memory inaccessible to ordinary software, and may be used to determine if the legacy stack has been tampered with by malware. The shadow stack may be implemented using binary instrumentation, which introduces a significant performance slowdown for some usages.
Other measures are available to help prevent ROP exploits. For example, “canary” values may be inserted near return addresses in the stack, and may be monitored for changes. As another example, “control transfer terminating instructions” may be inserted into binaries to specifically identify legitimate return targets. However such measures may require recompiling or otherwise modifying guest software. Additionally, certain processor architectures may provide a call stack that is inaccessible to certain software. For example, certain microcontrollers may maintain a call stack that is inaccessible to software. As another example, certain processor architectures may maintain call stack information in a separate memory region from other stack values such as automatic variables. | {
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Diabetes adversely affects the way the body uses sugars and starches which, during digestion, are converted into glucose. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, makes the glucose available to the body's cells for energy. In muscle, adipose (fat) and connective tissues, insulin facilitates the entry of glucose into the cells by an action on the cell membranes. The ingested glucose is normally converted in the liver to CO2 and H2O (50%); to glycogen (5%); and to fat (30-40%), the latter being stored in fat depots. Fatty acids from the adipose tissues are circulated, returned to the liver for re-synthesis of triacylglycerol and metabolized to ketone bodies for utilization by the tissues. The fatty acids are also metabolized by other organs. Fat formation is a major pathway for carbohydrate utilization.
The net effect of insulin is to promote the storage and use of carbohydrates, protein and fat. Insulin deficiency is a common and serious pathologic condition in man. In insulin-dependent (IDDM or Type I) diabetes the pancreas produces little or no insulin, and insulin must be injected daily for the survival of the diabetic. In noninsulin-dependent (NIDDM or Type II) diabetes the pancreas retains the ability to produce insulin and in fact may produce higher than normal amounts of insulin, but the amount of insulin is relatively insufficient, or less than fully effective, due to cellular resistance to insulin.
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a major chronic illness found in humans with many consequences. Some complications arising from long-standing diabetes are blindness, kidney failure, and limb amputations. Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) accounts for 10 to 15% of all cases of diabetes mellitus. The action of IDDM is to cause hyperglycemia (elevated blood glucose concentration) and a tendency towards diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Currently treatment requires chronic administration of insulin. Non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) is marked by hyperglycemia that is not linked with DKA. Sporadic or persistent incidence of hyperglycemia can be controlled by administering insulin. Uncontrolled hyperglycemia can damage the cells of the pancreas which produce insulin (the β-islet cells) and in the long term create greater insulin deficiencies. Currently, oral sulfonylureas and insulin are the only two therapeutic agents available in the United States. for treatment of Diabetes mellitus. Both agents have the potential for producing hypoglycemia as a side effect, reducing the blood glucose concentration to dangerous levels. There is no generally applicable and consistently effective means of maintaining an essentially normal fluctuation in glucose levels in DM. The resultant treatment attempts to minimize the risks of hypoglycemia while keeping the glucose levels below a target value. The drug regimen is combined with control of dietary intake of carbohydrates to keep glucose levels in control.
In either form of diabetes there are widespread abnormalities. In most NIDDM subjects, the fundamental defects to which the abnormalities can be traced are (1) a reduced entry of glucose into various “peripheral” tissues and (2) an increased liberation of glucose into the circulation from the liver. There is therefore an extracellular glucose excess and an intracellular glucose deficiency. There is also a decrease in the entry of amino acids into muscle and an increase in lipolysis. Hyperlipoproteinemia is also a complication of diabetes. The cumulative effect of these diabetes-associated abnormalities is severe blood vessel and nerve damage.
Endocrine secretions of pancreatic islets are regulated by complex control mechanisms driven not only by blood-borne metabolites such as glucose, amino acids, and catecholamines, but also by local paracrine influences. Indeed, pancreatic α- and β-cells are critically dependent on hormonal signals generating cyclic AMP (cAMP) as a synergistic messenger for nutrient-induced hormone release. The major pancreatic islet hormones, glucagon, insulin and somatostatin, interact with specific pancreatic cell types to modulate the secretory response. Although insulin secretion is predominantly controlled by blood glucose levels, somatostatin inhibits glucose-mediated insulin secretion.
The human hormone glucagon is a polypeptide hormone produced in pancreatic A-cells. The hormone belongs to a multi-gene family of structurally related peptides that include secretin, gastric inhibitory peptide, vasoactive intestinal peptide and glicentin. These peptides variously regulate carbohydrate metabolism, gastrointestinal motility and secretory processing. However, the principal recognized actions of pancreatic glucagon are to promote hepatic glycogenolysis and glyconeogenesis, resulting in an elevation of blood sugar levels. In this regard, the actions of glucagon are counter regulatory to those of insulin and may contribute to the hyperglycemia that accompanies Diabetes mellitus (Lund et al. (1982) PNAS, 79:345-349).
Preproglucagon, the zymogen form of glucagon, is translated from a 360 base pair gene and is processed to form proglucagon (Lund, et al., supra). Patzelt, et al. (Nature, 282:260-266 (1979)) demonstrated that proglucagon is further processed into glucagon and a second peptide. Later experiments demonstrated that proglucagon is cleaved carboxyl to Lys-Arg or Arg-Arg residues (Lund et al., supra; and Bell et al. (1983) Nature 302:716-718). Bell et al. also discovered that proglucagon contained three discrete and highly homologous peptide regions which were designated glucagon, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), and glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2). OLP-1 has attracted increasing attention as a humoral stimulus of insulin secretion. In humans, this 29-amino acid peptide, cleaved from proglucagon by cells of the intestinal mucosa, is released into the circulation after nutrient intake (Holst et al. (1987) FEBS Lett 211:169; Orskov et al. (1987) Diabetologia 30:874; Conlon J (1988) Diabetologia 31:563).
GLP-1 has been found to be a glucose-dependent insulinotropic agent (Gutniak et al. (1992) N. Engl. J. Bled. 326:1316-1322). GLP-1 is now known to stimulate insulin secretion (insulinotropic action) causing glucose uptake by cells which decreases serum glucose levels (see, e.g., Mojsov, S., Int. J. Peptide Protein Research, 40:333-343 (1992)). For instance, it has been shown to be a potent insulin secretagogue in experimental models and when infused into humans (Gutniak et al., supra; Mojsov et al. (1988) J Clin Invest 79:616; Schmidt et al. (1985) Diabetologia 28:704; and Kreymann et al. (1987) Lancet 2:1300). Thus, GLP-1 is a candidate for the role of an “incretin”, having augmentary effects on glucose-mediated insulin release.
It is also noted that numerous GLP-1 analogs have been demonstrated which demonstrate insulinotropic action are known in the art. These variants and analogs include, for example, GLP-1(7-36), Gln9-GLP-1(7-37), D-Gln9-GLP-1(7-37), acetyl-Lys9-GLP-1(7-37), Thr16-Lys18-GLP-1(7-37), and Lys18-GLP-1(7-37). Derivatives of GLP-1 include, for example, acid addition salts, carboxylate salts, lower alkyl esters, and amides (see, e.g., WO91/11457). | {
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The invention relates to a gas generator on a pyrotechnical basis for the generation of cooled or cooled and filtered gases, preferably for the use in airbag systems, particularly for the use in side airbag systems.
In the case of airbag systems, gas generators of this kind serve for filling the airbag, which then protects the passenger in a collision. Furthermore, such gas generators can be used for filling other devices that require very short reaction and/or filling times.
The ignition unit of the gas generator is ignited by way of a current pulse and then ignites the pyrotechnical gas generating mixture, which, as a rule, burns off under high pressure and provides the required amount of gas. As the combustion of all pyrotechnical mixtures known so far produces not only high-temperature gases but mostly also solid components, it is necessary to cool or cool and filter the combustion gases.
In order to solve this problem, a large number of cooling and filtering arrangements are known, all of which, however, are arranged axially, radially, or axially and radially. DE 196 17 249, for example, describes an axial and radial arrangement of these cooling and filtering elements. These known arrangements of the cooling and filtering systems show the following disadvantages.
If the cooling and filtering system is arranged axially, only a relatively small flow-through cross-section is available, which results in insufficient cooling and bad filtering. In the case of gas generators with small diameters and accordingly great length, this arrangement is disadvantageous because the required free cross-section for the gas flow becomes very small.
If the cooling and filtering system is arranged radially, the problem arises that if the cooling and filtering system is in direct contact with the inner wall of the gas generator housing it is essentially effective only in the area of the exit port, which results in the known problem as described in DE 196 17 249, i. e., the filter material in the area of the exit ports is highly strained. In extreme cases, the filter material is punched or hole patterns may occur therein. In such cases, the gas generated in the combustion chamber can almost freely exit the combustion chamber.
In a spaced arrangement of the radial cooling and filtering system, as described according to the invention of DE 196 17 249, a lot of space is needed. This disadvantage increases as the diameter of the generator decreases, which mandates an increase in the corresponding length.
However, particularly in the case of gas generators for side airbag systems, tubular gas generators of small diameter and correspondingly high length are preferred for reasons of installation.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to achieve a cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, which enables the design of a gas generator that avoids the aforementioned disadvantages and offers an optimum arrangement of the cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, as regards the space required and the mode of operation.
This object is achieved according to the invention in a surprisingly simple manner in that the cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, tapers, in particular conically, in the discharge direction. Thus, the inner space of the gas generator is separated into two chambers, the combustion chamber containing the gas generating mixture, which is usually present in the form of tablets, but can also be present in the form of granules or the like, and the outflow chamber serving as cooling-off zone for the combustion gases. In the outflow chamber, other deflagration products can be filtered and condensed, too.
The cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, arrangement which, according to the invention, tapers in the discharge direction, in particular conically, the larger cross-section being on the side of the ignitor and the smaller cross-section being on the side of the exit port, serves for achieving that with increasing gas flow in the direction of the exit port, wherein the cooling-off zone gets larger and thus a correspondingly larger outflow chamber is available for the increasing mass flow. Thus, a more constant strain on the cooling system or cooling and filtering system is achieved, too. The cross-section may have a circular, elliptical, square or polygonal shape.
Optionally, the cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, may have 2 or more elements on its outer side that maintain a defined distance and a centered arrangement relative to the inner wall of the gas generator.
Whether only a cooling system or a cooling and filtering system is to be used for the, particularly conical, arrangement according to the invention, which tapers in the discharge direction, depends on the type of the gas generating mixture and the requirement with regard to the admissible amount of particles.
Preferably, the cooling system consists of a grid, a perforated plate, a texture or a sintered material. Depending on the porosity of these materials, apart from the cooling effect, a certain filtering effect is achieved. A further reduction of the particles from the gas flow takes place in the outflow chamber between the cooling system and the inner wall of the generator because particles deposit on the inner wall of the generator, and liquid combustion products that may be present condense on the inner wall of the generator. These effects are supported by the, particularly conical, cooling system, which according to the invention, tapers in the discharge direction. Thus, it is achieved that, with increasing mass flow of the combustion gases in the direction of the exit ports, the flow rate will not increase correspondingly because the increasingly free cross-section in the direction of the exit ports reduces the flow rate.
The cooling and filtering system is either formed by using materials such as grids, perforated plates or texture with small pore size, or sandwich arrangements and multi-layered structures may be employed. Sandwich arrangements of this kind consist of several layers of the same or different materials with the same or different pore sizes. In one embodiment, the cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, has a multi-layered design with a coarse-pored structure (e.g. aperture blind) on the inside and a fine-pored structure (e.g., texture) on the outside. In another embodiment, the cooling system, or cooling and filtering system, comprises a multi-layered design with a fine-pored structure on the inside and a coarse-pored structure on the outside. Here, the term xe2x80x9cinsidexe2x80x9d designates the area facing the combustion chamber. The term xe2x80x9coutsidexe2x80x9d designates the area facing the inner wall of the gas generator.
All of the above described advantages of the, particularly conical, arrangement which, according to the invention, tapers in the discharge direction apply, of course, to cooling and filtering systems in sandwich designs of this kind. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a beam reshaping unit for an illumination system of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus. Such apparatuses are used to produce large-scale integrated circuits and other micro-structured components.
2. Description of Related Art
In the production of micro-structured components, a plurality of structured layers is applied to a suitable substrate, which can be, for example, a silicon wafer. To structure the layers, these are first covered with a photosensitive resist which is sensitive to light of a particular wavelength range, e.g. light in the deep ultraviolet spectral range (DUV, deep ultraviolet). The wafer coated in this way is then exposed to light in a projection exposure apparatus. Such an apparatus comprises an illumination system and a projection lens. The illumination system illuminates a mask that contains a pattern of structures to be imaged onto the resist with the aid of a projection lens. Since the magnification is generally less than 1, such projection lenses are often referred to as reduction lenses.
After the resist has been developed, the wafer is subjected to an etching or separating process. As a result of this process the top layer is structured according to the pattern on the mask. The remaining resist is then removed from the remaining parts of the layer. This process is repeated until all layers are applied to the wafer.
The efficiency of the projection exposure apparatuses is not only determined by the imaging properties of the projection lens but also by the properties of the illumination system that illuminates the mask. The illumination system contains a light source, e.g. a pulsed laser, and a plurality of optical elements which generate a projection light bundle having the desired properties. Amongst other things, these properties include the angular distribution of the light rays which form the projection light bundle.
Generally at the fore here is the angular distribution of the projection light in the plane into which the mask is introduced during the exposure. If the angular distribution of projection light is specifically adapted to the pattern contained in the mask, this pattern can be imaged with improved image quality onto the wafer covered with the photosensitive resist.
The angular distribution of projection light in the mask plane is often not described as such, but as an intensity distribution in a conjugate pupil plane. This exploits the fact that angles formed between the optical axis and light rays passing a field plane correspond to radial distances at which the respective light rays pass a pupil plane. In a so-called conventional illumination setting, for example, the region illuminated in such a pupil plane is a circular disc which is concentric with the optical axis. At each point in the field plane, light rays therefore impinge with angles of incidence between 0° and a maximum angle determined by the radius of the circular disc.
In so-called non-conventional illumination settings, e.g. ring field, dipole or quadrupole illuminations, the region illuminated in the pupil plane has the shape of a ring which is concentric with the optical axis, or a plurality of separate areas arranged off the optical axis. In these non-conventional illumination settings, only oblique rays illuminate the mask.
To generate an angular distribution of projection light that is optimally adapted to the mask, an optical raster element is generally used, which can be for example a diffractive optical element (DOE) or a microlens array. Further examples of such raster elements are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,443 assigned to the applicant. When changing between different illumination settings, e.g. from a conventional setting to a quadrupole setting, it is generally necessary to change the optical raster element. For fine tuning the angular distribution of illumination, and also to generate annular illumination settings, known illumination systems generally have a zoom axicon objective having an object plane in which the first optical raster element is arranged.
An example of such an illumination system having a zoom axicon objective is described in EP 747 772 A. The zoom axicon objective combines a zoom function for the continuously variable adjustment of the diameter of a light distribution and an axicon function for the radial redistribution of light intensities. The axicon system comprises two mutually axially displaceable axicon elements having mutually facing conical axicon surfaces which can be moved towards one another until they are at zero spacing. By adjusting the zoom axicon objective, it is possible to set different annular intensity distributions in an exit pupil of the zoom axicon objective and, in conventional illumination settings, different degrees of coherence. A second optical raster element, which is located in the exit pupil of the zoom axicon objective, is illuminated with the light distribution, which is generated by the first optical raster segment and the zoom axicon objective, and produces an illuminated field in the mask plane.
Other illumination systems having axicon systems for the radial redistribution of light energy are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,675,401, 6,377,336 and 6,452,662 assigned to the applicant.
Common to the known axicon systems is the fact that, although the illuminated regions in the pupil plane have the desired geometries, the light intensity distributions within these regions are not satisfactory. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for entering an existing special mode of an electric device, more particularly, it relates to a method for entering a special mode of an electric device, such as a test mode that is not known to the user, by combining function keys without any codes of a special transmitter, and for preventing the accidental entering of the test mode due to noise when the user selects a function while they are using the electric device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, electric devices include special modes, such as a test mode that users generally do not know. The special mode is also known as a manufacturer adjusting mode.
In fabricating the electric devices, operators enter the respective test mode using a special transmitter and codes thereof, to check and adjust the electric devices before sending out. When the electric devices are damaged or operation failure occurs after sending out, the test mode needs to be entered again. The service technician must then try to enter the test mode or other special modes to check and repair the electric device. At this time, the special transmitter and codes thereof are required again.
However, for example, in order for a user to select a function of a TV while they are watching the TV, they send codes corresponding to the desired function through a transmitter, such as a remote controller, that has been provided with the purchase of the TV. At this time, the codes may be sent together with noise. When the noise is provided together with the codes through the remote controller, the TV may be occasionally and mistakenly set in a test mode.
In other words, special codes corresponding to a test mode are inputted into a receiver of an electric device, such as a TV receiver, through a special transmitter that has not been provided to the user with the purchase of the TV. Then, a microprocessor in the TV reads the special codes and enters the test mode. According to the test mode, the microprocessor checks and adjusts functions of the TV and displays the results of the test mode on a screen of the TV.
The conventional method for entering the test mode suffers from several disadvantages. First, the service technician should have the special transmitter for entering the test mode when he tries to test the electric device. In addition, when noise is transmitted together with the function codes through the user's remote controller, the electric device may be mistakenly set in the test mode. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector having a better flatness.
2. Description of Related Art
A great variety of connectors are used for data transmission, data storage, or image display in electronic products, such as from the early general application of ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) to SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) or the more recent SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). For many emerging applications that require high speed data transmission, serial technology can solve the performance bottleneck problem of traditional parallel technology, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is developed from parallel SCSI based on serial technology, and except the advantages of a higher signal transmission rate, the SAS interface also can be compatible with the SATA driver and has a smaller profile than the SCSI transmission interface.
SAS connector is mainly used for high-speed serial signal transmission and power supply, and usually with an enhanced design, to achieve a higher reliability in the compact storage applications. As the SAS connector has a smaller profile, while the SAS connector having a right angle profile with a larger number of contacts, the flatness of solder tails of contacts for surface mounting to the printed circuit board is difficult to be guaranteed.
Hence, it is desired to provide an electrical connector to overcome the problems mentioned above. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to seals for double action piston pumps of both high and low pressure types.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various sealing means, including resilient sealing members positioned annularly about pistons moveable in cylinders are known. Examples of sealing means are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,296,944; 3,464,323; 3,563,557; 3,605,553; and 3,901,416. | {
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Coupling devices are known for transferring fluids from a storage tank into a mobile tank or other container such as found on an automobile, bus, truck, aircraft, etc. For certain fluids, for example, cryogenic fluids (e.g., liquid nitrogen, liquid argon, liquid oxygen), the coupling must be robust and able to withstand particularly difficult fueling environments (e.g., it must prevent coupling freeze-up). It is also important that the coupling prevent spills and have dimensions which minimize the clearance necessary for coupling the nozzle to the receptacle. It is further important that the coupling have ease of operation for various skill levels of operators, and be ergonomically friendly.
Certain nozzles and receptacles are known which substantially satisfy these demands and provide easy coupling and uncoupling of the nozzle from the receptacle. For example, a series of coupling devices available from the assignee of the present invention for liquid natural gas (LNG) applications include a valved nozzle and valved receptacle which are releasably interconnected by a locking collar, and have interface sealing surfaces to prevent fluid leakage. The nozzle interface sealing surface is arranged on a carrier that is axially slideable relative to the nozzle housing. The carrier also provides a valve seat for the nozzle valve. An actuator lever on the nozzle moves both the nozzle valve poppet toward and away from the nozzle valve seat as well as the nozzle interface sealing surface toward and away from the receptacle interface sealing surface. The interface sealing surfaces are brought together before the receptacle and nozzles valves are opened during connect, and are maintained together until after the valves are closed for disconnect. Any fluid trapped between the closed valves and the interface sealing surfaces is vented before disconnect as the actuator lever is moved to a disconnect position.
In such prior coupling, the receptacle includes an annular flange with radially-outward projecting lugs which are received in appropriately-spaced slots in the locking collar at the front end of the nozzle. When the locking collar is rotated, the lugs are engaged by the locking collar to retain the nozzle on the receptacle. It is also known to provide helical slots along the nozzle, which receive radially-outward projecting pins on the receptacle. Rotation of the locking collar on the nozzle (or of the nozzle itself in some designs) pulls the nozzle toward the receptacle for secure attachment. The open end of the nozzle internally receives the end of the receptacle.
Such a coupling device has received widespread acceptance in the marketplace. Nevertheless, the above described coupling device has a number of components which are fairly complicated, and require significant time and effort to manufacture and assemble, as well as to rebuild during normal repair and maintenance. The components are also fairly complicated to manufacture and assemble. In addition, while the interface seals of this coupling device are field-serviceable, it is believed there is a demand for improved interface seal design which is more reliable and does not require as frequent servicing and maintenance. It is therefore believed there is a demand in the industry for a further improved coupling device, particularly for fluids such as cryogenic fluids, which overcomes at least some of these drawbacks, and which retains many of the features and advantages of assignee's prior coupling designs. In addition, it is also believed there is a demand for different coupling structures to securely couple the nozzle to the receptacle, and which allow venting of the coupling before full disconnect. | {
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1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a fabrication method for a semiconductor device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of fabricating a metal interconnect structure having an outer air spacer between metal interconnects, applicable to multilevel interconnect technologies.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to build an integrated circuit, it is necessary to fabricate many active devices on a single substrate. Initially, each of the devices must be electrically isolated from the others, and specific devices must subsequently be interconnected in the fabrication sequence so as to implement the desired circuit function, such as processing data in a microprocessor.
The data processing capability of the microprocessor has been extended to respond to more powerful and sophisticated program software, while such extension inevitably requires an increase in the operation speed of a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) device. The operation speed of the MOS device is increased by creating an environment having a low dielectric constant between adjacent metal interconnects in a multi-level interconnect structure, while such environment is essential for reducing a cross-talk error and a capacitance between the metal interconnects. Since air was known to have a very low dielectric constant (about 1), an optimal dielectric constant for reduction of cross-talk and adverse capacitive coupling in polysilicon and metal interconnect, an air gap structure formed between the metal interconnects has been adopted in most interconnect process. As a result, the circuit speed is improved and logical cross-talk errors are avoided. FIGS. 1A and 1B are schematic, cross-sectional diagrams illustrating a conventional method of fabricating the air gap structure.
Referring to FIG. 1A, a dielectric layer 100 is provided above a device layer (not shown), wherein the dielectric layer 100 has metal plugs 102 formed therein. Metal lines 104 are formed on the dielectric layer 100 to cover the metal plugs 102. As a result, the metal lines 104 are not in direct contact with the metal layer (not shown) below the dielectric layer 100, except through the metal plugs 102 in order to prevent an electrical short.
Referring to FIG. 1B, an inter-metal dielectric (IMD) layer 106 is formed to cover the metal lines 104 and the dielectric layer 100 by a method, such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The IMD layer is usually made of material, such as silicon dioxide, due to its low dielectric constant (about 3.9). According to the method taught by such prior art, one skilled in the art would expect to form a void or air gap 108 between two adjacent metal lines 104, as shown in FIG. 1B. However, the air gap 108 formed as such, does not effectively reduce the dielectric constant between the metal lines 104. Moreover, the air gap 108 can only be formed between metal lines 104 that are in a denser distribution. Therefore, other materials, such as hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) which provides a lower dielectric constant (about 2.9-3.0) and offers a better topographical planarity is needed to reduce the dielectric constant between the metal lines 104 in a metal interconnect structure.
However, when HSQ is applied to interconnect technology, particularly for gap filling, it was found that its dielectric constant may become undesirably high as a result of subsequent processing. For example, after the deposition of the silicon oxide layer by PECVD, the dielectric constant of the deposited HSQ layer undesirably increased from about 2.9 to about 3.6. This rise in dielectric constant is believed to be a result of the oxidation of the top surface of the HSQ due to exposure to an oxygen-containing ambient at an elevated temperature. The undesirable increase in the dielectric constant of the HSQ layer adversely impacts the intra-metal capacitance and, therefore circuit speed. | {
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Joint replacement surgery seeks to replace portions of a joint with prosthetic components so as to provide long-lasting function and pain-free mobility.
For example, in the case of a prosthetic total hip joint, the head of the femur is replaced with a prosthetic femoral stem component, and the socket of the acetabulum is replaced by a prosthetic acetabular cup component, whereby to provide a prosthetic total hip joint.
In the case of a prosthetic total knee joint, the top of the tibia is replaced by a prosthetic tibial component, and the bottom of the femur is replaced by a prosthetic femoral component, whereby to provide a prosthetic total knee joint.
The present invention is directed to orthopedic prostheses for restoring the hip joint and, more particularly, to improved prosthetic femoral stem components.
Prosthetic femoral stem components typically comprise a proximal section for seating in the proximal section of the resected femur and presenting a ball for seating in the acetabular socket, and a distal section for seating in the femur's medullary canal so as to extend along the shaft of the femur.
It is, of course, important that the prosthetic femoral stem component make a proper fit with the surrounding bone. To this end, prosthetic femoral stem components are typically offered in ranges of different sizes in an effort to accommodate variations in patient anatomy. However, despite this, it has been found that it can be difficult to provide the correct prosthetic femoral stem component for patients. This is due to the wide variation in patient anatomies and to the practical limitations of hospital inventory. By way of example, where a femoral component is selected having a proximal section appropriately sized for the proximal section of the resected femur, the distal section of the prosthesis may not be appropriately sized for proper seating in the distal section of the femur. This can present serious problems for the patient, including problems relating to joint stability and pain.
On account of the foregoing, there has been substantial interest in forming prosthetic femoral stem components out of a plurality of separate elements, wherein each of the elements may be independently selected so as to most closely approximate patient anatomy, and wherein the separate elements may be assembled to one another in situ, using modular connections, so as to provide the best possible prosthetic femoral stem component for the patient.
Once deployed in the patient's body, the prosthetic femoral stem component, and hence the modular connections securing the separate elements to one another, are subjected to axial, bending and torsional loads. While different types of modular connections are known in the art, no one modular connection is ideal for dealing with all three types of loads, i.e., axial, bending and torsional loads. By way of example, taper connections generally accommodate axial (i.e., compressive) loads well, but they generally do not accommodate bending and torsional loads particularly well. By way of further example, concentric cylinder connections generally accommodate bending loads well, but they generally do not accommodate axial and torsional loads particularly well. | {
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This invention relates generally to displaying an image of an object, and particularly to modifying the image based on a device orientation.
Images of objects are typically displayed to a user as an unmoving, static photo. When different views of an object are provided by an image, a user typically selects to move individually from one image to another image to see the different views, either by specifically selecting an image from a gallery or by sequentially progressing through a set of images. This makes it difficult for a user to see views of an object between the views provided by the images. Similarly, the person taking the images cannot adequately display the various aspects of the object to a user. | {
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Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) play an essential role in fighting cells infected with viruses, intracellular bacteria and parasites, and tumor cells. They do so by direct cytotoxicity and by providing specific and nonspecific help to other immunocytes such as macrophages, B cells, and other T cells. Infected cells or tumor cells process antigen through intracellular events involving proteases. The processed antigen is presented on the cellular surface in the form of peptides bound to HLA class I molecules to T cell receptors on CTLs. MHC class I molecules can also bind exogenous peptides and present them to CTLs without intracellular processing.
At the present time it is difficult to accurately predict from the sequence of an antigenic protein how the protein will be processed and which peptide portions will bind HLA class I molecules and be presented to CTLs. Binding motifs have been predicted for some HLA class I molecules based on sequence analysis of peptides eluted from these molecules (Falk et al., Nature 351:290 (1991)). Further, of the peptides that are processed and do bind to HLA class I, which ones will contain CTL-recognizable epitopes is not yet predictable.
Hepatitis B Virus (xe2x80x9cHBVxe2x80x9d) is a non-lytic virus which has currently infected approximately 250 million people worldwide. HBV infection in adults typically leads to an acute disease in the majority of cases, and to a chronic disease state in a minority of patients. This ratio of acute to chronic is reversed when the infection occurs close to the time of birth. There is an increased incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic HBV infection. A small percentage of individuals who are infected with HBV in adulthood develop fulminant hepatitis associated with a strong immune response with high lethality.
While there is no effective treatment for HBV infection, vaccines have been developed in recent years to prevent HBV infection. The vaccines employ either HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) purified from the plasma of chronic HBV carriers, or HBsAg produced by recombinant DNA technology. Synthetic HBsAg peptide-based vaccines have also been proposed. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,599,230 and 4,599,231. The anti-HBsAg vaccines, however, afford protection in only about 90% of immunized individuals. Those who are unimmunized, or immunized but unprotected, provide a significant reservoir of potential infection.
The contribution of CTLs to immunity to HBV antigens has been difficult to assess. Chisari et al. (Microbial Pathogen. 6:31 (1989)) have suggested that liver cell injury may be mediated by an HLA-Class I restricted, CD8+ cytotoxic T cell response to HBV encoded antigens. Class I major histocompatibility (MHC)-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses have been identified for a variety of other viruses, such as influenza. For example, Townsend et al., Cell 44:959 (1986) reported that epitopes of an influenza virus nucleoprotein recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes could be defined by synthetic peptides. In attempting to define the cytotoxic T lymphocyte response to HBV, it has been shown that peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with acute and chronic HBV may be able to kill autologous hepatocytes in vitro, but the specificity of the cytolytic activity, its HLA restriction elements, and cellular phenotype were not established. See, Mondelli et al., J. Immunol. 129:2773 (1982) and Mondelli et al., Clin. Exp. Immunol. 6:311 (1987). Moriyama et al., Science 248:361-364 (1990), have reported that the HBV major envelope antigen is expressed at the hepatocyte surface in a form recognizable by envelope-specific antibodies and by MHC class I-restricted, CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes.
As there is a large reservoir of individuals chronically infected with HBV, it would be desirable to stimulate the immune response of these individuals to respond to appropriate HBV antigens and thereby eliminate their infection. It would also be desirable to prevent the evolution to a chronic HBV infection in individuals suffering from an acute phase infection. Further, as the presently approved HBV vaccines do not elicit protective immunity in about 10% of immunized individuals, it would be desirable to elicit more effective immunity, such as by increasing or diversifying the immunogenicity of the vaccines. Quite surprisingly, the present invention fulfills these and other related needs.
The present invention provides peptides which induce MHC class I restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses against HBV antigen. The peptides of interest are derived from the sequence of the HBV polymerase protein. In certain embodiments the CTL inducing peptide will have the sequence of HBpol4-13 (Ser-Tyr-Gln-His-Phe-Arg-Lys-Leu-Leu-Leu) [Seq ID No. 12]; HBpol61-69 (Gly-Leu-Tyr-Ser-Ser-Thr-Val-Pro-Val) [Seq ID No. 1]; HBpol108-116 (Arg-Leu-Lys-Leu-Ile-Met-Pro-Ala-Arg) [Seq ID No. 13]; HBpol139-147 (Val-Val-Asn-His-Tyr-Phe-Gln-Thr-Arg) [Seq ID No. 14]; HBpol151-160 (His-Thr-Leu-Trp-Lys-Ala-Gly-Ile-Leu-Tyr) [Seq ID No. 15]; HBpol152-161 (Thr-Leu-Trp-Lys-Ala-Gly-Ile-Leu-Tyr-Lys) [Seq ID No. 16]; HBpol455-463 (Gly-Leu-Ser-Arg-Tyr-Val-Ala-Arg-Leu) [Seq ID No. 2]; HBpol505-514 (Leu-Tyr-Ser-His-Pro-Ile-Ile-Leu-Gly-Phe) [Seq ID No. 17]; HBpol551-559 (Tyr-Met-Asp-Asp-Val-Val-Leu-Gly-Ala) [Seq ID No. 18]; HBpol575-583 (Phe-Leu-Leu-Ser-Leu-Gly-Ile-His-Leu) [Seq ID No. 19]; HBpol655-663 (Ala-Leu-Met-Pro-Leu-Tyr-Ala-Cys-Ile) [Seq ID No. 20]; HBpol748-757 (Gly-Thr-Asp-Asn-Ser-Val-Val-Leu-Ser-Arg) [Seq ID No. 21]; HBpol758-766 (Lys-Tyr-Thr-Ser-Phe-Pro-Trp-Leu-Leu) [Seq ID No. 22]; HBpol773-782 (Ile-Leu-Arg-Gly-Thr-Ser-Phe-Val-Tyr-Val) [Seq ID No. 3]; HBpol803-811 (Ser-Leu-Tyr-Ala-Asp-Ser-Pro-Ser-Val) [Seq ID No. 4]; and HBpol816-824 (Phe-Leu-Leu-Ser-Leu-Gly-Ile-His-Leu) [Seq ID No. 5]; or will have a sequence substantially homologous to one of the foregoing sequences. The peptide can be optionally flanked and/or modified at one or both of the N-and C-termini, as desired. Conservative substitutions, deletions and additions may be made at non-critical residue positions within the selected peptide without substantially adversely affecting its biological activity.
