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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a TiO.sub.2 --SiO.sub.2 film (a film of titanium dioxide containing silicon dioxide) giving a film of anatase by heat treatment, and a method of forming the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Titanium dioxide (TiO.sub.2) is known as a substance which can be used repeatedly as a catalyst having a high activity in environmental cleaning, for example, for decomposing the exhaust gases of automobiles and the nicotine of tobacco.
TiO.sub.2 usually occurs in crystal form, and is classified by its structure into three types: rutile, brookite and anatase. It is easy to obtain rutile or brookite type TiO.sub.2 by heat treating a film of amorphous TiO.sub.2 at a temperature of 816.degree. C. to 1040.degree. C., but neither rutile nor brookite type TiO.sub.2 has a very high catalytic power. Anatase type TiO.sub.2 has a high catalytic activity, but is expensive, since it is mainly prepared by the hydrolysis of an organic titanium compound at a low temperature.
When TiO.sub.2 is used as a catalyst, it is necessary to form it into a film, or fine particles to provide a large surface for the donation and acceptance of electrons, and it is necessary to heat treat such a film to ensure its adhesion to a substrate. Anatase type TiO.sub.2 obtained by hydrolysis at a low temperature, however, is stable only at a temperature lower than 816.degree. C., and easily changes to rutile type if heated at or above 816.degree. C. | {
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Recently, with the advancement of digital technology, various types of electronic devices, including mobile communication terminals, smart phones, tablet Personal Computers (PCs), Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), electric organizers, notebooks, wearable devices, Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, audible devices, and the like, have been widely used.
Recently, with the rapid spread of electronic devices, existing mobile communication services which are oriented to a simple voice call have been changed to a data communication service which is oriented to data communication, and various types of services have been proposed. For example, a user can view a web page through his/her electronic device on the Internet, or can install an application on his/her electronic device and can be provided anywhere with his/her desired services (e.g., image services (e.g., image sharing and video call services)) through his/her electronic device.
A conventional image sharing or video call service is mainly performed through a mobile communication network, and is mostly performed in such a manner that a user presses a separate video call button to perform a video call. However, the conventional image services are limited in that the conventional image services have to be provided through a mobile communication network through which a video call service is provided. Therefore, for example, while a voice call is performed through a mobile communication network, an image service such as a video call or image sharing cannot be simultaneously provided in parallel with the execution of the voice call. | {
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This invention relates to a tuning apparatus for use in a television apparatus, and more particularly, to a tuning apparatus for the VHF band of the television receiver.
Generally, television receivers have mechanical tuners or electronic synchronous tuners, which are used as a tuner for VHF (Very-High Frequency) band and a tuner for UHF (Ultra-High Frequency) band. Each of these tuners comprises an input tuning circuit, a high-frequency amplifier circuit, a mixer for providing intermediate-frequency television signals, and a local oscillating circuit.
An electronic synchronous tuner needs to be switched for a low band (e.g., 90 to 108 MHz) or a high band (e.g., 170 to 222 MHz), in accordance with the frequency of the television signals. Hence, in order to prevent undesired signal-mixing, a band trap circuit is provided within the input tuning circuit of the tuner. The band trap circuit functions as a high-band trap while the television receiver is receiving low-band television signals, and as a low-band trap while the television receiver is receiving high-band television signals.
Recently, there has been a demand for tuners which can receive cable television (CATV) signals. The frequency of the CATV signals is high. It is therefore necessary for the band trap circuit of such a tuner to receive low-band signals whose frequency range is broader and also high-band signals whose frequency range is broader. The band trap circuit of the type used in the electronic synchronous tuner designed for the ordinary television receivers cannot trap all signals of unnecessary frequencies. Hence, there has been an increasing demand that the tuners be improved, thereby to receive CATV signals as well as ordinary television signals. | {
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1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computing systems and more particularly to data storage solutions within such computing systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Computers are known to communicate, process, and store data. Such computers range from wireless smart phones to data centers that support millions of web searches, stock trades, or on-line purchases every day. In general, a computing system generates data and/or manipulates data from one form into another. For instance, an image sensor of the computing system generates raw picture data and, using an image compression program (e.g., JPEG, MPEG, etc.), the computing system manipulates the raw picture data into a standardized compressed image.
With continued advances in processing speed and communication speed, computers are capable of processing real time multimedia data for applications ranging from simple voice communications to streaming high definition video. As such, general-purpose information appliances are replacing purpose-built communications devices (e.g., a telephone). For example, smart phones can support telephony communications but they are also capable of text messaging and accessing the internet to perform functions including email, web browsing, remote applications access, and media communications (e.g., telephony voice, image transfer, music files, video files, real time video streaming. etc.).
Each type of computer is constructed and operates in accordance with one or more communication, processing, and storage standards. As a result of standardization and with advances in technology, more and more information content is being converted into digital formats. For example, more digital cameras are now being sold than film cameras, thus producing more digital pictures. As another example, web-based programming is becoming an alternative to over the air television broadcasts and/or cable broadcasts. As further examples, papers, books, video entertainment, home video, etc. are now being stored digitally, which increases the demand on the storage function of computers.
A typical computer storage system includes one or more memory devices aligned with the needs of the various operational aspects of the computer's processing and communication functions. Generally, the immediacy of access dictates what type of memory device is used. For example, random access memory (RAM) memory can be accessed in any random order with a constant response time, thus it is typically used for cache memory and main memory. By contrast, memory device technologies that require physical movement such as magnetic disks, tapes, and optical discs, have a variable response time as the physical movement can take longer than the data transfer, thus they are typically used for secondary memory (e.g., hard drive, backup memory, etc.).
A computer's storage system will be compliant with one or more computer storage standards that include, but are not limited to, network file system (NFS), flash file system (FFS), disk file system (DFS), small computer system interface (SCSI), internet small computer system interface (iSCSI), file transfer protocol (FTP), and web-based distributed authoring and versioning (WebDAV). These standards specify the data storage format (e.g., files, data objects, data blocks, directories, etc.) and interfacing between the computer's processing function and its storage system, which is a primary function of the computer's memory controller.
Despite the standardization of the computer and its storage system, memory devices fail; especially commercial grade memory devices that utilize technologies incorporating physical movement (e.g., a disc drive). For example, it is fairly common for a disc drive to routinely suffer from bit level corruption and to completely fail after three years of use. One solution is to a higher-grade disc drive, which adds significant cost to a computer.
Another solution is to utilize multiple levels of redundant disc drives to replicate the data into two or more copies. One such redundant drive approach is called redundant array of independent discs (RAID). In a RAID device, a RAID controller adds parity data to the original data before storing it across the array. The parity data is calculated from the original data such that the failure of a disc will not result in the loss of the original data. For example, RAID 5 uses three discs to protect data from the failure of a single disc. The parity data, and associated redundancy overhead data, reduces the storage capacity of three independent discs by one third (e.g., n−1=capacity). RAID 6 can recover from a loss of two discs and requires a minimum of four discs with a storage capacity of n−2.
While RAID addresses the memory device failure issue, it is not without its own failures issues that affect its effectiveness, efficiency and security. For instance, as more discs are added to the array, the probability of a disc failure increases, which increases the demand for maintenance. For example, when a disc fails, it needs to be manually replaced before another disc fails and the data stored in the RAID device is lost. To reduce the risk of data loss, data on a RAID device is typically copied on to one or more other RAID devices. While this addresses the loss of data issue, it raises a security issue since multiple copies of data are available, which increases the chances of unauthorized access. Further, as the amount of data being stored grows, the overhead of RAID devices becomes a non-trivial efficiency issue. | {
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Drilling systems are designed to drill a bore into the earth to target hydrocarbon sources. Drilling operators rely on accurate operational information to manage the drilling system and reach the target hydrocarbon source as efficiently as possible. The downhole end of the drill string in a drilling system, referred to as a bottomhole assembly, can include specialized tools designed to obtain operational information for the drill string and drill bit, and in some cases characteristics of the formation. In measurement-while-drilling (MWD) applications, sensing modules in the bottomhole assembly provide information concerning the direction of the drilling. This information can be used, for example, to control the direction in which the drill bit advances in a rotary steerable drill string.
In “logging while drilling” (LWD) applications, characteristics of the formation being drilled through is obtained. For example, resistivity sensors may be used to transmit, and then receive, high frequency wavelength signals (e.g., electromagnetic waves) that travel through the formation surrounding the sensor. Other sensors are used in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Still other sensors include gamma scintillators, which are used to determine the natural radioactivity of the formation, and nuclear detectors, which are used to determine the porosity and density of the formation. In both LWD and MWD applications, the information collected by the sensors can be transmitted to the surface for analysis. One technique for transmitting date between surface and downhole location is “mud pulse telemetry.” In a mud pulse telemetry system, signals from the sensor modules are received and encoded in a module housed in the bottomhole assembly. A controller actuates a pulser, also incorporated into the bottomhole assembly, which generates pressure pulses in the drilling fluid flowing through the drill string and out of the drill bit. The pressure pulses contain the encoded information. The pressure pulses travel up the column of drilling fluid to the surface, where they are detected by a pressure transducer. The data from the pressure transducers are then decoded and analyzed as needed. Such pulsers have relatively low data rates and consume large amounts of power. | {
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The invention is directed to a process for the production of carboxylic acid cyanides, e.g., acyl cyanides by reaction of a carboxylic acid halide with an alkali metal cyanide or hydrogen cyanide in the presence of a copper (I) salt and a carboxylic acid nitrile.
It is known to produce carboxylic acid cyanides from carboxylic acid halides by reacting the halides in the presence of catalytic amounts of copper (I) cyanide, copper (II) cyanide, zinc cyanide or their complex compounds with alkali cyanides or hydrogen cyanide at a temperature of 100.degree. to 300.degree. C. (German AS No. 2614242 and related Findeisen U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,068, the entire disclosure of the Findeisen U.S. patent being hereby incorporated by reference and relied upon). The disadvantage in this process is that to produce suitable transformations relatively high temperatures, chiefly above 200.degree. C., and/or long reaction times are needed. However, side reactions are favored under these conditions, especially the formation of dimers so that the yields are moderate. With certain carboxylic acid cyanides, for example, with the lower aliphatic carboxylic acid cyanides, the yields only amount to a few percent.
It is also known to carry out the reaction of the carboxylic acid halide with an alkali metal cyanide in the presence of a copper (I) salt and a carboxylic acid nitrile, especially acetonitrile and thereby to operate at a temperature from 50.degree. to 180.degree. C. (German OS No. 2708182 and related Klenk U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,875, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference and relied upon). It is true that in this process relatively low temperatures are sufficient; however, the reaction times are undesirably long and the yields of carboxylic acid cyanide are not satisfactory. | {
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There are numerous other types of processes for remediating soils, including soil washing, in-situ air stripping, in-situ vitrification, stabilisation, vacuum extraction and solvent extraction. However, the most universally proven and efficient method for removing organics from soil is thermal desorption, which together with treatment or destruction of the desorbed organics is termed thermal remediation. Hydrocarbon contaminants which are treatable with thermal remediation include: Volatile organic compounds (VOC) eg petrol, diesel, Aromatic hydrocarbons eg benzene, tars, Dioxins and furans, Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs or PNAs), Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and Pesticides (eg organochlorins such as dieldrin and aldrin).
Thermal remediation of contaminated soil uses heat to physically separate hydrocarbon based contaminants from feed material which may be, for example, directly recovered soils, sediments, sludges or filter cakes. The separated hydrocarbons are then combusted or thermally oxidised to produce essentially carbon dioxide and water vapour.
The most common process configuration involves a counter-current direct fired desorber, but there are numerous variants. The most common alternative is the co-current desorber, which produces a hotter contaminated offgas stream. To avoid cooling these gases to enable fabric filtration, a cyclone is used to remove some of the dust prior to thermal oxidation, followed by gas cooling then fabric filtration. In another variant the functions of the thermal desorber and oxidiser are combined by arranging to combust the contaminant gases within a metal jacketed combustion chamber within a rotary desorber.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,094 discloses an arrangement in which heat exchangers are used for preheating combustion air for a thermal desorber. In that arrangement, there is described a combined (all metal) rotary device, a type of rotary kiln with internal indirect heating of both soil and combustion air, which is claimed to carry out combined thermal desorption and thermal oxidation.
German patent application 3447079 describes a process in which the contaminated soil is thermally treated in a rotary kiln by the direct addition of hot combustion gases and/or air. The decomposition products are partially combusted in the rotary kiln, with the remaining production gas fed to a waste gas combustion chamber where it is afterburnt at high temperatures. In general, the post-combustion waste gases are cooled and released into the atmosphere.
Various other methods of thermal remediation of soil are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,455,005, 5,393,501, 4,715,965, 4,974,528, and 5,378,083.
The main difference between different technologies is the equipment used for thermal desorption, which may be one of four main types, the advantages and disadvantages of which are summarised in Table 1 (obtained from various sources, including W. L. Troxler et al, “Treatment of non-hazardous petroleum-contaminated soils by thermal desorption technologies”, Jnl of Air and Waste, Vol. 43, November 1993, and W. C. Anderson, “Innovative site remediation technology”, Thermal Desorption, WASTECH, 1993).
TABLE 1Main Types of Thermal RemediationAdvantagesDisadvantagesDirectHigh rates ofLarger thermal oxidiser than forfiredheat transfer.indirect fired.rotarySmaller desorber thanDilution strategies are usuallykilnsindirect fired.required for hydrocarbonSimplest, most robust.contamination levels of >4% toMost flexible toavoid exceeding the LEL ofvariation in feeddesorber offgases.material and typeand level ofcontamination.IndirectMay allow economicUnsuitable for heavyfiredrecovery ofcontamination, especially of longrotaryhydrocarbons.chain or aromatic hydrocarbonskilnsLower dust losses(tars).from desorber.Larger desorber.Higher moisture soils severelyimpair capacity.CombinationProcess simplificationInability to process large gasdirect/by using a singlevolumes.indirectprocess step.Lower peak soil temperatures willfiredprevent practical decontaminationdesorber,of heavily contaminated soils,withespecially with PAHs or PCBs.integralLess suitable for high moisturethermalsoils.oxidiserDirectAs for indirectAs for indirect fired rotary kilns.firedfired rotary kilns.conveyors,Improved control overincludingsolids residence time.metalbelts andscrewsDirectHighest processIncreased complexity.firedintensity.Increased dust losses/recyclingfluidisedof dusts.bedsRequires fine and uniform sizedmaterial (normally lessthan 5 mm).Increased maintenance (abrasion).
Remediation plants may be either stationary or mobile, with the larger, stationary plants being restricted to remediation of large heavily contaminated sites (eg large integrated steelworks sites), regional clusters of contaminated sites, or under circumstances where transport of contaminated materials is economic and not hazardous.
Key technical factors in thermal remediation include: Solids temperature and contact time. Soil moisture when treated. Actual soil hydrocarbon contaminants present. Other contamination, eg chlorine compounds and heavy metals. Extraneous rubble.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for remediating soil contaminated with hydrocarbons that is capable in preferred embodiment of optimising energy usage and operating costs for a given soil throughput, and that is preferably adaptable to treat short chain, long chain, aromatic, and polychlorinated hydrocarbons. In particular embodiments, it is further desired to minimise environmental impacts, especially greenhouse gases, NOx and dioxin/furan emissions. | {
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Consumers who purchase products online or by mail-order often desire to see photographs of a product before purchasing the product. For many personal articles, such as apparel or footwear, the appearance of an article may be a very important consideration in whether or not to purchase the article. In the case of shoes, for example, a customer may wish to see how the shoes look from the sides, the top, and several other directions. One retailer may offer hundreds or even thousands of different articles. Moreover, a retailer's offerings for some types of consumer products may be in a continual state of change, with new items being added continually. For such retailers, acquiring and processing all of the images of interest to its customers may be labor-intensive and expensive.
Some online retailers employ a photographer, or even several photographers, to take photographs of specimens of articles to be offered for sale. Setting up, photographing, and post-image acquisition processing of the needed images, as well as the associated handling and tracking of the specimens themselves, is likely to require substantial staff, studio facilities, and other resources. In addition, the photographs taken are likely to vary from photographer to photographer, and, even with the same photographer, from photo shoot to photo shoot and from shot to shot, due to a myriad of variations in object placement, lighting, background, camera position, camera setting choices, etc. With many imaging systems, when a camera is moved from one position to another to capture different views of an object, the background will change from view to view, as different features of the imaging apparatus (such as rails, platforms, or positioning mechanisms), and/or objects behind the apparatus, appear in the background. Some inconsistencies, anomalies, and other undesired features introduced during a photo shoot can be removed or at least mitigated by post-image acquisition processing techniques. For example, an image may be touched up to remove the edge of a platform. Such post-processing techniques may, however, be expensive and time-consuming to employ, and even when employed may not ultimately achieve the level of article-to-article consistency that is sought by the retailer.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to. | {
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This invention relates to fabrication of solid state structures, and more particularly relates to dimensional control of solid state structural features.
Precise dimensional control of solid state structural features is essential for many applications in fields ranging from biology and chemistry to physics, optics, and microelectronics. The term xe2x80x9csolid statexe2x80x9d is here meant to refer to non-biological materials generally. Frequently the successful fabrication of a solid state system critically depends on an ability to articulate specific structural features, often of miniature dimensions, within very tight tolerances. Accordingly, as solid state systems evolve to the microregime and further to the nano-regime, nanometric dimensional feature control is increasingly a primary concern for system feasibility.
There have been established a wide range of microfabrication techniques for producing and controlling structural feature dimensions in micromechanical and microelectromechanical systems. For example, high resolution lithographic techniques and high-precision additive and subtractive material processing techniques have been proposed to enable small-scale feature fabrication. But in the fabrication of many nano-regime systems, in which structural feature dimensions of a few nanometers are of importance, it is generally found that conventionally-proposed techniques often cannot form the requisite nano-scale features reproducibly or predictably, and often cannot be controlled on a time scale commensurate with production of such nano-scale features. As a result, volume manufacture of many systems that include nanometric feature dimensions and/or tolerances is not practical or economical.
The invention provides processes that enable reproducible and predictable production of structural features for solid state mechanical or electromechanical systems. The processes of the invention can be controlled to produce feature dimensions in the nano-regime and can include real time feedback control operating on a time scale commensurate with the formation of nano-scale solid state features.