The present invention provides peptides which induce MHC Class I restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses against HBV antigen. The peptides of interest are derived from the HBV nucleocapsid. In certain embodiments the peptides comprises from six to about fifty amino acids and have at least four contiguous amino acids from within the sequence (HBc19-27) Leu-Pro-Ser-Asp-Phe-Phe-Pro-Ser-Val, [SEQ ID NO:68] wherein the peptide can be optionally flanked and/or modified at one or both of the N- and C-termini, as desired. In preferred embodiments the peptide sequences are Ala-Thr-Val-Glu-Leu-Leu-Ser-Phe-Leu-Pro-Ser-Asp-Phe-Phe-Pro-Ser-Val, (HBc11-27) [SEQ ID NO:67], and Leu-Pro-Ser-Asp-Phe-Phe-Pro-Ser-Val (HBc19-27) [SEQ ID NO:68], which regions are conserved among the major subtypes of HBV, although substitutions, deletions and additions may be made to the peptide without substantially adversely affecting its biological activity.
In other embodiments the peptides are from six to about fifty amino acids and have at least four contiguous residues from with the sequence (HBc140-154) Leu-Ser-Thr-Leu-Pro-Glu-Thr-Thr-Val-Val-Arg-Arg-Arg-Gly-Arg [SEQ ID NO:71], wherein the peptide can be optionally flanked and/or modified at one or both of the N- and C-termini, as desired. In other embodiments the peptides are derived from at least seven contiguous amino acids of the sequence of HBc111-125, wherein HBc111-125 for HBV subtype awy has the sequence Gly-Arg-Glu-Thr-Val-Ile-Glu-Tyr-Leu-Val-Ser-Phe-Gly-Val-Trp [SEQ ID NO:70], wherein termini may be also modified as mentioned above. For the HBV subtype adw, the Ile116 is replaced by Leu. In yet another embodiment a peptide which induces a MHC Class I-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte response is peptide (HBc28-47) [SEQ ID NO:72] having the sequence Arg-Asp-Leu-Leu-Asp-Thr-Ala-Ser-Ala-Leu-Tyr-Arg-Glu-Ala-Leu-Glu-Ser-Pro-Glu-His, wherein termini of the selected peptide can also be modified, as desired.
In the various peptide embodiments it will be understood that the peptides can be polymerized, each to itself to form larger homopolymers, or with different peptides to form heteropolymers. In some instances peptides will be combined in a composition as an admixture and will not be linked. The peptide can also be conjugated to a lipid-containing molecules capable of enhancing a T lymphocyte response, or to a different peptide which induces a T-helper cell response, for example.
Compositions are provided which comprise a peptide of the invention formulated with an additional peptide, a liposome, an adjuvant and/or a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. Thus, pharmaceutical compositions can be used in methods of treating acute HBV infection, particularly in an effort to prevent the infection from progressing to a chronic or carrier state. Methods for treating chronic HBV infection and HBV carrier states are also provided, where the pharmaceutical compositions are administered to infected individuals in amounts sufficient to stimulate immunogenically effective cytotoxic T cell responses against HBpol epitopes. For treating these infections it may be particularly desirable to combine the peptides which induce MHC class I restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses against HBV antigen with other peptides or proteins that induce immune response to other HBV antigens, such as HBV envelope or core. To treat individuals with chronic or carrier state infections the compositions may be administered in repeated dosages over a prolonged period of time, as necessary, to resolve or substantially mitigate the infection and/or shedding of virus.
Vaccine compositions for preventing HBV infection, particularly chronic HBV infection, are also provided. The vaccine compositions comprise an immunogenically effective amount of a HBV polymerase peptide mentioned above which induces a MHC class I restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte response, such as HLA-A2, -A1, -A3, A-11, and/or -A24, and will typically further comprise an adjuvant, e.g., incomplete Freund""s adjuvant or aluminum hydroxide. To achieve enhanced protection against HBV, the vaccine can further comprise components which elicit a protective antibody response to other HBV antigen, such as envelope (surface) antigen.
In yet other embodiments the invention relates to methods for diagnosis, where the peptides of the invention are used to determine the presence of lymphocytes in an individual which are capable of a cytotoxic T cell response to HBV polymerase antigen. The absence of such cells determines whether the individual of interest is susceptible to developing chronic HBV infection. Typically the lymphocytes are peripheral blood lymphocytes and the individual of interest is suffering from an acute HBV infection. | {
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The use of semipermeable membranes for effecting liquid separations has become well accepted, and membranes both for ultrafiltration applications and reverse-osmosis applications are presently in use for a wide spectrum of applications, including water purification, concentration of dilute mixtures or solutions, and waste treatment and/or recovery of recyclable components. A large variety of semipermeable membranes have been developed, and spiral-wound cartridges have been one accepted type of device which has been found valuable for efficiently providing a large amount of membrane surface area within a given spatial volume. While such spiral cartridges utilizing sheetlike membranes have proved satisfactory and have given good performance in many applications, improvements in devices of this type are constantly being sought, as no single separation device has yet proven to provide the best performance in every type of situation, particularly when considering the wide variations in feed materials that are encountered. Especially troublesome are liquid feed materials that carry particulate contaminants that tend to frequently plug sheet-like semipermeable membranes and liquid feed mixtures which are high in viscosity.
Accordingly, improvements in the design of such spiral wound membrane cartridges continue to be sought after. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a series of substituted dihydro, trihydro and tetrahydro cycloalkyloxazolopyrimidinones. More specifically, the present invention relates to a series of 2-substituted-di- tri or tetra-hydro-8H-cyclopentaoxazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-8-ones and 2-substituted-di-, tetra-, or hexa-hydro-cyclohexaoxazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-9-ones. This invention also relates to methods of making these compounds. The compounds of this invention are allosteric modulators of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR), particularly, mGluR2. Therefore, the compounds of this invention are useful as pharmaceutical agents, especially in the treatment and/or prevention of a variety of diseases including diseases associated with the central nervous system.
2. Description of the Art
Recently, there has been a considerable amount of research involving L-glutamate, which is the most abundant neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS). More specifically, L-glutamate mediates the major excitatory pathways in mammals, and is therefore referred to as an excitatory amino acid (EAA). Thus the receptors that respond to glutamate are known as excitatory amino acid receptors (EAA receptors). Based on the extensive research performed lately it can be readily discerned that EAAs are of great physiological importance. Particularly, EAAs are known to play a role in several physiological processes including long-term potentiation (learning and memory), the development of synaptic plasticity, motor control, respiration, cardiovascular regulation and sensory perception, just to name a few. See, e.g., Watkins & Evans, Annual Reviews in Pharmacology and Toxicology, 21:165 (1981); Monaghan, Bridges, and Coltman, Annual Reviews in Pharmacology and Toxicology, 29:365 (1989); Watkins, Krogsgaard-Larsen and Honore, Transactions in Pharmaceutical Science, 11:25 (1990).
Broadly, the EAA receptors are classified into two types: 1) “ionotropic”—which are directly coupled to the opening of cation channels in the cell membrane of the neurons; and 2) “metabotropic”—which are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR). The excessive or inappropriate stimulation of EAA receptors leads to neuronal cell damage or loss by way of a mechanism known as excitotoxicity. This process has been suggested to mediate neuronal degeneration in a variety of conditions. Thus there is a renewed interest in developing small molecule new drugs to alleviate these conditions.
The metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR) are a highly heterogeneous family of glutamate receptors that are linked to multiple second-messenger pathways. One function of these receptors is to modulate the presynaptic release of glutamate and the postsynaptic sensitivity of the neuronal cell to glutamate excitation. Thus it has been reported widely in the literature that agonists and antagonists of these receptors are useful in the treatment of a variety of disease conditions including acute and chronic neurodegenerative conditions, psychoses, convulsions, anxiety, depression, migraine, pain, sleep disorders and emesis.
The metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR) are again classified into three groups based on receptor homology and signaling mechanisms. Among them, recent pharmacological and histochemical studies have suggested that the group II mGluR (mGluR2 and mGluR3) plays crucial roles in the control of emotional states. For example, MGS0039, a selective group II mGluR antagonist, has been shown to exhibit dose-dependent antidepressant-like effects in some animal models. See, e.g., Kawashima, et al., Neurosci. Lett., 2005, 378(3):131-4.
Recently, it has also been reported that glutamate/N-methyl-D-aspartate glutamate receptors (NMDAR) are implicated in schizophrenia. This was indeed supported by the observation that administration of NMDAR blockers to human volunteers is psychotomimetic and administration to schizophrenia patients exacerbates pre-existing symptoms. For example, systemic administration of group II mGluR agonists suppress phencyclidine (PCP) induced behavioral effects and the increase in glutamate efflux. It has also been observed that activation of group II mGluRs (mGluR2 and mGluR3) decreases glutamate release from presynaptic nerve terminals, suggesting that group II mGluR agonists may be beneficial in the treatment of schizophrenia. See, e.g., Chavez-Noriega et al., Current Drug Targets—CNS & Neurological Disorders, 2002, 1, 261-281.
Although there is a great deal of interest in developing small molecule drugs that are active at the mGluR sites, the researchers are faced with a lack of potent and selective molecules. In spite of this, there are innumerable reports highlighting the great interest around these potential therapeutic targets. See, e.g., Sabbatini and Micheli, Expert Opin. Ther. Patents (2004) 14(11):1593-1604.
However, there is still a need to develop selective compounds for one subtype over another metabotropic glutamate receptor site. One strategy that has recently emerged involves the discovery of allosteric modulators that do not bind at the glutamate binding site. An allosteric modulator only works if the agonist (glutamate) is present at the orthosteric binding site; thus, an allosteric modulator will only potentiate or block effects produced by the presence of an agonist, but have no activity on its own. Such a strategy is believed to confer greater specificity to desired pharmacological effects because they affect the normal physiological activity of the agonist.
In addition, there is still a considerable interest in developing small molecule “drug like” compounds that exhibit improved potency and modulation of mGluR2 as well as improved brain penetration. There is also an interest in developing modulators of mGluR2 that are devoid of typical side effects exhibited by typical and atypical antipsychotic compounds, such as for example extrapyramidal symptoms including tardive dyskinesia, weight gain, etc. It is also expected that allosteric modulators that exhibit improved subtype selectivity will feature an improved pharmacological safety profile. It is further believed that a selective modulator of mGluR2 will also exhibit efficacy on cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia patients thereby improving working memory and positive symptoms.
All of the references described herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a series of 2-substituted-di- tri or tetra-hydro-8H-cyclopentaoxazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-8-ones and 2-substituted-di-, tetra-, or hexa-hydro-cyclohexaoxazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-9-ones which are potent modulators of mGluR2.
It is also an object of this invention to provide processes for the preparation of the substituted dihydro and tetrahydro oxazolopyrimidinones as disclosed herein.
Other objects and further scope of the applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description that follows. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a linear light source, and more particularly, to a linear light source having a light guide bar with a sloped and notched light emitting surface and an external reflective housing, which enhances uniformity of beaming light within the beaming light's effective focal range in addition to the overall improvements on light intensity and uniformity.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Scanners, facsimile machines and multifunction peripherals are popularly used in daily life. This type of equipment generally utilizes a linear light source to illuminate the target. Imaging quality of the scanned target is greatly related to the performance of the light source. If the intensity or uniformity of the light source is patchy, the output picture will not be accurate. Under certain circumstances, if the scanned target is not in a fixed focal range and exceeds the effective focal range tolerance of the light source, the output picture will be indistinct. Hence, the light source of the present invention with the overall intensity and uniformity improvements and in particular the uniformity of beaming light within beaming light's effective focal range enhancement has been developed.
Conventional linear light sources are generally cylindrical, square or rectangular. These designs are easier to be molded or fabricated, but the efficiency of light propagation in terms of diffusion and scattering or uniformity control is limited. As a result, many different inventions have been disclosed to resolve these problems. For giving consideration to linear light source designs having a symmetrical polygonal cylinder, the applicant has previously developed a linear light source having a reflecting plane. As shown in FIG. 1, the light source comprises a light guide bar 40′ and a light source component 50′. The light guide bar 40′ is a polygonal cylinder, and includes an arced emission plane 42′, a reflecting plane 44′ corresponding to the arced emission plane 42′, an incidence plane 46′ and a plurality of reflecting sides 48′. With this kind of design, the light guide bar 40′ can yield uniformed light with the reflecting plane 44′ after directing the light from the light emitting diode on the light source component 50′. Also, the condensing effect of the arced emission plane 42′ can lead to better light output and enhance the image detecting quality.
The above-mentioned prior art utilizes the plane treatment of the light guide bar to improve the light uniformity, and changes the structure of the light guide bar to improve the condensing effect and light intensity. Although the prior art provides acceptable results, greater improvements are still sought after to optimize the energy conservation, improve the intensity and uniformity of the emitted light, and enhance the uniformity of beaming light within beaming light's effective focal range. Hence, the present invention discloses a linear light source having a sloped and notched light-emitting surface and an external reflective housing which enhances uniformity of beaming light within the beaming light's effective focal range. The reflecting housing with reflecting flange efficiently guides the light and reduces the energy loss with repetitive diffusion and scattering, thus further enhancing the light intensity. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to a stacking device, and more particularly, to a stacking device for stacking sheet material. The present invention is particularly applicable in stacking cut-to-length sheets from a generally continuous source, and shall be described with particular reference thereto. It will, of course, be appreciated that the present invention has other broader applications and may be used in stacking other types of sheet material.
Many types of sheet material are produced by a process wherein individual sheets are cut from a generally continuous strip or web of material. It is then necessary to stack these xe2x80x9ccut-to-length sheetsxe2x80x9d for packaging and/or shipping. In the process of stacking and/or shipping these xe2x80x9ccut-to-length sheetsxe2x80x9d, it is often desirable to minimize the contact between the sheets and the stacking device so as not to damage the sheets.
The present invention provides a device for stacking sheet material, such as cut-to-length sheets that are cut from a generally continuous source, that minimizes physical handling and gripping of the sheet.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a sheet stacking device, comprised of a sheet support bed comprised of a plurality of side-by-side rollers. Each of the rollers is freely rotatable about a respective roller axis. A support bed drive assembly is provided for moving the sheet support bed in a predetermined direction along a closed path. The path has an upper horizontal run and a lower horizontal ran and is dimensioned such that a gap exists between a leading end and a trailing end of the sheet support bed. The gap moves along the path as the sheet support bed moves along the path. A roller control assembly is provided for selectively controlling rotation of each of the rollers about its respective roller axis. A controller selectively and sequentially controls the operation of the support bed drive assembly and the roller drive assembly. The stacking device is operable to perform the following operational steps:
a) causing the support bed drive assembly to move the sheet support bed to a sheet receiving position on the upper run of the path;
b) causing the roller control assembly to allow the rollers to rotate freely to receive a sheet to be stacked on the support bed;
c) causing the support bed drive assembly to move the sheet support bed at a predetermined speed along the path to move the sheet to a xe2x80x9cstacking positionxe2x80x9d;
d) when the sheet is at the stacking position, causing the roller control assembly to rotate the roller in a predetermined direction at a predetermined speed while the support bed continues to move along the path, wherein the rollers are operable to convey the sheet in a direction opposite the direction of the support bed at a speed wherein the sheet remains essentially stationary at the xe2x80x9cstacking positionxe2x80x9d;
e) continuously driving the sheet support bed along the path and continuously rotating the roller wherein the sheet becomes unsupported as the trailing end of the sheet support bed passes under the sheet and the sheet drops through the gap onto the sheet support bed as it moves along the lower run;
f) causing the rollers along the lower run to rotate at a predetermined speed in a predetermined direction wherein the sheet is conveyed in a direction opposite the direction of the support bed at a speed wherein the sheet remains essentially stationary at a position essentially below the stacking position; and
g) continuously driving the sheet support bed along the path and continuously rotating the roller along the lower run wherein the sheet becomes unsupported as the trailing end of the sheet support bed passes under the sheet and the sheet drops through the gap onto a stacking platform.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sheet stacking device, comprised of a sheet support bed having a first end and a second end. The sheet support bed is comprised of a plurality of side-by-side rollers, each of the rollers being freely rotatable about an associated roller axis. A drive assembly moves the sheet support bed in a predetermined direction along a closed path, the path having a horizontal upper run and a horizontal lower run, and is dimensioned such that a space exists between the first end and the second end of the sheet support bed as the sheet support bed moves along the path. A roller control assembly selectively and sequentially controls rotation of select ones of the rollers at select intervals during a stacking operation, wherein the stacking device is operable to:
receive a sheet to be stacked on the sheet support bed when the support bed is disposed along the upper run;
convey the sheet along the upper run on the support bed to a xe2x80x9cstaking positionxe2x80x9d on the upper run;
cause the roller control assembly to rotate rollers disposed along the upper run in a direction such that the sheet remains essentially in the stacking position as the sheet support bed continues to move along the path, the sheet dropping through the space between the first and the second end of the sheet support bed onto the rollers of the sheet support bed on the lower run when the support bed moves from the upper run to the lower run; and
cause the roller control assembly to rotate rollers disposed along the lower run in a direction such that the sheet remains essentially in the stacking position as the sheet support bed continues to move along the path, the sheet dropping through the space between the first end and the second end of the sheet support bed onto a stack of sheets when the support bed moves from the lower run to the upper run.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of stacking sheet material, comprising the steps of:
a) conveying a sheet to be stacked onto the surface of a sheet support bed, the support bed comprised of a plurality of side-by-side rollers, each of the rollers being rotatable about a respective roller axis, the support bed being movable in a predetermined direction along a closed path having a horizontal upper run and a horizontal lower run, the path dimensioned such that a space exists between distal ends of the support bed, the space moving along the path as the support bed moves along the path;
b) moving the support bed along the path to move the sheet along the upper path run toward a stacking position;
c) causing the rollers along the upper run to rotate when the sheet reaches the stacking position, the roller rotating in a direction such that the sheet remains essentially stationary on the support bed at the stacking position as the support bed continues to move along the path, the sheet falling generally vertically onto the support bed on the lower run when the space moves under the sheet;
d) causing the rollers along the lower run to rotate in a direction such that the sheet falling on the support bed from the upper run remains essentially stationary on the support as the support bed continues to move along the path, the sheet falling from the lower run of the support bed when the space moves under the sheet; and
e) collecting the sheet at a stacking location below the lower run.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a stacking device for stacking sheet material.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a stacking device for stacking xe2x80x9ccut-to-length sheetsxe2x80x9d from a generally continuous source of sheet material.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device as described above having means for detecting defects on a cut-to-length sheet.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a stacking device as described above that diverts cut-to-length sheets with defects from the stacking operation.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a stacking device that minimizes contact with the sheet material to be stacked.
These and other objects and advantages will become apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiments of the invention taken together with the accompanying drawings. | {
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Generally, legacy customer service systems rely upon a toll-free number the user dials to access customer service. However, these systems are plagued with inefficiencies that affect both the user and the organization providing the customer service.
From the user's perspective, there is an unreasonable waste of valuable time. Typically, before the user is able to talk with a qualified customer service agent, there are several frustrating steps. Step one, consists of a time-consuming list of phone menu options, often inapplicable, that sometimes discourage the user from proceeding further. Some menus are so long that users cannot make a selection because they cannot remember all the options provided by the Interactive Voice Response system.
If the user is persistent and manages to overcome Step one, Step two leaves the user waiting online for periods that may extend from minutes to over one hour. During the wait, music interrupted by patience messages and suggestions is often imposed by the system. Unfortunately, such environment generally precludes the user from concentrating on any productive task while waiting. In addition, the user's phone line becomes unavailable for other purposes during the entire waiting period. Step three is pre-empted by a phone ring indicating a forthcoming link to the voice of a customer service agent. In some cases, after a brief evaluation by the customer service agent, the user is directed to a Step four. During Step four the call is transferred to a specialized agent capable of addressing the user's problems. If the transfer is successful, there is a ring, and the user finally has the opportunity to communicate with the specialized agent. If the transfer is not successful, there is a click, and a recording provides the well-known message “if you want to make a call please hang-up and try again.” Eventually, the user is left with two unpleasant choices; namely, give up or start all over again.
From the perspective of the organization that offers the customer service there are numerous inefficiencies: (1) Poor utilization of personnel due to random fluctuations in demand. (2) Wasteful utilization of tool-free lines due to long wait-times. (3) High employee turnover rate due to stress. (4) Poorly qualified agents due to lack of specialization. (5) Inadequate identification of the user's problem prior to contact with the agent, due to the limited capabilities of Interactive Voice Response systems. (6) No effective means for educating and encouraging users to use online knowledge-bases to address their questions. (7) No cost effective means to enhance customer satisfaction.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,782 to Srinivasan discloses a system that prompts the caller to choose between holding or receiving a return call. If the caller chooses a return call, the arrangement prompts the caller for callback time and time-period. The arrangement places an outgoing call to the stored telephone number when the callback time arrives. If the call does not get through, the arrangement repeatedly periodically repeats placing of the outgoing call, until the call gets through or the callback time-period expires. When it places the outgoing call, the arrangement connects the originating end thereof to an ACD agent to handle the call.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,627,884 to Williams also discloses a system that prompts the caller to choose between holding and receiving a return call. If the caller chooses a return call, caller information is automatically taken from the caller on hold, the call disconnected and the call returned at the time when the caller would have been serviced had the caller stayed on hold.
Although Srinivasan and Williams do disclose systems that enable the caller to receive a call-back instead of holding, they do not present the user a selection of available time windows from which the user can choose an opportune time to have a phone session with an agent. As a result such systems do not provide a method for balancing the workload of the agents to operate at maximum efficiency. Furthermore, these systems require a telephone call to be placed by the user. This call generally requires the user to navigate through an elaborate, time consuming, and difficult to use Interactive Voice Response system, which is a very inconvenient method to access a customer service agent.
In summary, legacy customer service operations are well documented to be a source of frustration for users and a major source of unproductive expenditures and concern for those organizations that need to run them (Telephone automation, customer misery—Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Jun. 20, 1999.) The lack of a cost-effective Internet-based system to efficiently schedule customer service phone sessions, limits customer satisfaction, creates a multitude of economic and logistic problems for many institutions, and is becoming a major impediment to improving the relationship between such institutions and their customers. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to a manufacturing method of superconducting ceramic films, and more particularly relates to an improved method of forming superconducting ceramic films having a relatively increased thickness without superconducting property.
The high-temperature ceramic superconductors discovered in the last couple of years are demonstrating potential for a variety of applications. The ceramic materials of this kind exhibit strong anisotoropy. In the crystalline structure of the ceramics, superconducting current tends to flow along the a-axis and the b-axis, i.e. to flow on the (a b) plane, but the current flow along the c-axis is unlikely. For this reason, it is important to align the c-axes of crystals throughout the ceramic material in the direction in which superconducting current would be desired to pass through in use thereof. The alignment of the crystalline axes is an important technique of the formation of ceramic superconductors.
The alignment of crystalline axes is particularly difficult in case of the formation of thin film. When the thickness of the films is of the order of several micrometers, the formation could be carried out by sputtering, electron beam evaporation, MBE or similar methods. When the thickness, however, is desired to be several hundreds micrometers, e.g. for use in power devices such as power storage devices, the axes inevitably fluctuate to a substantial extent. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Nowadays, massive growth in mobile broadband data traffic drives the evolution of the cellular systems to meet the tremendous need for increased capacity. However, the traffic growth will be difficult to address with spectrum currently available for cellular systems, especially for the valuable bands with low propagation loss below 6 GHz. The licensed band is superior, from the quality and availability perspective, but scarce and expensive, especially below 6 GHz. Given the fact that the current amount of unlicensed spectrum is comparable to the amount of licensed spectrum, and the fact that in some regions, more unlicensed spectrum is planned to be allocated, it is natural for operators to look into the potential of utilizing unlicensed spectrum to meet the traffic growth demands.
In 3GPP, studies on supporting LTE in unlicensed spectrum are likely to take place, focusing on low-power nodes. The basic set-up is “licensed-assisted access” (LAA) with carrier aggregation (CA) between licensed and unlicensed carriers. A licensed LTE carrier is used for all mobility, control signaling and parts of the user data, while one or more carriers in unlicensed spectrum are used to boost the user-data performance. For release 13, DL data transmission in unlicensed band is supported and UL is also discussed. When coming to release 14, UL data transmission in unlicensed band will be supported as well. Besides, unlicensed operation is important for NX systems as well, especially standalone deployment with both DL and UL to support enterprise solutions.
The idea of outer loop link adaptation (OLLA) is that estimated CQI is adjusted from reported CQI according to HARQ feedback due to that the estimated CQI may be outdated or inaccurate. In particular, outer-loop CQI adjustment based on block error rate (BLER) is employed to compensate the difference between SINR indicated by CQI and actual SINR. The basic idea is that whenever a NACK is received, the estimated SINR will be reduced by a pre-defined value (delta1), while after a few of continuous ACKs (M) being received, the estimated SINR will be increased by another predefined value (delta2). The value M and delta1 and delta2 depend on the targeted BLER. In fact, there are many versions of OLLA algorithms for a better or different performance.
In cellular systems operation in unlicensed band, there are two steps for accomplishing UL data transmission. First, UL grant transmission from BS allows a UE to know at which resource it should transmit data. Second, the UE transmits UL data in the granted resource. Note that the same UL resource could be allocated to one or more UEs a possible better efficiency when with listen-before-talk (LBT) mechanism.
For the second step for UL data transmission, listen-before-talk is needed at UE side to avoid collision. In other words, UL transmission is subject to listen-before-talk success. FIG. 1 shows an example where the channel clearance assessment (CCA) period (Green part) is used for UE to perform LBT. When channel is being sensed busy in the first UL granted sub-frame, UL data transmission is canceled. Then if a channel is idle in the second sub-frame, UL data is transmitted from UE side. In other words, the UL data transmission may not happen even when UL grant is received at UE side.
FIG. 2 shows an example of evaluation result for LAA-LTE and Wi-Fi coexistence. As shown in FIG. 2, the ratio of cancelled LAA UL is possibly large especially when the offered traffic is high. It means there is a large probability that no UL data transmission occurs even after an UL grant is sent from BS side.
FIG. 3 shows an example scenario in which one DL grant may be issued for a possible DL Transmission at a time duration shortly after the UL grant resource opportunity. In the operation as shown in FIG. 3, an eNB may firstly detect and decode in the first several symbols of granted subframe(s). If CRC identifies an ongoing UL data, the eNB proceeds to receive the rest of the UL data transmission; otherwise, the eNB starts DL LBT procedure to initiate a DL transmission specified by the DL grant.
However, data transmission in the UL grant resource has a high probability that it cannot be transmitted due to the LBT requirement which results in problems for a regular link adaptation. In particular. For UL data transmission in UL grant resource as described above. UE performs listen before talk (LBT) at the beginning of UL grant resource and the data cannot be transmitted if channel clearance and random back-off procedure has not been completed before the granted time duration starts. For DL data transmission in overlapping UL grant and DL grant as described above, the data cannot be transmitted: (1) if the eNB identifies an UL data TRANSMISSION is ongoing; or (2) if the eNB performs LBT and cannot complete the channel clearance detection and backoff procedure before granted opportunity starts.
When the data is not transmitted in the grant resource, the target receiver can't decode data and misunderstand that the channel becomes worse so that the data is lost. According to OLLA algorithm, the eNB will decrease MCS level for DL or UL transmission. Since the MCS decreasing is always more responsive to a TRANSMISSION failure than its increasing step to a TRANSMISSION success and the ‘no transmission’ situation become more often in aforementioned unlicensed spectrum cases, the selected MCS would be always in a low level even when the channel status is good. Thus, the spectrum efficiency is low. | {
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This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-104915, filed Apr. 3, 2001, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a so-called cone beam X-ray computerized tomographic apparatus which scans an object to be examined with a pyramidal X-ray beam to obtain 3-D information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a cone beam scan scheme, an object to be examined is scanned with an X-ray beam emitted from an X-ray tube and trimmed into a pyramidal shape by an X-ray stop. The X-ray beam transmitted through the object is detected by a 2-D array type detector. As an X-ray detector of this type, a detector having an array of a relatively small number of line detectors, typically four line detectors, has become widespread. Recent years, however, have witnessed the advent of an X-ray detector having 32 or more arrays of line detectors by using solid-state detecting elements constituted by combinations of scintillator elements and photodiode elements or solid-state detecting elements made of selenium or the like which directly convert X-rays into electric charges. The 2-D array type detector has the form of the cylinder or the plane.
As a cone beam image reconstruction method, the FeldKamp method is generally used. The FeldKamp method is an approximate reconstruction method based on the fan beam convolution/back projection method. Convolution processing is performed by regarding data as a fan projection data on the premise that the cone angle is relatively small. However, back projection processing is performed along an actual ray.
That is, an image is reconstructed by the following procedure:
(1) assigning Z-axis-dependent weights to projection data;
(2) performing convolution for the data in (1) by using the same reconstruction function as that for a fan beam reconstruction; and
(3) performing back projection with respect to the data in (2) along an actual oblique ray having a cone angle.
In such an image reconstruction method, however, the effective height of a field of view changes depending on the radius of the field of view. This problem will be described in detail below.
FIG. 1 is a side view of a field of view whose radius is set to a relatively long length RLL. FIG. 2 is a side view of a field of view whose radius is set to a relatively short length RSS. A radius R of the field of view is set to a length within which a region to be examined, e.g., the head, lungs, body. Note that the xe2x80x9ceffective heightxe2x80x9d of the field of view is defined by the length of the field of view in the slice direction in which the set radius R is maintained (the length of the field of view in the body axis direction of the object).
In the FeldKamp method, since data projected over one rotation are required, the maximum range in which image reconstruction can be done is limited to a cylindrical shape. In this range, the effective height of the field of view within which the radius R is maintained is limited to WLL when the radius is RLL, as shown in FIG. 3A. When the radius is RSS, the effective height is limited to WSS, as shown in FIG. 3B. In this manner, the effective height of the field of view changes corresponding to the radius to which the field of view is set.
It is an object of the present invention to reduce the dependence of an effective height on the radius of a field view in a cone beam type X-ray computerized tomographic apparatus.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an X-ray computerized tomographic apparatus comprising an X-ray tube device configured to irradiate an object to be examined with a pyramidal X-ray beam, a detector which has a plurality of detecting elements arrayed in a slice direction in which X-rays transmitted through the object are detected, a data extending unit configured to create virtual data corresponding to an extension region located outside a region in which the detecting elements are arranged in the slice direction on the basis of real data detected by the detecting element, and a reconstructing unit configured to reconstruct image data on the basis of the real data and virtual data.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, there is provided An X-ray computerized tomographic apparatus comprising an X-ray tube device configured to irradiate an object to be examined with a pyramidal X-ray beam, a detector which has a plurality of detecting elements arrayed in a slice direction in which X-rays transmitted through the object are detected, an input device which inputs a radius of a field of view, and a reconstructing unit configured to reconstruct image data about a field of view in which the input radius is maintained within a predetermined length range in the slice direction on the basis of real data detected by the detecting element and virtual data created from the real data.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an X-ray computerized tomographic apparatus comprising an X-ray tube device configured to irradiate an object to be examined with a pyramidal X-ray beam, a detector which has a plurality of detecting elements arrayed in a slice direction in which X-rays transmitted through the object are detected, and a reconstructing unit configured to reconstruct image data about a field of view having an arbitrary radius and fixed axis length on the basis of real data detected by the detecting element and virtual data created from the real data. Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the present invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating an optical switch for changing optical paths of optical fibers and an optical switch.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the current developments in communication systems such as an optical LAN (local area network), an optical switch having a low transfer loss and a high switching rate is urgently required.