In one technique provided by the invention, for controlled fabrication of a solid state structural feature, a solid state structure is provided and exposed to a fabrication process environment the conditions of which are selected to produce a prespecified feature in the structure. A physical detection species is directed toward a designated structure location during process environment exposure of the structure, and the detection species is detected in a trajectory from traversal of the designated structure location. This provides an indication of changing physical dimensions of the prespecified feature. The fabrication process environment is controlled in response to physical species detection to fabricate prespecified physical dimensions of the structural feature.
xe2x80x9cSolid-statexe2x80x9d is used herein to refer to materials that are not of biological origin. By biological origin is meant naturally occurring, i.e., isolated from a biological environment such as an organism or cell, or otherwise occurring in nature, or a synthetically manufactured version of a biologically available structure, or a synthetic or non-naturally occurring homologue or derivative of a naturally occurring material that substantially retains the desired biological traits of interest. Solid-state encompasses both organic and inorganic materials.
The structure can be provided as, e.g., a substrate of inorganic or material, or crystalline material, and can be provided as a semiconductor wafer, a membrane, a layer in which the prespecified feature is to be fabricated, or other suitable structure.
The fabrication process can be provided as, e.g., a sputtering environment such as ion beam or electron beam sputtering; as a wet chemical etch environment, such as an electrochemical etch environment; as a plasma environment; as a chemomechanical polishing environment; as an ion-induced or ion-assisted environment; as an environment for material deposition or growth; as a heating environment, or as another suitable environment.
In one example, the prespecified feature is an aperture, and the fabrication process conditions are selected to etch the aperture. Here the detection species trajectory can be through the aperture. An array of apertures can be formed in such a manner. The fabrication process conditions can be selected to enlarge or to reduce the aperture diameter.
Similarly, the prespecified feature can be a trench, a slot, or a gap between at least two structural edges, with the fabrication process conditions selected to enlarge or to reduce the trench, slot, or gap. The detection species trajectory can be through the trench, slot, or gap.
The detection species can be provided as atoms, ion, electrons, an etch species provided in the fabrication process environment, or other species. The species detection can be carried out by detecting the existence of the detection species in a trajectory from traversal of the designated structure location. The species detection further can be carried out by quantifying the detection species as a function of time. The fabrication process environment can be controlled by terminating exposure of the structure to the process environment at a point in time when the species detection indicates fabrication of prespecified dimensions of the structural feature.
This process can be applied, in accordance with the invention, to fabricate an aperture in a solid state structure. In this process, there is to be provided a solid state structure having a first surface and an opposing second surface. On the first structure surface is formed a cavity extending to a cavity bottom located at a point between the first and second structure surfaces. Then the structure is thinned from the second structure surface. A physical detection species is directed toward a location on the structure for the aperture as defined by the cavity, during the structure thinning, and the physical detection species is detected in a trajectory through the aperture when thinning of the structure causes the second structure surface to intersect with the cavity bottom. The structure thinning is controlled based on physical detection species detection.
This technique can be employed to produce an aperture of a prespecified diameter by quantifying the detected physical detection species during the structure thinning and then controlling the structure thinning based on the quantification to produce a prespecified aperture diameter.
The structure can be provided as a membrane, e.g., a silicon nitride membrane. The thinning can be carried out by any suitable process, e.g., sputtering. The detection species can be, e.g., ions or electrons, and the detection species can be distinct from a species employed for thinning the structure.
The invention also provides techniques for controlling a physical dimension of a solid state structural feature. In an example of such a process, a solid state structure having a structural feature is provided, and the structure is exposed to a flux of ions at a selected structure temperature. The exposure conditions are selected to cause at least one physical dimension of the feature to be changed substantially by transport of material of the structure to the structural feature in response to the ion flux exposure. Similarly, to fabricate a physical feature on the solid state structure, the structure is exposed to a flux of ions at a selected structure temperature. The exposure conditions are selected to produce a physical feature on the structure substantially by transport of material of the structure to the structural feature in response to the ion flux exposure.
The exposure condition control can include, e.g., control of structure temperature, control of ion flux, energy, species, or time structure, control of ambient gas species, or control of another suitable parameter of the exposure.
These processes can enable an increase or a decrease in feature dimensions, e.g., reduction in diameter of an aperture, reduction in a trench width, reduction in a gap width, or increase in a protrusion height. The structure can be provided as a crystalline substrate, a membrane, e.g., a silicon nitride membrane, or other structure. The ion flux can be provided as flux from a focused ion beam. In one example, a first membrane surface is exposed to ion flux to produce a protrusion on a second membrane surface opposite the first membrane surface. The physical species detection mechanisms described above can be employed to control ion flux exposure to change or produce a feature in a prespecified manner.
These processes enable fabrication of a wide range of structural features in a manner that is reproducible, controllable, and efficient. Applications in fields ranging from biology to microelectronics are enabled by these processes, and can be carried out in a manner that is commercially viable. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description and associated drawings, and from the claims. | {
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Typically, when a diplexer or other electrical device is mounted to a printed circuit board, there is an area beneath the component, above the printed circuit board, where the device signal pins are exposed to electromagnetic interference (EMI). These EMI emissions may have an adverse effect on signal quality, signal to noise ratio, and the degree of filtering that must be applied. Reducing the impact of such emissions in a cost-effective manner is thus a desirable goal. | {
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A device for guiding a multi-element handrail, as well as a multi-element drivable handrail, are known from DE 10316383 B4. The known handrail includes a base body, which co-operates with a guide profile member, and a plurality of individual elements, wherein the base body is provided with a plurality of outwardly facing elements of web-like construction. In that case, the individual elements are in operative connection with one another. Moreover, the elements are provided in their inner regions remote from the webs with projections by way of which a mechanically positive connection with a drive chain exists.
The handrail known from DE 10316383 B4 has the disadvantage that due to the numerous web-like outwardly facing elements it is possible for material, which can be removed only with difficulty, to collect in the intermediate spaces, for example, water, ice, sand, dust, soil, chemicals, food residues and contaminants. Moreover, there is the risk of damage to the surface of the handrail over the period of use by chemical or mechanical actions.
A handrail for escalators or moving walkways is known from WO 2006/010181 A2, wherein the grip element has a coated outer shell. This handrail is of integral construction and therefore has to be resiliently bent on a circular path in the deflection region (between forward run and return run). The coating has to accommodate this bending, so that only resilient coatings are possible such as, for example, on a polyurethane resin basis
A handrail for an escalator or a moving walkway is known from WO 91/04219, which consists of individual segments. In that case, a respective section of steel cables is injection-moulded around by a thermoplastic elastomer, wherein the steel cables are tightened during the injection-moulding. Thus, the individual segments lie with bias against one another in the finished handrail. In this handrail as well, deformations arise in the deflection region, the size of the deformations depending on the ratio of the resilience of the steel cables to the resilience of the thermoplastic elastomer.
Such a handrail can also be coated only with a resilient material, since otherwise the coating splits or falls off or detaches. | {
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The goal of plant breeding is to combine, in a single variety or hybrid, various desirable traits. For field crops, these traits may include resistance to diseases and insects, resistance to heat and drought, reducing the time to crop maturity, greater yield, and better agronomic quality. With mechanical harvesting of many crops, uniformity of plant characteristics such as germination, stand establishment, growth rate, maturity, plant height and ear height, is important. Traditional plant breeding is an important tool in developing new and improved commercial crops. | {
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A typical tissue processor automatically performs fixation, dehydration, clearing, and paraffin impregnation of tissue samples (e.g., liver tissue, breast tissue, prostate tissue, etc.). A station-type processor includes a plurality of stations for processing the tissue samples, which are contained within individual cassettes. The tissue cassettes are loaded into a single basket and taken from one station to the next station for processing. An example of a station processor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,365 to Thiem et al., which is incorporated fully herein by reference. The stations of such processors perform dedicated tasks such as fixation, dehydration, clearing, and paraffin impregnation. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a cylinder-based vacuum processing system and a method of making the same, and, in one embodiment, to a tubing or rolled ring forging-based chamber wall.
2. Discussion of the Background
Known manufacturers have traditionally built process chambers and robotic transfer chambers of plasma processing systems from billets of material, i.e. blocks of aluminum. Those chambers are built at considerable cost due to both the cost of the original material and the cost of machining. In fact, a large portion of the original material often becomes waste in the machining process. For example, the total cost for manufacturing a chamber suitably sized for 200 mm substrate processing can exceed $25K when using the aforementioned fabrication practices. | {
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Work vehicles may be equipped with specialized tools or work implements designed to perform tasks useful in the agricultural, forestry, construction, mining, and other industries. When powered by a rotating shaft, the work implements are referred to herein as “shaft-powered implements.” Examples of work vehicles having shaft-powered implements include cotton and sugarcane harvesters. Such harvesters may be equipped with forward-mounted row units containing movable, shaft-powered components, which pick, strip, or otherwise collect cotton fiber as the harvester travels over a field. The shaft-powered implements may be driven by an infinitely variable power source, such as a hydrostatic drive. The hydrostatic drive may include a hydrostatic motor, which is mechanically linked to the shaft-powered implements through an auxiliary power takeoff (PTO) shaft. By varying the output speed of the hydrostatic motor, the speed of the shaft-powered implements can be controlled. The ground speed of the work vehicle is further controlled utilizing a separate drivetrain, which may include a prime mover (e.g., internal combustion engine) linked to the ground wheels (or tracks) through a multi-speed transmission. Vehicle ground speed may thus be selected by varying the output speed of the engine or the gear ratio setting of the transmission, while the speed of the shaft-powered implements is independently adjusted to optimize implement performance. In the case of a cotton harvester, for example, the speed of the cotton stripper or picker units can be controlled to maximize the rate of cotton fiber collection independently of variations in the ground speed of the harvester. | {
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With the continuous development of information technologies, people have higher and higher requirements on image quality. It is commonly known that in a process of obtaining an image, the image may be caused to be not clear under the influence of various factors such as an image-shooting device and illumination. Therefore, in order to ensure that people can view a clear image, enhancement processing needs to be performed on the image. This may improve contrast of the image by effectively compressing a dynamic range of the image, thereby improving image quality.
American physicist Edwin Land proposed the Retinex theory based on color constancy, which holds that color, which is perceived by a human being, of an object is closely related to a reflection property of a surface of the object and is not affected by an uncertain factor such as the intensity of a light source or non-uniform illumination. In the prior art, a multi-scale color enhancement solution based on color constancy is proposed. A fundamental principle of this solution is that: a luminance component is extracted from an original image; multi-scale Gaussian filtering is performed on the luminance component of the original image to obtain an illumination component of the original image, so that a reflection component of the original image is isolated; then, a luminance enhancement ratio is obtained according to the reflection component and the luminance component; and eventually, three color channels of the original image are multiplied respectively by the luminance enhancement ratio to obtain an enhanced image.
In a process of implementing the image enhancement described above, the inventor finds that the prior art has at least the following problem: The enhancement on the image is implemented by multiplying the three color channels of the original image respectively by the luminance enhancement ratio. However, this causes a region having high luminance in the original image to be too bright, and therefore, a condition of over enhancement occurs; moreover, certain detailed information of this part may be lost, and a region having low luminance in the original image may also be caused to have a large amount of noise. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for selecting, monitoring, and controlling electrically powered devices.
2. Background Information
A known approach to monitoring the usage of computers and peripheral devices is through a network. Such an approach to monitoring the status of electrically powered equipment for the purpose of generating billing is deficient in that it is highly complicated, requires bi-directional communications, and cannot readily be adjusted to compensate for changes in the communication interfaces and interface hardware of the monitored devices.
In addition to monitoring usage of computers and computer peripheral devices, it is desirable to be able to remotely activate and deactivate such devices. Current technology employing alternating current (xe2x80x9cA/Cxe2x80x9d) lines is deficient in that it does not provide bi-directional feedback.
Known computer rental outlets (e.g., such as Kinkos(trademark)) depend upon activation inputs from human employees and, therefore, operate at greater expense. Accordingly, it is also desirable to provide a system which automates the activation and deactivation of electrically powered devices. Although it is known to functionally connect an electrically powered device to a mechanism for receiving payment, the art is devoid of a self-service system which allows multiple users to simultaneously select, activate, and prepay for the use of groups of electrically powered devices.
One method of charging for the use of electrically powered equipment such as a copier or a computer is by the amount of time that the device is used. However, one problem with charging a user based on the amount a device is used is that if such device hangs up, jams, or is otherwise not operating properly, the user will still be charged for the time.
Accordingly, there is a need in the technology for a method and apparatus to automatically monitor and detect an abnormal/catastrophic condition of an electronic device through the usage of power in order to suspend billing of a user""s account during the time period which the electronic device is not in proper operation.
It is further desirable to provide a method and apparatus for selecting, monitoring, and controlling electrically powered devices and their internal control circuits.
In one embodiment, the present invention is an apparatus which includes an electrically powered device having a key operating line and switching control circuitry to control usage of the electrically powered device by interrupting continuity of the key operating line. | {
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Lipid-conjugates having a pharmacological activity of inhibiting the enzyme phospholipase A2 (PLA2, EC 3.1.1.4) are known in the prior art. Phospholipase A2 catalyzes the breakdown of phospholipids at the sn-2 position to produce a fatty acid and a lysophospholipid. The activity of this enzyme has been correlated with various cell functions, particularly with the production of lipid mediators such as eicosanoid production (prostaglandins, thromboxanes and leukotrienes), platelet activating factor and lysophospholipids. Since their inception, lipid-conjugates have been subjected to intensive laboratory investigation in order to obtain a wider scope of protection of cells and organisms from injurious agents and pathogenic processes. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to an antenna module, and more particularly to a broadband and multi-band antenna module having a stable radiation pattern.
2. Related Art
To connect to wireless local area network, a computer device must be electrically connected to a radio transceiver device. An electrical connection portion of the radio transceiver device generally meets the standard specification of a Universal Serial Bus (USB), and can be electrically connected to a USB port of the computer device. Therefore, at least one antenna module for receiving and transmitting radio signals needs to be built in the radio transceiver device, and preferably, the antenna module is a broadband and multi-band antenna module. However, as communication apparatuses become lighter, thinner, shorter, and smaller, the size of the antenna module also needs to be gradually reduced, resulting in the incapability of optimizing the performance of the antenna module. In order to solve the above problem, in the prior art, multiple antennas must be arranged in a communication apparatus with limited volume, which is difficult to design. Alternatively, the antenna module is manufactured outside the communication apparatus, which largely increases the volume of the radio transceiver device and does not meet the light and thin requirements of the modern communication apparatus.
On the contrary, to install the antenna module in a miniature communication apparatus and maintain the antenna performance as well, the volume of the antenna module must be limited to a certain size, and thus the operation band of the antenna module is limited, or a radiation pattern of poor stability is caused. Therefore, to design a broadband and multi-band antenna module having an omnidirectional and stable radiation pattern is one of the schemes for developing an antenna module built in a miniature communication apparatus. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Third and higher generation base station transmitters for applications, such as cellular telephone and other wireless communications typically use bandwidth-optimized modulation schemes for transmitting information. Bandwidth-optimized modulation schemes, such as CDMA, require a non-constant envelope and must operate a high peak-to-average ratio (PAR). Linear power amplifiers, such as class AB amplifiers are typically used in such systems because they offer high linearity, however, class AB amplifiers must be driven with a high back off, and, therefore, suffer from poor power efficiency. Class AB amplifiers must also be sized and biased to handle high peak power levels, even though they are often operated at much lower average powers. Currently, most state of the art base stations systems have a power efficiency of only 30%. This poor power efficiency results in high costs to build and operate base station systems.
The power efficiency of base station transmission systems can be improved by using alternative RF amplification systems and structures. In fact, power efficiency can be improved if a switched-mode amplifier, such as a class-F, an inverse class-F, or a class-D amplifier is used instead of a conventional class AB amplifier. A switched-mode amplifier is more efficient than a class AB amplifier because more of the amplifiers full dynamic range is utilized during operation and because current and voltage peaks do not occur simultaneously. In systems where bandwidth-efficient modulation schemes are required, such as in UMTS base stations, a special modulator must be developed to modulate both the time dependent phase and amplitude information in the time domain.
A number of prior art systems have been proposed and developed in order to utilize more power efficient amplifier architectures for bandwidth efficient modulation schemes. One solution, known as Envelope Elimination and Restoration (EER), separately modulates the phase and amplitude of the desired output. In EER, a constant envelope phase modulated signal is created along with a separate amplitude or envelope signal. The constant envelope phase modulated signal is then used to drive the input of a power amplifier, and the envelope signal is applied to adaptively change the bias or power supply of the power amplifier output stage. These bias or power supply regulation techniques, however, still suffer from poor power efficiency. Furthermore, EER becomes more difficult to implement and even more power inefficient as the modulation bandwidth increases. Wideband CDMA, for example has a modulation bandwidth of about 50 MHz, which is generally too high for the practical use of EER techniques.
Another solution to the power efficiency problem of bandwidth-efficient modulation is to use pulse-width modulation with a switched-mode power amplifier. Amplitude modulation is imparted at the amplifier output by varying the duty cycle of the pulse width modulated signal applied to the amplifier input. Pulse width modulation can be applied to a signal by using conventional pulse width modulation techniques (PWM) or by using delta-sigma modulation techniques. Delta Sigma modulation, however, tends to be less efficient then its PWM counterpart, which can offer power efficiencies of up to 60%.
PWM techniques, for all of its power efficiency advantages, suffer from a number of practical implementation difficulties. One difficulty involves the processing of RF pulses through a chain of RF amplifiers. Ideally, a PWM transmission system should comprise a very high bandwidth RF signal path system followed by a high order transmit filter. In reality, matching networks and bias networks limit the system's bandwidth and provide resonances that may demodulate and degrade the ideality of the PWM signals along the signal path. Generally, the more a PWM signal is degraded and departs from its constant envelope character, the lower the system's power efficiency and the worse the system's signal integrity becomes.
In the field of RF communication systems, what are needed are circuit system techniques for the effective implementation of PWM systems which implement bandwidth efficient modulation schemes. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Elongated connecting elements, such as rods, plates, tethers, wires, cables, and other devices have been implanted along the spinal column and connected between two or more anchors engaged between one or more spinal motion segments. Such connecting elements can provide a rigid construct that resists movement of the spinal motion segment in response to spinal loading or movement of the spinal motion segment by the patient. Still other connecting elements are flexible to permit at least limited spinal motion while providing resistance to loading and motion of the spinal motion segment. Such flexible connecting elements can be considered to provide dynamic spinal stabilization since at least limited movement of the spinal motion segment is preserved after implantation of the connecting element.