A known optical switch comprises a stationary support member, a movable support member, and at least one pair of optical fibers having end surfaces, respectively; one of the optical fibers being supported on the stationary support member and the other of the optical fibers being supported on the movable support member so that the respective one end surfaces of the optical fibers face each other to form an optical path therebetween, and the optical path between the optical fibers is changed by moving the movable support member relative to the stationary support member.
In the fabrication of the above-described optical switch, an end portion of one of the optical fibers is fixed to the stationary support member by an adhesive and the other optical fiber is fixed to the movable support member by an adhesive, so that the end portion of one optical fiber must face the end portion of the other optical fiber and be aligned therewith. In an optical switch having a plurality of pair of optical fibers, for forming and changing a plurality of optical paths, a plurality of optical fibers must be fixed to the stationary and movable support members by an adhesive, respectively, and end portions of each pair of optical fibers must face and be aligned with each other, but the fixing of the optical fibers to the stationary and movable support members so that the end portions of each pair of optical fibers are aligned is difficult. | {
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Often, adding new functionality to existing software applications is desirable. For the authors of the applications, adding new features or new functionality is practical, as the functionality can be added to the source code of existing software. In other cases, the task may require more than simply modifying the source code of the application.
For example, a third-party vendor wishing to offer software that adds functionality to an existing application may be unable to do so without access to the source code for the existing application.
Similarly, even where a vendor wants to add to an existing application and has access to the source code, it is possible that the application is extremely complex or written using a legacy programming language. It may be difficult to find personnel to work with the existing source code of such older applications to add functionality due to lack of documentation or inexperience with legacy programming languages.
In some cases, an existing application may be extensible through an application programming interface (API) that allows third-party developers to add features to the software by way of new code that is run inside or otherwise permitted to access the internals of the existing application.
However, in other cases no such extensibility features are provided or the extensibility features may not be such that they permit adding functionality of the desired type.
Web-based applications are accessed by users via a web browser that accesses pages from a server. In some cases, there may be no extensibility features provided in the server software providing such an application. In other cases, the server may be operated under the control of the software vendor such as with, for example, a cloud service, providing no opportunity for added third-party functionality even if extensibility features exist on the server.
In yet other cases users may need or choose to interact with two or more related web-based applications using, for example, the tab or multiple-window features of a web browser to separately access the web pages providing the interface of each of the applications. Data sharing across those applications may not be easy. | {
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The present invention relates generally to alkylated polyalkyleneamine compounds, curing agent and amine-epoxy compositions derived from such compounds, and articles produced from such compounds and/or compositions.
Certain epoxy resins which are cured, hardened, and/or crosslinked with amine-based curing agents are well known. These amine-epoxy materials are widely used in applications ranging from coatings, adhesives, and composites, to civil engineering applications such as formulations for concrete flooring.
Due to regulations on volatile organic compounds (VOC's), it can be beneficial to reduce or eliminate emissions from organic solvents. Thus, numerous waterborne curing agent compositions and waterborne amine-epoxy compositions have been developed over the past decade. Since no organic solvent is present in some of these aqueous amine-epoxy systems, the odor, environmental, and health risks often associated with the presence of organic solvents can be eliminated.
However, many industry problems remain with waterborne curing agent and amine-epoxy systems. For instance, coatings made from aqueous amine-epoxy compositions often have poor surface appearance, characterized in the industry by the terms blush, carbamation, and exudate. These problems, in part, are due to the incompatibility of the amine curing agent and the epoxy resin, which causes phase separation and results in amine migration to the coating surface. To address this issue, it is often necessary to modify the amine curing agent to improve compatibility, which can add cost and complexity.
In certain applications, it is desirable to formulate a waterborne curing agent to relatively low solids, for example, less than 40% solids, by dilution with water. Many aqueous curing agent compositions, unfortunately, cannot be diluted without causing phase separation of the formulation, which is evidenced by cloudiness in an otherwise clear formulation. Such phase separation is undesirable as it can lead to instability of the curing agent formulation during storage. In some cases, this problem can be addressed by diluting with water at the job site and only shortly before mixing the curing agent with the epoxy resin for use. In contrast to formulating a particular solids content in a controlled manufacturing environment, job-site formulating can lead to inconsistent blends and the introduction of contaminants, which can cause performance problems in the end-use application. Another method to improve the stability of the waterborne product is to add an acid, such as a carboxylic acid. Typically, this approach adversely affects the water and chemical resistance properties of the final cured product.
Additionally, many waterborne amine-epoxy compositions have a short pot-life, sometimes as short as 30 minutes to 2 hours. Pot life is the time available to apply a coating or film to a substrate after mixing the epoxy resin and hardener or curing agent. The end of the pot-life can be evidenced by a sharp a rise in formulation viscosity, or a detrimental change in properties such as gloss or hardness of the cured coating or film. Such reduction in properties is particularly problematic, as it is not possible to detect the problem until after the coating has been applied to a substrate and cured.
It is often found that when water-based amine-epoxy systems are applied to cementitious or concrete substrates, the water-based emulsion or dispersion is destabilized. This can result in poor appearance, reduced substrate adhesion, and decreased performance properties such as chemical resistance.
There are numerous aqueous amine-based curing agent and amine-epoxy compositions that are employed in the amine-epoxy coating industry; however, none of these known products completely addresses the needs or solves the problems noted above. Accordingly, it is to this end that the present invention is directed. | {
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Conventional transportation vehicles, such as automotive or railway vehicles, have some benefits. However, conventional automotive transportation vehicles consume large amounts of fuel, pollute the environment, and create traffic congestion. Conventional railway transportation vehicles are unable to make tight turns, and are too large and heavy to move on conventional street surfaces, and constructing large underground tunnels is expensive.
While these transportation means may be suitable for a particular purpose which they address, fuel usage when transporting goods from sellers to buyers may be significant. Some of the fuel is applied to transport a driver of a transportation vehicle. Moreover, time spent shopping by buyers or delivering goods by delivery staff may be considerable. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to novel antibacterial agents, the intermediates leading thereto and processes for the preparation of said intermediates. In particular, the invention concerns 4"-deoxy-4"-amino-erythromycin A antibacterial agents, 4"-deoxy-4"-oxo-erythromycin A derivatives as useful intermediates leading to the 4"-amino compounds and processes for the preparation of the 4"-deoxy-4"-oxo-erythromycin A intermediates.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Erythromycin is an antibiotic formed during the culturing of a strain of Streptomyces erythreus in a suitable medium as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 2,653,899. Erythromycin, which is produced in two forms, A and B, is represented by the following structure:
______________________________________ ##STR1## Erythromycin R ______________________________________ A OH B H ______________________________________
The structure reveals that the antibiotic is comprised of three main portions: a sugar fragment known as cladinose, a second sugar moiety containing a basic amino substituent known as desosamine and a fourteen membered lactone ring referred to as erythronolide A or B or, as herein described, the macrolide ring. While the numbering system of the macrolide ring is in unprimed numbers, that of the desosamine is in primed numbers and that of cladinose in double-primed numbers.
Numerous derivatives of erythromycin have been prepared in an effort to modify its biological or pharmacodynamic properties.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,417,077 describes the reaction product of erythromycin and ethylene carbonate as a very active antibacterial agent. U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,903 discloses 4"-deoxy-4"-oxo-erythromycin A and B derivatives as being useful as antibiotics.
Erythromycylamine, the 9-amino derivative of erythromycin A, has been the subject of considerable investigation [British Pat. No. 1,100,504, Tetrahedron Letters, 1645 (1967) and Croatica Chemica Acta, 39, 273 (1967)] and some controversy as to its structural identity [Tetrahedron Letters, 157 (1970) and British Pat. No. 1,341,022]. Sulfonamide derivatives of erythromycylamine are reported in U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,103 to be useful as antibacterial agents. Other derivatives are also reported [Ryden, et al., J. Med. Chem., 16, 1059 (1973) and Massey, et al., J. Med. Chem., 17, 105 (1974)] to have in vitro and in vivo antibacterial activity. | {
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As main structure of a vehicle body to endure head-on collision, front cabin must have the ability of absorbing collision energy, distributing and transferring impact force effectively through reasonable deformation, so as to protect the passenger compartment. In addition, the front cabin should have sufficient flexural and torsional stiffness and good NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance.
At present, the common front cabin frame is composed of front bumper, left and right front beams, front reinforcement structure and A-pillar. However, this structure does not have enough load transfer path and the load transfer path of this structure is insufficient and discontinuous. Furthermore, there is not reasonable lateral connection structure between the longitudinal beams. When the vehicle body is subject to a head-on collision, the front cabin will not be able to absorb and dissipate the collision energy effectively, result a large amount of invasion in the dash panel and a large amount of deformation of the floor and the middle channel, and further cause a great damage to the passengers in the passenger compartment and affect the collision safety of the entire vehicle. On the other hand, the flexural and torsional stiffness of the vehicle body is not good enough due to the structure does not have reasonable continuously connected structure. This is not benefit for the improvement of the vehicle NVH performance. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to elements for constructing modules in office buildings and more particularly to prefinished wall systems and methods for installing the same.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In office buildings, it is desirable to construct office modules which have a professional finished appearance as rapidly and economically as possible. One system for constructing modules is disclosed by Hess in U.S. Pat. No. 2,875,866, issued Mar. 3, 1959. The Hess patent teaches wall panels having rearwardly abutting legs on each end. The legs of adjacent panels form a "T" configuration about which a triangular shaped sliding member is disposed when the panels are connected. This type of system is workable where panels are formed of metal and abutting legs can easily be shaped therefrom, but it is not practical for most interior applications because sheetrock or gypsumboard is far more economical and desirable material from which to form the walls of offices.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,388, issued to Hawes, May 25, 1976, teaches a more practical system for modular construction. Adjacent wall panels have notches in their lateral edges. A plate having teeth on both sides is compressed against the notch and the backside of the panel. A flange extending from the plate along its length engages a truss member disposed just behind the panel to anchor the panels.
Somewhat similar to the wall system taught by Hawes is the RACO FASTRAK MOVABLE PARTITIONS made by Ragland Mfg. Co. of Houston, Texas. In the Ragland system, gypsumboard panels are snapped onto H-beams with a pronged clip which is embedded into the sides of the wall panels. Unlike the present invention, however, the Ragland system does not permit cementing of the panels away from the joint or the use of a floating T-section to form a finished joint.
Although these wall systems are relatively economical and easy to install, they have the serious disadvantage that panels are easily movable and tend to separate at the joint leaving a shoddy, unprofessional appearance. Although this can be ameliorated somewhat by cementing the panels to the adjacent beams at the joint, it has been found in practice that cementing abutting panels to a beam at panel junctions fails to provide the structural integrity needed to maintain a neat, workmanlike appearance.
Accordingly, a need arises for an economical wall system which can be rapidly installed and which has structural integrity necessary to withstand movement to retain a professional appearance. | {
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The present invention relates to a variable length packet switch, more particularly to a variable length packet switch for exchanging variable length packets such as a Common Part Sublayer (CPS) packet which is defined as an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Adaptation Layer type 2 (AAL type 2).
When a signal such as a voice signal which is a low speed signal and must be transmitted with a little delay, is transmitted through a packet network such as an ATM network, a transmission delay due to a time for constructing a packet is produced. In order to improve such delay, a cellularizing system called the AAL type 2 (AAL2) has been recommended as a International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) recommendation I.363.2. This is a system for superposing a connection in an AAL2 level on a Virtual Channel (VC) connection in an ATM. In the AAL2, used is a variable length packet called a CPS-packet to which a connection identifier called a Channel Identifier (CID) is given. In the CPS-packet, a packet having a different CID is multiplexed and packed in a VC connection. Hereupon, it should be especially noted that a plurality of CPS-packets having different CIDs are multiplexed and packed on each other in a single ATM cell.
FIG. 14 illustrates a format of the CPS-packet. Referring to FIG. 14, a CPS-packet 1700 comprises a CID area 1701, an Length Indicator (LI) area 1702, a User-to-User Indication (UUI) CPS area 1703, a Header Error Control (HEC) area 1704, and a CPS Interface Data (CPS-INFO) area 1705. The CID area 1701 is the one on which the above described CID is loaded, and the LI area 1702 is the one in which a packet length of the CPS-packet is stored. Furthermore, in the UUI area 1703, a code called a user-to-user identifier is stored. The HEC area 1704 is the one for controlling an error of a packet header. The CPS-INFO area 1705 is a pay load of the CPS-packet and able to change its length. An ITU-T recommendation I.366.2 is made for a method to use the LI area 1702 and the UUI area 1703 in the foregoing ITU-T recommendation I.363.2, which is described in detail according to the method to use special packets and the CPS-INFO area 1705.
Hereupon, a method to constitute a switch in the AAL2 level is important. As was shown in the foregoing description for the prior art, CPS-packets having different CIDs are multiplexed and packed in a single cell. Accordingly, in order to output the CPS-packets multiplexed and packed in the single cell to different paths, it is necessary to decompose the ATM cell once. Moreover, after the received cell is decomposed, the CPS-packet is switched, and the cell is cellularized again, so as to transmit the cellularized, cell. Hereupon, in the case where the CPS-packet is switched, a method in which one CPS-packet is loaded on one ATM cell to allow it to pass through a switching section is conceived. However, the CPS-packet is a variable length packet, and if the CPS-packet is short in length, an ineffective area is produced in a payload of the ATM cell, so that a capacitance of the switching section is sometimes limited.
In order to solve the foregoing subjects, the object of the present invention is to provide a variable length switch which exchanges CPS-packets by AAL 2 effectively without limiting capacitance of a switching section when the CPS-packets loaded on an ATM cell are exchanged. The object of the present invention is to suppress a necessary bandwidth of the switching section not by performing switching after loading a single CPS-packet on a single ATM cell, but by multiplexing and packing a plurality of CPS-packets on the single ATM cell which are outputted to the same output path.
Furthermore, an interface section distinguishes special sorts of CPS-packets from others, and allows them to travel on a different connection and to pass through the switching section, thus enabling to control a transfer quality such as a loss rate in accordance depending on characteristics of the CPS-packets. This implies that a quality control of the special CPS-packets in the switching section is enabled when a plurality of CPS-packets are multiplexed and packed in a single ATM cell and allowed to pass through the switching section.
According to the present invention, a variable length packet switch is provided, which exchanges a plurality of variable length packets loaded on a cell to be transferred in an asynchronous transfer mode, comprising:
a receiving interface section for receiving a cell;
a transmission interface section for transmitting the cell; and
a switching section for exchanging the cell, the switching section to which the receiving and transmitting interface sections are connected,
wherein the receiving interface section includes a variable length packet receiving section which disassembles the received cell to demultiplex and unpack the variable length packets multiplexed and packed in the received cell and multiplexes and packs the variable length packets in a cell having the same header value, the variable length packets being transferred to the same transfer interface section where a transmission processing is performed, thereby allowing the variable length packets to pass through the switching section,
the switching section transfers the cell transferred from the receiving interface section to the transmission interface section where a transmission processing is performed in accordance with a header value of the cell, and
the transmission interface section includes a variable length packet transmission section which disassembles the cell transferred from the switching section, demultiplexes and unpacks the variable length packets multiplexed and packed, and multiplexes and packs the variable length packets to be outputted in the same output path in a transmission cell having the same header value.
In the variable length packet switch of the present invention, the receiving interface section further identifies a sort of the variable length packet having the same transmission interface section where a transmission processing is performed, and multiplexes and packs the variable length packet in a cell having a different header value depending on the sort thereof thereby transferring the cell to the switching section.
In the variable length packet switch of the present invention, an upper layer function section connected to the switching section is further provided, wherein the receiving interface section disassembles a received cell, demultiplexes and unpacks the variable length packet multiplexed and packed in the received cell, and multiplexes and packs the variable length packets, which are to be subjected to a transmission processing by the same upper layer functioning section, in a cell of the same header value, thereby transferring the cell to the upper layer functioning section. | {
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In order to provide improvements in storage area networking, embodiments of the present invention provide an automated, policy-based system and method for providing device security at various levels in the network, including on the baseline inventory, physical devices, commands, and network frame. This approach improves over the conventional distributed security model by centralizing security in one multi-level management structure. Embodiments of the present invention may also provide a scheme for mapping vendor-unique opcodes to access rights.
An embodiment of a method of controlling security of information on a storage area network (SAN) comprises providing a SAN comprising a plurality of host and storage devices and a management interface. A plurality of users of the SAN are identified, each user having a different security profile. Each user is assigned a user domain. A list of authorized user domains is assigned to each device of the SAN during a device initialization process, such that the existence of the device on the SAN is revealed only to users assigned the authorized user domain. A security reporting policy is created through the management interface, such that attempted detection of a SAN device by a user lacking the authorized user domain produces an output recognizable by an administrator of the SAN.
An alternative embodiment of a method of controlling security of information on a storage area network (SAN) comprises providing a SAN comprising a plurality of host and storage devices and a management interface. A baseline inventory of all devices connected with the SAN is conducted. A security reporting policy is created through the management interface, such that a change in the baseline inventory of the SAN produces an output recognizable by an administrator of the SAN.
Another alternative embodiment of a method of controlling security of information on a storage area network (SAN) comprises providing a SAN comprising a plurality of host and storage devices and a management interface. An information frame in a first frame format including a header and a payload is received at a personality modulate from a host device, the header including source device information and destination device information corresponding to the host device. The personality module is caused to encapsulate the information frame into a second frame including a header and a payload, the header including a copy of the source device information and the destination device information. The second frame is transmitted to a storage processor of the SAN, and the storage processor is caused to detect consistency between the source device information and the destination device information of the header and the payload. A security reporting policy is created through the management interface, such that a failure to match the source device information and the destination device information of the header and payload of the second frame produces an output recognizable by an administrator of the SAN.
Still another embodiment of a method of controlling security of information on a storage area network (SAN) comprises providing a SAN comprising a plurality of storage devices and a management interface. A plurality of host devices are in communication with the SAN, the host devices configured to transmit vendor-specific opcodes to the SAN. A storage processor is provided including a table correlating the vendor-specific opcodes with a level of access right specific to a particular storage device, the level of access right selected from the group consisting of ALL, READ ONLY, LIMITED, and NO ACCESS. The user is allowed to access the particular storage device according to the access rights granted by the vendor-specific opcode. A security reporting policy is created through the management interface, such that attempted access of a particular storage device contrary to the granted access rights produces an output recognizable by an administrator of the SAN.
An additional alternative method of controlling security of information on a storage area network (SAN) comprises providing a SAN comprising a plurality of storage devices and a management interface. A plurality of host devices are provided in communication with the SAN, the host devices configured to transmit opcodes to the SAN. A storage processor is provided including a table correlating the opcodes with a level of access right specific to a particular storage device, the level of access right selected from the group consisting of ALL, READ ONLY, LIMITED, and NO ACCESS. The user is allowed to access the particular storage device according to the access rights granted by the opcode. A security reporting policy is created through the management interface, such that attempted access of a particular storage device contrary to the granted access rights produces an output recognizable by an administrator of the SAN. A rule-based security action policy is also created through the management interface, such that the granted access rights can be automatically scheduled and varied over time as authorized by an administrator of the SAN.
Details of particular embodiments of the present invention can be seen in the following drawings and detailed description. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and, more specifically, to a configuration and peripheral structure of a temperature monitor element for monitoring temperature of a power IC device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Power MOSFETs that are easily driven are widely used for controlling electric power. As a result of progress and improvements in manufacturing process technology, power IC devices are commercially available which combine on the same chip a power MOSFET with a control circuit for controlling the power MOSFET. Typically, a power block and a control circuit adjoin each other on the chip.
To protect the control circuit from excessive temperatures reached by the power block, which cause malfunction and breakdown of the control circuit, the power IC device should be provided with a protective circuit. One solution has been to mount on the chip a temperature monitor element that feeds temperature information of the power block to the protective circuit. A temperature detector for detecting the temperature of the power MOSFET is disclosed in the Conference Record, IEEE Industrial Application Society Annual Meeting (1986), pp. 429-433. A self-thermal protecting power MOSFET is disclosed in the reprint from SP-737, Sensors and Actuators, 1988, pp. 41-46, with a polysilicon thermal sensing device on the same chip as the MOSFETs.
FIGS. 4a and 4b schematically show configuration and peripheral structure of a temperature monitor element in a prior-art power IC device, where FIG. 4a is a top plan view and FIG. 4b is a sectional view taken along line A--A in FIG. 4a.
FIG. 4a shows an entire planar chip configuration of the power IC device with semiconductor substrate 3. A temperature monitor element 8 is disposed in a control circuit block (IC block) 2, near the boundary between the control circuit block 2 and a power block (power MOSFET block) 1.
FIG. 4b shows an enlarged view of the boundary portion between the power MOSFET block 1 and the IC block 2. Reference numeral 4 designates a back gate region layer (channel region) of an end portion of the power MOSFET block formed on a silicon substrate 3. Reference numeral 5 designates a source region layer in the back gate region layer 4. Reference numeral 6 designates a gate electrode. Reference numeral 7 designates an electrode wiring (source electrode) connected to the source region layer 5 and the back gate region layer 4. Reference numeral 8 designates a temperature monitor element covered by an insulating layer 9 and insulated from the other layers. The temperature monitor element 8 is located in the IC block 2 adjoining the power MOSFET block 1 for monitoring the temperature of the MOSFET block 1.
In FIGS. 4a and 4b, the power MOSFET block 1 is formed as a vertical MOS. Alternatively, the power MOSFET block 1 may be formed as a planar MOS. A drain electrode of the vertical MOS is formed on a back surface of the silicon substrate 3, and a drain electrode of the planar MOS is formed on the same side of the silicon substrate on which the planar MOS is formed. Typically, the power MOSFET block 1 comprises many unit or cell structures arranged in a row each of which comprises the gate electrode 6 formed as a planar grid or a stripe, and the corresponding back gate region layer 4 formed as a polygonal island or a stripe.
If excessive electric power is supplied to the power MOSFET, e.g., when a short circuit occurs in a load of a main circuit, the power MOSFET generates excessive heat. Heat is conducted to the temperature monitor element 8 through the silicon substrate 3 and the insulation layer 9. Temperature information detected by the temperature monitor element 8 is then fed to the protective circuit. When the temperature exceeds a predetermined level, the protective circuit switches the power MOSFET off to protect the power IC device 2.
There is a temperature gradient between the power MOSFET block 1 and the temperature monitor element 8. Temperature at the temperature monitor element 8 is considerably lower than at the power MOSFET block 1 because the temperature monitor element 8 is located on a surface of the IC block that itself generates less heat. Also, an excessive-power condition in the MOSFET block 1 is detected by the temperature monitor element 8 with a considerable time lag due to the heat capacity of the substrate portion between the power MOSFET block 1 and the temperature monitor element 8, and due to the low thermal conductivity of the insulating layer 9. During this time lag, generated excessive heat can cause circuit breakdown.
The prior-art comparison structure of FIG. 3a shows silicon substrate 3, temperature monitor element 8, a back surface at 100.degree. C., and a power MOSFET heat-generative surface portion at 160.degree. C. As shown in FIG. 3b, left-most point, the temperature monitored by the temperature monitor element 8 is lower than the power block temperature by more than 25.degree. C. In case of an accident, e.g., a short circuit fault of the load, with the temperature of the heat generative portion rising by several hundred degrees, the monitored temperature is estimated to be lower by about 100.degree. C. | {
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An enormous quantity of excrement exhausted from the large-scale livestock industry is left as such due to lack of appropriate treating methods, and environmental pollution caused by bad odor and discharge thereof without treatment have created a social problem.
In general, it requires 5-6 months to compost excrements of chicken, cattle, swine, etc., and cellulose-containing coarse organic materials used as beds thereof, such as grasses, straws, hulls, woodchips, etc. by leaving them as such in nature. This is very inefficient and generates bad odors during that period. It has also been difficult to obtain evenly-fermented compost of good quality because of unevenness fermentation between the surface and interior parts.
The present invention has been accomplished focusing on the above points. The first purpose is to present a method for manufacturing composts of good quality within a short time. And a second purpose is to present a device which is suitable to perform the above method. | {
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As compared with traditional wire-based networks, optical fiber communication networks are capable of transmitting significantly more information at significantly higher speeds. Optical fibers, therefore, are being increasingly employed in communication networks.
To expand total transmission throughput, optical fiber network providers are attempting to place ever more optical fibers in ever-smaller spaces. Packing fibers into tight spaces, however, can cause undesirable attenuation. Indeed, there is an inherent trade-off between increased fiber density and signal attenuation.
Reduced-size cables, which are often desirable for certain installations (e.g., where space is limited), are requiring ever-smaller buffer tubes. As buffer tubes become increasingly small, however, excess fiber length (EFL) becomes a significant problem. As will be known by those having ordinary skill in the art, EFL can occur as a result of buffer-tube shrinkage during processing and thereafter as post-extrusion shrinkage (PES). This can lead to undesirable attenuation. In this regard, it is believed that smaller buffer tubes shrink more than larger buffer tubes under the same conditions.
Buffer-tube designs having somewhat higher optical fiber densities have been achieved for the deployment of standard single-mode fibers (SSMFs). For example, as many as twelve discrete, conventional optical fibers (e.g., SSMFs having a diameter of about 245-255 microns) have been deployed in loose buffer tubes with an outer diameter larger than 2.5 millimeters and an inner diameter larger than 1.6 millimeters. For SSMFs, however, as the buffer-tube filling coefficient approaches 0.3, attenuation becomes problematic, particularly at extreme temperatures (e.g., −40° C. or 70° C.). This is especially so with respect to mid-span storage performance, such as deployments in which SSMFs are positioned in pedestals, cabinets, or other optical-fiber enclosures. By way of example, loose-tube cables must be accessible multiple times along its installed length at various positions, typically at such optical-fiber enclosures.
By way of illustration, after installation in a duct, an optical-fiber cable typically experiences temperature cycles. These temperature cycles can lead to signal attenuation. Indeed, significant changes in temperature can lead to post-extrusion shrinkage and increases in excess fiber length (EFL), which may contribute to signal attenuation. Thus, a loose buffer tube that is less susceptible to post-extrusion shrinkage is more suitable for mid-span storage. It is generally accepted that cables containing buffer tubes having a lower buffer-tube filling coefficient are less susceptible to attenuation when subjected to temperature cycles and thus are more suitable for mid-span storage.
Reducing the wall thickness of a buffer tube while maintaining its outer diameter necessarily increases its inner diameter and thus the cross-sectional area available for deploying optical fibers. For many optical fiber applications, reducing buffer-tube wall thickness is unsatisfactory because such buffer tubes provide insufficient crush resistance (i.e., hoop strength). For many rigorous applications, buffer tubes must be capable of handling loads during installation and use in a way that satisfies customer expectations.
In addition, optical-fiber buffer tubes and fiber optic cables are susceptible to water intrusion. Water-blocking in buffer tubes and fiber optic cables typically has been accomplished by using petroleum-based filling compounds (e.g., grease or grease-like gels). By completely filling all of the free space inside a buffer tube that contains an optical fiber or optical-fiber bundle, the filling compound blocks the ingress of water into the fiber optic cable.
Moreover, being a thixotropic material, the filling compound also tends to mechanically couple the optical fibers to the buffer tube. Such mechanical coupling prevents the optical fibers from retracting inside the buffer tube as the buffer tube is processed during manufacturing, as the cable is installed or otherwise handled in the field, or as the cable is subjected to thermally induced dimensional changes from environmental exposure.
Although relatively effective for controlling buffer-tube and cable water-blocking, the petroleum-based filling compounds are inconvenient during cable access, cable repair, and optical-fiber splicing. The use of such filling compound requires cleaning the petroleum-based material from optical fibers prior to splicing (and sometimes from equipment and personnel, too). This can be messy and time consuming. Consequently, using conventional filling greases is often undesirable.
Various dry-cable designs have been developed to eliminate filling greases while providing some water-blocking and coupling functionality. In either loose-tube optical-fiber cables or ribbon cables, a totally dry design eliminates the filling compound from the enclosed buffer tubes. In a dry-cable design, for example, filling compound may be replaced by a water-blocking element, such as a tape or a yarn carrying a water-swellable material (e.g., water-swellable powder). Water-swellable powders are dry to the touch and, when bound to a carrier tape or yarn, can be readily removed during field operations (e.g., splicing).
A substantial problem with dry-cable designs is that the optical fibers can build up a charge of static electricity during processing. Static electricity may cause the optical fibers located within the buffer tube to repel one another. If the optical fibers are repelled from one another during buffer tube extrusion, they will be forced into and likely stick to the molten buffer tube wall. This sticking can result in elevated optical fiber attenuation. This static electricity may also persist until a buffer tube is opened for the purpose of accessing the optical fibers. A static charge is undesirable, because it may increase the difficulty of capturing optical fibers for splicing, connecting, or ribbonizing.
Another substantial problem with dry-cable designs is that after the formation of the extruded buffer tube around optical fibers, the optical fibers tend to stick to the inner surface of the solidified buffer tube. This stiction (i.e., the static friction between the optical fibers and the surrounding buffer tube) can result in increased and/or highly variable excess fiber length (EFL) during manufacturing. The stiction phenomenon can be the result of a static electricity, as well as simple contact and surface forces between an optical fiber and the surrounding buffer tube.
Proposed solutions to these respective problems of static electricity and buffer-tube sticking have been unsatisfactory. For instance, in gel-free buffer-tube designs that include a lubricant to reduce static and stiction, flow and leakage of the lubricant from the buffer tubes may occur during cable storage and installation. | {
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Handover (HO) refers to movement of a mobile station (MS) from a wireless interface of one base station (BS) to a wireless interface of another BS. Hereinafter, a handover procedure in a general IEEE 802.16e system will be described.
A Serving Base Station (SBS) in an IEEE 802.16e network may broadcast information about neighbor BSs through a mobile neighbor advertisement (MOB_NBR-ADV) message in order to inform an MS of information (topology) about basic network configuration.
The MOB_NBR-ADV message includes system information about a serving BS and neighbor BSs, for example, a preamble index, a frequency, a handover optimization possibility, downlink channel descriptor (DCD)/uplink channel descriptor (UCD) information, etc.
The DCD/UCD information includes information of which an MS should be aware in order to exchange information through downlink and uplink. For example, the DCD/UCD information includes handover (HO) trigger information, and medium access control (MAC) version and media independent handover (MIH) capability information of a BS.
A general MOB_NBR-ADV message includes information about neighbor BSs of an IEEE 802.16e type only. Accordingly, information about neighbor BSs of a type other than IEEE 802.16e may be broadcast to MSs through a service identity information advertisement (SII-ADV) message. As a result, an MS may acquire information about BSs of a heterogeneous network by requesting a serving BS to transmit the SII-ADV message.
A procedure for an MS having information about neighbor BSs obtained through the above-described method to perform handover in an IEEE 802.16e network will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a handover (HO) procedure which can be performed in an IEEE 802.16e system.
Referring to FIG. 1, an MS exchanges data with a serving BS (SBS) at step S101.
The SBS periodically broadcasts information about neighbor BSs to the MS through a MOB_NBR-ADV message at step S102.
The MS may start scanning for candidate handover (HO) BSs using a handover (HO) trigger condition while communicating with the SBS. The MS requests the SBS to perform a handover procedure by transmitting a handover request (MOB_MSHO-REQ) message when a handover condition is satisfied, for example, when a predetermined hysteresis margin value is exceeded at step S103.
The SBS informs candidate handover (HO) BSs included in the MOB_MSHO-REQ message that the MS has requested handover through a handover request (HO-REQ) message at step S104.
The candidate handover BSs take action for the MS having requested handover to transmit information about handover to the SBS through a handover response (HO-RSP) message at step S105.
The SBS transmits the information about handover, obtained through the HO-RSP message from the candidate handover (HO) BSs, to the MS through a handover response (MOB_BSHO-RSP) message. The MOB_BSHO-RSP message may include information necessary to perform handover, that is, a handover action time, a handover identifier (HO-ID), and a dedicated handover (HO) code division multiple access (CDMA) ranging code at step S106.
The MS determines one target BS (TBS) among the candidate BSs based on the information included in the MOB-BSHO-RSP message received from the SBS. The MS then transmits a CDMA code to the determined TBS to attempt ranging at step S107.
The TBS receiving the CDMA code may inform the MS of success or failure of ranging and physical correction values through a ranging response (RNG-RSP) message at step S108.
The MS transmits a ranging request (RNG-REQ) message for authentication to the TBS at step S109.
The TBS receiving the RNG-REQ message from the MS transmits system information, which can be used in a corresponding BS, such as a connection identifier (CID) to the MS through a ranging response (RNG-RSP) message at step S110.
If the TBS successfully completes authentication of the MS and transmits all update information, the TBS informs the SBS of success or failure of handover through a handover completion (HO-CMPT) message at step S111.
Next, the MS exchanges data with the TBS which has performed handover at step S112.
The HO procedure for use in the IEEE 802.16m system is similar to the HO procedure for use in the IEEE 802.16e system. However, individual messages may be called in different ways as necessary.
MOB_NBR-ADV→AAI_NBR-ADV: Corresponding message may include not DCD/UCD formatted system information but S-SFH formatted system information.
MSHO-REQ→AAI_HO-REQ
BSHO-RSP→AAI_HO-CMD
RNG-REQ (CDMA code)→Ranging preamble code
RNG-RSP (ranging status)→AAI_RNG-ACK (ranging status)
RNG-REQ (MAC message)→AAI_RNG-REQ
RNG-RSP→AAI_RNG-RSP: Corresponding message may include a station identifier, such as a TSID or STID, instead of a CID.
Because of channel condition deterioration in the above-mentioned HO procedure, the MS or the SBS may unexpectedly lose an HO-related Medium Access Control (MAC) management message (e.g., AAI_HO-CMD message) while attempting an HO action. In this case, the MS is unable to attempt HO to the TBS and at the same time is unable to receive scheduling information from the SBS after the lapse of a predetermined time. | {
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In general, disposable absorbent inserts may be engaged with reusable outer covers to form wearable absorbent articles, such as a taped diaper, a pant, or an adult incontinence product. The outer covers may comprise one or more insert fastener components configured to be engaged with one or more fastener components on disposable absorbent inserts. While various fastener component configurations between an insert and an outer cover are generally known, improved fastener component configurations should be developed. Especially important are fastener component configurations that allow for attachment of the disposable absorbent insert to the reusable outer cover when the reusable outer cover is in the form of a closed waist pant or a closed waist adult incontinence product. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to methods of simulating deformable objects. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to methods of simulating deformable objects using a geometrically motivated underlying model.
2. Description of Related Art
Realistic computer simulations of everyday objects such as clothing, plastics, elastic materials, and articulated joints can be extremely difficult to generate due to the complex ways in which these objects tend to deform in real life. Simulations of such “deformable objects” must generally take into account both complicated geometric features and material properties of the objects.
One common technique used to simulate deformable objects first creates a virtual model of an object (e.g., a mesh or point cloud) and then applies simulated physical forces such as tension, friction, gravity, pressure, etc., to the discrete points of the virtual model. Such virtual models have been used to represent a wide variety of materials under different conditions. For example, researchers have developed virtual models for clothing, plastic, rubber, and so on. In addition, researchers have also developed virtual models to simulate complex, unique behaviors of these objects, such as fracturing and melting.
Some of the more common approaches to simulating deformable objects involve finite difference methods, mass-spring systems, boundary element methods, finite element methods, and implicit surfaces and mesh-free particle systems.
Despite the number of methods that have been developed for simulating deformable objects, such methods are rarely incorporated into applications like computer games. For example, a few contemporary games incorporate cloth models with simple geometries; however, in general, most applications running on Personal Computers (PCs) or game consoles tend to model only rigid bodies or objects. Indeed, multiple rigid objects are sometimes combined to imitate the movement of a deformable object, but true deformable object simulations are rare.
One reason why deformable object simulations are rarely used in an application such as computer games is that stable simulations are generally too inefficient to satisfy the real-time demands of the application. For instance, conventional simulation methods often rely on implicit numerical integration to update the locations of discrete points in a virtual model. Implicit numerical integration techniques can provide a stable simulation, but they are too computationally expensive to process large and complicated physical models in realtime. Other physical modeling approaches rely on explicit numerical integration, which is more efficient, but it cannot guarantee a stable simulation.
The term “stability” here refers to a process's tendency to respond in a reasonable way to minor deviations in its inputs. For instance, implicit numerical integration techniques produce accurate simulations as various input parameters are varied, such as the mass of simulated points, the timestep of the integration, and so on. In contrast, explicit numerical integration techniques may produce simulations where the overall energy of a system erroneously increases by simply varying the timestep of the integration, the mass of simulated points, or the stiffness of a simulated object. As a result, explicit numerical integration techniques can produce highly unrealistic simulation results.
Various approaches have been developed to improve the efficiency of stable simulation techniques. For example, robust integration schemes with large timesteps and multi-resolution models have been developed. In addition, modal analysis approaches, which trade accuracy for efficiency, have also been developed. Furthermore, methods incorporating pre-computed state space dynamics and precomputed impulse response functions have also been used to improve the efficiency of simulations. Finally, dynamic models derived from global geometric deformations of solid primitives such as spheres, cylinders, cones, or super quadrics have also been introduced to improve the efficiency of stable simulation techniques.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating one way in which instability arises in deformable object simulations using explicit numerical integration. In FIG. 1, a simple one dimensional deformable object is modeled as a mass-spring system. Like many physically motivated deformable object simulations, the mass-spring system relies on Newton's second law of motion. According to Newton's second law of motion, the acceleration of an object produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force in the direction of the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. In deformable objects, at least part of the net force at any point is created by displacement of the point from an equilibrium position. The displacement of a point from its equilibrium position creates potential energy, i.e., “deformation energy”, causing the point to be pulled toward the equilibrium position.
Referring to FIG. 1A, a mass-spring system 100 comprises a spring 101 with a resting length I0, and two point masses 102 and 103 both having mass “m”. Point mass 102 is fixed at an origin and point mass 103 is located at x(t) at an initial time “t”. At initial time “t”, the amount of force on point mass 103 is defined by the spring equation f=−k(x(t)−I0), where “k” is the spring constant, or “stiffness”, of spring 101. Conceptually, the spring equation indicates that point mass 103 is pulled toward an equilibrium position where x=I0.
The location of point mass 103 is updated by a modified Euler integration scheme after a timestep “h”. According to the modified Euler integration scheme, the velocity “v” and position “x” of point mass 103 at time “t+h” are computed using the following equations (1) and (2):
v ( t + h ) = v ( t ) + h - k ( x ( t ) - l 0 ) m ( 1 ) x ( t + h ) = x ( t ) + hv ( t + h ) ( 2 ) Equation (1) uses an explicit Euler step and equation (2) uses an implicit Euler step.
Equations (1) and (2) can be represented as a system matrix “M” multiplied by a state vector [v(t),x(t)]T, i.e.,
[ v ( t + h ) x ( t + h ) ] = [ v ( t ) x ( t ) ] + 1 m [ kl 0 h 2 kl 0 h 2 ] ,where system matrix “E” is defined by the following equation (3):
E = [ 1 - kh m h 1 - h 2 k m ] ( 3 ) System matrix “E” has eigenvalues e0 and e1 represented by the following equations (4) and (5):
e 0 = 1 - 1 2 m ( h 2 k - - 4 mh 2 k + h 4 k 2 ) ( 4 ) e 1 = 1 - 1 2 m ( h 2 k + - 4 mh 2 k + h 4 k 2 ) ( 5 ) Since system matrix “E” represents a discrete system, the spectral radius of system matrix “E”, i.e., the maximum magnitude of eigenvalues e0 and e1, must not be larger than one (1) to ensure stability of the discrete system. The magnitude of eigenvalue e0 converges to 1 with |e0|<1 for h2k→∞. However, the magnitude of e1 is only smaller than one where timestep “h” is less than
2 m k . Where timestep “h” is greater than
2 m k ,the system is unstable. Accordingly, the integration scheme involving equations (1) and (2) is only conditionally stable.
To further illustrate the instability of the discrete system represented by system matrix “E”, FIG. 1B shows the result of performing an integration step starting with v(t)=0. The integration step moves point mass 103 by a distance
Δ x = - h 2 k m ( x ( t ) - l 0 ) . Where timestep “h” or stiffness “k” are too large or mass “m” is too small, point mass 103 overshoots equilibrium position I0, by a distance greater than the distance between x(t) and I0. In other words, |x(t+h)−I0|>|x(t)−I0|. As a result, the potential energy of system 100 increases after timestep “h”. Since system 100 had zero kinetic energy at time “t”, the overall (i.e., kinetic plus potential) energy of the system is erroneously increased after timestep “h”.
In general, the stability problem of explicit integration schemes can be stated as follows: elastic forces are negative gradients of elastic energy. As such, elastic forces point towards equilibrium positions. Explicit schemes may inaccurately scale the elastic forces when computing the displacements of points, causing the points to overshoot equilibrium positions so much that they increase the deformation and the energy of the system instead of preserving or decreasing the deformation energy, which is required for stability.
One way to address the overshoot problem is to limit the displacement of points such that they never overshoot their respective equilibrium positions. For instance, in the one-dimensional spring example of FIG. 1, the movement of point mass 103 could be restricted from passing the equilibrium position x=I0. One problem with this approach is that for many types of physical models, equilibrium positions are not readily defined for all points. For example, it is difficult to define equilibrium positions in solid finite elements or geometrically complex meshes. | {
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As processing and network technologies becomes progressively more advanced, the demand for software capable of taking full advantage of these advances correspondingly rises. However, many organizations dependent on information technology are struggling to manage complex heterogeneous environments that incorporate distributed and disparate hardware, software, applications, networks, and database systems. Thus, there has been an increasing demand and need for information resources and software that is flexible, robust, and easily upgraded and customized. Moreover, it is desirable for these systems to be hardware independent, support multiple users and hardware platforms, and be based on a distributed architecture.
There have been many attempts in the prior art to provide such an adequate information system. These systems, however, have been based on proprietary code that is hardware dependent, inflexible, difficult to upgrade, and difficult to maintain. An example of one such prior art system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,822 which discloses an expert system for use in treating various types of trauma. This prior art expert system is a diagnostic system which is used to recommend a course of treatment based on information input from the user. The system achieves this result primarily through the use of a knowledge base and an inference engine. The software uses the well known Personal Consultant Plus inference engine, along with the Structured Query Language (SQL) database engine and the Essential Graphics software package. Based on the information input from the user, the inference engine receives information from the knowledge base which includes a collection of rules and parameter descriptions, upon which the treatment is suggested.
This prior art system, however, suffers from several shortcomings. Since the software is written in Microsoft C, upgrading or rewriting the code is significantly difficult and time consuming. For example, a rewrite of the code in order to use a different inference engine or a different database server would consume considerable time and effort. Moreover, the portability of the software is very limited. Due to inherent limitations of the C programming language, different versions of the software must be compiled for each different type of client computer used. An additional drawback to this type of software is how the data is stored. The data in a SQL, relational database, for example, is stored in tables made up of rows and columns of records. In order to access this data, the methods for accessing it must be coded separately from the data.
Other prior art information systems known to applicants suffer similar drawbacks in that they generally accomplish their goals at the expense of cross platform capability, software maintainability, and cumbersome data retrieval and storage. This is so even though more flexible programming languages, such as Java, by Sun Microsystems, have been developed and even though the use of inference engines has increased. Therefore, it would be desirable to create a more flexible development and deployment system for software functionality across an organization, as well as systems that are more robust, flexible, maintainable, upgradable, and cross-platform capable than currently available in the prior art. Just such a solution to the problems noted above and more, is made possible by our invention. | {
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1. Field
The invention relates to a fueling device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a generally known configuration of a fueling device, when a fueling nozzle used for fueling is pressed into the fueling device, a valve element is opened to start fueling from the fueling nozzle (for example, JP 2013-71504A). In this fueling device, a resin cover member that is configured to protect the periphery of the valve element on a fill port side from dust and rainwater is mounted to a filler neck that is configured to form a flow path connecting to a fuel tank on the fill port side. In the process of mounting the cover member to the filler neck, an engagement portion of the cover member is engaged with an engaged portion that is provided in an outer wall on an opening side of the filler neck.
During fueling, an operator for fueling may often keep pressing the fueling nozzle into the fueling device to open the valve element and go away from the location of fueling. In such cases, the fueling nozzle leans on the cover member to apply the mass of the fueling nozzle as a load to the cover member. Carelessly extending the time duration when the fueling nozzle is pressed in is likely to expand and deform the cover member under the load and separate the cover member from the filler neck. Increasing the wall thickness of the cover member can suppress expansion and deformation of the cover member. This, however, also suppresses expansion and deformation of the cover member during mounting of the cover member to the filler neck and thus deteriorates the mounting property of the cover member. Accordingly, increasing the wall thickness of the cover member is not the practical solution. There is accordingly a need to suppress expansion and deformation of the cover member and avoid separation of the cover member from the filler neck, while maintaining the mounting property of the cover member. | {
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The present invention relates to an organic silica-based film, a method of forming the same, a composition for forming an insulating film for a semiconductor device, an interconnect structure, and a semiconductor device.
A silica (SiO2) film formed by a vacuum process such as a CVD process has been widely used as an interlayer dielectric for a semiconductor device used in a large-scale integrated circuit (LSI) or the like. In recent years, in order to form an interlayer dielectric having a more uniform thickness, a spin-on-glass (SOG) film, which is a coating-type insulating film containing an alkoxysilane hydrolysate as the major component, has also been used. Along with an increase in the degree of integration of the LSI, a low-relative-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric containing organic silica sol represented by methyl silsesquioxane (MSQ) has also been developed (U.S. Pat. No. 6,235,101, U.S. Pat. No. 6,413,647, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,495,264).
The organic silica sol is cured by causing the silanol group in the sol to undergo a dehydration-condensation reaction by heating at 350 to 500° C., whereby an insulating film exhibiting a dielectric constant, mechanical strength, and chemical durability suitable as an interlayer dielectric for a semiconductor device can be formed. However, since the reaction of the organic silica sol is a solid-phase reaction, dehydration-condensation does not rapidly proceed due to diffusion control. Therefore, it is necessary to heat the organic silica sol for a long time (e.g. 30 minutes at least; usually one hour or more). In order to perform such a long heat treatment, a batch-type heat treatment furnace capable of treating 50 to 150 wafers at a time has been used to treat a spin-on low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric. A semiconductor device which mainly requires a low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric is a semiconductor device in the logic device field. However, a logic device interconnect manufacturing step has been tending toward a single-wafer process in which a wafer is rapidly processed one by one. This is because a mainstream logic device such as an ASIC or a custom IC is manufactured in a high-variety low-volume production process. Specifically, the single-wafer process has become the mainstream manufacturing process in order to improve the degrees of freedom of the manufacturing steps.
As a method for rapidly curing a low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric composition containing organic silica sol as the major component while improving the strength, a method using electron beams has been proposed (U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,201 and European Patent No. 1122770). This method causes not only a silanol condensation reaction, but also causes decomposition and activation of an organic group in the organic silica-based film to introduce a crosslinked structure such as Si—CHx—Si. A film exhibiting low hygroscopicity and excellent mechanical strength can be obtained by applying electron beams usually within five minutes, whereby the single-wafer processing can be performed. On the other hand, accumulation of electric charge due to electron beam application may damage the transistor structure in the LSI. Therefore, arguments exist for and against curing a low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric composition using electron beams (E. Mickler et al. Proceedings of the International Interconnect Technology Conference, p. 190, 2004, Miyajima, et al. Proceedings of the International Interconnect Technology Conference, p. 222, 2004).
A method using ultraviolet radiation is considered as a method for rapidly curing a low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric composition containing organic silica sol as the major component without using electron beams. Now, technologies other than the LSI interlayer dielectric technology are considered below. A technology of gelling silica sol by adding a photoacid generator or a photobase generator, which generates an acid or a base upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation, to silica sol and an alkoxysilane to promote a condensation reaction of a silanol and an alkoxide has been known as an optical sol-gel technology, and has been applied to formation of an optical waveguide or the like (e.g. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-109695). A silica film cured by using a photoacid generator or a photobase generator generally exhibits high hygroscopicity due to a large amount of residual silanol. As a result, the resulting film has a high dielectric constant. The hygroscopicity due to the residual silanol may be reduced by gelling the silica sol by applying ultraviolet radiation and heating the resulting product at about 250 to 500° C. for a predetermined time or more (usually 30 minutes or more). However, this process does not achieve an improvement over the above-described silica film thermal curing method. Moreover, a composition containing a photoacid generator or a photobase generator cannot satisfy the quality as an insulating film of an LSI semiconductor device for which high insulation reliability is demanded, since the photoacid generator, the photobase generator, or an acidic or basic substance generated by the photoacid generator or the photobase generator functions as a charge carrier to impair the insulating properties or causes an interconnect metal to deteriorate.
A siloxane compound is highly transparent to ultraviolet radiation, and has been vigorously studied as a backbone of an F2 photoresist using ultraviolet radiation having a wavelength of 157 nm (e.g. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-288268). This technology uses a siloxane backbone, but is basically based on the principle of a chemically-amplified photoresist using a KrF or ArF light source. Specifically, a photoacid generator generates an acidic substance upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and a chemical bond cleaved by an acid produces a functional group, such as a carboxylic acid, which is readily dissolved in a basic developer. Therefore, this technology does not promote a crosslinking reaction of silica sol by ultraviolet radiation.
The surface of the organic silica-based film cured by applying heat, electron beams, or the like has high hydrophobicity. In order to decrease the surface hydrophobicity, ultraviolet radiation may be applied to the organic silica-based film (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 6,383,913, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 63-248710, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 63-289939, Japanese Patent Publication No. 8-29932, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-110802). These technologies are characterized in that the surface of the organic silica-based film is oxidized by ozone produced by applying ultraviolet radiation in air so that the hydrophobic surface is changed into a hydrophilic surface having high reactivity, such as a silanol. This modification treatment is mainly performed in order to improve adhesion to a film deposited as the upper layer.
As described above, a technology of applying a polysiloxane resin solution or an organic silica sol solution to a substrate and applying ultraviolet radiation to the resulting film has been widely studied. However, only a limited number of documents have been reported relating to a technology which uses ultraviolet radiation for curing organic silica sol in order to form an interlayer dielectric for an LSI semiconductor device. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 3-30427, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 1-194980, International Patent Publication No. WO 03/025994, and US Patent Application No. 2004/0058090 disclose such limited related-art technologies.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 3-30427 discloses a technology in which a solution prepared by dissolving a tetraalkoxysilane (e.g. tetraethoxysilane: TEOS) in collodion is applied to a semiconductor substrate, and ultraviolet radiation is applied to the solution in a nitrogen atmosphere to obtain a silicon dioxide film at a low temperature. The feature of this technology is that highly volatile TEOS is fixed using the collodion, and decomposition of the collodion and dehydration and condensation of TEOS are promoted by applying ultraviolet radiation. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 1-194980 discloses a technology in which an organosiloxane resin is applied to a substrate, ultraviolet radiation having a dominant wavelength of 254 nm is applied to the resin at a temperature of 200° C. or less to oxidize the surface of the organosiloxane film by ozone produced by ultraviolet radiation, and the oxidized film is heated at 400° C. or more, particularly about 900° C. to obtain a dense silicon dioxide film.
International Patent Publication No. WO 03/025994 and US Patent Application No. 2004/0058090 disclose a technology of curing hydrogenated silsesquioxane (HSQ) or MSQ by applying ultraviolet radiation. In this technology, ultraviolet radiation is applied to HSQ or HSQ/MSQ cocondensate in the presence of oxygen so that active oxygen (e.g. ozone) produced in the system promotes oxidation of Si—H in HSQ to form a silica film containing a large amount of SiO2 bond. These references describe that this technology is also effective for curing MSQ in the presence of oxygen rather than the absence of oxygen. Therefore, it is estimated that the SiO2 bond formed by active oxygen is the principal mechanism of the crosslinking reaction. The feature of this technology is the use of ultraviolet radiation, since it is impossible to form the SiO2 bond in a short time using other curing methods. However, while a silica film formed according to this technology has a high modulus of elasticity and high hardness due to an increase in the amount of the SiO2 bond, the moisture absorption and the dielectric constant are increased due to an increase in hydrophilicity of the film. A film having high hygroscopicity generally tends to be damaged by reactive ion etching (RIE) performed in the processing of an interlayer dielectric of a semiconductor device, and exhibits insufficient chemical resistance against a wet cleaning liquid. This tendency significantly occurs in a low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric having a porous structure with a relative dielectric constant k of 2.5 or less. Therefore, (a) an organic silica sol composition which does not include an ionic substance such as a photoacid generator, photobase generator, or photosensitizer, a charge carrier, or a corrosive compound generation source, and can be cured in a short time, (b) a method for curing an organic silica-based film which does not cause damage to a transistor structure and enables single-wafer processing, (c) an organic silica-based film which does not exhibit hygroscopicity and exhibits high hydrophobicity, and (d) an organic silica-based film which exhibits such mechanical strength that the organic silica-based film can withstand formation of a copper damascene structure, are demanded as a low-dielectric-constant interlayer dielectric for an LSI semiconductor device along with a method of forming the same.
An organic silica sol composition for a low-dielectric-constant insulating film used for a semiconductor device is generally designed so that the composition of the organic silica sol is controlled so that an organic silica film obtained by curing the composition by heating has a high modulus of elasticity, taking into consideration the yield in a step in which a dynamic stress occurs, such as chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) or packaging (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 6,495,264). In more detail, the organic silica sol composition is designed so that the absolute crosslink density in the silica film is increased by increasing the amount of tetrafunctional silane compound (hereinafter may be called “component Q”) in the organic silica sol to usually 40 mol % or more. The crosslink density is increased by increasing the amount of the component Q, whereby a film having a high modulus of elasticity and high hardness can be obtained. However, it is difficult to cause the crosslink site (silanol) of the component Q to completely react. If the amount of component Q is increased to a large extent, the amount of residual silanol is increased after thermal curing, whereby the resulting film exhibits hydrophilicity and high hygroscopicity. In order to compensate for this drawback, cocondensation with an alkoxysilane having a hydrophobic group such as a methyltrialkoxysilane is carried out using a basic catalyst (e.g. ammonia or tetraalkylhydroxyammonium) to produce a sol having a high degree of condensation to reduce the absolute amount of silanol in the sol (U.S. Pat. No. 6,413,647), or the sol having a high degree of condensation is subjected to an additional hydrophobic treatment (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-59737 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-149714). However, since the organic silica sol containing a large amount of component Q has a low molecular chain mobility due to high crosslink density, the diffusion barrier during the solid-phase reaction is considerably high. The condensation reaction is not promoted even if the organic silica sol containing a large amount of component Q is cured at 400° C. while applying ultraviolet radiation within five minutes. Therefore, a curing time of 30 minutes or more is required for causing the organic silica sol to react. | {
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Hydrogen is one of the most ideal energy sources in 21st century, hydrogen generates the most amount of energy under the circumstance of burning the same weight of coal, gasoline and hydrogen, and the product of combustion is water without ashes or emissions, which will not harm the environment; products of combustion of burning coal and petroleum are primarily CO2 and SO2, which cause the greenhouse effect and the acid rain respectively. Reserves of coal and petroleum are restricted, hydrogen is primarily reserved in water, and water is the only product of combustion, which can generate hydrogen continuously without limitation. Hydrogen is spread widely, water is the warehouse of hydrogen, with 11% hydrogen included. The soil contains 1.5% hydrogen; hydrogen can be found in petroleum, coal, natural gas, animals and plants. Hydrogen primarily exists in a form of water, and water covers 70% surface of the earth, which is considerable, therefore, hydrogen is a limitless resource. Hydrogen will be an inexpensive energy source if it can be produced by a proper method.
At present, an annual yield of hydrogen worldwide is around 36 thousand tons, hydrogen is primarily prepared by two methods: one is prepared by petroleum, coal and natural gas, which will consume limited mineral fuels, and most hydrogen is generated by the manner; the other is prepared by the method of electrolysis of water, which consumes a great deal of electric energy and is not economic, around 4% hydrogen is produced by the method. The technology that prepares hydrogen with methanol and water is improved with the development of technique, which can reduce energy consumption and costs in chemical production, hopefully substituting the process of electrolysis of water generating hydrogen that requires a large amount of electric energy. Hybrid gases of H2 and CO2 are obtained by advanced reforming technology of producing hydrogen with methanol and water, H2 and CO2 can be separated by a palladium membrane separator.
Referring to Chinese patent application No. 201310340475.0 (applicant: SHANGHAI HEJI DEDONG HYDROGEN MACHINE CO LTD), methanol and water vapor undergo methanol decomposition and a reaction of carbon monoxide in a temperature of 350-409° C. and a pressure of 1-5 MPa with assistance of a catalyst, producing hydrogen and carbon oxide, which is a multi-componential, multi-reactional catalytic system with gases and solids. Reaction equations are as follows:CH3OH→CO+2H2 (1)H2O+CO→CO2+H2 (2)CH3OH+H2O→CO2+3H2 (3)
H2 and CO2 generated by the reforming reaction are separated by the palladium membrane separator of a separation chamber, highly purified hydrogen can be achieved.
In the entire process of producing hydrogen, the reformer of the device producing hydrogen with methanol and water is the most critical hydrogen preparation device, the reformer includes a reforming housing and a combustion chamber and a reforming chamber in the reforming housing, generally, a temperature in the reforming chamber is 350-409° C., a temperature in the combustion chamber is 405-570° C., obviously, if an error occurs, the temperature in the reforming chamber or the combustion chamber can soar up to more than 1000° C. in a short period. The housing and base of a conventional reformer of a device for preparing hydrogen with methanol and water is produced by stainless steel, albeit with high strength and thermal stability, however, the housing and base of the reformer made out of stainless steel have following disadvantages: first, corrosion and oxidation easily occur under the circumstance of preparing hydrogen; second, thermal preservation is poor, heat loss is considerable, as stainless steel is thermal conductive, heat in the reforming chamber and the combustion chamber can be lost by being conducted through the stainless steel housing and base; third, as the temperature of the stainless steel housing and base is high, other components of the device producing hydrogen with methanol and water (i.e. a solid hydrogen reservoir, a methanol and water storage container, a resource transportation device, etc.) can be destroyed by high temperature of the housing and base of the reformer, so that performance and endurance will be impacted; fourth, as the device for preparing hydrogen with methanol and water is a vital device of an electrical generation system with methanol and water, and the electrical generation system with methanol and water also includes electric components such as a control system, a fuel cell (a galvanic pile), an inverter, an electromagnetic valve, an atmospheric pressure regulator, therefore, conductivity of the housing and base of the reformer can influence circuit design of the electrical generation system with methanol and water, even can cause a short circuit of the electrical generation system with methanol and water; fifth, the stainless steel housing and base of the reformer are heavy, which bring inconvenience to transportation of the hydrogen production device. | {
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The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for producing booklet.
There has been well known a case binding apparatus that forms a booklet by covering a bunch of recording papers to be contents of the booklet (hereinafter, the term of the abovementioned “recording papers” is referred to as “main content sheets”) with a cover sheet, on which a front cover image and a back cover image are formed (further, a lining cover image would be also formed as needed), in such a manner that the main content sheets are enveloped by the cover sheet while one side, upper and lower sides of the bunch of the main content sheets are made to be open. In addition, there has been also well known an image forming apparatus that forms images onto the main content sheets and the cover sheet to be supplied to the case binding apparatus (for instance, refer to Tokkai 2002-361967 Japanese Non-Examined Patent Publication).
In the image forming apparatus, set forth in Patent Document 1 (Tokkai 2002-361967 Japanese Non-Examined Patent Publication), the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data are inputted from the external apparatus, and the cover sheet image data are handled independent of the main-content sheet image data. The image forming apparatus forms the cover sheet image based on the cover sheet image data inputted from the external apparatus.
According to the image forming apparatus set forth in Patent Document 1, since the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data are respectively inputted as independent data, the image forming apparatus can recognize whether the inputted image data are the cover sheet image data or the main-content sheet image data. Accordingly, the image forming apparatus can feed the appropriate paper sheet corresponding to the inputted image data, to form the image on it.
However, in order to input the cover sheet image data independent of the main-content sheet image data or vice versa, it is necessary to form the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data being independent of each other. This requires a lot of time and effort.
To overcome the abovementioned drawback, it has been desired to provide an image forming apparatus, which makes it possible to acquire the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data as consecutive image data.
When the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data are acquired as the consecutive image data, and specifically when at least a part of the cover sheet image data is acquired as consecutive image data succeeding the main-content sheet image data, it is impossible to recognize which page is either the cover sheet image data or the main-content sheet image data, unless the acquiring operation of the whole consecutive image data is completed. Accordingly, in order to respectively form the images represented by the both image data onto the appropriate paper sheets, it is necessary to commence the image forming operation and/or the paper feeding operation after the acquiring operation of the whole consecutive image data is completed. This results in deterioration of the productivity of the booklets. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of building construction and more particularly to the finishing of interior ceiling spaces of buildings.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most interior spaces of homes and many commercial buildings and offices are finished by attaching drywall, also known as sheet rock or gypsum board, directly to the buildings framing members using drywall screws or nails. Drywall is typically provided in 4 ft.xc3x978 ft or 4 ft.xc3x9712 ft. sheets or panels with thicknesses ranging from xc2xc inch to xc2xe inch. Accordingly, due to their weight and size these panels generally require more than one person to install or require the use of a drywall lift to raise the panel and hold it in place until it can be attached to the framing members. After being attached to the framing members, the joints between the drywall sheets are generally taped with drywall tape and then xe2x80x9cmuddedxe2x80x9d with joint compound in order to hide or cover the joints for a smooth, finished appearance. Typically, two to three layers of joint compound must be applied in order to adequately hide the joint and obtain a smooth finish. Each layer of compound generally requires twelve to twenty-four hours of drying time and then must be sanded before the next layer of joint compound can be applied. The final layer of joint compound must also be sanded after it is dry to obtain a smooth finish.
Accordingly, it should be appreciated that the conventional method of installing drywall is a very labor intensive, time consuming and expensive process, not only due to the amount of time and skill required to properly hang the drywall, but also due to the amount of cleanup required to remove the dust and debris accumulated from the joint preparation process.
Others have attempted to device tools and methods to overcome and address some of the difficulties and disadvantages associated with conventional drywall installation. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,361 discloses a bracket used to temporarily support sheets of drywall during installation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,941 discloses a connector which is foldable and which releasably engages a panel of drywall and the like and secures the drywall to the framing members. U.S. Pat. No. 6,286,285 discloses a wall bracket for aiding the attachment of drywall panels. The bracket is connected to the wall adjacent the ceiling and has a shelf area to support the drywall panels adjacent the wall.
In addition to use of drywall for attaching directly to a building""s framing members, suspended ceilings or xe2x80x9cdropxe2x80x9d ceilings are also used for finishing of interior ceilings. Suspended ceilings typically involve a series of wires which are fixed to the building""s overhead framing or mechanical components. A lower end of the wires connects to and suspends the suspended ceiling grid which support the ceiling tiles. Installing the suspended ceiling grid such that it is level with uniform grid spacings is often difficult to achieve requiring precise measurements and typically requires the employment of leveling tools, chalk lines and plumb bobs. Suspended ceilings offer certain advantages over drywall, such as lower cost, less cleanup, and the ability to remove the individual tiles from the supporting grid in the event a tile becomes damaged or in order to gain access to the overhead structure or mechanical components of the building. However the supporting grid and individual ceiling tiles are typically too lightweight to support insulation. Also, the tiles are easily damaged, and offer little or no protection or resistance to fire or noise.
While the above identified methods for finishing interior spaces of buildings may be suitable for their intended purposes, there remains a need in the industry for a system that provides the features and advantages of suspended ceilings while at the same time providing the features and advantages of drywall and like materials.
A ceiling tile support system and method for finishing interior ceiling spaces of a building. The ceiling tile support system comprises a plurality of adjacently spaced elongated bracket members secured to a building""s overhead framing members. The system further comprises a plurality of adjacently spaced elongated cross members disposed transversely to and supported by the adjacently spaced bracket members thereby defining a supporting grid for receiving and supporting the ceiling tiles.