While prior connecting elements provide various spinal stabilization options, there remains a need for connecting elements that can provide dynamic resistance to forces and permit motion of the spinal column segment in different directions while maintaining stabilization of the spinal column segment and the structural integrity of the connecting element. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In recent years, devices having functions both as an access point (AP) of infrastructure communication of wireless local area network (LAN) compliant with IEEE802.11 series, and as a station (STA) which connects and communicates with the AP, have come on the market. Such a device can construct a network as an AP, and also can participate in a network constructed by other APs as an STA.
An example of communication device which can switch the role of the device (base device, slave device) is discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-005844 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-152730.
An example of communication device in which a function of a relay station (access point) and a function of a station are operated at the same time is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,362,722 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-086350).
When AP and STA communicate with each other, there are many setting items which need to be set before use. For example, the setting items include communication parameters to perform wireless communication, such as a service set identifier (SSID) as a network identifier, an encryption method, an encryption key, an authentication method, and an authentication key. To set these communication parameters, automatic setting methods for simply setting communication parameters to a wireless communication device are devised by various manufacturers. In these automatic setting methods, communication parameters are automatically set by providing communication parameters from one device to another device using a procedure and a message predetermined between the devices to be connected to each other.
Non Patent Literature 1 discusses Wi-Fi protected setup (hereinafter, WPS), which is an industry standard of a communication parameter automatic setting method between AP and STA.
When performing wireless communication between the devices having both functions of the AP function and the STA function, the communication is possible when one device constructs a network as an AP and the other device connects to the network as an STA. When devices, which are in an initial state and operate neither as AP nor as STA, try to communicate with each other, the roles of the devices need to be determined, for example, a device which becomes AP is determined.
In this case, when user's convenience is considered, it is desired that the determination of the roles is automatically performed between the devices. However, a method in which the roles are automatically determined between the devices without requiring user's operation has not been established. Therefore, when the devices have both the AP function and the STA function, the automatic setting processing of communication parameters cannot be performed, so that there is a problem that the devices operating both as AP and as STA cannot easily communicate with each other. | {
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Electric multi-phase machines are utilized in a wide variety of applications. As used herein, the term “multi-phase” refers to three or more phases, and can be used to refer to electric machines that have three or more phases.
For example, many hybrid/electric vehicles (HEVs) include a machine drive system (sometimes also referred to as an electric traction drive system) that includes as alternating current (AC) electric machine that is driven by an inverter module. The inverter module is supplied with power from a direct current (DC) power source, such as a storage battery. An AC cable can be used to couple terminals at the windings of the AC electric machine to corresponding terminals at the inverter sub-modules of the inverter module. Each inverter sub-module includes a pair of switches. Switching signals are applied to each pair of switches in a complementary manner to convert the DC power to AC power that drives the AC electric machine, which in turn drives a shaft of HEV's drivetrain.
In some situations, an AC-to-chassis fault can occur at a motor winding of the electric machine (or the terminal it is connected to), at the inverter sub-module (or the terminal it is connected to or in one of the elements of an inverter sub-module), or at any point along the AC cable that couples the terminals of the machine to terminals of the inverter module.
It would be desirable to provide circuitry that can help protect the inverter module from high magnitude of fault currents that flow when an AC-to-chassis fault happens. Other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Field of Invention
The invention relates to a condenser microphone and a manufacturing method thereof and, in particular, to a condenser microphone and a manufacturing method thereof wherein a plurality of protrusions are disposed on a diaphragm.
Related Art
The microphone is a kind of electronic component capable of converting acoustic signals to electric signals for transmission, belonging to a kind of electro-acoustic transducer. Based on different principles of the electro-acoustic conversion, the microphone is mainly divided into a moving coil type, a condenser type and a piezoelectric type. Among them, the condenser microphone has higher sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio, lower distortion and better converting efficiency, so it becomes the mainstream of the microphone.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional condenser microphone. In FIG. 1, the condenser microphone 1 includes a diaphragm 11, a back plate 12 and a substrate 13. The diaphragm 11 is disposed opposite to the back plate 12. The back plate 12 is disposed to the substrate 13 and has a plurality of holes 121. Without coil and magnet, the condenser microphone functions via changing the interval distance between the diaphragm 11 and the back plate 12, and the change of interval causes the capacitance variation that leads to a signal. When a sound wave enters into the condenser microphone 1, the diaphragm 11 is caused to vibrate, so that the interval between the diaphragm 11 and the back plate 12 is changed while the back plate 12 is fixed.
According to the capacitance characteristic, when the interval d between the diaphragm 11 and the back plate 12 is changed, the capacitance value is changed accordingly, and the capacitance value is inversely proportional to the interval d. The interval d is varied according to various oscillation frequencies. On the other hand, the sensitivity of the condenser microphone 1 will show nonlinearity under different acoustic pressures and frequencies, and this nonlinearity results in the distortion of the corresponding acoustic signals. Besides, if the back plate 12 is manufactured firstly, the surface (not shown) will become uneven easily, and therefore, the characteristic of the diaphragm that is made subsequently will not be easily controlled.
The diaphragm 11 is a crucial element of the condenser microphone 1, affecting the quality of the sound sensing. However, the diaphragm 11 of the condenser microphone 1 as shown in FIG. 1 is disposed outside and thus easily impaired by moisture, oxygen and dust, and therefore the effectiveness of the sound sensing is reduced. Furthermore, since the condenser microphone 1 can only sense the capacitance variation between the diaphragm 11 and the back plate 12, the sensitivity thereof is worse.
Therefore, it is an important subject to provide a condenser microphone and a manufacturing method thereof wherein the diaphragm can be prevented from being affected by moisture, oxygen and dust, the sensitivity is improved, and the production yield and product reliability can be increased. | {
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In current caller to emergency dispatch systems (e.g., 9-1-1 dispatch), a dispatcher may ask a multitude of questions to the caller and record the answers. These questions may be directed to determining the caller's name, emergency and location based on the answers given by the caller. Only after collecting all of the necessary information can the dispatcher locate an appropriate nearest first responder to be dispatched to the location of the caller.
One potential cause for slow response time is an inability of the dispatcher to understand the caller. In the best case scenario, the caller is calling from the home address on a clear line with no background noise, and the first responder may be dispatched immediately. In most cases, the caller is somewhere other than their home address, calling from a noisy location, has trouble articulating his or her emergency and location, and the dispatcher has to somehow figure out who to send and where.
Lack of communication arising from language barriers, poor reception or a panic stricken caller who cannot speak or is screaming contributes to delays in response time. In some instances, these issues may cause a complete inability for the dispatcher to dispense a first responder altogether. In domestic violence cases or instances when a caller cannot speak, the situation may become even more desperate because the dispatcher cannot communicate with the caller, and unless an accurate address or global positioning system (GPS) coordinate is established, no first responder can be dispatched.
Traditional emergency dispatch systems are also inefficient in handling possible abandoned calls. Abandoned calls may include dropped calls that are terminated, e.g., by the caller, prior to being picked up by the dispatcher, or inaudible calls for which the dispatcher does not hear an audible voice. An emergency dispatcher typically relies on the caller to provide audible voice based information about an emergency type, emergency location, and caller name. When the call has no audible voice or a caller is not responding to the emergency dispatcher questions, the call is flagged as a possible abandoned call (e.g., an inaudible call) and processed in a different manner then calls that are capable of audible voice communication. If a call is dropped by the caller ending the call prior to the dispatcher picking it up, the call may be flagged as a possible abandoned call (e.g., a dropped call) and processed in a different manner than the inaudible call. If caller is using an activated phone with a valid phone number, the emergency dispatcher listens for a waiting period of 30 to 40 seconds, and if no audible voice is detected during this period, the emergency dispatcher performs a re-bid that includes calling back or text messaging the phone number derived from an Automatic Number Identification (ANI) database, as discussed in further detail below. Text messaging the phone number may be in response to determining that the phone number is cellular or mobile phone or not a landline phone according to the Automatic Number Identification (ANI) database. The emergency dispatcher then listens for a re-bid waiting period of 30 to 40 seconds, and if no audible voice is detected during this period, the emergency dispatcher dispatches a first responder if a valid location can be established but does not dispatch a first responder if a location cannot be identified. A dropped call may be processed in a similar manner, where the dispatcher calls the caller back as long as there is a phone number available, e.g., which may be derived from the ANI database. If a caller is calling from a de-activated phone such as a phone that does not have a valid phone number (e.g., due to the phone being deactivated), the emergency dispatcher listens for a waiting period of 30 to 40 seconds, and if no audible voice is detected during this period, the emergency dispatcher closes the call. These waiting periods consume at least 40 to 80 seconds of time for each abandoned call, or at least 30 to 70 seconds for each dropped call, and each emergency dispatcher, amounting to significant lost time for emergency dispatchers. As such, traditional emergency dispatch systems have significant time inefficiencies.
With the advent of functionality related to Phase II of the Federal Communications Commissions' E-911 initiative, a location of a caller may be determined by either triangulating the location based on multiple cellular phone towers; or in the case of a smartphone, by way of an exact GPS location determined by the smartphone device. This technology has improved response time, but in some cases several re-bids (i.e., calls or text messages from the emergency dispatcher back to the caller with requests for a location) are needed to obtain a useful caller location. In the case of triangulation in metropolitan areas, such location information is rarely accurate enough to locate a caller without his or her assistance.
One way for emergency dispatch systems to associate additional information with an emergency caller is by way of an automatic number identification (ANI)/automatic location identification (ALI) database. The ANI is a database of information configured to store name information and location information associated with telephone lines or telephone numbers. The ANI/ALI database may be used by emergency dispatch to retrieve the physical address and name associated with the telephone line from which a 9-1-1 call originated. This information may not be available for mobile phones that are designated as 9-1-1 only with no mobile plans, or throw away/disposable mobile phones. Also, such information may not be particularly useful to emergency dispatch systems for voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phones or mobile phones, as such devices may be utilized at a location far removed from the physical location on file in the ANI/ALI database. Moreover, the ANI/ALI database provides only limited information about the caller.
Location information, e.g., by way of smartphone GPS location, can be obtained from vendors supplying smartphone operating systems, such as Google's Android, Apple's iOS, and Microsoft's Windows.
As a result, current emergency dispatch systems are fraught with delays and inefficiencies, and in some cases, fail altogether because of communication or technical issues. | {
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With the continuous development of the telecommunication network, the broadcast-TV network and the Internet, at present, it is proposed that the three networks should be converged together. The “triple-play” technology is currently under development. Through the convergence of the three networks, interconnection and resource sharing can be realized among the three networks to provide various services to users, such as voice, data and broadcast TV. Actually, the triple-play is essentially the convergence of services. And, the convergence of services eventually reflects on the terminals. Therefore, how to design reasonable terminals according to the demands of triple-play becomes an important factor in realizing triple-play.
With the continuous expansion of the communication service scale of the mobile communication system, the limit of the capacity of the mobile communication system due to the finiteness of the radio resources (radio frequency spectrums) has been shown. The industry has considered and is preparing to combine the finite radio resources and the relatively infinite wired resources, to fully utilize the existed fixed communication network resources to improve the capacity of the mobile communication system and the user experience.
On the other hand, with the development of the society, people are more concerned about the environment. More and more people are aware of the hazards of radio waves to the health. Simultaneously, for quite a number of mobile users, they stay in an environment with fixed telephone network access resources in most occasions without needing mobile communication. For example, when the user stays in the office or at home, it is very possible that there is a fixed telephone beside the user and the user also takes the mobile phone along. But, other users calling this user may not know whether there is a fixed telephone in the environment where the user stays. Then, when in communication with the user, they still call the mobile phone of the user, which obviously wastes resources and causes unnecessary damages to the environment and the health.
However, the related mobile terminals are unable to utilize more environmentally-friendly wired communication modes to perform communication. No effective solution has been proposed in the related art. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Fields of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coaxial connector, and more particularly, to a coaxial connector for transmission of electric signals. The coaxial connector is easily assembled and has lower manufacturing cost.
2. Descriptions of Related Art
The conventional way to connect a connector with a circuit board is directly connecting the connector to the contact point of the circuit board by way of welding.
However, the connection between the connector and the contact point of the circuit board often is not well connected so that the transmission is affected. Taiwan Utility Model No. 215421 discloses a coaxial connector 10 which is disclosed in FIG. 1 and comprises a semi-circular contact portion 101 on the front end thereof. A semi-circular opening 102 is formed at the lower portion of the contact portion 101. A notch 103 is defined between the semi-circular contact portion 101 and the semi-circular opening 102. A center connector 104 extends centrally and axially from the coaxial connector 10. A curved slot 105 is defined in the inside of the contact portion 101 and a C-shaped leg 106 is engaged with the curved slot 105. As shown in FIG. 2, when the coaxial connector 10 is connected to the circuit board 20, the notch 103 is aligned with the side of the circuit board 20, the coaxial connector 10 is then rotated to insert the C-shaped leg 106 into the holes 201 of the circuit board 20. The center connector 104 is then connected with the holes 201 of the circuit board 20.
It is noted that the material, cupper, for making the coaxial connector becomes rare and expensive along with the huge demand globally, so that the cost for the coaxial connector is a burden for the manufacturers and users.
In order to reduce the cost of the use of the cupper, casting iron is chosen to replace the cupper, and the structure of the coaxial connector has to be changed by the use of the casting iron.
The present invention intends to provide a coaxial connector which has different structure from that of the conventional coaxial connector and improves the shortcomings mentioned above. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In recent years, endoscopes have come to be widely used in both the medical field and in industry. Recently, endoscopes have been developed which do not require an inserted part and which avoid the pain associated with inserting an insertion part. In these endoscopes that are used in the medical field, a patient swallows an endoscope which has been miniaturized and placed within a capsule. For example, see Japanese Laid Open Patent Application No. 2001-91860 and published PCT application WO 01/65995 A2.
In the above-mentioned patent application, an objective lens and an illumination means formed of a luminescent diode are installed inside a near-hemispherical transparent cover. An object to be observed is illuminated by a luminescent diode and an objective lens forms an image of the object on an image sensor. The objective lens has a configuration wherein lens elements of positive and negative refractive power are combined to form a joined lens, and there is no disclosure about the depth of field of the objective optical system. The image sensor is of the CMOS type, and the objective lens consists of a biconvex lens element, and there is no disclosure about the depth of field of the objective optical system.
In these conventional examples, because an objective lens and an illumination body are fixed inside a near-hemispherical transparent cover and the curvature radius is the same between the central region of the field of view and the peripheral region of the field of view, there was an inconvenience in that the mucosa layer easily contacts the central region of the transparent cover, causing an obstruction in the field of view of the central region. Also, when the transparent front cover has a single radius of curvature (i.e., one defined by one-half the outer diameter of the capsule that is fitted to the transparent cover), the outer diameter of the capsule becomes excessive, making the capsule difficult to swallow and giving it low motility when within the body. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to inorganic pigments. More particularly, the present invention relates to inorganic pigments comprising cobalt and aluminum having a spinel crystalline structure that exhibit improved color and/or weatherability when used in paint and polymer applications and a method of making the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Inorganic pigments having the spinel crystalline structure can be represented by the general formula: AB2O4, where A is a divalent element or combination of divalent elements and B is a trivalent element or combination of trivalent elements. One common example of an inorganic pigment having a spinel crystalline structure is cobalt aluminate blue spinel (basic chemical formula: CoAl2O4), in which substantially all of the cations represented by A in the general formula AB2O4 comprise the element cobalt and substantially all of the cations represented by B in the general formula AB2O4 comprise the element aluminum. Other inorganic pigments comprising cobalt and aluminum having the spinel crystalline structure include, for example: cobalt zinc aluminate blue spinel (basic chemical formula: (Co,Zn)Al2O4); zinc chrome cobalt aluminum spinel (basic chemical formula: (Zn,Co)(Cr,Al)2O4); cobalt chromite blue-green spinel (basic chemical formula: Co(Al,Cr)2O4); and cobalt tin alumina blue spinel (basic chemical formula: CoAl2O4/Co2SnO4).
In many cases inorganic pigments comprising cobalt and aluminum having the spinel crystalline structure will be modified such that the crystalline structure includes predetermined amounts of cations of divalent and/or trivalent elements other than cobalt and aluminum, which modifies the resulting color of the pigment. Suitable modifiers for such inorganic pigments include, for example, any one or a combination of the following elements: chromium, lithium, magnesium, silicon, strontium, tin, titanium and zinc.
Inorganic pigments comprising cobalt and aluminum having a spinel structure most commonly produced via the high temperature calcination of a raw batch of vigorously intermixed powders containing cobalt and aluminum such as, for example, cobalt (II) oxide (basic formula: CoO) powder and aluminum (III) oxide (basic formula: Al2O3) powder. The reaction product formed via high temperature calcination of the raw batch is a substantially homogeneous cystalline matrix of spinel. Mineralizers, which facilitate a reaction without being part of the desired product, are sometimes utilized to aid the reaction. Conventional mineralizers used in inorganic pigments include NaCl, CaCl2, KCl and CaSO4. Often, the calcined product is ground after calcination to improve its pigmentary properties.
Inorganic pigments comprising cobalt and aluminum having the spinel crystalline structure are used in a variety of applications including, for example, paints and polymers. Paints and polymers containing such inorganic pigments are often exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation (e.g., from sunlight) and other environmental conditions. The intensity and color of paint films and polymer products containing such inorganic pigments tend to degrade upon extended exposure to the environment, and over time such paint films and polymer products tend to develop an undesirable faded or bleached out appearance. | {
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Rechargeable and primary electrochemical cells oftentimes include one or more protective layers to protect the electroactive surface. Depending upon the specific protective layer(s), the protective layer(s) isolates the underlying electroactive surface from interactions with the electrolyte and/or other components within the electrochemical cell. In order to provide appropriate protection of the underlying electrode, it is desirable that the protective layer(s) continuously cover the underlying electrode and exhibit a minimal number of defects. Although techniques for forming protective layer(s) exist, methods that would allow formation of protective layer(s) that would improve the performance of an electrochemical cell would be beneficial. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to floor panels for vehicle compartments.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many vehicles, particularly automobiles, it is known to provide vehicle compartments with a suitable trim, for example carpet, to reduce noise, for aesthetic reasons and for comfort of occupants of the compartment if appropriate. However, with use such trim can become soiled or damaged, particularly in load carrying compartments, for example car boots. U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,612 discloses a lining for a load bed of an open-bodied truck, but such a lining is simply intended to cover the exposed metal surfaces of the load bed. German Gebrauchsmuster number DE 29909851 U discloses adapting a vehicle compartment to carry bicycles, but is not generally applicable to other loads. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing apparatus for developing a latent image with a non-magnetic developer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, various types of apparatus have been proposed and put into practice as to a dry type one-component developer apparatus. However, in any of those types, it has been very difficult to form a thin layer of one-component dry developer, so that a relatively thick layer of the developer is used. On the other hand, the recent device for the improved sharpness, resolution or the other qualities has necessitated the achievement of the system for forming a thin layer of one-component dry developer.