The ceiling tiles comprising the system of the present invention may be drywall, conventional cellular ceiling tiles, wood, glass, composites, insulating materials or any other materials. Additionally, the tiles may be lighting fixtures, vent fixtures, speakers, smoke or fire detectors or any other materials or fixtures which may be supported by a grid.
To the accomplishment of the above objects, features and advantages, this invention may be embodied in the forms illustrated in the accompanying drawings, attention being called to the fact, however, that the drawings are illustrative only, and the changes may be made in the specific form illustrated and described within the scope of the appended claims. | {
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Interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) are two cytokines produced systemically and locally in response to infection, injury or immunological challenge. Based upon studies in which the action of one (or the other) cytokine has been specifically blockaded, or in which purified cytokines have been administered, IL-1 and TNF-α have been implicated in a number of disease processes. For example, IL-1 has been implicated in inflammatory diseases including rheumatoid arthritis and other degenerative joint diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, type I diabetes, psoriasis, Alzheimer's disease, and allergy. Overproduction of TNF-α has likewise been implicated in diseases such as reperfusion injury, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease such as HIV infection and HIV-induced neuropathy, allergic/atopic diseases, inflammatory disease/autoimmunity, malignancy, transplant difficulties including organ transplant rejection or graft-versus-host disease, cachexia, and congenital, dermatologic, neurologic, renal, toxicity and metabolic/idiopathic diseases. A particular case where the two cytokines are thought to act synergistically is in the induction of the Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.
Because the consequences of uncontrolled production of IL-1 and TNF-α can be severe, considerable effort has been expended on therapies that would limit the production or activity of one, or preferably both, of the cytokines. The prevailing therapy has been to administer proteins that bind specifically to the circulating cytokines, thus preventing them from interacting with their cellular receptors. Typically these protein-based therapeutics are antibodies or ‘soluble’ receptors (i.e., recombinant versions of the natural cellular receptors which lack transmembrane and signaling domains). An additional protein-based therapeutic is the IL-1 receptor antagonist protein (IL-1ra), which competes for binding to the same cellular receptors as the agonist forms of IL-1, but does not elicit a cellular signal.
The effectiveness of all three types of protein-based therapy is limited because occupation of even a very small number of IL-1 or TNF-α receptors by IL-1 or TNF-α generates a cellular response (and therefore the harmful effects described above). It is therefore necessary to maintain relatively high levels of anti-cytokine antibody, soluble receptor or antagonist protein in order to drive the equilibrium in favor of complex formation (i.e., to effectively prevent binding of IL-1 or TNF-α to their respective receptors). Another drawback to such protein-based therapeutics is that each therapeutic is selective for only one of the two cytokines. Thus, large doses of a multitude of therapeutics must be administered to a patient in order to attempt to control IL-1 and TNF-α production.
Although the biological effects of TNF-α and IL-1 are quite similar, the structures of the cytokines, and the structure of their receptors, are very different. IL-1 and TNF-α appear to have overlapping biological activities because the binding of each cytokine to its receptor appears to affect similar post-receptor signal transduction pathways. Many details of these pathways are unclear.
For example, although both cytokines activate the transcription factors NF-κB and AP-1, which leads to the regulated transcription of a wide variety of genes, the particular receptor-proximal effector molecules that regulate this process is unclear. Additionally, both cytokines have been reported to cause the activation of sphingomyelinases and phospholipases that generate, respectively, ceramide and arachidonic acid. Both cytokines also activate members of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) family including ERK1, ERK2, and the stress-activated kinases JNK-1 and p38. This family of kinases is activated, to varying extent, by a wide range of hormones, growth factors, heavy metals, protein synthetic inhibitors and ultraviolet light and therefore activation of such kinases cannot be considered unique to the IL-1/TNF-α signal transduction pathway.
In addition to items activated by both IL-1 and TNF-α, IL-1 has been reported to specifically activate the IL-1 receptor associated kinase, IRAK, (Cao, Henzel and Gao, Science 271:1128 (1996)). The cytoplasmic domains of TNF receptors have also been reported to interact with other signal transduction molecules such as TRAF1 and TRAF2, FADD, MORT and TRADD. Such TNF-α receptor-interacting proteins also appear capable of interacting with an extended receptor family, including those that mediate quite distinct cellular responses such as the T- and B-cell activator CD40 and a mediator of apoptosis, fas. (Tewari and Dixit, Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 6:39, 1996; Lee et al., J. Exp. Med. 183:669, 1996).
While certain cellular responses may be elicited by IL-1, TNF-α, or other mediators, the only known signaling event that appears to be uniquely induced by IL-1 or TNF-α, but no other defined stimulus, is a protein serine/threonine kinase activity that could be detected in vitro by its ability to phosphorylate β-casein. Guesdon et al., J. Biol. Chem. 268:4236 (1993); Biochem. J. 304:761 (1994). This β-casein kinase activity was induced in fibroblasts and other connective-tissue derived cells by IL-1 and TNF-α but not by 21 other agents tested. The structure of the β-casein kinase was not elucidated in this report.
However, there has gone unmet a need for substances and/or methods that provide either repression or stimulation of intracellular effects of both IL-1 and TNF-α. There has also gone unmet a need for substances and methods that provide interaction(s) with the post-receptor pathway(s) of IL-1 and TNF-α, as well as substances and methods that provide opportunities to detect agonists and/or antagonists to IL-1 or TNF-α, including single compounds that act as an agonist or antagonist to both IL-1 and TNF-α. The present invention provides these and other related advantages. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Deep learning is a technology used to cluster or classify objects or data. For example, computers cannot distinguish dogs and cats from photographs alone. But a human can easily distinguish those two. To this end, a method called “machine learning” was devised. It is a technique to allow a computer to classify similar things among lots of data inputted into the computer. When a photo of an animal similar to a dog is inputted, the computer will classify it as a dog photo.
There have already been many machine learning algorithms to classify data. For example, a decision tree, a Bayesian network, a support vector machine (SVM), an artificial neural network, etc. have been developed. The deep learning is a descendant of the artificial neural network.
Deep Convolution Neural Networks (Deep CNNs) are the heart of the remarkable development in deep learning. CNNs have already been used in the 90's to solve the problem of character recognition, but their use has become as widespread as it is now thanks to recent research. These deep CNNs won the 2012 ImageNet image classification tournament, crushing other competitors. Then, the convolution neural network became a very useful tool in the field of the machine learning.
FIG. 1 is a drawing schematically illustrating a conventional process of a general feeding of an input image by using a CNN.
By referring to FIG. 1, the input image 101 is fed once to a CNN in a conventional CNN operation. For example, the CNN receives the input image and instructs multiple convolutional layers to apply multiple convolution operations and non-linear operations such as ReLU, to thereby generate feature maps 102, 103, and 104 sequentially. Next, the final feature map 104 or at least some of the feature maps may be used to detect an object or to get a result of a segmentation.
Such conventional CNN operation has a problem of, once the input image is fed, losing detailed information of the input image while the feature maps are generated through the multiple convolutional layers. | {
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Spectroscopic analysis generally relies on detection and quantification of emission, absorption, or scattering of radiation by matter. In the case of gas-phase spectroscopy, the emission, absorption, or scattering of radiation occurs by individual molecules of one or more compounds present along a radiation path between a radiation source and a detector. At least some of the radiation transmitted along this path can be absorbed or scattered, or other radiation can be emitted by the molecules in the radiation path. The wavelength of the absorbed, scattered, or emitted light generally is determined by the particular energy transition occurring to the molecules of one or more emitting or absorbing compounds in the radiation path. For example, in infrared spectroscopy, discrete energy quanta are absorbed by molecules due to excitation of vibrational or rotational transitions of the intra-molecular bonds.
Some uses of spectroscopic analysis techniques involve characterizing the presence and/or concentration of one or more target analyte compounds in a gas sample. Analyzers based on spectroscopic analysis are used in a variety of applications, including but not limited to process monitoring, process control, energy content metering, detection of chemical contaminants in gas streams, and the like. These applications generally involve repeated, sequential analysis of a flowing gas stream to detect and/or quantify one or more compounds in the gas stream. A typical configuration of such an analyzer receives a flowing supply of the gas stream into a sample volume through which a radiation path between one or more sources and one or more detectors is directed one or more times. In some examples, one or more mirrors are included in the radiation path such that the radiation path traverses at least part of the sample volume more than once.
A sample volume can in some examples be at least partially enclosed in a sample cell through which the radiation path passes at least once. It can be desirable to maintain the flow rate of the supplied gas stream through the sample cell (or other sample volume) at a sufficient flow rate to prevent sample contamination by mixing of one or more other gases (e.g., ambient air, etc.) with the sample gas, as well as to provide pressure and temperature stability to the sample gas for an accurate measurement. Flow rate control can also be desirable for preventing uncontrolled or excessive releases of potentially toxic or unhealthy or environmentally undesirable gases into the atmosphere. Flow rate control can furthermore be important to achieve improved response times to changes in the gas stream.
In various spectroscopic analyzer implementations, the structure and shape of a sample cell can be constrained by mechanical considerations. For example, a sample cell can desirably meet one or more structural requirements necessary to maintain a relative position of a radiation source and a detector to improve calibration accuracy and fidelity in gas measurement applications. Movement of the detector relative to the radiation source or other changes in the radiation path between the radiation source and the detector can lead to deviations in analyzer performance, analytical errors, lack of reproducibility, etc. Sample cell design can also include considerations relating to temperature stability and control, gas flow control, and the like. | {
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LED drivers control a variety of functional aspects of an LED including the flow of current through a LED or LED array. Many LED drivers control the flow of current using some form of a constant current control circuit.
FIG. 1 illustrates a number of square wave pulses associated with an implementation of a constant current control mechanism in an LED circuit for dimming one or more LEDs. The pulses are controlled by an active control element that is gated. A dimming signal 102 provides a desired or ideal effective value of the current. Dimming signal 102 tells the current controller how to control the “temporal density” of the LED current by providing a temporal density function to the controller. A temporal density function is used to modulate the density of current pulses over time by setting/defining current pulse parameters such as, the number, position, timing and/or repetition of pulses in a given time interval. Thus, the current flows in intervals and is ON for a portion of time and OFF for a portion of time during a particular interval according to the temporal density function. This produces a dimming effect upon the LED(s). In other words, the light output of the LED is broken up into pulses by the temporal density function. By controlling the ratio of the time this temporal density function is high (or “ON”) to the time it is low (“OFF) the average output of the LED is controlled. Since the eye has a rather long time constant, with a proper selection of the frequency range for the components of the temporal density function, the eye perceives this light output to interpret an intensity level.
Errors introduced by the current control mechanisms of the LED circuit are not well controlled. For instance, errors occur when the current goes from an OFF state to an ON state because there is a ramp up time, corresponding to time interval 108, where the actual current 106 is less than the ideal current 104. Likewise, when the current goes from an ON state to an OFF state there is a ramp down time 110 where the actual current 106 exceeds the ideal current 104. The error associated with the ramping up time does not necessarily cancel out the error associated with the ramping down time. Thus, these errors produce an actual average current 114 that is different than the ideal average current 116 set by the dimming signal 102. These and other errors in the LED circuit cause distortions in the color and/or intensity of light emitted by the LED(s). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Stores equipped with Point-Of-Sale Terminals (POS), such as Self-Service Terminals (SSTs) or cashier-assisted terminals, that sell products, often sell products that have a similar appearance, but are priced differently. Organic produce items are one such example. In organic produce situations, stores selling organic produce lose money when consumers pay a non-organic price for the organic produce. When purchasing organic produce, a consumer or cashier typically places the organic produce on a scale or in view of a scanner or camera of a POS. An option on a display of the POS that should match the organic produce is then selected. In current systems, finding the organic produce on the display can be difficult and an improper selection can be erroneously or intentionally selected.
Currently, different produce items use different ways to indicate that the produce is organic. The varying features are often not detectable by a scanner of a POS in real time. The lack of consistency in labeling produce also causes difficulties in identifying whether the produce is organic. Another issue in identifying organic produce arises when produce is bagged. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Virtually all organizations (e.g., government agencies, healthcare institutions, financial institutions, retailers, social networking service providers, employers, etc.) collect and maintain personal data. In certain heavily regulated industries, such as banking and insurance, organizations are required to establish rigorous “know your customer” processes to verify customer identities. These processes are important in preventing identity theft, financial fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing.
Such troves of personal data are frequently misused for financial, political, or other reasons. To protect privacy of their citizens, many governments have adopted regulations that limit how organizations may handle personal data. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Metered dose inhalers for delivering aerosol medication for inhalation by a user are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,487,378; 5,522,378; 5,622,162; 5,794,612; 5,839,430; 5,894,841; and 6,152,130. Commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,743,251 and 6,234,167 disclose aerosol generators that vaporize a liquid formulation to form an inhalation aerosol.
Other techniques are known for generating aerosols. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,811,731 and 4,627,432 disclose devices for administering medicaments to patients in which a capsule is pierced by a pin to release a medicament in powder form. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to an apparatus for fusion-splicing a pair of polarization maintaining optical fibers and, more particularly, to an improvement on a mechanism for aligning a pair of polarization maintaining optical fibers with each other when the optical fibers are fusion-spliced.
In aligning a pair of polarization maintaining optical fibers to be fusion-spliced with each other, the optical fibers must be moved not only in X and Y directions (those are oriented orthogonally on the cross sections of the optical fibers), but also in the circumferential direction.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, each of a pair of polarization maintaining optical fibers comprises cores 14, cladding region 16, and stress-applying parts 18. FIGS. 1 and 2 only show the portions of the optical fibers, which are adjacent to the to-be-fusion-spliced end faces of the fibers. These figures show the cross sections of the fibers, thereby to facilitate the understanding of the structure of the optical fibers, although actually they cannot be seen since the fibers are positioned face-to-face. The remaining portion of each fiber is covered with sheath laid around and in contact with cladding region 16. The exposed portion of each fiber where the sheath is peeled off will be referred to as an exposed fiber portion 12. The portion covered with sheath will be referred to as a sheathed fiber portion 11 (not shown in FIGS. 1 and 2). The entire optical fiber will be referred to as optical fiber 10.
In aligning a pair of polarization maintaining optical fibers with each other, in order to minimize the extinction ratio, stress-applying parts 18 of one of the fibers are, as shown in FIG. 1, aligned with those of the other fiber, or are, as shown in FIG. 2, displaced in maximum from those of the other fiber.
In both cases, the optical fibers must be moved in X and Y directions so as to obtain the axial alignment of the fibers. These directions are orthogonally oriented to each other on the cross sections of the fibers.
Further, the fibers are turned by angle .theta. in a circumferential direction around the axes of the fibers, i.e., the respective Z-axis to align the stress-applying parts 18 of the fibers or to displace the parts in maximum.
Practically, however, it is very difficult to turn the optical fibers finely in the circumferential direction so that the stress-applying parts may be aligned or displaced in maximum. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In a voice communication device, a microphone and a speaker must be provided in order to allow a user to send and receive audio signals with another compatible device used by another person.
In a typical telephone, a handset is provided which is a shaped form having two transducers, e.g. a microphone and a speaker, positioned in a well-spaced relationship. Meanwhile, portable communication devices, such as cellular phones, have smaller and smaller form factors. Locating transducers in a cellular phone is a difficult task, because there are space restrictions on potential locations for the transducers and in certain confined spaces, the location of a transducer, such as a microphone, must be sufficiently isolated from signal interference generated from other devices within the phone. As such, in some instances a microphone may need to be placed at a location which is not especially close to the associated microphone port in the housing of the phone.
There is a need for an arrangement which addresses such difficulties in the prior art. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for designing, rendering and programming a user interface.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Computer programs interact with their users through user interfaces, which translate user actions into input for the computer and present information to the user in human readable form. Such interfaces are usually designed to be easy to use. Each hardware device which runs the computer program may use a different interface. For example, Windows-based machines use a graphical user interface (GUI) which uses windows, menus and dialog boxes. These interfaces tend to show a lot of information and are typically the easiest to use. In smaller devices such as a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA) or pager, the display is much smaller and the input device more limited. Accordingly, less sophisticated interfaces are usually used. Devices such as a PDA may still provide menus and windows to a certain extent, although the limited size inhibits them from using multiple windows. On a cell phone or pager with a very small display, windows may not be used at all.
One traditional way of designing user interfaces is by using specific components related to the development platform. The development platform can be a specific Operating System platform (such as Windows, Linux, or the Mac OS) or a specific device such as PDA, or a cell phone. For each of these platforms, a hierarchy of proprietary components is used, creating an incompatibility between each other. These components are usually related to visual capacities and specific capabilities of the target platform (components such as windows and buttons are common on GUIs whereas small menus are used on wireless devices), extending the incompatibility between GUIs and wireless interfaces. Moreover, they have inherent limitations: remote access is not available without external software and there is no multi-user collaboration functionality implemented.
In designing user interfaces, therefore, it is usual to design a separate interface for each type of device. In this way, the designer specifies the nature of the interface on each possible device. They must specify the location and type of each interface elements for each device. Naturally, this results in additional work for each device which is supported. Furthermore, it is difficult to support new or future devices if their capabilities are not yet known.
Mark-up languages such as HTML and XML are often used in Internet-based applications to work with several clients. However, the mark-up provides only one nominal view for the document. This view is usually not suitable for different types of devices. Web pages for PDA's and cell phones need to be created, and designed separately in WML rather than HTML to accommodate the limited interface. This requires additional design and development for each device of interest, and requires that the server know the destination device in order to choose the correct formatting.
Java is an attempt to overcome the GUI incompatibility by offering its adaptable set of proprietary components. However, Java still offers at least three sets of UI components: AWT/SWING for GUIs, J2ME for wireless devices and JTAPI for vocal access. It also doesn't really run remotely since applets must be downloaded first before running locally on the client.
None of the existing user interface components is really portable on different platforms creating a necessity of redesigning and recoding to support other existing platforms. All these incompatibilities between different user interfaces are noted in the following statement from the J2ME white paper:
“Consumer devices have substantial differences in memory size, networking, and user interface capabilities, making it very difficult to support all devices with just one solution.” | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a dough hook attachment for a stand-type kitchen mixer. More specifically, the invention relates to a dough hook having novel means for attachment to a mixer whereby the dough hook is firmly held and yet is readily attached to and detached from, the mixer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, there are showings of dough hook attachments for more or less conventional mixers. An example is my own Pat. No. 3,995,840, issued Dec. 7, 1976. While the invention of my earlier patent is meritorious, it is limited to machines provided with clamp means which normally holds the beater-assembly-support of the mixer and may be used to hold the dough hook attachment. Many mixers do not have such clamp assemblies, and the present invention is aimed at such non-clamp-type mixers. The attachment of the invention is useful with many commercially available mixers. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a modular, easy-to-assemble, tapered, hollow reamer for medical applications; and more particularly, to a modular, tapered, hollow reamer that is inexpensive to produce and has a disposable reamer assembly, which can be attached to a reusable shaft portion and includes one or more bone debris capturing cavities.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Reaming of the internal canal of bones is required in many surgical procedures of orthopedic surgery. These procedures include hip replacement, knee replacement and shoulder replacement. Reamers are also used in procedures that involve the internal fixation of fractures. Prior art reamers typically fall into two major classes: rigid and flexible shaft. Typically, reaming of the internal bone canal is achieved through utilization of a solid cylindrical or tapered reamer. Solid cylindrical or tapered reamers currently utilized are required to cut both cancellous bone (spongy bone) and cortical bone (hard bone). Cortical bone is generally denser and stronger, requiring an efficient cutter to machine the canal for a proper fit of the implant. Conventional reamers can cut cortical bone initially but can quickly dull after a single use, or at best a few uses. Once the reamer acquires dull cutting edges, its bone cutting efficiency is substantially reduced. In such cases the reamer can generate sufficient friction/heat to damage or kill the surrounding bone. These prior art solid cylindrical or tapered reamers are intended for multiple uses and therefore become less efficient after each surgery, resulting in poor cutting performance and bone necrosis. Dull reamer blades can also incorporate bone debris or bone cement debris into the living bone tissue, creating bone healing problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,116,200 to Braun et al. discloses a milling tool for surgical purposes. The surgical milling tool is a hand-operated milling machine for milling the heads or sockets of bone joints and has a spherical shape. The tool is formed of a hemispherical cup integrally formed with a cylindrical skirt and flange and is provided with a plurality of openings of semi-oval shape, each having a cutting edge arranged at the minor axis of the oval shape. The openings are situated such that, upon rotation of the cup, the cutting edges thereof overlap to provide a continuous cutting edge surface conforming generally to the shape of the cup. The hemispherical shape of the cup provides the ability to hollow out the arcuate shape of the bone joints. Bone and cartilage shavings are formed during the milling process and are collected in a border area inside of the hemispherical cup. The surgical milling tool is provided for multiple uses and therefore the tool will become less efficient after each surgery, resulting in poor cutting performance and bone necrosis. Moreover, the spherically shaped reaming tool is not tapered.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,548 to Davis discloses surgical reamer. This surgical bone reamer includes a rotatable, elongated shank having a proximal end, a distal end and a longitudinal axis. A reaming head mounted on the distal end. A plurality of equally spaced walls is radially disposed on the reaming head around the longitudinal axis. Tip edges for penetrating bone are defined on the radial walls to be disposed angularly with the longitudinal axis. Reaming edges joined to the tip edges extend longitudinally from the tip edges in the proximal direction parallel to and an equal radial distance from the longitudinal axis for reaming a cylindrical tunnel when the reaming head is rotated in bone. Tapered flutes disposed angularly between the tip edges and the radial walls permit bone to be evacuated through the reaming head when forming a tunnel in bone. The reaming head is provided with angular tips and edges for penetrating the bone and is thus not a single use disposable cutter. The debris created is not stored away from the cutting edge and thus previously cut material may be included in the bone.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,549,613 to Goble et al. discloses a modular surgical drill. This modular surgical drill is in the form of a rigid drill shaft and a drill bit, which are connected together by a tongue-and-groove arrangement attaching the rear end of the drill bit to the forward end of the drill shaft. Each of the shaft and drill bit are provided with through bores extending centrally through their entire length. These bores become aligned upon assembly of the drill bit and shaft. The modular drill is intended to be employed with a guidewire for drilling holes into bone. The assembled drill bit and shaft are placed on the guidewire and moved down such guidewire into contact with the bone, whereupon a tunnel may be formed into the bone by rotating and advancing the drill bit along the guidewire. The dimensions of the bore and guidewire are so selected as to prevent the drill bit and drill shaft from moving relative to one another once they are assembled and mounted on the guidewire. Debris created during drilling is not removed and collected away from the cutting location. The central bore is solid and as such does not receive cut bone debris. The cutter used is not disposable.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,399 to Huebner discloses a bone-harvesting drill apparatus and method for its use. A coring drill harvests bone from a donor area of the human body. The drill bit is formed with a cylindrical, hollow shaft and a half-conical tip or cutting head. The cutting head is provided with a sharpened edge, which meets at an apex with a non-sharpened edge, forming an obtuse angle of approximately 120 degrees. The sharpened edge is configured to cut into bone when the drill bit is rotated in a clockwise direction. With the apex directed against a section of bone, the cutting edge sheers off fragments of bone, which are then drawn upwardly through the hollow shank of the drill bit. As the drill bit is forced downwardly, continuous cutting action occurs and the morselized bone can then be removed from the shank and used to build-up bone in other areas to which it is transplanted. The drill bit fittingly mates on the distal end a fitting that renders the drill bit physically compatible with a conventional chuck. The bit includes a pair of diametrically opposed, oppositely inclined recesses that cooperate with a crossbar member within a bit-receiving bore of the fitting. When the aligned drill bit is pressed into the fitting, the crossbar member cams along the inclined recesses causing the bit to rotate relative to the fitting. The resulting frictional engagement between the recesses and the crossbar member, along with a detent assembly between the bit and the fitting, securely lock the bit onto the distal end of the fitting, yet render removal possible by the use of a removal tool. The bone harvesting tool provides a non-disposable cutter. Reuse of the cutter dulls the beveled lip edges. Moreover, the harvested bone collection central bore requires a thorough cleaning prior to each use, creating contamination possibilities.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,634 to Muller et al. discloses a medullary drill head. This drill head for intramedullary drilling has a front part, a middle part and a rear part and is shaped as a hollow body of revolution. The front and rear parts have spiral slots formed with cutting edges. The rear part has an attachment for coupling to a drilling shaft. The drill head is not disposable, and as a result, the drill head is continuously reused, resulting in dulling of the cutting edges. Moreover, the drill head includes three openings in the form of spirally shaped slots configured to have cutting edges similar to a grater; and has no place to collect bone debris.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,671 to O'Neill discloses a bone harvesting method and apparatus. This apparatus and method harvests bone using a manual, cylindrical, multi-directional coring device with a guided delivery system that can be inserted through a percutaneous or closed approach to extract precisely measured amounts of bone or bone marrow. A series of guide wires, obturators, dilators and cannulas are used as the exposure and delivery instrumentation for a cutting tool. The cutting tool has a tip with six cutting edges for cutting in all directions. This apparatus is a manual, cylindrical, multi-directional coring device with a guided delivery system to extract precisely measured amounts of bone or bone marrow. The cutter portion of the device is not disposable and is subject to wear and dull edges. This coring device does not suggest a tapered reamer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,976,144 to Fishbein et al. discloses a hollow dome reamer with removable teeth. This surgical reamer has a hollow dome with apertures spaced apart arranged in arcs extending from an apex of the dome to the base portion of the dome, and removable teeth positioned in the apertures. Each cutting tooth has (i) a flange that is aligned flush with the external surface of the dome, (ii) a raised cutting edge extending above the flange and the external surface of the dome, and (iii) an interior passageway communicating between the outside and inside of the dome. A base plate may be removably secured on the base portion of the dome to provide closure for the central cavity of the dome. Although the teeth are removable, they are not disposable in nature; the teeth are removed for replacement or for re-sharpening and are used again. Removal of the small teeth may be cumbersome and difficult, and may even pose a danger during removal as the person removing the teeth may be cut by the sharp edges; replacement of the teeth into the apertures of the reamer will likely pose the same problems. The bone debris is not collected away from the cutting edges of the teeth. This hollow domed reamer is spherically shaped reamer; does not suggest a tapered reamer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,170 to Salyer discloses a tool driver. This tool driver has a shaft with a longitudinal axis and opposite ends. A boss is secured at one of the shaft ends by which the tool driver is connected to a rotary tool. A tool collate is secured at the other of the shaft ends by which the tool driver may be driven by a surgical hand piece having a chuck in which the collate may be positioned. The boss has a distal end surface with a groove therein. Both the groove and the distal end surface extend transversely of the axis. A pin is positioned in the groove on the axis. A latch mechanism is provided to hold a mounting bar of a rotary tool in the groove on the pin, whereby the rotary tool is held exactly coaxially of the driver during use. The rotary tool, which is used with the driver has a bar containing the same dimensions as the groove in the boss of the tool driver. The bar thus fills and is complementary to the slot. The bar has a hole therein which is complementary to the pin. The pin extends coaxially of the shaft and the boss. The bar hole in which the pin of the tool driver is positioned is precisely coaxial of the axis of the tool about which the cutting edges are precisely positioned. The cutters are connected to the tip of the shaft and are spherical in nature for joint and patella reaming. In addition, the reamer cups are not disposable in nature. The bone fragments are not collected and kept away from the cutting edge. This spherically shaped reamer is not tapered.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,722 to Zech et al. discloses a hollow milling tool. The hollow milling tool produces substantially hollow cylindrical depressions in human or animal tissue. It also produces tissue pillars, which are removed at a harvest location, transported to a defect location and implanted. The hollow milling tool has teeth for the ablation of tissue which are arranged at the distal end of the milling tool at the end side. Furthermore, the milling tool has passages for transporting a cooling fluid to a cooling region of the milling tool lying near the distal end during the ablation of tissue. Teeth are constructed within the milling tool for accomplishing the depressions. These teeth will eventually need sharpening as the tool is used over time. No structure is contained within the '722 patent that discloses or suggests a tapered reamer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,886 to Green et al. discloses a surgical reamer and method of using same. This device is used for expedited reaming of a medullary canal. The device includes a reamer head connected at the distal end of a rotatable drive shaft. The reamer head has a cutting head with five blades and flutes therebetween. Each blade has a front cutting portion. The blades can also include a side cutting portion. The method for removing material from the medullary canal of a bone includes the steps of reaming an area of the medullary canal to remove material; irrigating the material to be removed while reaming to reduce generation of heat and move removed material from the reaming area; and aspirating the removed material while reaming to create a negative intramedullary canal pressure to assist in the removal of the material. The blades and flutes at the reamer are reused and are subject to dulling. The bone chips are to be removed by the irrigating fluid, which means they are always present adjacent to the cutting portions and may be forced into the bone tissue. No disclosure in the '886 patent suggests a tapered reamer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,451,023 to Salazar et al. discloses a guide bushing for a coring reamer, a storage package for reamer assembly, and a method of use. This guide bushing for a coring reamer has a tapered member with its largest diameter at its first end so that the guide bushing frictionally engages an internal surface of the reamer with a line contact. The guide bushing has a passage sized to slidably receive a guide pin. In use, the bushing advances in the proximal direction within the coring reamer along a guide pin while the excavated bone enters the passageway through the reamer. A storage package specifically designed for the reamer assembly is employed to remove the excavated bone from within the reamer. The package has a closed distal end and an open proximal end closeable with a cap. With the coring reamer received in cantilevered fashion through a central opening of the cap of the tube, and with an adapter that couples the coring reamer to a handpiece installed, a wrench is placed over the adapter and turned while the user grips peripheral surfaces of the cap to prevent rotation of the coring reamer. A plunger is inserted through the opening and through the coring reamer from the proximal end. The plunger is pushed through the reamer until the bone core and bushing fall out of the distal end of the coring reamer. The guide bushing for a coring reamer is appointed with an open end surrounded by peripheral teeth. The teeth are arranged peripheral to the body of the tube of the reamer. The tube is hollow and therefore excavated bone accumulates therewithin. The reamer, bushing and packaging are disposed of after use. The '023 patent discloses a bone excavating tool that does not prepare a bone canal for implantation of femoral implants. No structure is disclosed therein that suggests a tapered reamer.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,074,224 to Daniels et al. discloses a modular tapered reamer for bone preparation and associated method. This kit is for use in performing joint arthroplasty and includes a trial and a reamer. The reamer is said to be useful when preparing a cavity in the intramedullary canal of a long bone with the use of a driver, and to assist in performing a trial reduction. The reamer includes a first portion for placement at least partially in the cavity of the long bone and a second portion operably connected to the first portion. The reamer is removably connected to the driver to rotate the reamer. The trial is removably attachable to the reamer. This tapered reamer is not disposable and does not have provision for accumulating bone debris away from the cutting portion of the bone.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0113836 to Lozier et al. discloses an expandable reamer. This expandable reamer includes a cannulated shaft and a plurality of straight cutting blades having deformable points. The blades are hingably outwardly rotatable at the deformation points between a contracted position and an expanded position. In the contracted position, the blades are substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the cannulated shaft and, in the expanded position, the blades have at least a portion oriented radially outward from the longitudinal axis, thereby forming a larger diameter cutting surface in the expanded position and in the contracted position. The blades are formed from a portion of the cannulated shaft by, e.g. milling longitudinally extending slots through the wall of the cannulated shaft. The slots serve as flutes dividing the cutting edge and trailing edge of each adjacent blade. Each blade may also include more than one segment arranged along its length, the segments being coupled by deformation points. The expandable reamer may be used for cutting a cavity in a bone or other structure that is larger than the diameter of the entry point into the bone and greater than the diameter of the contracted reamer. The expandable reamer is not disposable. Since the expandable blades are deformably attached to the cannulated shaft, the cut bone debris is not collected away from the bone cutting region. As a result, fragments of cut bone debris may be pushed into the bone tissue by the deformable rotating blades.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0004371 to Williams et al. discloses an orthopedic reamer. This orthopedic reamer is for use in creating and sizing canals in a bone. The orthopedic reamer includes a non-polymeric cutting portion having at least one cutting surface thereon and a polymeric body portion covering at least a portion of the cutting portion. The at least one cutting surface is not covered by the polymeric body portion. The orthopedic reamer provides cutting components including a blade or saw like construction, rather than the plurality of teeth. Although the orthopedic reamer is appointed for disposability, the publication requires that the entire reamer, and not just the cutting portion, be disposed of. That is to say, the entire reamer, including the non-polymeric cutting portion and the polymeric body portion of the device are all disposed of; not just the cutter.
There remains a need in the art for a low cost, modular, easy-to-assemble, hollow tapered reamer for medical applications having a disposable hollow cutter assembly. Also needed in the art is a disposable hollow cutter assembly of the type described, which can be attached to a reusable shaft portion that provides means for reaming of the internal canal of bones. Further needed in the art is a cutter assembly having means for collecting bone debris and keeping the collected debris displaced from the cutting edges, so that the cutting edges remain during drilling and after one use of the reamer a new hollow cutter assembly can be utilized, and the old hollow cutter assembly can be discarded. | {
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The present invention relates generally to integrated circuit memory devices and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for automatically adjusting the pull-up margin of a match line circuit used in conjunction with a content addressable memory (CAM).
A content addressable memory (CAM) is a storage device in which storage locations are identified by their contents, not by names or positions. A search argument is presented to the CAM and the location that matches the argument asserts a corresponding match line. One use for such a memory is in dynamically translating logical addresses to physical addresses in a virtual memory system. In this case, the logical address is the search argument and the physical address is produced as a result of the dynamic match line selecting the physical address from a storage location in a random access memory (RAM). CAMs are also frequently used for Internet address searching.
A conventional CAM array 1 having n-bit words is shown in FIG. 1 to include a row of n CAM cells 10 coupled to an associated word line WL. Each CAM cell 10 includes a latch, formed by CMOS inverters 12 and 14, for storing a bit of data. Opposite sides of the latch are coupled to associated complementary bit lines BL and BL bar via pass transistors 16 and 18, respectively, where each transistor has a gate coupled to the associated word line WL. The output terminal of the inverter I2 is coupled to the gate of an NMOS pass transistor 20, and the output terminal of the inverter I4 is coupled to the gate of an NMOS transistor 22. Transistor 20 is coupled between the associated bit line BL and the gate of an NMOS pull-down transistor 24, and transistor 22 is coupled between the associated complementary bit line BL bar and the gate of pull-down transistor 24. Pull-down transistor 24 is coupled between ground potential and a match line ML associated with the CAM word formed by the cells 10. A PMOS pull-up transistor 26 is coupled between a supply voltage VDD and the match line ML.
In the configuration of FIG. 1, the pull-up transistor 26 has a gate tied to ground potential and, therefore, remains in a conductive state. A conventional buffer 28 is coupled in series between the match line and an associated sensing circuit (not shown). During compare operations, the word line WL associated with the CAM word is grounded to turn off the pass transistors 16 and 18 associated with each CAM cell 10. Comparand bits to be compared with the data bits Q stored in the CAM cells 10 are provided to the associated bit lines BL, while the respective complements of the comparand bits are provided to the associated complementary bit lines BL bar. For each CAM cell 10, if the comparand bit matches the data bit Q stored therein, the gate of the corresponding pull-down transistor 24 is driven with a logic low signal via transistors 20 or 22, thereby maintaining the pull-down transistor 24 in a non-conductive state. If, on the other hand, the comparand bit does not match the data bit Q stored in the CAM cell 10, the gate of the corresponding pull-down transistor 24 is driven with a logic high signal via transistors 20 or 22, thereby turning on the pull-down transistor 24. When conductive, the pull-down transistors 24 pull the match line toward ground potential.
Thus, if just one of the comparand bits do not match their corresponding data bits Q stored in the CAM cells 10, the match line ML will be pulled to a logic low state (i.e., ground potential). Conversely, if all of the comparand bits match their corresponding data bits Q, the match line ML remains at the supply voltage VDD (i.e., a logic high state). In response to the voltage level on the match line ML, the buffer 28 provides to an associated sense circuit (not shown) an output signal indicative of whether all bits of the comparand word match all corresponding bits of the CAM word.
One disadvantage of the above described CAM configuration results from the fact that during a standby mode, DC current will flow through the match line circuit unless the bitline nodes (BL, BL bar) are precharged low. Otherwise, the path to ground potential results in significant power dissipation which, in turn, undesirably increases as the size and/or density of the CAM increases. On the other hand, the use of additional circuitry to precharge the bitline pairs also have negative impacts on device size and cost.
The above discussed and other drawbacks and deficiencies of the prior art are overcome or alleviated by a method for determining a desired operating impedance for a computer memory circuit, the computer memory circuit having a plurality of discrete, selectively adjustable impedance values associated therewith. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the method includes applying, to a reference circuit, a test impedance value to a reference circuit. The test impedance value is controlled by a binary count. A determination is made, based upon the applied test impedance value, whether the reference circuit is in either a first state or a second state. The binary count is incremented if the reference circuit is in the first state and decremented if the reference circuit is in the second state. A condition is determined in which the reference circuit oscillates between the first state and said second state, and a pair of binary count values is stored. One of the binary count values represents a first impedance value which causes the reference circuit to change from the first state to the second state, and the other binary count value represents a second impedance value which causes the reference circuit to change from the first state to the second state. The desired operating impedance for the computer memory circuit corresponds to the lower of the stored pair of binary count values.
In a preferred embodiment, the lower of the stored pair of binary count values is adjusted by subtracting a predetermined, fixed value therefrom so as to create a buffered count. The buffered count is then used in applying the desired operating impedance to the operating circuit. | {
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Understanding the three-dimensional primary circulation of land-falling tropical cyclones (TCs) from single ground-based Doppler radar data has proved difficult despite numerous prior art approaches. A TC is typically described as a large cyclonic rotating body of winds characterized by a calm region near its circulation center. The intensity of a TC is usually classified by its surface maximum wind and/or minimum central pressure. Due to the practical limitations of dual-Doppler radar observations, prior art approaches have focused mainly on single-Doppler radar observations. One such approach is the so-called ground-based velocity track display (GBVTD) algorithm that attempts to estimate the primary circulation of atmospheric vortices, such as tropical cyclones and tornadoes. Although the GBVTD algorithm has greatly enhanced the estimation of the primary circulation of atmospheric vortices, the GBVTD algorithm has limitations in at least the following four areas: 1) distortion in the retrieved asymmetric wind fields, 2) a limited analysis domain, 3) the inability to resolve the cross-beam component of the mean wind, and 4) the inability to separate the asymmetric tangential and radial winds.
The present application overcomes some of these drawbacks and presents a new algorithm, which substantially eliminates the first two limitations inherent in the GBVTD technique and demonstrates the possibility of subjectively estimating the mean wind vector when its signature is visible beyond the influence of the vortex circulation.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the algorithm used by the present invention fits the atmospheric vortex circulation to a scaled Doppler velocity, VdD/RT, in a linear azimuth angle (θ′), rather than the Doppler velocity Vd in a nonlinear angle (ψ), which is used in GBVTD, where Vd is the Doppler velocity, D is the radial distance between the radar and the pulse volume, and RT is the distance from the radar to the estimated vortex center. Key vortex kinematic structures (e.g., mean wind, axisymmetric tangential wind, etc.) in the VdD/RT space simplify the interpretation of the radar signature and substantially eliminate the geometric distortion inherent in the Vd display used in the prior art. This is a significant improvement in diagnosing vortex structures in both operations and research. The advantages of using VdD/RT are illustrated using analytical atmospheric vortices, and the properties are compared with GBVTD. The characteristics of the VdD/RT display of Typhoon Gladys (1994) were approximated by a constant mean wind plus an axisymmetric vortex to illustrate the usefulness of the present art.
Atmospheric vortices such as tropical cyclones and tornadoes possess a dipole Doppler velocity pattern when observed by a ground-based Doppler radar scanning in a plan-position indicator (PPI) mode. The shape of the dipole Doppler velocity pattern of an axisymmetric vortex is a function of the distance between the “vortex circulation center” (hereafter, the center) and the radar, the core diameter, and the ratio of peak tangential to peak radial wind. The dipole rotates clockwise (counterclockwise) when the radial wind is inflow (outflow). When an axisymmetric vortex is located at infinite distance from the radar, its center can be determined as the midpoint of the line segment connecting the two peak dipole velocities. As the vortex approaches the radar, the peak velocities of the dipole move toward the radar faster than the center. Hence, the dipole pattern is distorted and the center does not fall on the line segment connecting the two peak velocities of the dipole, which increases the complexity of accurately identifying the center in operational setting.
Based on the rotational characteristics of a vortex, a prior art, single-Doppler wind retrieval methodology, called the ground-based velocity track display (GBVTD), to retrieve and display the primary kinematic structures of atmospheric vortices has been developed. FIG. 1 shows the symbols and geometry of the GBVTD technique, which is also utilized according to the present invention. The symbols in FIG. 1 are defined as follows:
O:the location of the ground-based Doppler radarT:the center of the TCR:the radial distance from the TC center to the ring at a constantaltitude where the analysis is performedE:the intersection of a radar beam and a constant radius ringA, C:the intersections of a radar beam and a ring of radius RB, H:the intersections of radar beams tangent to the ring of radius Rwhere OB ⊥ TB and OH ⊥ THF, G:FG passes through T and is perpendicular to OTD:the radial distance between the radar and a pulse volumeRT:the radial distance between the radar and the storm centerθD:the mathematical angle of the radar beam measuredcounterclockwise from the eastφ:the elevation angle of the radar beamVd:the Doppler velocityVT:the tangential velocity of the TC, positive counterclockwise(clockwise) in the Northern (Southern) HemisphereVR:the radial velocity of the TC, positive outward from the TC centerVM:the magnitude of the mean wind flowθM:the direction of the mean wind flowα:the angle subtended by OE and OT (∠TOE)αmax:the maximum α at a given radius (∠TOB)ψ:∠OET; when ψ = 0 (A) and π (C), the radar beam is parallel toradius TE; when ψ = π/2 (B) and 3π/2 (D), the radar beam isnormal to radius TEθT:the mathematical angle for TC center viewing from the radar
Using a cylindrical coordinate system with the center as the origin, the GBVTD technique performs a Fourier decomposition of the Doppler velocity Vd around each circle of radius R, and then estimates the three-dimensional (3D) tangential and radial circulations that cannot be deduced by existing single-Doppler wind retrieval methods. Plausible axisymmetric 3D kinematic and dynamic quantities, such as the angular momentum, vertical vorticity, and perturbation pressure, can also be computed from the GBVTD-retrieved axisymmetric tangential and radial winds.
A few of the limitations of the GBVTD technique are as follows: 1) distortion in the retrieved asymmetric wind fields, 2) a limited analysis domain, 3) an inability to resolve the cross-beam component of the mean wind, and 4) an inability to separate the asymmetric tangential and radial winds. The first three limitations are caused by the sampling geometry, while the last is due to the intrinsic closure assumptions of the GBVTD technique. Hence, the GBVTD-derived vortex circulation is a proxy of the “true” circulation and may inherit large uncertainties resulting from the above limitations in certain situations.
The present application provides a generalized velocity track display (GVTD) technique and its applications to atmospheric vortices. The technique of the present invention extends the foundation of GBVTD already established in an attempt to address the first three aforementioned limitations inherent in the GBVTD technique. Starting from the same radar observations, the technique used by present invention introduces a new variable VdD/RT, which is the scaled Doppler velocity, by multiplying the radial distance between the radar and a pulse volume (D) by the measured Doppler velocity Vd, and then dividing by the distance between the radar and the estimated vortex center (RT). Key vortex kinematic structures displayed in the VdD/RT space simplify the interpretation of the radar signature and eliminate the geometric distortion inherited in the Vd space. It will be shown that the present invention expands VdD/RT into Fourier coefficients in a linear coordinate (θ′) rather than expanding Vd in a nonlinear coordinate (ψ′) in GBVTD. This results in a slightly complicated but mathematically exact representation, eliminating the required approximation of cos α in GBVTD. The present invention is able to retrieve asymmetric vortex structures without distortion when the center is known accurately. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of the present invention relates to a sheet winder which enables a sheet roll paper wound in a roll shape to be used in manufacturing of a corrugated cardboard for packing cases, in which the sheet roll paper is obtained by laminating sheet papers printed one by one using a lithography technique as one of the most general and economical printing methods and a roll paper used as a material for manufacturing the corrugated cardboard for packing cases.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of technologies and the improvement of income levels, large-sized electronic products such as a flat panel television, a refrigerator and a washing machine are sold in large quantities, and accordingly, the use of large-sized packing boxes for safety delivery of the large-sized electronic products are increased.
A corrugated cardboard which is light, cheap and strong is used as a material of the packing boxes. However, one-color characters or figures are printed on a yellow surface of the corrugated cardboard, which degrades the dignity of high-quality electronic products to be packed.
Therefore, the high quality of packing boxes is pursued by manufacturing packing boxes using a corrugated cardboard and separately attaching a high-quality sheet paper printed with highly designed characters and figures to a surface of each of the packing boxes so as to improve the quality of products to be packed.
However, since a separate attaching process is added to the manufacturing method of packing boxes, productivity is deteriorated and manufacturing cost is considerably increased. Therefore, efficient packing operations are not performed in large quantities. | {
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The invention relates to a method of operating an inductor and to an assembly including an inductor for carrying out such method.
In the prior art, an inductor is water cooled during operation. For this purpose, an induction coil has a hollow cross-section which defines a cooling passage (see EP 0 291 289 B1, EP 0 339 837 B1). Such water cooling serves to protect the inductor against overheating. Water cooling has, however, the disadvantage that any leaks result in potentially harmful and in any event undesired steam generation on discharge into a melt.
DE 41 36 066 A1 discloses a discharge device for a metallurgical vessel and a method of opening and closing a discharge or outlet sleeve. An inductor is to be moved relative to the discharge sleeve into different displacement positions in order to influence thermal conduction between the inductor and the discharge sleeve. In a first displacement position, a gap between the inductor and the discharge sleeve constitutes heat insulation and the electrically switched on, cooled inductor inductively melts a metal plug in the discharge sleeve. In the second displacement position, there is a thermally conductive connection between the inductor and the discharge sleeve. The inductor through which cooling medium flows is electrically switched off. The cooling down of the discharge sleeve which thus occurs permits the metal melt to freeze in the discharge sleeve. In order to be able to operate the inductor in both these working phases (displacement positions) it must be mechanically moved. This requires an appropriate actuation and control device.
An inductor at an outlet element of a melt vessel is described in German Patent Application P 44 28 297 and is installed directly in the base of a melt vessel or in an apertured brick in the base of the melt vessel. This inductor cannot be operated in a manner corresponding to DE 41 36 066 A1 because it cannot be moved with respect to the discharge sleeve. | {
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ATVs and side by side vehicles are well known in the powersports and recreational industry, and their utility is becoming known in other industries as well, such as medical uses, military uses and the like, due to their versatility and low cost.
In an embodiment disclosed herein, an all terrain vehicle comprises a frame; ground engaging members supporting the frame; a driver seat supported by the frame, where the driver's seat extends along a first longitudinal axis; and a passenger seat is supported by the frame, rearward of the driver's seat, and extends along a second longitudinal axis, where the first and second longitudinal axes are laterally spaced apart.
In another embodiment disclosed herein, an all terrain vehicle comprises a frame; ground engaging members supporting the frame; a driver seat supported by the frame, where the driver's seat extends along a first longitudinal axis; and a support assembly extends along a second longitudinal axis where the first and second longitudinal axes are laterally spaced apart.
In a further embodiment disclosed herein, an all terrain vehicle comprises a frame; ground engaging members supporting the frame; a driver seat supported by the frame, where the driver seat extends along a first longitudinal axis; and a longitudinal centerline of the vehicle extends along a second longitudinal axis; the first and second longitudinal axes being laterally spaced apart.
In yet another embodiment, an all terrain vehicle comprises a frame and ground engaging members supporting the frame. A drive train is supported by the frame and is drivingly coupled to the ground engaging members. The drive train extends along a first longitudinal axis and the vehicle has a longitudinal centerline laterally spaced apart the first longitudinal axis.
An embodiment according to the disclosure will now be described by way of the attached drawings. The foregoing aspects and many of the intended advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. | {
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99Tc arising from spent fuel reprocessing is a major radiation concern owing to a combination of high thermal fission yield (6%), long half life (2.13×105 y), high environmental mobility in oxidized pertechnate form combined with radioactivity as a β-emitter. Further, 99Tc presents a challenge to conventional high temperature vitrification in a borosilicate glass matrix owing to its volatility at glass synthesis temperatures.
One of the methods to capture 99Tc, is to immobilize it in a suitable matrix like an iron based spinel material such as magnetite (Fe3O4) or a common corrosion product of iron and steel in aqueous or marine environments such as Goethite (FeOOH). This subject has been investigated using theoretical and experimental means. The salient findings are as follows: 1. Three Tc (IV) can replace four Fe (III) in α-Goethite (FeOOH), while creating one Fe (III) vacancy or replacement of Fe (III) by Fe (II). 2. Fe (II) is essential for reduction of pertechnate ionic species 3. Goethite conversion to magnetite is impeded by the presence of phosphate species in the waste 4. Leach rates of Tc (IV) incorporated into either magnetite/goethite structure are very low 5. Probability of Tc (IV) re-oxidation into Tc (VII) is quite small once Tc (IV) is part of magnetite/goethite crystal structure under heating in air 6. Experiments on 99Tc removal using α-Goethite (FeOOH) have been reported on lab scale. However, in these processes, ferrihydrite (Precursor to Goethite), is synthesized ex-situ under anoxic conditions and then added to the liquid waste, followed by dosing with Fe (II), usually FeCl2 7. The literature presented and also references therein contain many examples of the use of ex-situ synthesized ferrihydrite used for Tc removal, such as from Tc contaminated soils. 8. The incorporation of Tc into Fe-oxyhydroxides/oxides is well known in the literature, including the references provided and references therein. However, there is no procedure in the literature that allows a simple single step formation of these iron oxides/oxyhydroxides, without the prior ex-situ synthesis of ferrihydrite phase under anoxic conditions. 9. Tc removal using FeS route is also well reported in the literature. In this method, Tc is sequestrated in a sulphur bearing phase such as Mackinawite. However, such a sulphide bearing waste cannot be vitrified in conventional borosilicate wasteforms, which significantly limit the utility of this technique. 10. Elemental iron has also been used for reduction of Tc7+ to the less mobile Tc4+ form, using nano-iron supported on a variety of high area substrates. In these cases, it has been established using EXAFS that Tc is sorbed on the surface of the isolated nano iron particles as TcO6 octahedra, but they are not taken up into a mineral phase.
Processes extent in the literature discusses the removal and sequestration of 99Tc by co-precipitation of iron oxides and iron oxy-hydroxides such as magnetite or goethite, however, the synthesis of ferrihydrite, a precursor to goethite, is carried out ex-situ. The reaction of FeCl2.4H2O with a pH increasing to near 7.5 using NaOH solution (1 M) yields ferrihydrite, which is unstable in air and is therefore synthesized and also stored in anoxic conditions. Such a storage protocol also implies that any contact of ferrihydrite with oxygen will result in the formation of Fe(OH)3 and associated products, including magnetite. Ex-situ formed crystalline material such as magnetite shows poor Tc uptake and this makes storage and indeed ex-situ preparation a highly involved process, which is an impediment for scale up to plant scale operations.
The other process of FeS assisted precipitation of Tc suffers from the end product being a sulphide, which is then incompatible with borosilicate glass matrices. Consequently, the sulphide wastes are disposed in cement, a waste form having a significantly shorter life than the half life of 99Tc (2.13×105 y). Additionally, there is the attendant risk of Tc remobilization by oxidation from sulphide wasteforms.
The third method extant in the literature is the use of zero valent iron for reductive sequestration of Tc. Indeed, this method has been used for reductive removal of various metals including Cr, Pb and As to name a few from various liquid streams. In reference 11 listed in prior art, it has been proven using Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectroscopy (EXAFS) that Tc is reduced from Tc (VII) to Tc(IV) and also Tc (V) by elemental nano iron. Isolated TcO6 octahedra are then adsorbed on the surface of iron nano-particles. In such a state, they are not part of a mineral lattice. Therefore, potential reoxidation and remobilization risk remains viable in such an immobilization strategy.
The proposed process avoids the ex-situ ferrihydrite synthesis steps and the associated anoxic conditions. Instead, goethite/magnetite is generated in-situ by the corrosion of mild steel wool introduced into the intermediate level waste (ILW) with ILW volume to mass of steel ratio (V/m) ranging from 100 ml·g−1 to 1000 ml·g−1 with pH between 2-8.
Of note is the fact that the sequestered Tc will be accommodated in mineral phases, which may reduce remobilization risks. After a holding time of ˜4 h-48 h, more than 99% of the 99Tc in the ILW is taken up either by goethite or magnetite phases formed as corrosion products. These corrosion products can be directly disposed by vitrification into durable borosilicate wasteforms, since the 99Tc is fixed in the crystal lattice of the corrosion product and therefore, cannot volatilize or re-oxidize as easily. As an additional benefit, waste volume generation is small. Further, since the quantity of mild steel lost in corrosion is quite small, the mild steel wool can be continuously re-used for in-situ generation of goethite/magnetite. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to a blade disposal apparatus and, more specifically, to a disposable blade receptacle and a holder unit configured to hold the blade receptacle and dispense new razor blades.
2. Description of the Related Art
Used razor blades are typically dulled to the point where they are no longer useful as work tools. However, they are still sharp enough to be dangerous and therefore must be disposed of with greater care than ordinary refuse.
Although a variety of receptacles for used razor blades are know to exist, many of them are not particularly well suited for preventing children and pets, as well as adults, from coming into contact with the disposed razor blades. For example, many prior receptacles for used razor blades are containers with lids which can be opened by a curious child or pet. Furthermore, receptacles with lids are potentially dangerous to persons who transport such receptacles because the lid could open allowing the used blades to spill.
Many conventional receptacles for used razor blades are not particularly well suited for being secured to a supporting object in or near the work area. This is problematic because a receptacle for used blades should be stationary, particularly when a worker is attempting to insert a used blade into the receptacle. Furthermore, if the receptacle is not properly secured, it could fall on or slide into a person. Injury is particularly likely if the receptacle has sharp edges or corners and/or the receptacle is heavy because it is holding a large number of discarded razor blades. Thus, a need exists for a blade storage apparatus which is free of sharp edges or corners (which have a significant potential for causing injuries) as well as configured for attachment to a variety of different objects, e.g., a flat surface or a pole.
Another problem with prior receptacles for used razor blades is that they are often not easily identified as such. In other words, prior receptacles often appear to be nothing more than an innocuous container, rather the a container full of dangerous used razor blades. Thus, a need exists for a used blade receptacle which is marked with visible indicia identifying the receptacle for what it is. Furthermore, there is a need for a blade storage apparatus which includes instructions for using the apparatus and/or safety information which cannot readily be removed, obliterated or tampered with. | {
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The Internet group management protocol (IGMP) is used by network hosts to report their multicast group memberships to any neighboring multicast routers. A typical Internet Protocol (IP) over Ethernet multicast domain uses IGMP for multicast enabled switches to build multicast group tables on each of their ports. Within a multicast domain, hosts send multicast packets to join or leave multicast groups. Within a multicast domain, a multicast querier (i.e., a device that sends queries) is elected to periodically broadcast a membership query packet to all hosts in the network at configured time intervals. Upon receiving a membership query packet, hosts respond with one or more multicast report packets to Multicast Group Addresses (MGAs) if using IGMP, Version 2 (IGMPV2) or to Multicast Routers Group Address (MRGA) if using IGMP, Version 3 (IGMPV3).
In IGMPV2, hosts send two types of IGMP messages, report and leave. A host joins a group by sending a report to an MGA. The host responds to a query by sending a report to that MGA. The host leaves the group by sending a leave packet to the MGA. In IGMPV3, hosts send only one type of IGMP message, IGMP report. A host responds to a query, joins a group, or leaves a group by sending reports to an MRGA and setting different fields in the report.
Multicast enabled switches snoop/read multicast packets received on their ports. Upon receiving a multicast packet that includes a request to join an MGA (or MRGA, depending on the IGMP version used), a multicast enabled switch adds the corresponding MGA (or MRGA) with expiry time to the receiving port's multicast group table. Upon receiving a subsequent multicast report packet, a multicast enabled switch refreshes expiry time of the corresponding MGA (or MRGA) in the receiving port's multicast group table. Upon receiving a multicast packet requesting to leave an MGA (or MRGA), a multicast enabled switch removes the corresponding group's address in the receiving port's multicast group table. When a multicast enabled switch receives a multicast packet, the switch forwards the packet only out of those ports whose multicast group table contains the destination address of the multicast group. Typically an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model Layer 3 (L3) device, router, or dedicated host performs querier role and an OSI Layer 2 (L2) device or switch performs snooper role.
Therefore, the multicast packets requesting to join create MGAs (or MRGAs) in multicast group tables. Multicast report packets, which are driven by membership query packets, sustain the group addresses in multicast group tables. Expired timers remove MGAs (or MRGAs) from multicast group tables. In the absence of a querier, for instance if no querier is enabled or there is no device with querying capability, membership query packets are not generated. So multicast report packets are not triggered. Therefore MGAs (or MRGAs) in multicast group table expire before a host leaves the group. This means hosts may not receive multicast traffic destined to joined multicast groups even though the host has not left the groups yet. | {
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Vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) have recently transitioned to being used as a standard insulator on refrigeration units in the appliance industry. The appliance/refrigerator manufacturers moved towards VIPs, and away from customary urethane spray insulation, to achieve greater efficiency performance and eliminate dangerous chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), in an effort to improve the environment. The R-value performance of a VIP can be much higher than that of common urethane spray insulation, which typically runs between R6-R7/inch. This can give VIPs performance between 6 and 7 times the insulating performance of standard urethane spray insulation.
However, the standard shape of a VIP is a flat panel, which is used within flat rectangular sided units such as refrigerators and temperature controlled shipping containers. Therefore, while it could be beneficial, these flat panel VIPs cannot be used in more complex designs such as hot water heater tanks, expansion tanks, cold water tanks, gas tanks, etc., which frequently require top and bottom dome shapes as well as the side cylindrical shapes to completely surround the tank and provide the best possible insulation and heat loss performance. | {
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In digital cameras, autofocus may be used to focus on an object of interest. Such digital cameras may be provided as stand alone devices or they may be integrated into a multipurpose device such as a smartphone or the like. In various implementations, digital cameras may use phase detection autofocus (PDAF also referred to as phase autofocus or phase based autofocus), contrast based autofocus, or both. Phase detection autofocus separates left and right light rays though the camera's lens to sense left and right images. The left and right images are compared, and the difference in image positions on the camera sensors can be used to determine a shift of a camera lens for autofocus. Contrast autofocus measures the luminance contrast over a number of lens positions until a maximum contrast is reached. A difference in intensity between adjacent pixels of the camera's sensor naturally increases with correct image focus so that a maximum contrast indicates the correct focus. Phase detection autofocus may be advantageous in some implementations because it is typically faster than contrast based autofocus. For example, phase detection autofocus may allow a digital camera to determine the correct direction and amount of lens position movement based on a single frame of captured information, which may increase focusing speed. Furthermore, phase autofocus may be advantageous because it limits or eliminates overshoot (e.g., the camera changing lens position past the position of focus to obtain the information needed to determine the position of focus as performed in contrast based autofocus). Such overshoots take time and can reduce quality in video capture.
Calibration steps are conventionally required at the production line in order to handle variations between camera module samples during mass production to achieve sufficient autofocus accuracy with all samples. This includes detecting phase shifts between pairs of left and right sensor pixels. The phase shifts are then used to determine spatial characterization or conversion values to convert the phase shifts to lens offsets which are the distances a lens must move to correct for a measured phase shift and bring an object in a scene to be captured into focus. Phase detection autofocus calibration also may include a characterization of spatial shading of the left and right sensor pixels so that corrections in shading can be computed later during a run-time to capture images.
During calibration of phase shift mapping into lens offset, the mapping is set independently for each camera or sample to attain sufficient accuracy. Likewise, a flat field image is captured per sample, and correction gains are calculated for left and right type pixel values independently for each sample. Use of such PDAF calibration at the production line, however, where each sample is handled separately results in significant delay and costs. Also, inaccuracies and/or mistakes can occur when the per sample calibration data is captured and stored. Thus, the PDAF production line calibration actually may add an error source that is difficult and costly to debug. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a filler solution for an inkjet head, an inkjet head which is filled with the filler solution, and a recording apparatus having such an inkjet head.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, an inkjet head for ejecting ink from a nozzle based on a piezo method or bubble-jet method to form an image on a recording medium has been known.
In the case where such an inkjet head or a recording apparatus including such an inkjet head is transported, e.g., in the case where it is shipped from its manufacturer, an ink passage in the inkjet head is filled with a filler solution in place of ink.
This is because if the ink passage is filled with ink, the ink can coagulates due to a change in environment during the transportation thereof so that the inkjet head can be clogged with the coagulated ink.
If the ink passage is left vacant, an air bubble can remain in the ink passage when ink is supplied to fill the vacant inkjet head, and the air bubble can cause ejection failure. For example, in the case of a piezo-type inkjet head, the ink in the ink passage is pressured by deformation of a piezoelectric element, whereby the ink is ejected from a nozzle. In the case of a bubble jet-type inkjet head, the ink in the ink passage is pressured by an air bubble which is generated by heating the ink, whereby the ink is ejected from a nozzle. In such inkjet heads, if an air bubble remains in the ink passage, a pressure exerted on the ink is absorbed due to a contraction of the remaining air bubble, and as a result, ejection failure is caused, i.e., the ink is not ejected from the nozzle.
There have already been filler agents for an inkjet head which have improved fillability into the ink passage. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-327934 discloses a filler solution which contains triethylene glycol monomethylether and N-(β-aminoethyl)ethanolamine. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-108493 discloses a filler solution which contains triethylamine, glycerol, diethyleneglycol, and water.
The filler solution supplied to fill the inkjet head is replaced by ink when use of the inkjet head is begun. When the filler solution is replaced by ink, an air bubble sometimes happens to be trapped in the ink passage. The air bubble trapped in the ink passage is generally removed from the ink passage as the filler solution (and ink) is ejected from a nozzle. Further, the air bubble trapped in the ink passage can be removed by so-called cleaning, i.e., by sucking out the ink from a nozzle of the inkjet head.
However, an air bubble trapped in the ink passage sometimes attaches to a wall which defines the ink passage (i.e., an internal surface of the inkjet head). It is difficult to remove such an air bubble attached to the wall by cleaning, so that the air bubble sometimes remains in the inkjet head even after the cleaning.
Thus, even in the case where the inkjet head is filled with a filler solution, such an air bubble remaining in the inkjet head can causes ejection failure of the ink-jet head.
Ink used in inkjet recording generally contains a colorant (dye or pigment), a humectant, and water. However, an image formed with the ink on a recording medium has poor water-resistivity. That is, when the image is exposed to water, the colorant exudes into the water.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-212439, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-293167, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-315231, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-178494, adding a hydrolyzable silane compound (organic silicon compound) to ink in order to improve the water-resistivity of an image formed with the ink on a recording medium has been proposed. When a drop of such ink containing a silane compound is adhered on a recording medium, and a water content (solvent) of the ink drop evaporates or permeates into the recording medium, the silane compound remaining on the recording medium is condensation-polymerized, and this condensation-polymerized silane compound encloses a colorant. As a result, even when the image formed on the recording medium is exposed to water, the colorant is prevented from exuding into the water.
Such water-resistant ink has a relatively high viscosity as compared with commonly-employed ink (i.e., ink not containing a hydrolyzable silane compound). Thus, when a filler solution in the inkjet head is replaced by the water-resistant ink, an air bubble is readily trapped in the ink passage, and accordingly, the air bubble readily attaches onto the internal surface of the inkjet head.
That is, in the case of employing water-resistant ink, an air bubble remains in the inkjet head more readily in comparison with a case of commonly-employed ink. As a result, the possibility of causing ejection failure of the inkjet head is increased. | {
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Embodiments of the inventive concept relate generally to electronic memory technologies. More particularly, embodiments of the inventive concept relate to nonvolatile memory devices and related methods of operation.
Semiconductor memory devices can be roughly divided into two categories according to whether they retain stored data when disconnected from power. These categories include volatile memory devices, which lose stored data when disconnected from power, and nonvolatile memory devices, which retain stored data when disconnected from power. Examples of volatile memory devices include static random access memory (SRAM) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and examples of nonvolatile memory devices include ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), phase-change random access memory (PRAM), and resistive random access memory (RRAM).