A method of forming a thin layer of one-component dry developer has been proposed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,386,577 and 4,387,664 and this has been put into practice. However, this is the formation of a thin layer of a magnetic developer, not of a non-magnetic developer. The particles of a magnetic developer must each contain a magnetic material to gain a magnetic nature. This is disadvantageous since it results in poor image fixing when the developed image is fixed of a transfer material, also in poor reproducibility of color (because on the magnetic material, which is usually black, contained in the developer particle).
Therefore, there has been proposed a method wherein the developer is applied by cylindrical soft brush made of, for example, beaver fur, or a method wherein the developer is applied by a doctor blade to a developer roller having a textile surface, such as a velvet, as to a formation of non-magnetic developer thin layer. In case where the textile brush is used with a resilient material blade, it would be possible to regulate the amount of the developer applied, but the applied toner layer is not uniform in thickness. Moreover, the blade only rubs the brush so that the developer particles are not charged, resulting in foggy images. Additionally, it was difficult to prevent the leakage of the developer from the apparatus, since it contains non-magnetic developer particles, which are not influenced by magnetic field. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for scattering fibrous material, e.g., chips, said apparatus serving to spread chips using either a throw or air jet spreading method to form a mat of chips onto a moving band conveyor or the like, whereby the scattering process avails a gas flow, such as air flow, for instance; the apparatus having a scattering chamber mounted above the band conveyor or the like.
2. Description of Background Art
Scattering chips by rollers is basically known from patent publication FI-90746, wherein an apparatus is disclosed for spreading fibers or chips together with a binder into a mat onto a forming band conveyor, said apparatus comprising one array of rollers comprising at least three mutually parallel rollers, whereby the interroller spacings are adapted adjustable. An air flow is adapted to pass between the roller array and the band conveyor by means of air suction or using a combination air blow and suction.
From patent publication FI-20040698 is known a method and apparatus using the same for scattering chips with a binder into a mat of particles onto a band conveyor, in which apparatus the chips are scattered by passing them through one or more roller arrays and simultaneously a gas flow is employed wherein the gas is, e.g., air and the gas flow is passed into at least two substantially chamber-like spaces situated above and below said at least one roller array and in which at least one chamber-like space has the gas flow directed opposite to the gas flow direction in the other chamber-like spaces.
As compared to air-jet spreading, roller scattering is characterized by a good accuracy of scattering (i.e., small variations of basis weight of the mat) inasmuch as the classification of the chips is chiefly performed mechanically by means of the roller array rather than with the help of an air flow as in air-jet spreading. In air-jet spreading, the control of air flow patterns is particularly problematic. The air flow readily tends to become excessively turbulent thus degrading the accuracy of scattering (hence, the quality of scattering), because strong turbulence deviates the chip particles in an uncontrollable fashion, particularly in the cross direction of the particle mat.
In prior-art roller scattering constructions, it has been possible to keep the free gravity fall of chips in the chamber enclosing the roller array and the band conveyor advantageously very small (typically 300 mm, for instance). Air suction has been necessary only under the chamber. The velocity of the suction air flow has been maintained reasonably low (typically below 1 m/s). Due to the shallow structure of the chamber and the relatively small volumetric rate of air flow adapted to pass below the roller array has remained at an advantageously low level. As a result, the turbulence occurring in the air flows and hence tending to degrade the accuracy of scattering has been kept sufficiently low, whereby the accuracy of scattering has been good.
Today, the surface quality of particle board must fulfill increasingly higher specifications in certain surface treatment applications (particularly those aiming to cut costs). One such application is so-called “direct printing” wherein onto the surface of the board that is pretreated with a thin primer layer is printed, e.g., a wood grain imitation pattern directly using a multicolor printing method. In order to reduce product costs, the coat layers or paint layers applied onto particle boards are today preferably made thinner than previously. Board types suited for such coat application must have an extremely dense surface texture and be comprised of particles so fine that all the chips can typically pass through screen openings of, e.g., 1 mm square and, furthermore, of this chips typically 70%, for instance, can pass screen openings of 0.5 mm square. A particularly critical requirement is that such particles to spread must be sufficiently thin, e.g., max. 0.3 mm thick. The demand for chip thinness is in turn linked thereto that a particle possibly detached from the board surface during sanding or, e.g., edge trimming, may not leave an excessively deep dent that later could become visible as, e.g., a surface defect after the application of a thin coat or as a disturbing ragged edge after trimming a coated board by a saw. A thin chip that advantageously has a leaf- or fiber-like shape also reduces the porosity of the board surface thus, e.g., cutting down paint consumption during coating and improving the strength of the glue-to-chip bond, whereby the separation of chips is diminished. Conversely, a thick chip having, e.g., a cubical shape is inferior in this respect.
The irregular turbulence of air flows that degrades the accuracy of scattering is accentuated in conventional spreading by air jets which requires relatively high air plenums (typically higher than 2 m) together with air flow velocities typically faster than those employed in roller array scattering, and further, particularly, the use of active blowing at the feed end of chips in order to attain sufficient classification. Generally, the air-jet plenums must also be complemented with screens serving to damp turbulence of air flow. Such screens are clumsy to use, cause extra costs and are readily plugged as they must be placed in a dusty space. Due to dust generation by the active air jet blowing, the maintenance need of an air-jet spreading system is extensive as compared with roller array scattering. The production line must be stopped frequently for cleaning the air-jet nozzles and screens in order to restore the scattering accuracy to a reasonably good level.
To fulfill the earlier discussed requirement of using thin chips, the drop height of chips in roller array scattering must be increased case-by-case so much that a sufficiently large fraction of thin chips can be classified apart and, at the right moment, caused to drop onto a desired area of the particle mat. Increasing the scattering chamber height, however, promotes the turbulence of the air flow being sucked/blown into the chamber, whereby the accuracy of scattering is degraded.
In FI Pat. Appl. 20060437 a roller array scattering apparatus is disclosed, wherein an attempt is made to improve the accuracy of scattering with the help of an element which is placed in front of the air inlet opening located at the exit end of the roller array in the travel direction of the wood chips in order to homogenize the air inlet flow pattern. The flow-homogenizing element comprises, e.g., a drilled plate, screen, honeycomb structure or a tangential blower or the like capable of producing a substantially laminar air flow pattern, or a combination of any of these. Such an arrangement has been found to reduce lateral turbulence, particularly in the vicinity of the flow-homogenizing element. However, its effect cannot be extended over the entire volume of the scattering chamber, but instead, the transverse turbulence more remotely from the homogenizing element increases in a disturbing fashion.
For use in air-jet spreading systems are known air blow diffusers having in the close vicinity of the diffuser outlet mounted short, parallel guide vanes with a height substantially equal to that of the diffuser and aligned vertically in the travel direction of the forming line, whereby the vanes orient the air flow being blown into the scattering chamber. The homogenizing effect of such guide vanes, however, does not extend to the actual working space of the scattering chamber where a major portion of the particulate material being spread falls onto the conveyor thus forming a mat.
In summary it can be said that the scattering chamber height is preferably maximized to improve the classification of particles. However, a higher scattering chamber invokes detrimental lateral turbulence, whereby the cross-machine profile of the particle mat cannot be made sufficiently homogeneous due to the uncontrolled landing of the particles onto the conveyor across its cross-machine width. Turbulence is primarily invoked by the impingement of the air flow on the material flow. Obviously, turbulence increases when the scattering chamber is made higher and the air flow velocity is increased. | {
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The present invention relates to a magnetic tape library apparatus for automatically loading/unloading and storing a plurality of cartridge type magnetic tapes (will be referred to as tape cartridges hereinafter) and recording/reproducing data to/from the tape cartridges.
Conventionally, the tape cartridge has been well known as a medium for recording data. However, the tape cartridge is limited in volume of recording area, so that the tape cartridge is also limited in capacity of recording data. Therefore, a number of tape cartridges are required for a computer system such as a calculating system or a data base frame system to record a large quantity of indispensable data. In addition, a user of the computer system must change, namely, insert/eject many tape cartridges to a recording/reproducing apparatus in order to retrieve data. Needless to say, this puts the user to a great deal of inconvenience.
Therefore, the magnetic tape library apparatus for automatically loading/unloading and storing a plurality of tape cartridges and recording/reproducing data to/from the tape cartridges has been proposed and used.
Generally, the magnetic tape library apparatus comprises a cartridge storage shelf for storing a plurality of tape cartridges, a data recording/reproducing unit for recording/reproducing data to/from the tape cartridge, an entry mechanism for inserting/ejecting the tape cartridge into/from the magnetic tape library apparatus, and an access mechanism for transferring the tape cartridge between the cartridge storage shelf and the data recording/reproducing unit in the magnetic tape library apparatus. Furthermore, the magnetic tape library apparatus has a case for containing the cartridge storage shelf, the data recording/reproducing unit, the entry mechanism, the access mechanism, and so on. The case has (or is defined by) width, height, and depth directions which orthogonally cross at right angle to one another.
The cartridge storage shelf stores the tape cartridges so that the tape cartridges are arranged in the height direction in the case. The data recording/reproducing unit is arranged so as to adjoin the cartridge storage shelf in the height direction. The access mechanism transfers the tape cartridge in the height direction so that the tape cartridge is transferred between the cartridge storage shelf and the data recording/reproducing unit. The entry mechanism inserts/ejects the tape cartridge through access mechanism into/from the magnetic tape library apparatus. The entry mechanism transfers the tape cartridge in the depth direction.
Conventionally, the access and the entry mechanisms are independently comprised, as two units apart from each other, in the magnetic tape library apparatus.
The entry unit apart from the access unit is provided with an entry rack for temporarily holding the tape cartridge and a horizontal transferring mechanism portion for transferring the entry rack holding the tape cartridge in the depth direction so that the tape cartridge is transferred between the user and the access unit.
However, the conventional magnetic tape library apparatus needs a relatively wide space for arranging the entry rack and the horizontal transferring mechanism portion of the entry unit in the case. Therefore, the conventional magnetic tape library apparatus is enlarged in size. Furthermore, because the tape cartridge must be temporarily stored in the entry rack when the tape cartridge is inserted/ejected into/from the apparatus, the conventional magnetic tape library apparatus needs a relative long time duration for loading/unloading the tape cartridge.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a magnetic tape library apparatus which has a small size.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a magnetic tape library apparatus which can load/unload the tape cartridge in high speed.
The other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become clear as the following description proceeds.
The present invention is directed to a magnetic tape library apparatus comprising a cartridge storage shelf for storing a plurality of tape cartridges, a data recording/reproducing unit for recording/reproducing data to/from the tape cartridge, an entry mechanism for inserting/ejecting the tape cartridge into/from the magnetic tape library apparatus, and an access mechanism for transferring the tape cartridge between the cartridge storage shelf and the data recording/reproducing unit. The entry and the access mechanisms are structured into a single body so as to serve as only an access unit. | {
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The manufacturing of shaped food products, in particular confectionery products, generally comprises a step of depositing into a mold, in order to set the desired shape to the product. The method includes a step of injecting a metered amount of food mass with a piston through a nozzle into a mold. Then, cooling or drying of the deposited mass is carried out until setting the final product is properly achieved.
Various patent documents illustrate the depositing technology for confectionery. For instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,004,716 and 4,089,438 both relate to a depositor of confectionery material into molds. Other prior art documents can be cited as references related to a similar technical field, such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,837,041, British patent application 2,026,378, and French patent application 1,132,821.
However, the above-discussed depositing process, as traditionally applied, particularly for confectionery of high viscosity, suffers from serious drawbacks that have until now remained unresolved. One of the main disadvantages relates to the difficulty in separating a deposited portion of a material from the material remaining in the depositing nozzle. The material tends to stretch out in a long tail that does not easily break under its own weight and gravity. This phenomenon is known as "tailing." A defect such as this may consequently affect the accuracy of dosing, weight, and/or shape of a final molded product. After depositing, the resulting formation of many strings formed across the molds is not hygienic and thus needs to be removed. Tailing is also aesthetically unpleasing and can cause major quality control inconsistencies. Defects such as these may lead to difficulties in wrapping the product. For instance, when caramel is deposited in a shell-molded chocolate product, the tail may cause a channel through the chocolate cover, which may stick to the packaging. Tailing may also clog the nozzle or block moving parts of the depositing device.
Past attempts to reduce tailing have consisted of physically cutting the tail. For instance, British patent application 2,026,378 proposes to discharge a pulse of steam or compressed air through the nozzle at the time of the separation of the confectionery mass. These solutions have proven to be ineffective, are complicated, or can be costly to implement.
The present invention can overcome the problems associated with the formation of a tail in a mold depositing process of a food mass, in particular, confectionery products, and may alleviate the need for additional mechanical or gas pulsing devices. As a consequence, the present invention allows formation of a regular flat surface on top of the deposit, which has proven to be beneficial for the weight control, final look, and mouthfeel of the product, as well as for ease of wrapping. | {
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The present invention relates generally to switch devices, and more particularly to solid-state switch devices.
Conventional switch devices operate to control the path on which a signal travels. In general, there are two basic types of switch devices in use: electromechanical and solid state. All switches are considered active devices, in that some sort of power supply is required in order to function properly. In electromechanical switches, a contact is provided that physically changes position during the switching process. Solid-state switches do not contain any moving parts and instead use some kind of semiconductor device for the switching process, which are basically either diodes or transistors. In general, diode switches sense current as a control input while switches comprised of transistors sense voltages as control inputs. One example of a transistor-based switch is comprised of a plurality of field effect transistors (FETs). FET switches are generally known to be utilized in connection with high frequency signal transmission, for example, radio frequency (RF).
In general, a FET switch is in an ON state (very low resistance) allowing any signal to pass from the drain to the source of the FET until a control voltage of a predefined amount (pinch-off voltage) is applied to the gate of the FET. When the pinch-off voltage is applied, the FET switches to an OFF state (very high resistance) and prevents any signal passing from the drain to the source of the FET. The advantage of FET switch is that the control voltage applied to the gate of the FET draws very little current, consuming no power in performing the switching function.
A major drawback of FET switches is that in the OFF state, a signal that one may desire to prevent from passing through the FET from the drain to the source applies a voltage at the drain of the FET. This voltage travels through the FET to the gate and adds to the control voltage input. As this voltage becomes greater than the control voltage, the OFF state FET begins to turn ON as shown in the FIG. 1a.
In many of today""s product designs, it is often desirable to require a lower control voltage for operation of a switch. For example, it may be beneficial to lower the control voltage of the switch having the exemplary characteristics of FIG. 1 from 5 volts to 2 volts while maintaining control over the same RF voltage. However, in order to reduce the control voltage of a switch, the RF voltage must be divided across additional FETs connected in series, as is shown in FIG. 1b.
The configuration illustrated in FIG. 1b reduces the control voltage needed, but increases the resistance in the ON state. To overcome this added resistance, each FET is made larger and thus an increase in die size for the switch is required. This size increase, however, introduces many new problems in the switch, including:
1. The switch costs more, requiring more semiconductor material to manufacture.
2. The switch has poorer isolation, providing less resistance in the OFF state.
3. The switch has greater leakage in the control line, requiring more power to control the switch
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved switch that can control a current output at lower control voltages, while providing the optimum balance of insertion loss, isolation, maximum power handling, harmonic generation suppression, and leakage current in the control signal.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture for a low control voltage switch. In one embodiment, the switch utilizes a plurality of field effect transistors (FETs) having a total of six gates to allow the switch to operate at a low control voltage without the need to increase device periphery or die size. The switch may include a single-gate FET architecture, a multi-gate FET architecture, or a mixed gate architecture, as long as the switch includes a total of six gates. The apparatus may utilize a plurality of parallel switches that are each connected to the same source voltage.
According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a switch also includes feed-forward capacitors. The feed-forward capacitors reduce signal distortion and improve the linearity and harmonic noise rejection characteristics of the FETs within the switch and thus lowers the harmonics of the switch. According to one embodiment, the switch includes two feed-forward capacitors. A first capacitor is connected between the gate and source of an uppermost FET and the second capacitor is connected between gate and drain of a lowermost FET.
According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention, a switch also includes a gate resistance topology connected between the gates and a control voltage. The gate resistance topology is used to minimize the effects of leakage current and reduce the resistor voltage drop for process points where FET diode leakage is an issue.
According to still another exemplary embodiment of the invention, a switch also includes a bypass resistance topology coupled across the FETs so as to be in parallel with each of the FETs. The bypass resistance topology is used to sharpen the control voltage of the switch. According to one embodiment, the bypass resistance topology includes a resistive element coupled across the entire switch (all of the FETs). According to one embodiment, a separate resistive element is coupled across each FET.
These and other features and embodiments of the invention will be more fully understood from the following detailed description that should be read in light of the accompanying drawings. | {
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A user may seek assistance for a request by sending a message, calling, or otherwise communicating the request to another individual. In connection with the request, the user may review a directory of offered goods and services, such as a classified listing, to identify goods and services offered vendors operating in a particular area. The user may further research the vendors, such as performing Internet searching, to gather information in order to select from among the vendors. Certain vendors may also allow a user to leave feedback, such as a rating, so that other users may further select from among the vendors further based on the feedback. | {
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The invention relates to an apparatus for use in the manufacture of semiconductors, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for reuse of an abrasive fluid used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices.
A chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) device is used in flattening a wafer surface in a semiconductor manufacturing step. The CMP device employs an abrasive slurry, and accordingly, as the quantity of products manufactured increases, the quantity of used abrasive slurry also increases. The quantity of abrasive slurry used influences the manufacturing cost, and hence an efficient reuse of the used abrasive slurry or fluid is required.
In the conventional practice of flattening a wafer surface, an abrasive slurry in liquid form which comprises a commercially available abrasive stock having a weight percentage of approximately 25 wt % and diluted by deionized water to nearly 13 wt % is used. Used abrasive fluid is further diluted within the polishing device to produce an effluent which may have a concentration on the order of about 0.1 to 0.2 wt %, for example. It will be understood that the abrasive effluent contains fragments of films abraded from the wafer and impurities produced by a polishing table (or pad) of the polishing device. Abrasive effluents are generally passed through a neutralization treatment before disposal or delivered to an industrial waste disposal undertaker in the form of sludges which result from a drainage treatment. The abrasive fluid represents a significant proportion of the wafer processing cost, but the abrasive effluent has been disposed of without a reuse thereof.
Abrasive grains contained in the abrasive effluent are agglomerated to larger sizes. However, a single grain in the agglomeration has a grain diameter which remains substantially unchanged from the grain size which it exhibited before it was fed to the polishing step, and thus retains a grain size which is still useable in the abrasive operation. Nevertheless, the grain agglomerations are disposed of without being recycled.
The cost of disposing sludges delivered to the industrial waste disposal undertaker adds to the semiconductor manufacturing cost. Thus, reuse of the abrasive effluent is of importance in reducing the semiconductor manufacturing cost.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method and an apparatus which allow reuse of an abrasive effluent. | {
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1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the exemplary embodiments of the inventive concept relate to a transmitter and a shortening method thereof, and more particularly, to a transmitter performing shortening by padding zero bits and a shortening method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Broadcast communication services in information oriented society of the 21st century are entering an era of digitalization, multi-channelization, bandwidth broadening, and high quality. In particular, as a high definition digital television (TV) and portable broadcasting signal reception devices are widespread, digital broadcasting services have an increased demand for a support of various receiving schemes.
According to such demand, standard groups set up broadcasting communication standards to provide various signal transmission and reception services satisfying the needs of a user. Still, however, a method for providing | {
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Content management systems can be utilized to organize, manage, and/or distribute content to various users for various purposes. For example, in a learning environment, users can access content provided by a content management system through various types of user interfaces. For example, the content management system can house and manage content that served up to clients via a network by a web server that retrieves content from the content management system. The content managed by a content management system can comprise, for example, learning content that is arranged into various learning units. Content can also comprise, for example, content associated with an electronic commerce site (e.g., product information) that is placed in web pages and transmitted to a client device. Accordingly, updating of content, particularly multimedia content items, can present a challenge, particular for large and diverse content sets. | {
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This invention concerns an angle type power nutrunner having a housing with a rotation motor, an angle head with an output shaft, and a thread connection for securing the angle head to the housing and including mating threads on the angle head and the housing and a lock nut.
Power nutrunners of this type are previously well known and may be exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,948. The angle nutrunner disclosed in this patent lacks however a lock nut, which means that there is no provision made for angular adjustability of the angle head in relation to the tool housing. In later modifications of this nutrunner, the thread connection between the angle head and the housing does comprise a lock nut to enable setting and securing of the angle head in desired angular positions. Such an adjustability of the angle head is important for the operator to obtain a comfortable working posture.
This prior art nutrunner has a drawback in that it is difficult to have its angle head secured in a desired angular position during assembly of the tool. In other words, it is difficult to maintain the angle head in a correct desired angular position when tightening the lock nut.
Another drawback of this known angle nutrunner is that the lock nut arrangement for rotational locking of the angle head to the housing relies on friction forces only. This has been considered unsatisfactory from the safety point of view, because the frictional locking accomplished by the lock nut may not always withstand the reaction torque transferred between the angle head and the housing. This could result in an undesireable movement between the angle head and the housing during operation of the tool, which would be hazardeous to the operator.
In another prior art angle nutrunner, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,565, the angle head is axially clamped to the tool housing by means of a threaded sleeve, whereas axially directed teeth on the angle head engage a lock pin on the tool housing to positively lock the angle head against rotation.
Alternative angular positions of the angle head are obtained by loosening the threaded sleeve and moving the angle head into a new position where another one of the teeth engages the lock pin, and then retightening the sleeve.
Still another interesting piece of prior art refers to certain types of pneumatic chisel hammers wherein a thread connection between the cylinder of the impact mechanism and the tool handle comprises a lock pin which engages simultaneously one hole of a circumferential row of holes in the handle and one hole of a circumferential row of holes in the cylinder, wherein the pitch of the holes in the handle is different from the pitch of the holes in the cylinder.
Although, this previously known locking means has a certain resemblance with the present invention, it is important to notice that this known device is a pure thread locking device intended to be engaged after the thread connection has been firmly tightened and to maintain the thread connection in that firmly tightened state. This is very much the same thing as a cotter pin locking of a slotted nut and is not intended to define any other angular positions between the threaded parts than the fully tightened position. | {
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In recent years, mobile information terminals such as mobile phones, notebook computers and PDAs are rapidly becoming smaller and more lightweight, and batteries as power supplies for driving these devices are required to be further increased in capacity. Lithium ion batteries, which are charged and discharged by the movement of lithium ions between positive and negative electrodes, have high energy density and high capacity, and are therefore widely used as power supplies for driving mobile information terminals such as those described above.
While the capacity of lithium ion batteries is increased year by year, the batteries tend to become less reliable with increasing capacity. Thus, there is a demand that the batteries be improved in terms of the balance between high capacity and battery characteristics such as reliability.
Patent Literature 1 proposes a positive electrode for nonaqueous electrolyte secondary batteries and a nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery utilizing the same wherein the positive electrode can suppress the occurrence of low short-circuit current between the positive electrode and a negative electrode and allows storage characteristics at high temperatures to be improved. | {
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A normal emetropic eye includes a cornea, a lens and a retina. The cornea and lens of a normal eye cooperatively focus light entering the eye from a far point, i.e., infinity, onto the retina. However, an eye can have a disorder known as ametropia, which is the inability of the lens and cornea to focus the far point correctly on the retina. Typical types of ametropia are myopia, hypermetropia or hyperopia, and astigmatism.
A myopic eye has either an axial length that is longer than that of a normal emetropic eye, or a cornea or lens having a refractive power stronger than that of the cornea and lens of an emetropic eye. This stronger refractive power causes the far point to be projected in front of the retina.
Conversely, a hypermetropic or hyperopic eye has an axial length shorter than that of a normal emetropic eye, or a lens or cornea having a refractive power less than that of a lens and cornea of an emetropic eye. This lesser refractive power causes the far point to be focused behind the retina.
An eye suffering from astigmatism has a defect in the lens or shape of the cornea. Therefore, an astigmatic eye is incapable of sharply focusing images on the retina.
Optical methods are known which involve the placement of lenses in front of the eye, for example, in the form of eyeglasses or contact lenses, to correct vision disorders. A common method of correcting myopia is to place a “minus” or concave lens in front of the eye to decrease the refractive power of the cornea and lens. In a similar manner, hypermetropic or hyperopic conditions can be corrected to a certain degree by placing a “plus” or convex lens in front of the eye to increase the refractive power of the cornea and lens. Lenses having other shapes can be used to correct astigmatism. The concave, convex or other shaped lenses are typically configured in the form of glasses or contact lenses.
Although these optical methods can be used to correct vision in eyes suffering from low myopia, or in eyes suffering from hypermetropic, hyperopic or astigmatic conditions which are not very severe, these methods are ineffective in correcting vision in eyes suffering from severe forms of ametropia.
However, surgical techniques exist for correcting these more severe forms of ametropia to a certain degree. For example, in a technique known as myopic keratomileusis, a microkeratome is used to cut away a portion of the front of the live cornea from the main section of the live cornea. The cut portion of the cornea is frozen and placed in a cryolathe where it is cut and reshaped. Altering the shape of the cut portion of the cornea changes the refractive power of this cut portion, which thus affects the location at which light entering the cut portion of the cornea is focused. The reshaped cut portion of the cornea is then thawed and reattached to the main portion of the live cornea. Hence, it is intended that the reshaped cornea will change the position at which the light entering the eye through the cut portion is focused, so that hopefully the light is focused directly on the retina, thus remedying the ametropic condition.
The myopic keratomileusis technique is known to be effective in curing myopic conditions within a high range. However, the technique is impractical because it employs very complicated and time consuming freezing, cutting and thawing processes.
Keratophakia is another known surgical technique for correcting severe ametropic conditions of the eye by altering the shape of the eye's cornea. In this technique an artificial, organic or synthetic lens is implanted inside the cornea to thereby alter the shape of the cornea and thus change its refractive power. Accordingly, as with the myopic keratomileusis technique, it is desirable that the shape of the cornea be altered to a degree that allows light entering the eye to be focused correctly on the retina.
However, the keratophakia technique is relatively impractical, complicated, and expensive because it requires manufacturing or cutting a special lens prior to its insertion into the cornea. Hence, a surgeon is required to either maintain an assortment of many differently shaped lenses, or alternatively, must have access to expensive equipment, such as a cyrolathe, which can be used to cut the lens prior to insertion into the cornea.
Examples of known techniques for modifying corneal curvature, such as those discussed above, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,994,058 to Raven et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,418 to L'Esperance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,261 to Barrett et al., and a publication by Jose I. Barraquer, M.D. entitled “Keratomileusis and Keratophakia in the Surgical Correction of Aphakia”. The entire contents of each of these patents are incorporated herein by reference.
Surgical techniques involving the use of ultraviolet and shorter wavelength lasers to modify the shape of the cornea also are known. For example, excimer lasers, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,175 to Peyman, which emit pulsed ultraviolet radiation, can be used to decompose or photoablate tissue in the live cornea so as to reshape the cornea.
Specifically, a laser surgical technique known as laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) has been previously developed by the present inventor. In this technique, a portion of the front of a live cornea can be cut away in the form of a flap having a thickness of about 160 microns. This cut portion is removed from the live cornea to expose an inner surface of the cornea. A laser beam is then directed onto the exposed inner surface to ablate a desired amount of the inner surface up to 150–180 microns deep. The cut portion is then reattached over the ablated portion of the cornea and assumes a shape conforming to that of the ablated portion.
However, because only a certain amount of cornea can be ablated without the remaining cornea becoming unstable or experiencing outwardbulging (eklasia), this technique is not especially effective in correcting very high myopia. That is, a typical live cornea is on average about 500 microns thick. The laser ablation technique requires that at least about 200 microns of the corneal stroma remain after the ablation is completed so that instability and outwardbulging does not occur. Hence, this method typically cannot be effectively used to correct high myopia of greater than 15 diopters because, in order to reshape the cornea to the degree necessary to alter its refractive power to sufficiently correct the focusing of the eye, too much of the cornea would need to be ablated.
Additionally, the cornea can be modified using thermal coagulation. In thermal coagulation, electrodes of varying shapes (generally about 450 microns long and 50 microns in diameter) are inserted through the exterior surface of the cornea in a predetermined pattern. The electrodes emit a radio frequency wave or laser light, thereby heating the surface of the cornea. Once the surface of the cornea is heated it tends to coagulate around the electrode and shrink, the shrinking of the cornea changes the refractive properties of the eye. In the conventional form of these methods, each application of the electrodes requires removal of the electrode and its insertion into a new location in the cornea. This sequential insertion into multiple locations is very imprecise and the entire time period for inserting the electrode into the cornea is relatively long, resulting in irregular shrinkage of the cornea. Furthermore, by inserting the electrodes through the exterior surface of the cornea, the electrodes will shrink both the epithelial layer and the Bowman's layer in the eye. This can result in irregular shrinkage of the cornea, leading to astigmatic problems and possibly cloudiness formed during the healing process.
For examples of known techniques for modifying visual activity by thermal means, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,533,989 and 5,749,871, both to Hood et al.
Therefore, it is apparent that a need therefore exists for improved methods for further modifying the cornea to better correct the refractive error therein. | {
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The invention relates to the manufacture of multi-layer sheets and especially to a process for continuously manufacturing articles comprising at least two thicknesses of absorbent and pliable material, such as the thin paper known as cellulose cotton, united with one another by interposition of textile or similar filaments spaced a few millimeters apart and forming a crossed network in at least two clearly separate directions. The invention also relates to an apparatus for carrying out the process, and to an article made by the process.
The articles of this type have a good cohesion, as well as a good resistance to tearing and to piercing, and hence their use particularly for cleaning, hygiene or mechanical purposes. | {
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Bisphenol A is produced by reacting excess phenol with acetone in the presence of an acid catalyst. In order to obtain high-purity bisphenol A from this reaction product, low boiling point materials including water are removed therefrom, and crystallization is performed to precipitate a solid adduct crystal of bisphenol A and phenol. After the slurry containing the solid adduct is subjected to solid-liquid separation, phenol is removed from the recovered solid adduct to obtain bisphenol A.
Phenol is produced using cumene as a raw material, and cumene is oxidized using a gas containing oxygen to form cumene hydroperoxide, which is then decomposed under an acidic catalyst to produce phenol and acetone.
FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic diagram illustrating the production process of bisphenol A and the production process of phenol. Referring to FIG. 1, after an oxidization reaction using cumene and oxygen as raw materials is performed, a reaction in which cumene hydroperoxide as a cumene oxide is decomposed is performed. Then, through a purification process, phenol and acetone are produced as a product thereof, and alpha-methylstyrene is additionally produced. Also, bisphenol A is produced by reacting phenol with acetone, and the bisphenol A produced therefrom is concentrated through the removal of low boiling point materials, and then crystallized, washed, and purified to produce bisphenol A.
Regarding such a production process of phenol and a production process of bisphenol A, since the products of the production process of phenol are used as raw materials for a reaction in the production process of bisphenol A, there are typically two processes in a single factory.
Meanwhile, the production process of bisphenol A has a problem in that methanol included as an impurity in acetone which is a raw material acts as a catalyst poison in a reactor, thereby shortening the lifespan of a catalyst. To solve this problem, typically, a distillation tower for removing methanol from the raw material of acetone is separately installed to perform a separation process. However, there is a problem in that the separation between acetone and methanol using distillation requires a large number of stages so that the energy consumption is high.
Also, in the case in which high-purity bisphenol A cannot be obtained due to a large amount of side reaction materials produced, the quality of a bisphenol A product is deteriorated, and in particular, there is a problem in that color at high temperature melting, which is an important factor of a bisphenol A product, cannot be obtained at a desired level.
In relation to this, in order to increase the production amount of bisphenol A, the amount of acetone to be introduced should be increased. However, due to a lowered ratio of phenol to acetone, that is, since the ratio of phenol is relatively lowered, a large amount of side reaction materials are produced. To overcome this problem, the amount of phenol to be introduced is also increased to prevent the relative content reduction of phenol to acetone. However, due to an increase in residence time, the conversion rate of acetone is maintained low.
In the case in which the content of acetone is increased as described above, not only there is a problem in that methanol included as an impurity in acetone acts as a catalyst poison in a reactor, but also a problem in that the amount of unconverted acetone is increased so that a large amount thereof cannot be recovered in a recovery process of acetone through a dehydration column, and therefore, is introduced into a dephenolation process together with water which is a side reaction material of the reaction. The acetone introduced into the dephenolation process may cause a problem of greatly deteriorating a treatment process of wastewater containing phenol, the process included in the dephenolation process operated through extraction.
Therefore, due to a problem caused by acetone, there is a problem in that the production process of bisphenol A is limited by the capacity of a dehydration column provided in the process of recovering acetone.
That is, there is a need for the development of a technology for efficiently removing methanol included in acetone produced in the production process of phenol. There is also a need for the development of a technology capable of, by providing acetone not including methanol for the production process of bisphenol A, improving the lifespan of a catalyst, and at the same time, increasing productivity by improving the selectivity of bisphenol A. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to object oriented programming and, more particularly, to the dynamic construction of objects of arbitrary class at run time.
2. Description of the Related Art
Three key concepts define object oriented technology in programming: (1) "objects" that encapsulate procedures and data; (2) "messages" that support polymorphism across objects; and (3) "classes" that implement inheritance within class hierarchies. These concepts are well known in the art and are described in many books, such as Object Technology--A Manager's Guide (Second Edition) by David A. Taylor, Ph.D. (First Printing September, 1997).
More particularly, an object is a software element that combines data and related procedures that manipulate that data. Packaging the data and related procedures together is known as encapsulation. The procedures are referred to as "methods" to distinguish them from conventional procedures that are not attached to objects. The data elements are referred to as variables.
FIGS. 1 and 2 represent a generic object and an example of an object that represents a vehicle, such as a truck (with its associated methods and variables). Objects interact with one another by sending messages asking objects to carry out their methods. A message is simply the name of an object followed by the name of a method the object knows how to execute. If a method requires any additional information to know precisely what to do, the message includes that information as a collection of data elements called "parameters." For example, with respect to FIG. 2, a message to the truck object to move to point A would read: Truck (Move to (A)).
The ability of different objects, really different types of objects, to respond to the same message in different ways is called "polymorphism." For example, ship objects, car objects, and plane objects all may implement the method "MoveTo", but each of these three types of objects would implement the method in a different way.
A class is a software template that defines the methods and variables to be included in each instance of an object that is created from the class using its software template. The class specifies a data structure and the permissible methods that apply to each of the objects created from the template. Typically, the data structure comprises numerous pointers that represent a physical address for the location of data, the actual data itself, or both, as shown in FIG. 3. Each class is often uniquely identified by a data value known as a class identifier. An object, then, is an instance of a particular class.
The methods and variables that make up an object are defined only once, in the definition of the class. In any particular application there may be many objects of a certain class. The objects that belong to a class contain only their own particular values for the variables, but all objects of a particular class contain the same methods.
It is possible for one class of objects to be defined as a special case of a more general class. This mechanism or technique is known as "inheritance."
Because an object is made up of methods, data, and pointers, the object as a whole is often not stored in contiguous memory as is shown in FIG. 3. But to facilitate interprocess communication, i.e., transmission between address spaces, or persistence, i.e., storage on non-volatile media, an object is often serialized, or stored in contiguous memory as shown in FIG. 4. Inter-process communication and object persistence are fundamental techniques used in many software applications. After an object has been serialized it is often deserialized, e.g., after the inter-process communication or after retrieval from non-volatile media. Object deserialization is the reconstitution of an object that has been serialized. That is, the object is filled with data, the pointers in the object are set to the address of the data, and the methods of the object are associated with the object.
The first step in object deserialization is to construct an object of arbitrary class. It is desirable for an application, or process, to be able to construct an object of an arbitrary class. This is because an application, or process, during the time that it is executing, may have to interact with an object of a class that was not specified to the application at the time the application was compiled. For example, in FIG. 5 there are shown two computer systems 100 and 200. The computer system 100 has classes 101, 102, and 103 and corresponding objects 1011 and 1021, and 1031. The computer system 200 has classes 201, 202, and 203 together with corresponding objects 2011, 2021, and 2031. During its operation, the computer system 200 communicates the object 2011 to the computer system 100, which is running an application 110. Because the application 110 was compiled only with the classes 101, 102, and 103, the application 110 must construct an object of the class 201 to interact with object 2011. The construction of an object of a class not specified at compile time is referred to as dynamic object construction (as compared to virtual object construction, which is the creation of a new object of the same class as another pre-existing object). The object that is constructed by dynamic object construction is referred to as a subject class.
There currently exist various processes and software packages to perform a limited form of dynamic object construction. One of these is the Microsoft Component Object Model ("COM") architecture. Instead of providing a substantially generic dynamic object construction methodology, however, COM requires that each subject class implement what is known as the IUnknown interface. This so-called interface, IUnknown, is essentially a set of three processes, one of which is a process of invoking an actual interface. In other words, the IUnknown interface really is not an interface. It is the "actual" interface that allows the subject class, and each object instance of that class, to be called on by other objects or applications. Because each subject class in the COM architecture must implement the non-standard IUnknown interface, as well as at least one other predefined interface (the actual interface), the COM architecture is not truly generic.
In addition to the foregoing limitation, COM requires each class be assigned a 128-bit class identifier or globally unique identifier ("GUID"). Once again, by requiring a GUID of a specific size, and of a substantially large size, COM places additional limitations on dynamic object construction making COM less generic.
Not only must each class have a 128-bit GUID in COM, but each class identifier, or GUID, must be registered in the system registry, i.e., a persistent centralized database. Moreover, there must be one and only one program to export an entry-point (this program is known as the IClassFactory interface) to construct objects of the subject class. That is, there must be one and only one program that creates instances of objects of a subject class. In other words, in COM, there must exist only one IClassFactory for each subject class.
Yet another limitation is that the COM interfaces that specify the serialization architecture (known as IPersist*) also imply that the serial representation of objects must contain the 128-bit GUID class identifier, which can add unnecessarily to the size of the protocol data units transmitted by the network. Also, requiring class identifiers to appear in the system registry creates install-time complications, makes it difficult for multiple program versions to co-exist, and can reveal proprietary implementation details to reverse engineers.
The Microsoft Foundation Classes ("MFC") software developers kit provides a technique for dynamic object construction. This technique is inseparably bound with MFC object persistence. Object persistence refers to the concept of maintaining objects over time and reusing them whenever a program is run. For each subject class, MFC object persistence requires that the subject class derive from a common base class known as CObject. In addition, the subject class must implement at least one member function or method (known as GetRuntimeClass). Finally, the subject class must be serialized and deserialized via a proprietary CArchive object. In addition to these limitations, MFC object persistence requires that the name string of the subject class be used as the class identifier. And MFC supports only a single global class information database. Moreover, MFC doesn't give the programmer access to the class information database. Finally, because MFC is an application level class library, its sheer size militates against its use by system software components.
Still another application that provides limited dynamic object construction capability is the C++ class library known as Rogue Wave Tools.H++. This product provides dynamic object construction through its RWFactory class. But in similar fashion to COM and MFC, Rogue Wave fools.H++ is organized such that for each subject class, RWFactory requires that the subject class derive from a common base class known as RWCollectable. In addition, the subject class may only be identified by a 16-bit unsigned integer. And the subject class must implement five specific methods. Finally, the subject class must be registered with a single global factory object.
All three of these alternatives require that subject classes derive from a common base class, or that the subject classes implement specific non-standard methods, with the consequences that they can not be used with pre-existing class hierarchies that don't comply with these requirements and intrude unacceptably into the design of subject class hierarchies.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of one or more of the problems set forth above. | {
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Absorbent fibrous structures comprised of low strength absorbent materials such as airlaid wood pulp fibers are well known in the disposable absorbent bandage art. In certain of these prior art fibrous pad structures it has been found desirable to employ one or more internally located plies of tissue paper or other web materials which are substantially impervious to the passage of fibers to act, for example, as a reinforcing agent, as a fluid baffle to distribute absorbed fluids within the absorbent fluff structure, as a partitioning agent of the like. Addition of such internal plies which have a width substantially equal to that of the absorbent fibrous webs located on the uppermost and lowermost surfaces thereof has typically been provided by utilizing a multiplicity of discrete forming zones with a separate fiber supply source for each zone. However, the multiple forming zone approach typically employed by such prior art systems requires considerable converting line space and involves a duplication of disintegrating and air laying equipment for each absorbent fibrous layer employed in the resultant structure. Furthermore, altering the position of the internal ply relative to the uppermost and lowermost surface of the finished absorbent pad typically requires a complex adjustment procedure for each fiber deposition zone in the system.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide method and apparatus for forming an airlaid fibrous fluff web adjacent the uppermost and lowermost surfaces of a substantially planar, fiber-impervious internal reinforcing ply having sustantially the same width as said fibrous web in a continuous fiber deposition zone.
It is another object of the present invention to provide method and apparatus for easily altering the position of the internal reinforcing ply relative to the uppermost and lowermost surfaces of the absorbent web in question.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide method and apparatus for forming an airlaid fibrous fluff web adjacent the uppermost and lowermost surfaces of a substantially planar, fiber-impervious, internal reinforcing ply having substantially the same width as said fibrous web in a continuous fiber deposition zone having an overall length no greater than that required to form an identical absorbent web of comparable basis weight without said internal reinforcing ply. | {
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Please refer to FIG. 1, which is the schematic diagram showing a conventional projector with the light source of LEDs. The power of the conventional projector with the LED light source normally comes from the household power supply, such as the alternating current (AC) from the electric outlet on the wall, where the AC is rectified and transformed by the power supply 2 so that the electrical power can be used by the components inside the projector. Only the issues of the power supply for LED are discussed here. That is, only the issues regarding the power transmission from the power supply 2 to the driver 3 are discussed, and the other parts will not be considered. The power supply 2 usually has the function of transforming the voltage, usually reducing the voltage, and sometimes the function of rectifying or stabilizing the voltage. The AC from the outlet on the wall is outputted to the power supply 2. After the conversion and transformation, the power supply 2 output a supply voltage v1 to the drive 3. The drive 3 is responsible for driving the LED 4, and outputs a drive current A to the LED 4. Accordingly, the light source of the projector can operate properly.
However, some deviations occur during the manufacture of LEDs, so the operating voltage for each LED is not identical, but is somewhat higher or lower. Therefore, in order to cover the whole operating voltage from the lowest to the highest operating voltages, the power supply 2 outputs a higher supply voltage v1 than the average required voltage to the driver 3 in the conventional technique. Usually, the supply voltage v1 is possibly higher than the acceptable voltage by the LED by about one third of the acceptable voltage. Therefore, when the driver 3 generates the constant current, and outputs the driving current A to the LED 4, there will be an operating voltage v2 for the LED 4, and the difference between the operating voltage v2 and the supply voltage 1 exists. At this moment, the driver 3 absorbs the energy of this voltage difference and generates the heat for this over voltage. The negative effects are the generation of high heat and the electricity wastage.
For solving the above mentioned problems, the inventors had done a lot of efforts in the analyses, researches and developments, and finally developed the system and the method for controlling the power of LEDs. | {
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1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly to a semiconductor device with high breakdown voltage having an excellent radiation resistance.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a conventional MOS transistor, ionization is induced in a silicon oxide film if it is irradiated with beams of radiation such as represented by .gamma. rays. Of both positive and negative electric charges that are created by the ionization, the negative charges (electrons) that have a large mobility are annihilated immediately, whereas the positive charges that have a small mobility are left behind within the oxide film. These positive charges are gradually trapped in the area between the oxide film and a substrate, forming fixed charges. An inversion takes place below the oxide film due to these charges, and results in the formation of a parasitic MOS transistor. In particular, this phenomenon is conspicuous in a thick (about 7 to 10 .mu.m) silicon oxide film such as a field oxide film, causes an undesired leakage current to flow between the source and the drain or between circuit elements, generating a deterioration in the characteristics of the transistor.
In a conventional integrated circuit using MOS transistors, in order to enhance the radiation resistance between the MOS transistors, a high concentration region having polarity different from that of the source-drain region is formed below a thick oxide film as an isolation region between the MOS transistors as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,489, to prevent the flow of a leakage current between the circuit elements. However, even if the leakage current between the transistors is prevented, there still remains a drawback in that it is not possible to fully prevent the leakage current between the source and the drain in the individual transistor. | {
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Bottom hole assemblies are part of the drill string. Specifically, a bottom hole assembly typically refers to the lower part of the drill string, extending from a drill bit to a drill pipe. In some configurations, a bottom hole assembly may include a reamer. A reamer may follow the drill bit down the hole, and may serve to increase the diameter of the hole initially drilled by the drill bit.
Conventional reamers have been designed to match the drill bits with which they are paired. Generally, this matching includes physically matching the configuration of cutters disposed on a reamer, in terms of size, diameter, and/or back rakes with the cutters used on the matched drill bit, and/or attempting to match operating characteristics of the reamer with operating characteristics of the drill bit so that the reamer and the drill bit will react the same to changes in rotary speed and/or weight on bit. As used here, the term “match” means pairing and working together to exhibit predictable behaviors and outcomes.
During operation, however, the attempt to match operation characteristics may prove futile as the drill bit and the reamer proceed in series through different formations, experience wear at different rates and/or in different ways, and/or experience other phenomena that cause mis-matched operation. These sources of misalignment between the operation characteristics of the drill bit and the reamer may become sources of vibration, which, in addition to causing failures to bits and/or reamers, may also cause failures to much more expensive downhole tools, such as logging, imaging, and rotary steerable systems. In additions, these dynamic conditions can contribute to shorter and slower runs, which may in turn force multiple trips and increase operational costs. In hard and/or abrasive formations, and as well depths have gotten deeper, these failures have significant effects on project costs. To bring these costs in line, industry researchers have focused on solutions that will address these problems. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device comprising an array of pixels which are reversibly switchable between at least a first and a second chemical state, the first and second chemical states differing in optical properties, said pixels comprising a stack of layers including a switchable layer of an optically switchable material which brings about a switch from the first state to the second state of the pixel, and a driving circuit for switching the pixels.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,905,590 describes a switching device comprising a switching film including hydrides of magnesium with other trivalent metals. By exchange of hydrogen, the switching film can be reversibly switched from a first, transparent, chemical state to a second, mirror-like (fully reflecting or scattering), chemical state with zero transmission via an intermediate black absorbing state. The switching film is comprised in a stack of layers, which is deposited on a transparent substrate. By virtue of the optical effect, the device can be used as an optical switching element, for example, as a variable beam splitter, optical shutter, and for controlling the illuminance or the shape of light beams in luminaires. The switching device can also be used for data storage and in optical computing, and in applications such as architectural glass, vision control glass, sunroofs and rear-view mirrors. By making a pattern in the switching film and providing the patterned switching film with transparent electrodes, a thin display can be manufactured having an array of pixels. A thin display device conventionally comprises an array of pixels and a driving circuit for switching the pixels.
It is a problem with this type of device that throughout the device, the switching behavior of the pixels should be the same, while also a long-term stability of the pixels is required. Any difference in these properties would be or become visible to the viewer either in intensity or image differences on the display or in an ongoing degradation of the image.
It is an object of the invention to provide a switching device having a long-term stability and a good image reproduction. To this end, the invention provides a device which is characterized in that the device comprises pixels for which a voltage-limiting device is arranged parallel to the stack of layers.
Pixels are switched by supplying a switching current to the stack of layers by means of applying a voltage across the stack of layers. Application of said voltage results in a change of the chemical state of the switchable material, e.g. in the switching mirror device H-ions migrate from one H-containing layer to the other whilst an electric current flows around the device. The optical properties depend on the state of charge of this hydrogen battery or, in other words, on the chemical state of the switchable layer. Another example of switchable layers is embodied in electrochromic devices, such as disclosed, for instance, in World Patent application no. WO 98/48323 in which a stack of layers is present comprising a switchable electrochromic layer comprising a metal oxide such as tungsten oxide, molybdenum oxide, niobium oxide, manganese oxide or zirconium oxide or mixtures thereof. Applied voltages in the driving circuit will vary over the display due to current losses. Ideally, the pixels are switched fast. If a voltage which is sufficient for a particular pixel in the center of the display to switch is applied across said stack, i.e. a voltage slightly above the threshold voltage for switching a stack, other pixels closer to a primary voltage source will, due to electrical losses in the driving circuit, usually receive a much higher voltage, well above said switching threshold voltage. As the inventors have realized, applying a too high voltage across a pixel will lead to a degradation of the stack and to a loss of picture quality. The threshold voltages of the stacks are relatively close to voltage levels which will degrade the stack. If, on the other hand, the switching voltage for a pixel at the edge of the display has the right magnitude, i.e. enough to switch the stack, but not enough to degrade the stack, the switching voltages for pixels in the center of the display are considerably lower, having as a consequence that either the switches are too slow, or the stack is not switched at all. Both effects lead to errors in the image.
By introducing, according to the invention, for at least some pixels a voltage-limiting device on the stack of layers, such as preferably a diode, the voltage across the stack is limited, so that application of a too high voltage across the stack is prevented, thereby preventing degradation. This allows the use of switching voltages in the display which are anywhere in the display over the threshold for switching of the stack and over the voltages which would lead to a degradation of the stack. The voltage-limiting devices ensure that the effective voltage across the stack is kept below a voltage which would lead to degradation of the stack. Preferably, all pixels are provided with a voltage-limiting device to prevent degradation of every pixel.
It is remarked that the invention relates to devices in which, by application of a voltage, a change is produced in the chemical state of the switchable layer. Such a chemical state change is in essence a redox reaction whereby, to and for, the switchable layer transport of ions (Hydrogen, Oxygen, Lithium or others) or electrons occurs. Such devices differ within the framework of the invention fundamentally from devices in which the application of a voltage leads to a transition between two states of a material which do not differ in chemical property, but only in physical properties (for instance, birefringence), such as e.g. LCD devices. Applying a voltage in an LCD device well over the switching voltage does not normally lead (unless truly excessive voltages are applied, usually far outside the range of driving circuits) to permanent damage to the LCD layer.
A diode is preferred for use as a voltage-limiting element, since it is a simple element, which can easily be implemented. Also with present technologies, diodes are available which operate at a suitable voltage. Within the framework of the invention, a xe2x80x98diodexe2x80x99 is any element functioning as a diode, including e.g. a diode-connected transistor.
The invention is of particular advantage when use is made of an active matrix display using TFTs.
The voltage needed for switching a xe2x80x9ctransparentxe2x80x9d device is typically about 1-2 volt, and for a symmetric device it may be as low as about 300 mV.
Since the voltages needed for switching a pixel may be well below 1 V, the TFTs will have to be run with a low drain-source voltage (say, 0.3V-2 V, the maximum voltage before the pixels begin degrading) but with a high gate voltage (say, 10 V). This means that the TFTs are not operating in the current saturation range, but in the linear range, where the current can vary strongly. The current may also be lower than ideally required, which will slow down the switching. However, to obtain the desired pixel current levels (typically 50 xcexcA), a TFT typically requires a drain-source voltage of around 2-3V. The use of the voltage-limiting device on the stack in the present invention prevents the pixel voltage from increasing to this value during and/or at the end of the charging cycle, which would otherwise happen, and thereby prevents the display device from degrading strongly or being destroyed while yet enabling an active matrix TFT circuit to be used, which is very advantageous for this type of display device.
Preferably, two current-limiting devices are arranged in parallel on the stack to limit the voltage across the stack during charging and discharging.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, one side of the voltage-limiting devices is connected to a reference voltage point or line in the driving circuit. This reduces the number of connections to the stacks and makes it possible to adjust the reference voltages and thereby adjust the limiting voltage across the stack by adjusting the reference voltage. | {
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A modular cell is described adapted to form a matrix of cells to support a load bearing feature such as a roadway, pavement or walkway while at the same time providing an area within the structural frame of the cell or matrix for a tree root network and/or service pipes. The cell matrix is sufficiently strong to not require filling and can instead be used as a reservoir or water collection area beneath a load bearing feature. The cell or matrix aims to accommodate the combined needs of trees, tree roots, storm water run off, roadways, pavements and walkways so that they all can co-exist in their interaction within the urban and suburban environment.
With respect to the rooting embodiment, there is a desire to introduce trees or plant matter into the landscape in order to make the urban and suburban environment more aesthetically pleasing and more conducive to good healthy living.
Nonetheless it is well recognised that plants and especially larger trees require a certain amount of space within these populated areas if they are going to develop into mature plants offering the benefits of shaded foliage, water retention, cooling, aesthetics and so forth to the surrounding area. Trees are referred to hereafter but it should be appreciated that the same analogy may be made of plants generally especially for larger plants.
For the most part, town planning has seen the planting of trees in urban and suburban areas to grow in close proximity to pavements and walkways so that the benefits of the trees can be enjoyed by those pedestrians utilising such features.
It is well recognised that for trees to successfully grow they require nutrient rich soils with the appropriate levels of moisture and sufficient drainage to allow the tree's root system to pass there through.
Alternatively, roadways, pavements, walkways and the like require a compacted and well supported soil structure to keep the positioned pavers or concrete in place thereby avoiding any structural damage to the construction and during the time of load bearing.
Hence if trees are going to be planted in urban and suburban areas around roadways, pavements and/or walkways there may be a predicament as to whether or not one needs to look after the trees and thereby provide low compact soil suitable for root growth or alternatively compact soils which provide the necessary load bearing support for the relevant roadway, pavement and/or walkway which, as noted above, would make it unconducive for the root system of the tree to develop.