Resistive random access memory (RRAM) has the potential for high storage capacity, high performance, and low power consumption. Accordingly, extensive research is being conducted in the field of RRAM technology to improve the characteristics of RRAM devices. An RRAM device stores data using a variable resistance material layer that changes resistance according to the polarity and size of an applied electrical pulse. One type of variable resistance material layer is a colossal magnetoresistive (CMR) material layer having a perovskite structure.
RRAM and other memories using a variable resistance material layer are referred to as variable resistance memories. Variable resistance memory devices can be classified as unipolar devices and bipolar devices according to polarity of a writing pulse. In a unipolar variable resistance device, a set pulse and a reset pulse have the same polarity. As a result, unipolar variable resistance memory devices may exhibit unstable performance in the presence of a unipolar pulse. | {
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The present invention generally concerns the surface treatment of semiconductor materials, and particularly treating the surface of substrates intended for the fabrication of components for microelectronic and/or optoelectronic applications. More precisely, the invention concerns a technique for enhancing the condition of the free surface of a semiconductor wafer, wherein the method includes a rapid thermal annealing step to smooth the free surface.
The term “free surface” means the surface of a wafer which is exposed to the outside environment (as compared with an interface surface which is in contact which the surface of another wafer or another element). The term “rapid thermal annealing” means rapid annealing in a controlled atmosphere, following a method that is conventionally known as the RTA method, which is the abbreviation for Rapid Thermal Annealing. In the remainder of this description, this method shall be called rapid thermal annealing or RTA.
RTA annealing of a wafer of material typically means that the wafer is annealed at a high temperature, which may be in the region of 1100° C. to 1300° C. for 1 to 60 seconds. RTA annealing is conducted in a controlled atmosphere. For example, the atmosphere may contain a mixture of hydrogen and argon, or an atmosphere of pure argon.
A method for producing a semiconductor wafer is the SMART-CUT® method. Its main steps include implanting atoms under a surface of a semiconductor substrate (silicon in particular) in an implantation zone of the substrate, bonding by close contact the implanted substrate with a stiffener, and detaching the implanted substrate at the implantation zone. Thus, that part of the substrate located between the surface submitted to implantation and the implantation zone is transferred onto the stiffener to form a thin film, or a layer, of semiconductor material upon the stiffener. Atomic implantation means any bombardment of atom or ion species capable of inserting these species into the wafer material with a maximum concentration of implanted species located at a predetermined depth of the wafer relative to the bombarded surface to define a weakened zone. The depth of the weakened zone depends upon the type of species implanted, and on their implanting energy.
The general term “wafer” may mean the film or layer that is transferred by using a method of the SMART-CUT® type. The semiconductor wafer may therefore be associated with a stiffener and optionally with other intermediate layers. The term “wafer” also covers any wafer, layer or film of semiconductor material such as silicon, whether or not the wafer has been produced by a method of the SMART-CUT® type.
For the applications mentioned above, the roughness specifications associated with the free surface of wafers are very stringent. The roughness of the free surface of wafers is a parameter which, to a certain extent, determines the quality of the components which are to be made on the wafer. It is therefore common to find roughness specifications which do not exceed 5 Angstroms in rms value (the abbreviation rms stands for “root mean square”).
Roughness measurements are generally made using an Atomic Force Microscope (“AFM”). This type of apparatus is used to measure roughness on surfaces by scanning a tip of the AFM microscope, and the measurement ranges from 1×1 μm2 to 10×10 μm2, and typically 50×50 μm2, and sometimes 100×100 μm2.
Roughness can be characterized according to two modalities. First, roughness is said to be high frequency and relates to scanned surfaces on the order of 1×1 μm2. Second, roughness is said to be low frequency and relates to scanned surfaces on the order of 10×10 μm2 or greater. The 5-Angstrom specification given above by way of example therefore corresponds to a roughness of a scanned surface of 10×10 μm2.
Wafers produced using known methods (such as SMART-CUT® or other methods) have surface roughness values which are greater than those mentioned above, unless the surface is subjected to a specific treatment such as polishing. A first known method for reducing the roughness of wafer surfaces consists of submitting the wafer to “conventional” heat treatment (sacrificial oxidation for example). But such treatment does not make it possible to reduce the wafer roughness to the level of the above-mentioned specifications. In order to further reduce roughness, it is possible to envisage increasing the number of conventional heat treatment steps and/or combining them with other known methods. But such techniques lead to a method that is lengthy and complex.
A second known method consists of subjecting the free surface of the wafer to chemical-mechanical polishing. This method can indeed reduce the roughness of the free surface of the wafer. However, if a defect concentration gradient that increases towards the free surface of the wafer exists, this second method can also abrade the wafer down to a zone that presents an acceptable concentration of defects. But this second known method can compromise the uniformity of the free surface of the wafer. This drawback is worsened when a large amount of polishing is performed on the surface of the wafer, as would be necessary to reach the roughness levels mentioned above.
A third method concerns subjecting the wafer to RTA annealing in a controlled atmosphere. This third method permits, in generally satisfactory manner, reduction of the surface roughness of wafers (in particular without deteriorating the thickness uniformity of the effective layer) and this therefore offers a solution of interest. However, while it is indeed possible to achieve globally satisfactory high frequency and low frequency roughness values with this third method, it has been observed that submitting the wafer to RTA annealing can lead to a disadvantage. In particular, on fine analysis of the surface condition of wafers (silicon wafers in particular) which have undergone such treatment, it has been found that holes of very small size were superimposed on a surface whose general roughness was otherwise satisfactory. Such analysis can be made by observation through an atomic force microscope. These small holes typically have a size on the order of a few nm in depth and a few dozen nm in diameter. These holes are similar to the holes that can sometimes be observed on the surface of materials such as silicon and which are attributed to a so-called ‘pitting’ phenomenon.
The term “pitting” will be used in this description for reasons of practicality, and it should be understood that the depth to diameter ratio of these small holes is less than the ratios usually encountered in conventional cases of pitting. More precisely, the “pitting” at issue herein does not have the same cause as the “pitting” phenomenon which is generally described in the state of the art. Pitting in the state of the art is generally due to defects embedded in the thickness of the wafer material. These defects may be attacked by heat treatment (for example heat treatment to improve the surface condition of the wafer). Therefore, in the state of the art, the phenomenon of pitting relates to holes generated by the attack of embedded defects. In this respect, reference may be made to PCT application WO01/28000 which specifies the characteristics of these embedded defects; in particular defects of the “COP” type, wherein COP stands for “Crystal Originated Particle”. Reference may be made for example to the passage on page 1 lines 48 to 54 of this patent application. It should also be noted that this application only sets out to improve the “long period” components of roughness, which relate to low frequency roughness (scanned surfaces in the order of 10×10 μm2) whereas high frequency components of roughness are not treated (see in particular page 10 lines 54-55 of this application). Yet the phenomenon designated as “pitting” in this description also relates to high frequency roughness.
In other documents, for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,609 or PCT application WO01/15215, the same treatment objective for conventional “pitting” is also described. Consequently, in these documents, the term “pitting” is not the same “pitting” which is addressed by the present invention.
For example U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,609 specifies that the targeted defects are of the “COP” type, which are embedded defects and the attack used is likely to generate fairly deep holes. U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,609 therefore specifies (see, for example, column 2, line 55 to column 3, line 24) that COPS may extend down to the embedded oxide layer of a structure of SOI type (that is to say that these defects may extend into the thickness of the material as far as the embedded oxide layer which is located underneath an effective layer of silicon whose thickness may typically reach a few thousand angstroms). The corresponding “pitting” holes, in the case of U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,609, therefore have a depth that may possibly reach these values of a few thousand angstroms. Therefore “pitting” as understood in the state of the art designates holes that are generated by the attack of defects embedded in the thickness of the wafer layer, wherein such holes may have a depth on the order of a few thousand angstroms. Conversely, the “pitting” of concern in the present application does not result from the attack of pre-existing defects, but only relates to places on the wafer surface on which reconstruction smoothing by RTA annealing is not fully achieved, causing the onset of the small holes mentioned above. The “pitting” at issue herein is therefore a purely superficial phenomenon. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method of and apparatus for measuring a speed of a vehicle in accordance with pulses generated by a vehicle speed sensor which is rotated in response to a movement of the vehicle, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus which is prepared to employ any one of a plurality of different types of vehicle speed sensors which produce different numbers of pulses for one full rotation thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus are conventionally known which record data of a movement of a vehicle including, for example, vehicle speed information in the form of a digital signal into a record medium. An exemplary one of such conventional digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus is shown in FIG. 7. Referring to FIG. 7, the conventional digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus shown includes a vehicle speed sensor 1 which may produce 4, 8, 10, 16, 20 or 25 pulses for one full rotation thereof depending upon a type thereof. The digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus further includes an interface (IF) 2 which shapes pulses generated by the vehicle speed sensor 1, a microcomputer (CPU=central processing unit) 3 which operates in accordance with a predetermined control program, a setting device 4 for setting a type of the vehicle speed sensor 1 by way of a combination of presence or absence of jumper lines, a display driver 5 for causing a digital display unit 6 to display thereon a vehicle speed transmitted from the CPU 3 which measures such vehicle speed in accordance with pulses from the vehicle speed sensor 1 and a set value from the setting device 4, and an external memory 7 for storing therein digital data representative of a vehicle speed measured by the CPU 3.
With the conventional digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus of the construction described above, the CPU 3 determines the type of the vehicle speed sensor 1 from a set value received from the setting device 4, and where the vehicle speed sensor 1 connected is of a type which produces 4, 8 or 10 pulses for one full rotation, the CPU 3 measures a period of a pulse and calculates a vehicle speed by calculation. On the other hand, where the vehicle speed sensor 1 connected is of another type which produces 16, 20 or 25 pulses for one full rotation, the CPU 3 sets a gate time in accordance with such pulse number of the sensor and measures a number of pulses which is produced by the vehicle speed sensor 1 for such gate time, and then calculates a vehicle speed from the number of pulses thus measured.
In order to perform such operation, the CPU 3 executes such jobs as illustrated in a flow chart of FIG. 8. Referring to FIG. 8, the CPU 3 starts its operation when power is made available, and at first step S1 of the operation, the CPU 3 receives a set value from the setting device 4. Then at step S2, the set value thus received is checked to judge whether or not the vehicle speed sensor 1 is of a type which produces 4, 8 or 10 pulses for one rotation. If the judgment is YES and the vehicle speed sensor 1 connected is of the type which produces 4, 8 or 10 pulses for one rotation, then a flag is set to "1" at step S3, but on the contrary if the judgment at step S2 is NO and the vehicle speed sensor 1 connected is of another type which produces 16, 20 or 25 pulses for one rotation, the flag is set to "0" at step S4, and then a gate time is set at step S5 in accordance with the type of the vehicle speed sensor 1 connected. After execution of the job at either of the steps S3 and S5, the control sequence advances to step S6 at which it is judged whether or not the flag is equal to "1".
If the judgment at step S6 is YES, then the control sequence advances to step S7 at which the CPU 3 waits a pulse to be received from the vehicle speed sensor 1 by way of the interface 2. After a pulse is received and the judgment at step S7 changes to YES, the control sequence advances to step S8 at which the count value of a free running counter which is constructed in the CPU 3 and incremented after lapse of each fixed interval of time by a clock of a fixed period is set as a capture value to a capture register also constructed in the CPU 3, whereafter the control sequence advances to step S9. At step S9, it is judged from the set value received at step S1 and representative of a type of the vehicle speed sensor 1 whether or not the vehicle speed sensor 1 is of the type which produces 4 pulses for one rotation. In case the judgment at step S9 is YES, the control sequence advances to step S10.
At step S10, contents of second to fifth ones T.sub.2 to T.sub.5 of eleven time registers T.sub.1 to T.sub.11 constructed in the CPU 3 are transferred to the first to fourth time registers T.sub.1 to T.sub.4, respectively, and at subsequent step S11, the capture value placed into the capture register at step S8 is transferred to the fifth time register T.sub.5. After then, the control sequence advances to step S12 at which a difference between contents of the first time register T.sub.1 and contents of the fifth time register T.sub.5, that is, T=T.sub.5 -T.sub.1, is taken to calculate a period T for one rotation of the vehicle speed sensor 1. After such calculation of a period T for one rotation of the vehicle speed sensor 1 at step S12, the control sequence advances to step S13 at which a vehicle speed is calculated by dividing a travel distance A of the vehicle for one rotation of the vehicle speed sensor 1 by the period T. Data calculated in this manner and indicative of a vehicle speed are inputted to the display driver (step S51), and consequently, such vehicle speed is displayed on the display unit 6. In addition, the data are also outputted to the external memory (step S52) so that they may be stored into the external memory 7.
In case the judgment at step S9 is NO, the control sequence advances to step S14 at which it is judged whether or not the vehicle speed sensor 1 is of the type which produces 8 pulses for one rotation. If the judgement is YES, then a period T is calculated at steps S15 to S17 in accordance with a similar algorism to that at steps S10 to S12 described hereinabove. After then, a vehicle speed is calculated at step S13 making use of the period T calculated in this manner. On the contrary if the judgment at step S14 is NO, it is determined that the vehicle speed sensor is of the type which produces 10 pulses for one rotation, and a period T is calculated subsequently at steps S18 to S20 in accordance with a similar algorism. After then, a vehicle speed is calculated at step S13 making use of the period T calculated in this manner.
On the other hand, in case the judgment at step S6 is NO and the vehicle speed sensor 1 connected is of any type which produces a number of pulses other than 4, 8 and 10 pulses for one rotation, the control sequence advances to step S21 at which the CPU 3 waits a pulse to be received from the vehicle speed sensor 1 by way of the interface 2. After a pulse is received and the judgment at step S21 changes to YES, the control sequence advances to step S22 at which a pulse counter constructed in the CPU 3 is incremented. After then, at step S23, it is judged whether or not the gate time set at step S5 has elapsed, and if the gate time has not yet elapsed, the control sequence returns to step S21 to repeat the jobs at step S21 and so forth. On the other hand, if the gate time has elapsed and the judgment at step S23 is YES, then the control sequence advances to step S24 at which a vehicle speed is calculated making use of the gate time, the count value of the pulse counter and so forth. Then at step S25, the count value of the pulse counter is cleared, whereafter the control sequence returns to step S21.
As described above, in the conventional digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus, where a vehicle speed sensor which produces 4, 8 or 10 pulses for one rotation is employed, a time necessary for the vehicle speed sensor to make one rotation, that is, a period, is measured, and then a vehicle speed is found out by calculation in accordance with the measured thus calculated. On the other hand, where another vehicle speed sensor which produces 16, 20 or 25 pulses for one rotation is employed, a number of pulses produced by the vehicle speed sensor for a gate time set in accordance with the type of the vehicle speed sensor is counted, and a vehicle speed is found out by calculation in accordance with the gate time, count value and so forth.
Consequently, since means for calculating a vehicle speed must be provided separately for different types of vehicle speed sensors as described hereinabove with reference to the flow chart of FIG. 8 and such calculating means cannot be used commonly for such different vehicle speed sensors, the conventional digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus is complicated in construction. Where a CPU which operates in accordance with a control program is employed as in the case of the conventional digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus described above, the control program involves a great number of steps for such calculation and a ROM (read only memory) for storing the control program therein must have a corresponding great storage capacity. Also, a RAM (random access memory) which is used as a working area must have a corresponding great storage capacity.
Further, since the gate time system is employed, where a high degree of accuracy of, for example, 0.1 km/h is required, the gate time is excessively long, and consequently, the responsibility is low. As a result, the digital vehicle speed measuring apparatus cannot be employed where such high accuracy is required. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a rolamite sensor. More particularly, the present invention relates to a rolamite sensor for use in sensing deceleration of a vehicle to actuate an occupant restraint such as an air bag.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Rolamite sensors for use in sensing vehicle deceleration are known. U.S. Pat. No. 3,643,049 to LuConic et al. discloses a rolamite sensor having a roller with a band wrapped around the roller. The band includes a first longitudinal portion attached to a base and a second longitudinal portion having spaced apart legs that extend away from the first portion and are also attached to the base. The cross sectional area of the legs is greater than the cross sectional area of the first band portion so that the band biases the roller toward the first band portion to an initial position away from an electrical contact. Excessive vehicle deceleration causes the roller to roll along the base, against the biasing force of the band, into engagement with the electrical contact, completing an electrical circuit.
Another prior art rolamite sensor includes a molded base mounted on a chassis. Two electrical connector pins are attached to the chassis. One end of a band is attached to the upper surface of the base and the other end of the band is attached to a tensioner. The band is wrapped around a roller. The tensioner applies a force to the band to hold the roller on the base. When subjected to excessive vehicle deceleration, the roller rolls along the base causing the band to engage a firing contact. Electrical current flows between one pin of the chassis and the other pin through the firing contact and the band when the band engages the firing contact, thereby completing an electrical circuit to activate a vehicle safety apparatus. | {
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Known in the art are some processes for producing aromatic aminocompounds, such as aniline by the hydrogenation of aromatic nitro compounds, e.g., nitrobenzene in a liquid phase by using hydrogen, with the use of a dispersed catalyst which is a metal of the platinum group, e.g., palladium, or said metal on a support, the hydrogenation process occurring at a temperature of from 20.degree. to 100.degree. C. and a pressure from 10 to 40 atm.
Said known processes, however, suffer from a number of substantial disadvantages, such as:
(1) The end product needs purification from the catalyst particles, which involves heavy losses of precious metals (viz., metals of the platinum group); PA1 (2) The hydrogenation process is carried out at high pressure; PA1 (3) The process is accompanied by the formation of a great deal of by-products, amounting to 10 percent. PA1 (1) The process makes it possible to obviate purification of the end product from the residual catalyst and, thereby to rule out losses of precious metals (viz., metals of the platinum group), by using a membrane catalyst; PA1 (2) The process of nitrobenzene hydrogenation into aniline is carried out under atmospheric pressure, which is attained by the use of a membrane catalyst permselective to hydrogen; the latter is fed to the reaction zone in a highly active atomic state; PA1 (3) The hydrogenation process runs without the formation of any by-products inasmuch as application of the membrane catalyst enables one to maintain the hydrogen concentration on the surface of said catalyst within the limits required for the selective hydrogenation; PA1 (4) The catalyst is resistant to the effect of hydrogen and nitrogen-containing compounds (viz., nitrobenzene and aniline), which is accounted for by the provision of ruthenium as the catalyst constituent. | {
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Such gripper heads are equipped with weft thread clamping means located near the forward gripper head tip. The clamping means usually comprise a fixed clamping pad cooperating with a lever operated movable clamping pad arranged opposite the fixed clamping pad.
In the known gripper head the movable clamping pad is secured to the free leading or forward end of the gripper head by means of a tiltable lever supported on the body of the gripper head. This tiltable lever is operatively connected with a control cam or lever which controls the opening and closing movement of the clamping mechanism, or rather, of the movable clamping pad of the clamping mechanism. The control cam or lever is mounted in the machine frame and operates the tilting lever, whereby the leading end of the weft thread can be gripped between the movable and stationary or fixed clamping pads at the tip of the gripper head. The tiltable lever is spring biased.
One problem with conventional gripper heads of this type resides in the fact that they have a relatively large mass causing respective high inertia forces when these gripper heads are used in looms, especially high speed looms. Such inertia forces limit the operational speed of the loom and also the useful life of the loom components, especially movable loom components because inertia forces increase the wear and tear.
The gripper heads are the last link, so to speak, in the entire drive chain. Therefore, the gripper heads influence the entire drive chain in accordance with the gripper head mass. As a result, all components in the drive chain must be dimensioned in accordance with the requirements dictated by the mass of the gripper heads. It is therefore desirable to make the gripper heads as light as possible, while still assuring their intended purpose. A light gripper head makes it possible to use lighter components throughout the drive chain. Thus, the gripper rod may be of lighter construction, which in turn permits a lighter drive wheel and so forth. | {
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A storage server is a computer that provides access to information that is stored on one or more storage devices connected to the storage server, such as disk drives (“disks”), flash memories, or storage arrays. The storage server typically includes an operating system that may implement a storage abstraction layer to logically organize the information as storage objects at the storage devices. With certain logical organizations, the storage abstraction layer may involve a file system which organizes information as a hierarchical structure of directories and files. Each file may be implemented as set of data structures, e.g., disk blocks, configured to store information, such as the actual data for the file. The file system typically organizes such data blocks as a logical “volume,” with one or more volumes further organized as a logical “aggregate” for efficiently managing multiple volumes as a group. In a file system, each directory, file, volume, and aggregate may constitute a storage object. In other logical organizations, a file system may constitute a storage object with the storage abstraction layer managing multiple file systems.
A storage server may be configured to operate according to a client/server model of information delivery to allow one or more clients access to data in storage objects stored on the storage server. In this model, the client may comprise an application executing on a computer that “connects” to the storage server over a computer network, such as a point-to-point link, shared local area network, wide area network or virtual private network implemented over a public network, such as the Internet. A client may access the storage devices by submitting access requests to the storage server, for example, a “write” request to store client data included in a request to storage devices or a “read” request to retrieve client data stored in the storage devices.
Multiple storage servers may be networked or otherwise connected together as a storage system to distribute the processing load of the system across multiple storage servers. Processing load involves the load on a storage server to service storage requests from clients directed to a storage object (e.g., aggregate) of the storage server. In certain cases, however, one of the storage servers may be more heavily loaded than another storage server in the system. Thus, it may be desirable to offload client requests for an aggregate from one storage server (source) to another (destination). In other instances, a source may have to be replaced, so it may also be desirable for another server to carry out requests on the aggregate to ensure continued access to client data during those periods. Replacing or upgrading nodes without disrupting user experience can be a challenge in a clustered environment having multiple users and nodes. Continuous efforts are being made to replace server nodes while maintaining client access to storage. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of forming a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a method of fabricating a semiconductor device having a strained silicon layer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the trend of miniaturization of semiconductor device dimensions, the scale of the gate, source and drain of a transistor has decreased in accordance with the decrease in critical dimension (CD). Due to the physical limitation of the materials used, the decrease in scale of the gate, source and drain results in the decrease of carriers which determine the magnitude of the current in the transistor element, and this can adversely affect the performance of the transistor. Accordingly, in order to boost up a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistor, increasing carrier mobility is an important consideration in the field of current semiconductor technique.
In the conventional technologies, a strained semiconductor substrate is used to provide biaxial tensile stress for increasing carrier mobility. A silicon-germanium (SiGe) layer is formed on the silicon substrate, and a silicon layer is further formed on the SiGe layer to constitute the strained semiconductor substrate. The lattice constant of silicon (Si) is 5.431 angstroms (A), and the lattice constant of germanium (Ge) is 5.646 A. When the silicon layer is disposed on the SiGe layer, lateral stress is formed in the silicon layer due to the lattice constant difference, so this silicon layer can serve as a strained silicon layer. The strained silicon layer facilitates the formation of a gate dielectric layer of high quality, and provides stress to the channel region of a transistor for enhancing carrier mobility.
The excessive thermal budget from other semiconductor process such as a thermal oxidation process performed during the formation of shallow trench isolations (STI) or an annealing process may cause defects such as dislocations, and even worse, the loss of stress in the strained silicon layer. Consequently, how to prevent side effects induced by these other semiconductor process while maintaining the normal function of the strained silicon layer is an important issue in this field. | {
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In 3G (UMTS) networks, an RNC (Radio Network Controller) is connected to multiple base stations (Node Bs). One of the RNC functions is to manage handover between Node Bs during mobility; i.e. where a handset moves from being attached to one Node B (the source) to another (the target).
In 4G/LTE, the eNodeBs are also physically connected via a common controller: the Serving Gateway (SGW), which also acts as a mobility anchor during handover. However, there is also a new interface: X2. This is generally a point-to-point interface between adjacent eNodeBs without need to go via the SGW. In summary, the usual route data takes is from the internet, via the SGW and source eNodeB to the terminal. During handover the source eNodeB creates a one-time tunnel to the target eNodeB using the X2 interface, and proxies the data traffic through that (bypassing the SGW). Once the handover is complete, the tunnel is removed and data travels via the SGW to the target eNodeB (the SGW to target eNodeB connection is being established in the background during handover).
Mobile Edge Computing involves processing power hosted at (or close to) the network edge, typically an eNodeB. This brings benefits of low latency, since application data does not need to traverse the Internet, and hence improves customer experience.
The Edge cloud utilises servers installed at the radio network ‘edge’, usually the eNodeBs. By having processing/storage/server hardware one (or two) hops away from the terminal, it is possible to reduce latency and internet backhaul costs, as well as realise hyper-localised services relevant to a given eNodeB.
A cloud deployment of these servers involves virtual machines (VMs) that encapsulate the server-side of a given application into its own runtime. These VMs are then managed by a central controller (‘Hypervisor’) responsible for starting/stopping/provisioning them. Multiple VMs can run on a single Edge server, therefore many applications can benefit from the low-latency of reduced backhaul.
In known systems the target eNodeB is unaware of any session data that the VM collected during its tenure on the source eNodeB. Therefore the advantage of Edge servers (low latency) is mitigated by not having the advantage of session persistence. Internet servers (in contrast to edge servers) can persist sessions (they do not care which eNodeB the terminal is attached to, and the application session will persist) but do not have the advantage of low latency. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In addition to typical Internet traffic coming from Internet users, many websites are subject to various forms of malicious traffic. Malicious users and bots may flood websites with comment spam, links to malicious software, and generate ingenuine clicks, visits, hits, etc. Various forms of fraud and fraudulent solicitations may also be disseminated.
This malicious traffic may consume website resources, as web servers unknowingly serve content to malicious and/or fraudulent entities such as click fraud bots. The unwanted traffic may skew website analytics and make, for example, website hit, visitor, and geographic source data unreliable. The dilution of the quality and reliability of website analytics may deter potential advertisers from advertising on a given website. Further, as malicious activity on a website increases, user and advertiser trust may erode, both damaging website revenues and branding.
Accordingly, solutions are needed to identify malicious users and malicious traffic. | {
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The present invention relates to a cutting insert having a polygonal basic shape, for chip forming machining, preferably milling, comprising two mainly parallel faces and edge surfaces connecting them. Lines of intersection between two edge surfaces and at least one face form main cutting edges. A plurality of chamfers are formed at the transition between said edge surfaces in a corner portion of the insert. A first chamfer forms a minor cutting edge at its line of intersection with said face.
It is previously known at inserts for milling to provide the corner portions of the insert with a corner chamfer between associated minor and main cutting edges, the external angle between said minor cutting edge and said main cutting edge being approximately half as large as the external angle between the minor cutting edge and the main cutting edge. This geometry gives a relatively sharp corner between the corner chamfer and the main cutting edge. During milling operations the chip is forced perpendicularly to each active cutting edge and therefore the part of the chip generated by the main cutting edge collides with the part of the chip generated by the corner chamfer. The sharp corner between the corner chamfer and the main cutting edge is thus exposed to an increased load relative to the corner chamfer and the main cutting edge and thus becomes the part of the insert which firstly is cracked or deformed. It is also known to provide the transition between the minor cutting edge and the main cutting edge with a rounded-off portion, having a constant radius. Since the generated chip is guided perpendicularly to the edge of the portion and the main cutting edge also in this case a compression of the chip arises at the transition between the rounded-off portion and the main cutting edge.
The present invention relates to a cutting insert through which shape the above-mentioned drawback is avoided. A favourable upset of the chip is achieved at the cutting edges of the corner portion and reduced forces are achieved at the corner between the corner chamfer and the main cutting edge during the machining. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication eyewear device having interchangeable temples. More particularly, the invention relates to eyewear having a transceiver enabled with small-range wireless communication technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many conventional wearable personal apparatus including eyewear, having electrical input-output devices are available to the consumers. Several of these apparatus provide wireless communications using radio frequency or infrared frequency. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,832 discloses a wearable personal apparatus that includes an audio transducer, which may function as an audio input or output device. The audio input or output signals are provided through a wireless system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,546 discloses an eyeglass interface system which includes a display assembly and one or more audio and/or video assemblies mounted to an eyeglass frame. The display assembly is mounted to one temple and provides an image to be viewed by the user. The audio or video assembly is mounted on the other temple and is in communication with the display assembly. The audio or video assembly may comprise a camera assembly and/or an audio input or output assembly, such as microphone and/or speakers. Applications include hands-free telephone, hands-free pager, hands-free time display, hands-free blood pressure or vital sign monitoring device, hands-free voice conferencing or hands-free surveillance system. The applications can include voice recognition technology and/or GPS technology utilizing an infrared link or radio frequency (RF) link, or a fiber optic cable.
Additionally, a personal display device built into a frame of eyewear is disclosed at the website of inViso Inc. and may be found at the following URL address: http://www.inviso.com. The inViso's eyewear is designed in the shape of sunglasses with the built-in personal display device providing a wearer with a view of his/her computer screen. The displayed view is equivalent to a view provided by a 19-inch desktop monitor from a 2.5 feet distance. In order to display the content of the computer screen on the personal display device, however, the inViso's eyewear has to be plugged into the computer. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention broadly relates to light interruption position detection and, more particularly, is concerned with detection apparatus which includes a pair of linear image detectors, such as charge-coupled devices (CCDs), to sense interruption of a light source for facilitating the determination by associated control circuitry of where, in an X-Y plane, the interruption took place.
2. Description of the Prior Art
One type of conventional apparatus for detecting the light interruption position in an X-Y plane of a psssive object, such as a human finger or a pencil, utilizes an X-coordinate array of multiple light sources mounted along one side of a rectangular display panel and paired with a corresponding X-coordinate array of multiple light detectors mounted on the opposite side of the panel. Also, similar Y-coordinate arrays of paired multiple light sources and detectors are respectively mounted along the remaining two opposite sides of the rectangular panel. Thus, the perimeter of the panel is covered by oppositely paired arrays of light sources and detectors. Examples of such apparatus are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,478,220; 3,764,813; 3,775,560 and 3,860,754.
This type of detection apparatus has certain inherent disadvantages. First, spatial resolution of the apparatus is no better than the limitations imposed by the number, size and spacing of the individual light sources and detectors, one from the next in the respective arrays thereof. Thus, in some commercial equipment of this type, it is possible for the human finger to be placed between two adjacent light sources or two adjacent detectors and be missed by the parallel beams of light provided by the sources. Second, the apparatus utilizes a large number of active elements, i.e., light sources and detectors, not counting the circuitry, which are costly and have to be precisely mounted, in most cases, by manual labor. Therefore, the component cost and cost of manufacture and assembly are high. Third, the excessive number of light sources and detectors necessitates complex and costly arrangements of circuit components to operate the apparatus. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to photo sensors. More particularly, the invention relates to numerical full well capacity extension for photo sensors with an integration capacitor in the readout circuit using two and four phase charge subtraction.
2. Description of Related Art
Ideally, an electronic photo detection system should translate the incoming photon signal into an electronic signal with maximum fidelity, for example, without adding noise, signal distortion or saturation towards high intensities. This ideal situation can only be approximated by any real detection system, and in practice most systems are restricted to specific lighting and/or operating conditions to satisfy this requirement over a limited range. The wider this operating range, the more powerful the sensor system and the less the restrictions that have to be applied to the operating conditions.
Recent advances in photo detection systems focus on digitizing the photon signal at the integration node itself. One prior art approach injects a known amount of charge of opposite polarity into the readout node, as soon as the output signal is getting close to the saturation limit. FIG. 1 illustrates the circuit diagram for this negative charge injection. Charge may be subtracted and the dynamic range may be extended by keeping track of the number of negative charge injections without reducing system sensitivity.
This prior art approach has several disadvantages. First, it can only be applied if the readout node has low impedance, for example, (Capacitor or) Charge Trans-Impedance Amplifier (CTIA) type readout. The approach is not suited for Direct Injection (DI), Buffered Direct Injection (BDI) or floating diffusion type front end circuits with a high impedance integration node. Second, an additional capacitor has to be connected to the input node, which increases the size and noise of the front end circuit. Finally, it requires twice as many charge removal cycles compared to the rotating capacitor approach of this invention, assuming the same total capacitance per unit cell and the same full well capacity.
Another approach, illustrated in FIG. 2, uses a current sink that controls the current flow in the circuit while maintaining low noise characteristics. However, one disadvantage of using the current sink is that it requires a large unit cell in order to achieve low noise performance. Since technology is moving towards smaller photo detection systems, this prior art approach is less favorable.
Full well capacity is the total amount of charge that a conventional image can handle without saturation. The charge on a capacitor may be determined by multiplying the voltage across the capacitor times the capacitor value. A CTIA may be used for infrared and other sensing applications. The CTIA integrates the current generated from a detector over a period of time to provide a measurable output voltage signal. Conventional CTIAs provide high sensitivity amplification of signals from infrared detectors, independent of the detector capacitance.
In photo detection applications with very high backgrounds and/or high signal levels such as long wave infrared imagers, the physically achievable full well capacity of one individual pixel of an imaging array is typically too small to integrate all charge carriers that are generated per 1 frame time. As a result, the integration time for conventional applications is reduced below the frame time in order to avoid saturation.
Numerous prior art methods focus on maximizing the size of the integration capacitor and/or the output voltage swing. However, practical limitations of pixel size, achievable specific capacitance per area and maximum voltage, tolerated by the integrated circuit process, nevertheless make it impossible to capture all of the physically available information with these techniques that scale poorly with process generations. Also, a larger integration capacitor corresponds to lower sensitivity in terms of output voltage swing per photo generated charge carrier. This would reduce the dynamic range towards the low intensity region. As such, the number of detector sites is limited, as is the minimum spacing between detector sites, thereby limiting the achievable image resolution.
In shot noise dominated applications, this limited full well capacity defines the achievable Noise Equivalent Delta Temperature (NEDT). If only a part of the generated signal charge can be integrated, a part of the physically available information would be lost in the detection process.
With an increasing demand for improved detectors, there remains a need in the art for a charge removal process in the readout circuit using numerical full well capacity extension that provides higher full well capacity without sacrificing the size of the unit cell in the imaging array or lowering the light level sensitivity. | {
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This invention relates to the fabrication of composite structures, and, more particularly, to the fabrication of composite structures having integrated apertures, by a winding method.
Composite materials are widely used in structural applications, including aerospace load-bearing structures. As used herein, a composite material is a material formed of fibers, preferably carbon or graphite fibers, embedded in a matrix, preferably a cured polymeric matrix. A convenient form for both the fabrication and use of the composite materials is a hollow form such as a tube, a hollow pressure vessel, or a hollow container, which may be cylindrical or non-cylindrical in cross-sectional shape. Such composite hollow structures have low weight, high axial strength and/or modulus, and high flexural strength and/or modulus.
The hollow structural form is readily fabricated by a winding operation. In a typical winding operation, a mandrel having the desired shape of the hollow form, but of smaller transverse dimensions, is provided. Bundles of the fiber material are wound over the mandrel in patterns dictated by the structural requirements of the completed hollow form. An uncured matrix polymeric precursor material, preferably in a viscous liquid form, is applied either simultaneously with the winding or after layers of the winding are completed. The mandrel with overwound composite material is placed into an oven or an autoclave to cure the matrix material. The mandrel is thereafter removed, and the cured composite structure is ready for use or, for some polymeric matrix materials, post curing followed by use.
In some instances, apertures through the wall of the hollow structure are required. Apertures in some cases are used for access to the interior of the structure. In other cases, they are used to bond or attach other structural members to the hollow structure.
The conventional practice for providing an aperture through the wall of the hollow composite structure is to fabricate the structure in the manner described above. The aperture is thereafter formed through the wall by cutting or machining techniques.
The present inventor has recognized that, while operable and acceptable for many applications, the existing technique for providing apertures through the wall of a composite structure has drawbacks in others. The cutting or machining operation leaves cut fibers at the edge of the aperture, which can adversely affect the structural performance adjacent to the aperture. There may be microcracks in the remaining fibers or in the matrix, which thereafter may lead to premature failure of the article and a poor surface quality. The cutting or machining operation is also time consuming and expensive, often requiring special tools and resulting in rapid wear of the tools.
Consequently, there is a need for an improved approach to the fabrication of composite structural shapes having apertures therein. The present invention fulfills this need, and further provides related advantages. | {
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Computer security systems have to contend with increasingly sophisticated attacks, or exploits from malicious persons (i.e. hackers) attempting to gain access to data or software in a computer. An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is an information security device that monitors and analyses data to detect when security is breached, while an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is a device that identifies malicious activity and attempts to stop or block the activity. IDS and IPS devices are often integrated into an IDS/IPS or Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS).
Techniques of bypassing an information security device in order to deliver an attack to a target network entity without detection are known as evasions. Evasions are typically used to counter a network-based IDS/IPS but can also be used to by-pass firewalls. Just as viruses can be detected and blocked by anti-virus software, evasions can be stopped through anti-evasion solutions. However, it has recently been recognised that more advanced evasion techniques (AETs) have been developed, and it has been reported that most, if not all currently available IDS/IPS solutions are unable to detect or prevent an attack if more than one AET is used concurrently.
The present invention has been conceived with the foregoing in mind. However, before describing this further some explanation is required of the terms that will be used particularly in relation to the embodiments described.
An attack is any attempt to destroy, expose, alter, disable, steal or gain unauthorized access to or make unauthorized use of a computer asset. An exploit is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on a computer. Examples might include gaining control of a computer system or allowing a privilege escalation or a denial of service attack. Malware is malicious software designed to secretly access a computer system without the owner's informed consent, and may include a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code, such as computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, scareware, crimeware, most rootkits, and other malicious or undesirable software.
As used herein, an attack may be considered also to include any of the above.
The term “vulnerability”, as used herein refers to the term defined by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE®). CVE defines a vulnerability as a mistake in software that can be directly used by a hacker to gain access to a system or network. CVE is a dictionary of identifiers of known vulnerabilities that makes it easier to share data across different network security databases.
Embodiments are described below in relation to network communications at certain levels, or layers, such as described in the ISO's Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. In the OSI model a layer is a collection of conceptually similar functions, implemented within each layer by one or more entities. Each entity interacts directly only with the layer immediately beneath it, and provides facilities for use by the layer above it. Protocols enable an entity in one host to interact with a corresponding entity at the same layer in another host. Most network protocols used today are based on TCP/IP stacks.
In at least one version of the OSI model there are seven layers. Starting at the lowest layer, layer 1, which is the physical layer, the layers above are, in order, 2—the data Link layer, 3—the Network layer, 4—the Transport layer, 5—the Session layer, 6—the Presentation layer, and 7—the Application layer. At any given layer, N, two entities (N-peers) interact by means of the N protocol by transmitting protocol data units (PDUs). A Service Data Unit (SDU) is a specific unit of data that has been passed down from one layer to a lower layer, and which the lower layer has not yet encapsulated into a protocol data unit (PDU) of its own layer. Thus, an SDU is a set of data that is sent by a user of the services of a given layer, and is transmitted semantically unchanged to a peer service user. The SDU is the ‘payload’ of a given PDU. Accordingly, where the embodiments described below refer to a particular level or layer, such as the Application level, to describe the principles of the invention, it should be understood that the same principles may be applied at other layers, and where data is referred to as payload it should not be construed as being limited to data at any particular layer. | {
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Avatars are becoming an integral part of how we communicate with one another in a digital world. The potential uses for avatars range from increased immersion of a player into a role-playing video game environment to protecting a person's privacy when engaged in remote video chat. In any case, advances in technology and computing algorithms enhance the realism of communication via an avatar. Avatars in video games allow user's to control the facial gestures of mystical creatures and characters with their own facial expressions. Also, in the context of remote video chat, advanced avatars are nearly indistinguishable from actual real-time video of the user.
Although advances in technology typically unleash endless possibilities and near-reality experiences, it comes at a cost. The computational resources typically required for video editing and rendering are considerable, particularly when it comes to rendering life-like video and motion. For example, many applications require devices to have significant graphical processing capabilities and dedicated memory. As such, low-power mobile computing devices are typically unable to implement the certain technologies as effectively as desktop computers and servers. Instead, those devices often must resort to last generation's applications. | {
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An energy supply device, such as a voltage supply device or a current supply device, frequently has a plurality of connected component parts for operation of the energy supply device. Thus, the energy supply device may have an actuating element, such as a pushbutton, or such as a control knob for a potentiometer, which element may be employed for adjusting the energy supply device. E.g., the actuating element may be used to adjust an output voltage of the energy supply device. Also, the energy supply device may have a display unit for displaying information for operating the energy supply device. E.g., the display unit may have a liquid crystal display or a light-emitting diode, for displaying or for signaling an operating state. The energy supply device may also have a communication interface for wireless communication via a communication network. For this purpose, the energy supply device may have an antenna which is connected to the communication interface.
If the energy supply device has a housing, often each component among the plurality of connected components for operating the energy supply device is individually extended out of the housing. Often this results in costly provision of multiple openings in a housing wall of the housing. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medium press device for holding a medium conveyed in an ink jet printer and to an ink jet printer provided with the medium press device.
2. Background Information
It is known that in ink jet printers, a distance between an ink jet head ejecting ink and a medium largely influences on a print quality. The ink jet head is arranged to a printer chassis with good precision. Contrary to this, it is not a rare case that the medium to be carried may not keep a desired distance between the ink jet head due to occurrence of curling, existence of remaining cutting trash, attachment of foreign matter, and other factors. When conducting printing under such a state, it becomes difficult to control positions of ink droplets to be adhered onto the medium and the diameters of the droplets. As a result, there is a fear in that the print quality becomes unstable.
Contrary to this, in the conventional ink jet printer, there is proposed a mechanism for pressing a medium to be carried. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a paper pressing mechanism including a pair of paper pressers for pressing lateral end portions of the paper to the platen. In the paper pressing mechanism, the paper pressers may be fixed to positions in accordance with a width of the paper by using setting screws. With this, the paper is pressed during printing to secure the distance between the ink jet head.
On the other hand, Patent Document 2 discloses a paper pressing mechanism including a pair of press clamps slidably provided on the platen. In the paper pressing mechanism, by depressing a press knob, a plate spring floats to thereby facilitate the insertion of end portions in a width direction of the printing paper, and by releasing the pressing force of the pressing knob, it is possible to press the end portions in the width direction of the paper. [Patent Document 1] Japanese. Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 4-69264 [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-90538
However, in the paper presser of Patent Document 1, the pressing mechanism is fixed during the paper conveyance, and hence in the case of abnormal conveyances such as the paper is slantly conveyed with respect to an intrinsic conveying direction, a zigzag conveyance case, or the other cases, the end portions of the paper may dislodge from the pressing mechanism, the end portions may bump to curl up, or may interfere with the ink jet head. In those cases, the distance with the ink jet head may not be kept, or there is a fear of becoming difficult to continue the conveyance.
On the other hand, in the press cramp of Patent Document 2, there is employed the structure in which after the insertion of printing paper, the pressing pressure of the pressing knob is released to press the end portions in the width direction of the paper against the platen side. As a result, similar to the paper presser of Patent Document 1, in the case where the paper is conveyed slantly, or the zigzag movement, the end portions of the paper may dislodge from the pressing mechanism, the end portions may bump to curl up, or may interfere with the ink jet head. In addition, in the press cramps of Patent Document 2, in the case where, along with the slant movement of the paper, etc., the press cramps are moved outside the paper in the width direction, the press cramps do not return to their original positions, and hence it becomes difficult to press the end portions of the paper to be conveyed later.
Contrary to this, a holding force by the pressing mechanism is enhanced, thereby being capable of forcedly pressing the paper at the time of the abnormal conveyance. However, in this case, frictional resistance is applied to the paper under conveyance, there is a risk of breaking the paper. This becomes markedly if the paper is conveyed slantly or in zigzag.
Contrary to this, a holding force by the pressing mechanism is enhanced, thereby being capable of forcedly pressing the paper at the time of the abnormal conveyance. However, in this case, a frictional resistance is applied to the paper under conveyance, and thus there is a risk of breaking the paper. This risk increases if the paper is conveyed slantly or in a zigzag manner.
On the other hand, in the case where the gap between the pressing mechanism and the paper is increased and the holding force by the pressing mechanism is weakened, the paper may be conveyed smoothly even if the paper is conveyed slantly or in a zigzag manner. However, as the holding force is weak, the gap between the ink jet head and the paper is not constant, resulting in degradation of the printing quality due to possible displacements of adhering positions of the ink ejected from the ink jet head. | {
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Typically, in CT imaging systems, a rotatable gantry includes an x-ray tube, detector, data acquisition system (DAS), and other components that rotate about a patient that is positioned at the approximate rotational center of the gantry. X-rays emit from the x-ray tube, are attenuated by the patient, and are received at the detector. The detector typically includes a photodiode-scintillator array of pixelated elements that convert the attenuated x-rays into photons within the scintillator, and then to electrical signals within the photodiode. The electrical signals are digitized and then received within the DAS, processed, and the processed signals are transmitted via a slipring (from the rotational side to the stationary side) to a computer or data processor for image reconstruction, where an image is formed.
The gantry typically includes a pre-patient collimator that defines or shapes the x-ray beam emitted from the x-ray tube. X-rays passing through the patient can cause x-ray scatter to occur, which can cause image artifacts. Thus, x-ray detectors typically include an anti-scatter grid (ASG) for collimating x-rays received at the detector.
Imaging data may be obtained using x-rays that are generated at a single polychromatic energy. However, some systems may obtain multi-energy images that provide additional information for generating images.
In order to meet the very tight performance standards and generate high quality and artifact-free CT images, a detector typically provides a response that is linearly related to x-ray intensity. Such performance standards typically include a) stability of the detector over time and temperature, b) sensitivity to focal spot motion, and c) light output over lifetime of the detector, as a few examples. In a third generation CT scanner, the relative behavior of adjacent channels is important and typically has tight specifications from channel to channel in order to avoid ring artifacts. This is commonly referred to as channel-to-channel non-linearity variation or channel-to-local average. Also, the drift of a channel from its state of calibration to its state of imaging (of the patient) can cause image artifacts. This variation is generally interpreted as the variation of one pixel to its neighbor. The sources of variation may be due to different components of the image chain such as collimator plate displacement, diode pixel response, and scintillator pixel damage, as examples. Generally, if certain specifications are not met, the variation can cause ring artifacts, bands, or smudges in the images.
ASGs typically include a plurality of plates that are shared between modules, which may include an end plate that is shared between the two. That is, the ASG may extend over two or more modules. End plates shared may be positioned in a gap formed between edge pixels of each module. In this case and in this example, when the plates get deformed or displaced because of thermal drift or thermal gradient, or by G-loading, gains from the two exposed pixels may induce opposite drift. If the drift occurs between calibration and the image state, then ring artifacts or other types of artifacts can be created.
Thus, there is a need to reduce variation within a CT detector and improve the robustness of an ASG. | {
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The invention relates to a planner device for planning a route through a topological road network, comprising:
background memory means for storing said network as a set of n-cell tables (n=0, 1) of road segments or junctions;
random access working memory means coupled to the background memory means, for storing a subset of said set of n-cell tables as actually used in said planning address assigning means for assigning a first working memory address to each entry of each n-cell table used in planning the route; data processing means coupled to said working memory means comprising:
expansion means for pointing to a set of candidate n-cells for said route, starting from one end of the route until the other end of the route is reached, on the basis of an actual expansion index indicating an actual n-cell;
evaluation means for assigning an evaluation value to each candidate n-cell found;
selection means for selecting an actual candidate n-cell having the most advantageous evaluation value among those that have not led to an expansion index, for therefrom generating a next actual expansion index, and repeat control means for repeatedly activating said expansion means, said evaluation means and said selection means until the other end of said route is reached, and backtracking means activated by said repeat control means for backtracking a linked set of candidates then starting from the n-cell containing said other end until said one end is reached, said linked set constituting said route. | {
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The present invention relates to a method for producing metal-coated palladium or palladium-alloy particles useful as, for example, oxygen-reducing electrocatalysts in fuel cells. The invention particularly relates to methods for producing platinum surface monolayer nanoparticle composites having low platinum loading coupled with high catalytic activity.
A “fuel cell” is a device which converts chemical energy into electrical energy. In a typical fuel cell, a gaseous fuel such as hydrogen is fed to an anode (the negative electrode), while an oxidant such as oxygen is fed to the cathode (the positive electrode). Oxidation of the fuel at the anode causes a release of electrons from the fuel into an external circuit which connects the anode and cathode. In turn, the oxidant is reduced at the cathode using the electrons provided by the oxidized fuel. The electrical circuit is completed by the flow of ions through an electrolyte that allows chemical interaction between the electrodes. The electrolyte is typically in the form of a proton-conducting polymer membrane that separates the anode and cathode compartments and which is also electrically insulating. A well-known example of such a proton-conducting membrane is NAFION®.
A fuel cell, although having components and characteristics similar to those of a typical battery, differs in several respects. A battery is an energy storage device whose available energy is determined by the amount of chemical reactant stored within the battery itself. The battery will cease to produce electrical energy when the stored chemical reactants are consumed. In contrast, the fuel cell is an energy conversion device that theoretically has the capability of producing electrical energy for as long as the fuel and oxidant are supplied to the electrodes.
In a typical proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, hydrogen is supplied to the anode and oxygen is supplied to the cathode. Hydrogen is oxidized to form protons while releasing electrons into the external circuit. Oxygen is reduced at the cathode to form reduced oxygen species. Protons travel across the proton-conducting membrane to the cathode compartment to react with reduced oxygen species forming water. The reactions in a typical hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell are as follows:
Anode:
Cathode:
Net Reaction:
In many fuel cell systems, a hydrogen fuel is produced by converting a hydrocarbon-based fuel such as methane, or an oxygenated hydrocarbon fuel such as methanol, to hydrogen in a process known as “reforming”. The reforming process typically involves the reaction of either methane or methanol with water along with the application of heat to produce hydrogen along with the byproducts of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Other fuel cells, known as “direct” or “non-reformed” fuel cells, oxidize fuel high in hydrogen content directly, without the hydrogen first being separated by a reforming process. For example, it has been known since the 1950's that lower primary alcohols, particularly methanol, can be oxidized directly. Accordingly, a substantial effort has gone into the development of the so-called “direct methanol oxidation” fuel cell because of the advantage of bypassing the reformation step.
In order for the oxidation and reduction reactions in a fuel cell to occur at useful rates and at desired potentials, electrocatalysts are required. Electrocatalysts are catalysts that promote the rates of electrochemical reactions, and thus, allow fuel cells to operate at lower overpotentials. Accordingly, in the absence of an electrocatalyst, a typical electrode reaction would occur, if at all, only at very high overpotentials. Due to the high catalytic nature of platinum, supported platinum and platinum alloy materials are preferred as electrocatalysts in the anodes and cathodes of fuel cells.
However, platinum is a prohibitively expensive precious metal. In fact, the required platinum loading using current state-of-the-art electrocatalysts is still too high for commercially viable mass production of fuel cells.
Accordingly, some research has focused on reducing the amount of costly platinum in fuel cell cathodes and anodes by combining the platinum with a lower cost metal. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,670,301 B2 to Adzic et al. relates to the deposition of ultrathin layers of platinum on ruthenium nanoparticles by a spontaneous process. The platinum-coated ruthenium nanoparticles are useful as carbon monoxide-tolerant anode electrocatalysts in fuel cells. Also see: Brankovic, S. R., et al, “Pt Submonolayers On Ru Nanoparticles—A Novel Low Pt Loading, High CO Tolerance Fuel Cell Electrocatalyst”, Electrochem. Solid State Lett., 4, p. A217 (2001); and Brankovic, S. R., et al, “Spontaneous Deposition Of Pt On The Ru(0001) Surface”, J. Electroanal. Chem., 503: 99 (2001), which also disclose platinum monolayers on ruthenium nanoparticles.
A method for depositing an atomic monolayer of platinum on palladium nanoparticles was recently reported. See J. Zhang, et al., “Platinum Monolayer Electrocatalysts For O2 Reduction: Pt Monolayer On Pd(111) And On Carbon-Supported Pd Nanoparticles”, J. Phys. Chem. B., 108: 10955 (2004). The method disclosed in Zhang et al. involves first, the electrodeposition of an atomic monolayer of an underpotentially deposited metal such as copper onto palladium nanoparticles. The electrodeposition is followed by contact with a platinum salt solution to initiate a spontaneous redox displacement of the copper atomic monolayer by a platinum monolayer.
The platinum-coated palladium nanoparticles were reported by Zhang et al. to significantly reduce platinum loadings in fuel cell electrocatalysts. In addition, the platinum-coated palladium nanoparticles were reported by Zhang et al. to possess significantly higher catalytic activity for the reduction of oxygen than the corresponding platinum nanoparticles. The higher catalytic activity for the platinum-coated palladium nanoparticles is presumed to be a result of a synergistic effect of palladium on the platinum layer.
It is evident that the platinum-coated palladium nanoparticles hold great promise as a major advance for fuel cell electrocatalysts. In fact, palladium and palladium-alloy particles coated with numerous other metals besides platinum, including the main group and transition metals, are also expected to advance, inter alia, catalysts, electrocatalysts, and other materials.
The method for depositing platinum onto palladium nanoparticles described by Zhang et al. contains several practical limitations. For example, the method of Zhang et al. requires contact of the palladium nanoparticles with an electrode in order to electrodeposit copper onto the palladium nanoparticles. In addition, the method of Zhang et al. generates copper waste during platinum displacement of copper.
None of the art described above discloses a method for depositing a layer of a metal onto a palladium or palladium-alloy particle using a method that is convenient and practical, e.g., that does not require electrodeposition and does not generate waste. Nor does any of the art discussed above disclose a convenient and practical method for the deposition of an atomically thin layer of any of a large variety of metals onto palladium or palladium-alloy particles.
Thus, a convenient and practical method for depositing a layer, particularly an atomically thin layer, of any of a large variety of metals onto palladium and palladium-alloy particles is needed. The present invention relates to such methods. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device which is suitable as a display section of a portable or a stationary electronic apparatus, and an electronic apparatus including the liquid crystal display device. More specifically, the present invention relates to reinforcement in strength of, for example, a slim liquid crystal display device. Further, the present invention relates to reinforcement in strength of a stationary electronic apparatus including a large-sized liquid crystal display device such as a liquid crystal TV (television) or the like as one example, when carrying or handling the stationary electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a liquid crystal display device is commonly used as a display (display section) for a portable electronic apparatus (hereinafter referred to as “mobile apparatus”). The liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel; the liquid crystal display panel is commonly arranged in such a manner that a pair of transparent substrates made of glass or the like sandwich a liquid crystal layer. The liquid crystal display device is widely used in a display for a notebook computer, and also a mobile apparatus such as an information mobile terminal (PDA: Personal Digital Assistant) and a mobile phone. This is because the liquid crystal display device excels in mobility, and also has low power consumption. From a point of mobility and convenience, the mobile apparatus is required to be thin, lightweight and strong.
The liquid crystal display device has also been commercialized as a stationary large-sized apparatus such as a slim TV, and such a liquid crystal display device is becoming widely spread. In recent years, demands for reducing thickness and weight of such stationary products have also been increasing. Therefore, as similar to the mobile apparatus, the large-sized liquid crystal display device requires to be, not only thin and lightweight, but also sufficiently durable to external pressure applied when carried, handled or generally used.
In response to such demands, approaches have been made to reduce the thickness and weight of the liquid crystal display device. However, attainment of strength has been difficult in line with such an approach.
That is to say, generally, the liquid crystal display device adopts an arrangement in which a chassis 107 is formed on a periphery of a light guiding plate 102b, as illustrated in FIG. 16. The chassis 107 serves as a supporting member of the light guiding plate 102b. However, since the light guiding plate 102b has become thin in response to the reduction in thickness and weight of a liquid crystal module, and since a housing of the liquid crystal display device is made of resin such as PMMA (PolyMethyl MethAcrylate), the liquid crystal display device is not strong in rigidity. Therefore, in a case where there is a step 107a generated due to the chassis 107 on a back side of the light guiding plate 102b, this step 107a becomes a cause of a partial warp in a liquid crystal display panel 101 as illustrated in FIGS. 17A and 17B. In some cases, breakage of the liquid crystal display device occurs as a result of this arrangement.
Moreover, from a layout point of view, many of the liquid crystal modules and the mobile apparatuses which include the liquid crystal module provide a driving circuit for driving the liquid crystal display panel, and/or another system, a battery, and the like on the back side of the liquid crystal module. Various chip parts that are mounted on the driving circuit have uneven planes, and a cover and a spacer for protecting the various chip parts from external pressure also have uneven planes. Therefore, the liquid crystal module and the mobile apparatus that include the liquid crystal module are arranged in such a manner that when a load is placed on the uneven planes, the liquid crystal display panel partially warps easily and readily.
In a case where the light guiding plate of the liquid crystal module is thin, and further has protrusions and depressions on its back side, the liquid crystal display panel made of glass may warp and break due to (i) pressure applied from a display surface, (ii) pushup force from a driving circuit board at a time when the liquid crystal module is dropped, or further (iii) a warp generated in the liquid crystal module at a time when the liquid crystal module is dropped. Accordingly, any liquid crystal module that has the possibility that any one of the foregoing may occur is considered as having insufficient mechanical strength as a product. Therefore, some kind of measure, particularly for improving rigidity of a housing section or the like is required for the liquid crystal display panel that is mounted in an apparatus such as the mobile apparatus that can be carried and the large-sized liquid crystal display device.
In response to this, many of the mobile apparatuses which use the liquid crystal display panel such as a tablet personal computer are designed to have a protection plate, which makes it difficult for external force such as an impact or the like to be applied on the liquid crystal display panel. Such arrangement has been adopted in many of the mobile apparatuses.
However, adoption of such arrangement requires a protection board that has a sufficient rigidity. Moreover, the arrangement is one in which a slight gap is formed between the liquid crystal display panel and the protection plate, so as to prevent force from being passed to the liquid crystal display panel. As a result, a measure for thickening the protection plate and/or the gap is required. Such measure is contrary to obtainment of a thin and lightweight end product, therefore, such measure is not preferable.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 142404/2001 (Tokukai 2001-142404) suggests an information display device as illustrated in FIG. 18A, including: a plate-shaped liquid crystal display panel 201 which serves as an information display; a metal plate 203 which is of a same size as the liquid crystal display panel 201 and is retained so as to cohere to a back surface of the liquid crystal display panel 201; a driving circuit board 204 provided on an opposite side of the liquid crystal display panel 201 on the metal plate 203, the driving circuit board 204 mounting a driving circuit for driving at least the liquid crystal display panel 201; an upper case (not illustrated) with an opening enabling visual perception of a display displayed on the liquid crystal display panel 201; and a lower case (not illustrated) for storing the liquid crystal display panel 201, the metal plate 203, and the driving circuit board 204, together with the upper case.
However, the conventional display device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 142404/2001 (Tokukai 2001-142404) does not give consideration to a load placed on or an impact to the display surface and the back side of the display surface. For example, there is the problem that breakage may occur caused by a pressure load applied from the surface of the liquid crystal display panel 201, a pushup from a back side of the liquid crystal display panel 201, and/or a partial warp due to the change in shape.
More specifically, for example, as illustrated in FIG. 18B, a load placed on an upper side of the liquid crystal display panel 201 causes the metal plate 203 to warp, and effected by this warp, the liquid crystal display panel 201 and the light guiding plate 202b also warps. As a result, the liquid crystal display panel 201 breaks. The causes of this warp are, for example, the flexibility of the metal plate 203 caused by its thinness, and a step 204a formed between the metal plate 203 and the driving circuit board 204. These cause the liquid crystal display panel 201 and the like to bend at the step 204a.
Alternatively, there also is a problem such that if a driving circuit board 303 provided at a back side of the light guiding plate 302b has protruding sections 303a on a side of the driving circuit board 303 closer to the light guiding plate 302b as illustrated in FIG. 19, which protruding sections 303a are of a circuit part such as a coil or the like, the protruding sections 303a comes in contact with the light guiding plate 302b under an impact in a case where the liquid crystal display device is dropped. This causes a breakage of the protruding sections 303a or the light guiding plate 302b. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The prior art revealed various patents on calculator and amusement devices, but none as contemplated in the present invention.
Calculators having function keys for specialized operations are not per se new. For example, U.S. Pat No. 3,955,074 to Hewlett-Packard teaches a calculator having programmable keys. Certain simulated calculators or computers for amusement or novelty purposes have also been tried, although not as contemplated in the present invention. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,984,758 for a “Simulated Computer” providing user operable keys for selecting a simulated computer function. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,075,771, U.S. Pat. No. Des 284,017, or U.S. Pat. No. 3,538,621.
Other simulated similar devices are shown in toy cash registers or the like, wherein input of numbers and certain keys may lead to a predetermined result, i.e., a cash drawer opening and auditory signal such as a bell as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,295,036, 4,307,534, or 4,195,423.
While the prior art teaches a variety of calculators and related devices, none seem to teach or contemplate a system configured to provide manipulated, erroneous answers for amusing effect as set forth in the invention of the present system. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A typical elevator system comprises an elevator car and a counterweight, each suspended on opposite ends of hoist ropes disposed in an elevator hoistway. Compensating ropes are hung from the underside of the elevator car to the underside of the counterweight to balance the weight of the hoist ropes as the car and counterweight move alternatingly up and down within the hoistway. A compensating rope sheave, disposed on the bottom of the hoistway, allows the compensating ropes to pass therethrough.
A problem with compensating ropes arises in tall buildings, which tend to sway, as a result of winds acting upon the buildings. Under certain combinations of rope length and tension, the compensating ropes tend to vibrate with the building. The compensating ropes' motion may continuously gain amplitude as the result of the building sway. The problem of horizontal rope vibration tends to be worse when the elevator car is parked near top floors because the compensating ropes are the longest and the building sway, which excites the rope vibration, is greatest.
Such horizontal vibration of the compensating ropes is undesirable for a number of reasons. First, compensating ropes may get tangled with one another since elevators have many compensating ropes or may interfere with other cables in the hoistway. Second, horizontal movement of ropes limits the ability of the elevator car to travel at higher speeds, because the shortening of the vibrating ropes resulting from an elevator car traveling downward will increase the oscillations of the ropes, thereby inhibiting the ropes' ability to stay within the grooves of the compensating sheave. Third, the noise from the compensating ropes hitting the hoistway walls may frighten passengers and building occupants.
One common method for minimizing horizontal movement of compensating ropes is to increase the weight of a frame supporting the compensating sheave. The major drawback of increasing the dead weight on the compensating sheave is that the suspended dead weight becomes live load which must be supported by the elevator machine, thereby requiring increased capacity of the machine itself and the increased size of the associated powertrain hardware.
Another approach to dampen oscillations of the compensating ropes is to use a follower carriage attached to the ropes. However, this approach has the same major short-coming as the use of suspended dead weights. The elevator machine and drive must support the additional weight of the follower carriage. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Hitching and unhitching tractors and implements are everyday tasks on most farms yet, despite the time commonly required for such operations, the need for assistance in carrying them out, particularly in the case of larger tractors and implements, and the element of risk involved, no effective commercial systems are known to be available for performing the hitching (and unhitching) steps automatically, safely, and quickly by one person from the cab of a tractor. Some proposals have been made, and a few systems have been marketed, for facilitating certain of the steps involved in hitching operation, but such systems have lacked commercial success for a variety of reasons. Apart from their complexity and expense, prior construction have been deficient in failing to solve problems of coupling the hydraulic and/or electrical connectors without requiring an operator to dismount from the tractor, with the result that such devices have not effectively met the need for reducing time, labor, and possible risks in hitching/unhitching operations.
Accordingly, it is a main object of this invention to provide a hitch mechanism that effectively hitches or unhitches an implement from a tractor, including the making or breaking of hydraulic/electrical connections, without requiring the operator to leave the cab of the tractor, and without the need for assistance by others in performing such operations. Another object is to provide a mechanism that is rugged and reliable, and that is relatively uncomplicated in structure and operation. As to the latter, it is a specific object to provide a mechanism that automatically and mechanically sequences to perform successive steps of a hitching or unhitching operation once such operation has been initiated by the driver of the tractor.
A still further object of the invention consists in providing a mechanism that is self-aligning in operation, assuming the tractor drawbar and implement tongue have been brought into reasonably close proximity prior to commencement of the automatic hitching operation.
Other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the specification and drawings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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