More efficient water usage and storage is also a pressing issue in dry seasons or in dry climates yet water run off may often be lost through failure to capture rain and the like.
There are also increasing environmental standards requiring the capture of pollutant run off from hard surfaces.
There also needs to be sufficient area available for utilities such as piping and wiring to pass through the ground or other structures.
One solution described in PCT/AU2010/001034 is a modular cell adapted to form a structural frame of cells for supporting a load bearing feature while at the same time providing an area within the structural frame for a tree root network and/or service pipes. This design represented a major improvement on the art especially in terms of strength and load bearing capacity. One difficulty though was that the legs of this design alternated in position hence there was not a single continuous load bearing member when multiple cells were stacked vertically. A further difficulty was that the opening at the top of the modular cell was limited in size and made it difficult to ensure soil transfer through the opening and into all void spaces in the cell. In addition the walls of the cell could cause segmentation with water not flowing to all void spaces and the cell walls could also restrict access for larger service pipes to pass through the cells.
It should be appreciated that it would be useful to provide a modular cell and matrix using the cells which is able to accommodate the needs of both trees and utility lines and/or water collection and utility lines, as well as meeting the physical engineering requirements of supporting a load bearing feature, or at least to provide the public with a choice.
Further aspects and advantages of the modular cell and matrix will become apparent from the ensuing description that is given by way of example only. | {
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Some hydrogen energy providing stations may need to have a predetermined amount of hydrogen on hand to provide hydrogen to a plurality of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that may utilize the stations for receiving energy. In many cases, the stations may have to order hydrogen to be delivered to the stations based simply on an expected demand by the plurality of vehicles. Therefore, the amount of hydrogen on hand may be static in nature and may not account for an increase or decrease in demand for hydrogen to provide energy to the plurality of vehicles. Thus, in some circumstances when demand for hydrogen energy is lower than the predetermined amount, the hydrogen energy providing stations may end up storing an unnecessary surplus of hydrogen. In other circumstances, when the demand for hydrogen energy is lower than the predetermined amount, the hydrogen energy providing stations may end up with a shortage of hydrogen. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to communication systems, generally, and more particularly to a communication system for the interior cabin of a vehicle such as an automobile.
It is well established that audible communications by speakers in an enclosed interior may pose challenges to listeners. The primary cause of these problems are the acoustics inherent to the interior and ambient noise present within the interior. This is of particular relevance wherein the enclosed interior is an automobile, truck, airplane or helicopter.
Methods for overcoming the limitations of an interior""s acoustics and ambient noise issues are also known. One known solution proposes the use of a microphone and speaker as a means for amplifying the original audible communication to overcome the acoustical and ambient noise limitations associated with an automobile interior, for example. However, such a design creates positive feedback and ringing, degrading the sound quality.
Thus, industry requires a cabin interior communication system which reduces the effects of ambient noise and the acoustical characteristics of the cabin, as well as lessens the impact of positive feedback and ringing created by a microphone loudspeaker configuration.
The primary advantage of the present invention is to overcome the limitations of the prior art.
A further advantage of the present invention is to provide a cabin interior communication system which reduces the effects of the acoustical characteristics of the cabin, as well as lessens the impact of positive feedback and ringing created by a microphone loudspeaker configuration.
In order to achieve the advantages of the present invention, a system for improving the clarity of a audible communication within an enclosed space is disclosed. The system comprises a first microphone, positioned at a first location, for receiving the audible communication and for converting the audible communication at the first location into a first audio signal. The system also comprises a loudspeaker for receiving the first audio signal, and for converting the first audio signal into a first reproduced audible communication, the reproduced audible communication also being fed back and received by the first microphone and converted with the audible communication into the first audio signal. Moreover, the system comprises an acoustic echo cancellation system for determining the relationship between the received audible communication by the first microphone and the first audio signal comprising both the audible communication and the reproduced audible communication fed back to the first microphone, and for removing the first reproduced audible communication fed back to the first microphone from the first audio signal received by the loudspeaker.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, a communication system is disclosed for improving the clarity of a voice spoken within an interior cabin having ambient noise and cabin acoustics. The system comprises a first microphone, at a first location, for receiving the spoken voice and for converting the spoken voice at the first location into a first audio signal, and a second microphone, at a second location, for receiving the spoken voice, and for converting the spoken voice into a second audio signal. The also comprises a loudspeaker for receiving the first and second audio signals, for converting the first audio signal into a first reproduced spoken voice, the first reproduced spoken voice also being fed back and received by the first and second microphones and converted with the spoken voice into the first and second audio signals, and for converting the second audio signal into a second reproduced spoken voice, the second reproduced spoken voice also being fed back and received by the first and second microphones and converted with the spoken voice into the first and second audio signals. Moreover, the system comprises an acoustic echo cancellation system for determining the relationship between the received spoken voice by the first microphone and the first audio signal comprising the spoken voice and the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the first microphone, for removing the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the first microphone from the first audio signal received by the loudspeaker, for determining the relationship between the received spoken voice by the second microphone and the second audio signal comprising the spoken voice and the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the second microphone, and for removing the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the first microphone from the first audio signal received by the loudspeaker.
In still another embodiment of the present invention, a cabin communication system is disclosed for improving the clarity of a voice spoken within an interior cabin having ambient noise and cabin acoustics. The cabin communication system comprises a beamformed phased array having a first microphone, at a first location, for receiving the spoken voice and for converting the spoken voice at the first location into a first audio signal, a second microphone, at a second location, for receiving the spoken voice, and for converting the spoken voice into a second audio signal, a time delay device for compensating for a delay between the first microphone receiving the spoken voice at the first location and the second microphone receiving the spoken voice at the second location, as well as a weighting device for compensating for differences in volume between the first microphone receiving the spoken voice at the first location and the second microphone receiving the spoken voice at the second location. The system also comprises a loudspeaker for receiving the first and second audio signals, for converting the first audio signal into a first reproduced spoken voice, the first reproduced spoken voice also being fed back and received by the first and second microphones and converted with the spoken voice into the first and second audio signals, and for converting the second audio signal into a second reproduced spoken voice, the second reproduced spoken voice also being fed back and received by the first and second microphones and converted with the spoken voice into the first and second audio signals. Moreover, the system comprises an acoustic echo cancellation system for determining the relationship between the received spoken voice by the first microphone and the first audio signal comprising the spoken voice and the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the first microphone, for removing the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the first microphone from the first audio signal received by the loudspeaker, for determining the relationship between the received spoken voice by the second microphone and the second audio signal comprising the spoken voice and the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the second microphone, and for removing the first and second reproduced spoken voice fed back to the first microphone from the first audio signal received by the loudspeaker.
These and other advantages and objects will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description read in conjunction with the appended claims and the drawings attached hereto. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the physical format of a rewritable type optical disc using a phase change medium or a magneto-optical medium, or a write-once type optical disc using a pigment based medium, and more particularly, to the physical format suitable for a large amount of data such as video data or audio data and a method of making the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a storage medium having a large capacity used for a computer, DVDs (digital video discs), MO (magneto-optical) discs or CDs (compact discs) are commercially manufactured as products. Also, with the wide-spread and expanding use of computers, a user""s requirements to change data stored in a storing medium such that the need for a storage medium capable of changing or writing once data is rapidly increasing.
As a rewritable type storing medium which enables a user to change data multiple times, there is a DVD-RAM (random access memory) using a phase change medium, an MO disc using an MO medium, and a CD-RW (rewritable) disc. Also, there is a CD-R using a pigment based medium as a write-once type storage medium in which a user can write data only one time. An address for recognizing the position where data is recorded is also stored in each of these storage media.
An ID (identification) portion for indicating the address is provided on the DVD-RAM or MO disc separately from a portion where user data is stored.
Also, a wobble address method using an FM (frequency) modulation is used to manage the address in the CD-RW or CD-R disc. Here, wobble means a wave type track indicating a structure that a track on a disc waves in a radial direction. That is, in the CD-RW or CD-R disc, the address is recorded by changing the frequency of the wobble (wave form) of the track. Thus, the user data and the address are recorded together along the track on the CD-RW or CD-R disc.
However, the conventional technology has the following problems. For example, since the ID portion is needed in the DVD-RAM or MO disc in addition to the area where the user data is recorded, an efficiency in use of a disc surface area is deteriorated.
Further, in the conventional technology since the structure of the disc surface is different in the areas where the user data is recorded and in the ID portion, a process to manufacture such discs is complicated. In particular, since the ID portion is arranged in a zigzag in the DVD-RAM disc, the manufacturing process is more complicated.
Another problem that arises is that since the address corresponds to the frequency of the wobble in the CD-RW or CD-R, a disc reproduction apparatus needs to read a signal (wobble) having a different frequency to read the address, requiring the structure of the reproduction apparatus to be complicated.
Yet another problem that arises with conventional technology is that since the frequency of the wobble of the track is changed according to an address value, the length of the track needed to represent the address changes according to the address value. Thus, the control of data recording is complicated.
Further, since the method of matching the address to the frequency of the wobble in conventional technology is one in which the address is stored by FM-modulating the wobble, the required C/N (carrier to noise) ratio is relatively high so that reliability in recording/reproduction is deteriorated.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an optical disc in which an efficiency in use of a disc surface area is high, manufacturing of discs is made easy, the structure of a disc reproducing apparatus is simplified, control of data recording on a disc is simplified, and the required C/N ratio is low, so that reliability in recording/reproduction is improved.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
The foregoing objects of the present invention are achieved by providing an optical disc having tracks for recording user data such as a rewritable type optical disc using a phase change medium or a magneto-optical medium, or a write-once type optical disc using a pigment based medium, in which a wobble portion waved in a radial direction of the optical disc and a non wobble portion which. is not waved are provided on the tracks, sub information which is data other than the user data is recorded on the tracks by using a combination of the wobble portion and the non wobble portion, a logical value of each bit is represented by a pair of the wobble portion and the non wobble portion, and the phase of wave in the wobble portion when a bit is a logic value of xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and the phase of wave in the wobble portion when a bit is a logic value of xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d are different.
It is a further object of the present invention that the length of one of the wobble portion and the non wobble portion is different when a bit is a logical value of xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and a logical value of xe2x80x9c1.xe2x80x9d
It is yet a further object of the present invention that the sub information is an address of the track.
It is yet a further object of the present invention that the difference between the phase of wave in the wobble portion in the case in which a bit is a logic value of xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and the phase of wave in the wobble portion in the case in which a bit is a logic value of xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d is set to be about 180xc2x0.
It is yet a further object of the present invention that, at transition points from the wobble portion to the non wobble portion and from the non wobble portion to the wobble portion, the phase of wave in the wobble portion is set to a predetermined phase.
It is yet a further object of the present invention that the lengths of the wobble portion and the non wobble portion are set to integer multiples of one period of wave in the wobble portion.
It is yet a further object of the present invention that each of the tracks is divided into a plurality of zones in a radial direction of the optical disc.
It is yet a further object of the present invention that the sub information is a zone address of the zone.
It is yet a further object of the present invention that the phases of waves of the wobble portions of adjacent tracks in the zone are consistent. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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With continuous development of science and technology in modern society, electronic products are widely used in daily life. Button structures applied to the electronic products not only need to match the various electronic products, but also continuously develop towards aspects of reducing manufacturing costs, improving manufacturing processes, and increasing yield rates, to increase product competitiveness.
Refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic structural diagram of a conventional button structure applied to an electronic apparatus. The button structure 1 shown in FIG. 1 is a prism formed by means of an injection process, which has a contact pressure surface 11 that is pressed by a user to drive the electronic apparatus (not shown in the figure) to output a corresponding control instruction. A text 12 or graph for marking the button structure is printed on the contact pressure surface 11.
However, the conventional button structure 1 is insufficient in a three-dimensional effect, and after the contact pressure surface 11 of the button structure 1 is frequently pressed by the user, the text 12 or graph printed on the pressing surface 11 drops off easily. Therefore, there is room for improvement of the conventional button structure. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power converter including a complementary regeneration circuit for eliminating oscillations and conserving leakage energy to increase efficiency and save energy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computers and computer systems are becoming smaller and more sophisticated and yet are operating at higher frequencies. Notebook computers, for example, typically include an 486 microprocessor by the Intel Corp. (Intel), which may operate at frequencies of up to 100 MHz. The size of the notebook computer, however, has about the same dimensions as a stack of notebook paper being between 1 to 2 inches thick. Power may be provided from an AC source, such as a typical wall outlet, or by batteries. The present invention primarily concerns the AC adapter, where AC voltage and current from an AC source is converted to regulated DC power appropriate for use by the computer system.
In general, it is desired to convert the same amount of power to operate the computer as a conventional AC/DC converter, except using a smaller and lighter power supply while also decreasing heat generation. In practical terms, the same level of power conversion is desired at the same ambient temperature without the use of fans within the power supply and without negatively impacting the internal or external thermal environment. Therefore, the power supply must be physically smaller and yet achieve a higher efficiency, thereby requiring a higher power density. A higher efficiency is necessary to maintain the temperature requirements without an increase in size.
It is further desired to eliminate the bulky AC adapter typically provided with a portable or notebook computer. The AC adapter is usually a separate unit, causing inconvenience in use and travel. Thus, it is desired to place the AC adapter inside the housing of the computer itself. Although ambient temperature requirements to prevent harm to human operators are essentially eliminated, the temperature must still be controlled to prevent an undesirable rise in temperature within the housing, which could affect the operation of the computer. Also, the AC adapter should be as lightweight as possible to reduce the overall weight of the computer system. Further, it is desirable that the system operate without excessive noise or electromagnetic interference (EMI) problems.
In summary, it is desired to have the best of all worlds, that is, a low cost, high efficiency, smaller power supply for converting the same or even increased amount of power yet operating without substantial EMI.
To achieve some of these goals, designers have typically favored flyback converters. Flyback converters are simpler and easier to design than other types of converters, including forward converters. The simplicity of the flyback topology allows fewer parts and lower cost, which is ideal for use in smaller computer systems. Other converter methods typically require extra inductances, thereby increasing the size and cost of the AC adapter. For example, forward converters are more efficient on the average, but are generally more complicated. Thus, flyback converters are preferred for use in the smaller, higher powered computer systems.
Flyback converters transfer energy from a primary to a secondary circuit rather than transforming voltage and current. This intrinsic characteristic of flyback converters allows a natural constant power operation, which provides the advantage of reducing size and decreasing the maximum power rating to achieve the same amount of power conversion. The advantages of constant power operation are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/701,657, filed May 16, 1991, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
In spite of the advantages of flyback converters, they also have several disadvantages. Flyback converters tend to be less efficient than other types of converters and emit proportionately higher amounts of electromagnetic energy. Flyback converters have an average efficiency rating of approximately 70%, although well-designed units may achieve efficiencies of 80-82%. These efficiencies do not compare well to the 85% or above range typically achieved using forward converters. Other known design techniques may be used to increase the efficiency of a flyback converter to slightly above 85%, but these techniques almost invariably add cost and increase size.
The reason for the low efficiency rating of flyback converters is the method of power conversion combined with parasitic reactances. The primary switch is usually a metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), which includes an undesirable, yet inherent drain to source capacitance. In a flyback converter, energy conversion occurs in two phases for each power cycle, as controlled by a standard pulse-width modulation (PWM) circuit. A bridge and filter circuit converts AC voltage from an AC source to a relatively high, unregulated DC voltage. During a first primary conduction phase, the primary switch is activated allowing a linearly ramping current to flow from the primary DC source through the primary inductance of the transformer. The secondary circuit includes a rectifier diode connected so as not to allow current flow in the secondary inductor during the primary conduction phase. Thus, energy is stored in the transformer during the primary conduction phase.
The PWM circuit monitors certain conditions either in the primary or secondary circuit to determine when to end the primary conduction phase. When these conditions are met, the PWM circuit turns off the primary switch initiating a flyback phase, where the energy stored in the transformer is transferred to the secondary circuit and eventually to the load. Usually, sometime after the end of each flyback phase, a new power cycle is initiated by turning on the primary switch. At this point, the high voltage input source is still present across the primary switch. Thus, the primary switch is activated in a high voltage condition, causing power and efficiency loss as the energy stored in its output capacitance is discharged.
In an ideal transformer, all of the energy from the flow of the primary current is stored in the transformer, and then all the stored energy is transferred to the secondary so that the primary current flow falls to zero instantaneously. However, physical transformers include parasitic, uncoupled ("leakage") inductance in the primary inductor. During the transition switching time, the current through the primary and leakage inductors continues to flow, thereby charging the switch capacitor. Then, the excess energy oscillates naturally between the leakage inductor and the switch capacitor causing unwanted damped oscillations in the primary circuit. When the secondary current falls to zero during the flyback phase, the primary switch capacitor discharges through the primary and leakage inductors causing more unwanted oscillations. Further, the forced switching and coupled inductances cause current spikes in the primary and secondary circuits. These oscillations and current spikes cause most of the noise, regulation and efficiency problems experienced with flyback converters.
The damped oscillations cause several problems. First, during the initiation of the flyback phase, the leakage inductance causes the voltage overshoot across the primary switching device producing excess stress, energy loss and radio frequency noise. The excessive voltage overshoot requires the use of a switching device with twice the voltage rating than theoretically necessary and also the use of EMI filtering devices many times larger than otherwise possible. The MOSFET switching device typically includes a drain to source resistance, referred to as RDS.sub.ON, which is proportional to its voltage rating. Thus, the higher voltage rating leads to a corresponding energy loss in the RDS.sub.ON resistance, requiring larger heat sinks.
The oscillations are also absorbed through stray resistance, causing undesirable heat and leading to a significant loss of efficiency. Any noise or oscillations generated in the primary circuit causes electromagnetic interference (EMI), which could couple into the AC source. This could violate federal radiation emission requirements, or otherwise force a lower EMI rating, and also cause interference with other electrical devices located nearby.
The oscillations generated in the primary circuit are transferred to the output circuit, typically through auxiliary inductances used as a power source for support and control circuitry. This may not pose a real problem during full load conditions since the oscillations are mostly absorbed by the load. However, the excess energy of the damped oscillations transferred to the output tends to cause severe regulation problems during low or no-load conditions. Under low or no-load conditions, excess energy is stored in the load capacitor, causing its voltage to rise. Although only a very small amount of energy is stored during each cycle, the cumulative energy in high frequency operations, typically ranging between 60 to 200 KHz, is substantial over time. The voltage across the load capacitor eventually rises above the allowed maximum voltage level, possibly causing a hazardous condition and damage to circuit components.
Several solutions have traditionally been tried to solve the inherent problems with flyback converters. Although each of these problems may be solved in one way or another, the simultaneous solution to all problems has only been achieved at a significant cost or increase in size of the converter. To solve the noise and EMI problems, filter circuits have been used, which add cost and increase the size due to filter inductances. Voltage overshoot problems may also be solved through filter circuits, damping circuits or snubber circuits, but these circuits typically absorb energy, causing heat. The capacitance of traditional snubber capacitors must be limited since increasing the snubber capacitance reduces the efficiency. The excess energy at the output may be solved through a bleed resistor or other small load, but this again causes heat and a loss of efficiency. Of course, other buck-based topologies or forward topologies have been tried, resulting in a loss of the intrinsic advantages of the flyback topology, such as the constant power benefits.
Therefore, it is desirable to retain the advantages of a flyback converter, such as low cost and simplicity, while reducing or otherwise eliminating the undesirable characteristics, such as oscillations and low efficiency. It is desired to reduce or eliminate these problems without substantially increasing cost or component count to achieve a lightweight, highly efficient AC adapter, that will, ideally, be even smaller than present convention. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to diode pumped solid-state laser amplifiers. More specifically, the present invention relates to a laser disk folded amplifier architecture wherein a series stack of laser gain disks are oriented at an angle of incidence that is perpendicular or approximately perpendicular to the propagation direction of a laser beam having a predetermined wavelength.
2. Description of Related Art
Solid state-laser amplifier technology is a well-developed field wherein numerous modes of operation and embodiments have been demonstrated. One of the embodiments comprises conventional disk architecture wherein pump arrays (e.g., rows of flash lamps or diode-laser arrays) are situated in planes located on either side of one or more disk amplifiers. The disks themselves are tilted at Brewster's angle with respect to the laser beam. This is the angle at which a p-polarized laser beam experiences no reflection losses at the input and output surface of each amplifier disk. This approach was invented to scale solid state lasers to very large beam apertures, and it has served the world very well in large, single shot systems.
However, non-uniform pumping due to Brewster angle architecture generates deleterious wavefront distortions caused by the non-uniform distribution of waste heat from the optically pumping process. The result of such thermal gradients is bulk thermal deformation, an undesired change in the index of refraction, and stress in the material, all of which contribute to optical distortions of the transmitted wavefront of a laser beam to be amplified.
Several techniques have been utilized to mitigate the effects of thermal gradients during Brewster angle laser operation. First, diode pumping to match absorption lines of dopant ions in the gain materials of laser disks, reduces the amount of waste heat generated. Second, convective gas flow across the surfaces of the gain material can help dissipate heat-generated gradients. Background for such a method is described by Sutton, et al., in “Heat Removal in a Gas Cooled Solid-State Laser Disk Amplifier,” AIAA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 431-435, (1992). Another technique is to allow a laser gain medium to temporarily store the deposited heat. During laser operation, the active laser gain medium will heat up until it reaches some maximum acceptable temperature. The cooling cycle is then begun, in the absence of lasing, and elapsed time between periods of laser operation depends largely on the efficiency of the cooling of the laser during the suspended lasing action. Background for this concept is described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,372, issued Jun. 11, 1996 to Albrecht, et al., and assigned to the assignee of the instant application. Regardless of which technique is applied, thermal gradients that produce bulk thermal deformation, changes in the index of refraction, and stress due to non-uniform pumping of Brewster angle disk amplifier architectures continues to be a problem in high-average power solid-state laser systems.
The emergence of high average power diode arrays beyond the conventional technologies in which typically only a single laser diode bar was attached to a single high performance heat sink have enabled monolithic laser diode packages in which multiple diode bars are attached to a single high performance heat sink. This technology advance has led to larger laser diode arrays and larger diode-pumped laser systems that are capable of emitting pump light at nonzero emission angles, which may be utilized to solve current non-uniform optical pumping as discussed above. Background for one such type of package, which utilizes Silicon Monolithic Microchannels (i.e., SiMM) is described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,548,605 issued Aug. 20, 1996 to Benett, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,683 issued Oct. 27, 1998 to Freitas, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,923,481 issued Jul. 13, 1999 to Skidmore, et al., and assigned to the assignee of the instant application.
SiMM technology incorporates the formation of V-grooves for positioning and mounting of laser diode bars by Anistropic etching of silicon substrates. In <110> oriented silicon wafers, (the surface of the wafer is a <110> plane), etch rate differences can be exploited to etch channels that are perpendicular to the surface of the wafer. This is accomplished by creating a mask on the surface of the wafer that is aligned with the <111> planes on the wafer. When etched, these slow-etching, perpendicular <111> planes then become the walls of the channels. With the appropriate angular orientation of an etch mask on a <110> oriented silicon wafer, the result of the above etching method is to produce V-grooves, wherein laser emitting diodes or laser diode bars are attached to the slanted surfaces, i.e., the <111> plane, and as such are oriented to produce an emission direction in a very specific way relative to the <110> normal direction (e.g., 55 degrees).
SiMM arrays with a 55 degree emission angle or any diode array with a nonzero emission angle, measured from the normal to the array surface are useful in pump configurations that are integrated in normal incidence large aperture laser disk architectures. Such architectures provide better energy extraction efficiencies, better beam quality despite any residual thermal gradients in the laser gain disks, polarization independent extraction, and denser, compact system packaging. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a signaling device, in particular for industrial purposes, e.g. for signaling various operating and/or malfunctioning conditions, for electrical machines, preferably automatic machines, composed or several, at least two optical and/or acoustic signal transmitters, that are arranged essentially linearly next to each other and/or one above the other and connected to a power source via power lines, the signal transmitters respectively having a case, in which power consumers for generating an optical and/or acoustic signal, e.g. a lighting means, are arranged, wherein adjacently arranged cases are interconnected via a coupling member, and wherein the power consumers can be connected to each other and/or to the power lines.
2. Discussion of the Background
Such signaling devices are known from the state-of-the-art. E.g., DE 90 10 187 U1 discloses an optical indicating device, in particular for industrial purposes, having a long stretched-out, hollow case with at least two longitudinal bands or sections that are at least partially transparent. In this case, a lamp supporting structure is inserted supporting at least two lamps, which are assigned to respective positions in the case bands and electrically connected to power connections arranged in a supporting structure end zone. Furthermore, this known indicating device has at least one electrical connector that is connected to said lamp supporting structure end zone and arranged so as to enable the electrical connection of the lamps and the circuit devices arranged outside the case. The case is composed of several linearly arranged sections that are screwed together. When replacing the lighting means arranged in the lamp supporting structures, it is therefore necessary to open the case at one end and pull out the lamp supporting structure. The drawback of this known device is that light protection between the individual case sections is not possible, so that in particular from a large distance, it cannot be seen which lighting means inside the device is shining. Furthermore, in the event of failures in the lamp supporting structure, the whole lamp supporting structure has to be replaced.
Another signaling device is known from DE 22 11 801 B2. This signaling device is composed of several identical superimposed individual lamps, which respectively comprise a transparent hood being fastened to a horizontal separation wall, whereon a light bulb is seated. Furthermore, feed lines traversing the individual lamps are provided, the ends of which are formed as contact devices for adjacent individual lamps. The separation wall has flexible connection devices that, by rotating the separation wall in relation to the cylindrical hood, in a certain position grip behind shoulders thereof. In addition to the two feed lines for the lighting means of an individual lamp, other feed lines are provided for individual lamps located above.
Finally, FR 1 526 306 discloses a signaling device with several superimposed case sections, wherein respectively one lighting means is inserted. The superimposed case sections are arranged between a base and a lid, the base being connected to the lid via threaded rods and/or screws.
Based on this state-of-the-art, it is an object of the invention to provide a generic signaling device, of sample construction and that can essentially be assembled without bolt-on connections, wherein preferably simplified maintenance and expansion operations can be performed, in particular in view of replacing defective lighting means and/or other electrical and/or electronic components, without requiring almost complete disassembly and without the risk of damaging power lines during maintenance and completion operations.
To achieve this object, provision is made for the power consumers to be arranged in mountings and the mountings to have a conductive device detachably interconnecting the power consumers of adjacent cases.
A signaling device developed according to this teaching in particular has the advantage that the superimposed cases can be separated effortlessly at each transition between two cases by removing the coupling member, wherein spreading apart the adjacent cases thus detached also allows the conductive devices in the adjacent cases to be separated. For this purpose, it is not necessary to mutually rotate both adjacent cases or to undo a screwed connection. Subsequently, the adjacent cases are separated in the previously described manner, so that e.g. the conductive device in the separated case can be replaced or completed or modified with regard to its electrotechnical configuration.
Regarding the case design, it is provided according to another feature of the invention that each case is pot-shaped and composed of a cylindrical hollow tube section, limited at one side by a lid. Preferably, the tube section and the lid are formed integrally and made of plastic, preferably by the deep-drawing method.
Furthermore, provision is made for the lid to be light-proof, so that light energy is not transmitted from one case, in which a lighting means is shining, into an adjacent case, in which the lighting means is not supplied with electric energy.
The tube section is made of a translucent material, in particular color-dyed, preferably of ductile hard plastic.
Furthermore, provision is made for the lid to have openings for routing the conductive device or parts thereof to provide secure power transmission from one case into the adjacent one.
In order to avoid pollution, such as dust and in particular moisture, from penetrating, a seal can be placed on the case at the shoulder, the seal water-and/or airproofing the transitional area between adjacent cases. This also prevents corrosion at the electrical and/or electronic components, in particular metal conductors.
According to another feature of the invention, provision is made for allowing the case to be connected to a case base, which can be fastened directly or indirectly to the device to be monitored. Furthermore, provision is made for allowing the case to be connected preferably at the lid to a closing lid, which can be fastened to the case by means of a coupling member. This allows, the closing lid to be easily fastened at the uppermost case. When the inventive signaling device is to he expanded, the closing lid can be removed once the closing member has been detached and another case stacked up, before placing the closing lid on the stacked up case and fixing in thereto via a coupling member. The coupling member previously arranged between the closing lid and the uppermost case and detached can now be used either for connecting the two uppermost adjacent cases or for connecting the closing lid to the uppermost case. Consequently, as spare parts or expansion parts for expanding an inventive signaling device, only one case and one coupling member can be provided. Of course, the electrical and/or electronic components arranged inside the case are also part of such an expansion module.
The conductive device preferably has, at opposite ends, at least one plug and at least one socket, which are interconnected electrically. In this embodiment, the assembly of the inventive signaling device is considerably simplified, because by mutually assembling adjacent cases, the conductive devices are interconnected as a plug-in connection. In this case, the conductive device can either be permanently connected to the case and stacked simultaneously or, in a first step, the conductive device with its plug can be plugged into the socket of the adjacent case, before pulling the case over the conductive device, so that the socket of this case in turn is ready to receive the plug of the next conductive device. At any rate, this results in a considerably simplified assembly, especially because bolt-on connections between the individual cases can be omitted.
Plug and socket are preferably developed with multiple poles, so that through different pole configurations, the various lighting means or acoustic signaling means can be controlled in the various cases of the inventive signaling device, without requiring additional power lines. Furthermore, the conductive devices or printed boards can receive electronic components, such as capacitive, inductive or ohmic resistors as well as transistors or the like, in order to form certain circuits inside a case. Consequently, for the inventive signaling device, it is possible that, in addition to purely electrical signaling devices, electronically controlled signaling devices can be used, wherein the electronics of such signaling devices can be housed in the corresponding case. Consequently, it is possible to combine electrically and electronically controlled signaling devices, wherein the subsequent integration of electronic signaling devices in an already existing inventive signaling device is possible, without therefore requiring considerable interventions in the overall structure of this signaling device.
According to another feature of the invention, provision is made for the mounting to be essentially U-shaped and to have two legs as well as a leg-linking bar. Preferably, the power consumer is arranged and fixed between the two legs. The socket is provided at the free end of one mounting leg.
In particular, the mounting is formed of two pieces, wherein both mounting halves can preferably be assembled by means of at least one snap connection. The advantage of this embodiment is that screwing the two halves can be omitted and by dividing the mounting into two pieces, the conductive device can be assembled easily in the mounting, wherein the two halves can be plugged together by interposing the conductive device so that the conductive device is maintained positively or nonpositively between the two mounting halves.
According to another feature of the invention, provision is made for the two halves to have respectively two snap-in hooks and two snap-in recesses. These fixing members interact respectively, i.e. that each snap-in hook of one half is engaged in a snap-in recess of the opposite half. Here it is an advantage to arrange the snap-in hooks at diametrically opposing edges of the mounting halves.
Moreover, the inventive signaling device provides for a housing for a signal transmitter to be arranged at the mounting and preferably and to have an essentially light-proof board, which together with the case defines a chamber, wherein the signal transmitter, preferably the lighting means, is arranged. This embodiment has the advantage that, on the one hand, due to the light-proof lid, and on the other hand, due to the light-proof board, the case is light-proof in both axial directions with regard to adjacent cases, so that the light rays emitted by lighting means arranged in the case cannot penetrate into an adjacent case. As a result, an observer can clearly distinguish the light signals.
The board is preferably arranged at the leg-linking bar of the mounting, wherein it has been found to be advantageous for the board to be circular in shape.
In an alternative embodiment of the inventive signaling device, it is provided for the conductive device to have several, at least two conductor strips. These two mutually separated conductor strips are for supplying the signaling device with the required electric energy. Both conductor strips are integrated in the power consumer and usually embedded into plastic.
According to another feature of the invention, it is provided that the conductive device is made of two pieces, wherein at least one piece of the conductive device has several conductor strips. In this embodiment, it is possible advantageously to use the conductor strips for controlling different power consumers in the individual cases arranged one above the other or next to each other. Preferably, the conductor strips are unwound once or twice in their longitudinally extending plane, in the direction of the surface normal of this plane and/or in a direction extending perpendicularly thereto.
Moreover, it is provided that the conductor strips at one end are formed as plug contacts and at the opposite end at least partially as flexible sockets. The flexible sockets permit secure fitting of the socket contacts at the plug contacts of the adjacent conductive device.
Finally, according to another feature of the invention it is provided that at least part of the conductor strips are divided into several poles, at least at one end. For this purpose, e.g. one conductor strip can be developed so as to slave, on the one hand, a pole for connecting to a lighting means holder as well as one or several poles for connecting to an electrical or electronic circuit. Finally, it can also be provided that in addition to the poles mentioned above, an additional pole is provided, that is also developed as an flexible socket according to the meaning above. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns electronic commutation for a brushless D.C. motor having a Y-connected stator.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such a brushless D.C. motor is shown in the German publication, ETZ, 1972, pages 295 and 298. A separate control stage, cyclically controlled by a current regulator, is provided for the current control of this motor. Cyclic control has the advantage over continuous control in that the losses are lower and higher efficiency is thereby achieved. This advantage is counterbalanced, however, by the cost of separate control stage.
Deutsche Auslegeschrift No. 1,244,933 shows a brushless D.C. motor in a bridge circuit, in which the cyclic control of the current is effected directly by means of an electronic commutation device and therefore, no separate control state is required. By-pass diodes are connected parallel to the two commutation devices so that the current can continue to flow in the motor winding during the current intervals. Such a circuit design is not possible, however, for brushless D.C. motors with a Y-connected stator winding.
It is an object of this invention to provide a brushless D.C. motor with a Y-connected stator winding and cyclic current control, in which the current can be controlled directly by means of an electronic commutation device. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Glass sheets sub-divided from glass substrates are commonly used, for example, in display applications, for example liquid crystal displays (LCDs), electrophoretic displays (EPD), organic light emitting diode displays (OLEDs), plasma display panels (PDPs), or the like. Glass substrates commonly undergo manufacturing processes utilizing tabs that both protect the glass substrate from contact damage during manipulation and help manipulate the glass substrates without requiring direct contact with the glass substrate. Increasingly advanced electronic devices can include thin film devices attached directly to the glass substrates in high temperature processes. However, the utilization of tabs during the high temperature processes and in other facets of the manufacturing processes can foul the thin film devices and/or hinder other manufacturing steps. Thus, there is a need for a process and apparatus which allow: selective tab removal at determined points in the manufacturing process; tab removal without necessitating cutting of the glass substrate; and tab removal during a continuous manufacturing process. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a light-sensitive copying material containing an O-quinone diazide compound as a light-sensitive component.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
It is known that O-quinone diazide compounds decompose at the diazo group upon radiation with active rays to become carboxyl group-bearing compounds. When a copying layer containing an O-quinone diazide compound is imagewise exposed and then treated with an alkaline developer, therefore, the exposed area is removed and the non-exposed area remains as an image. Accordingly, an O-quinone diazide compound has lately become noted as a light-sensitive component of the so-called positive-positive type, in particular, as a light-sensitive copying composition for a printing original or as a photoresist composition for photoetching, for example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,461. These compositions comprise generally not only an O-quinone diazide compound but also an alkali-soluble resin such as a phenol-formaldehyde resin and a styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer to reinforce the image strength and to increase the film-forming properties, and can preferably be used in the form of a uniform composition, in addition, with additives such as dyes and plasticizers.
However, the O-quinone diazide-containing light-sensitive material of the prior art has the disadvantage that a considerable thickness, for example, 0.5 to 10 microns is necessary in order to obtain a sufficient image strength and thus a large amount of 0-quinone diazide compound must be used. As a result the light sensitivity is low as a copying layer. Furthermore, the resin for increasing the image strength should be miscible with O-quinone diazide compounds and only a narrow selection of materials is suitable. Therefore, the reinforcing of an image can not be advantageously carried out. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Gas chromatography (GC) is widely used in many industries to separate and identify target analytes, such as volatile organic compounds or semi-volatile organic compounds. GC is particularly useful for analyzing complex samples having multiple target analytes that require individual detection. GC works by observing “peaks” of chemicals passing through a separation column. Thus, a sample having different chemicals or target analytes is introduced via an injector into a packed bed column. Different portions of the sample pass through the column at different rates (due to each chemical's physical and chemical interactions with the material contained in the column). As the target analytes are eluted from (exit) the column, the detector can differentiate the species eluted over time based on the rate at which the analytes pass through the column. Such analytes can be electronically identified and/or quantified during or after the detection.
Micro-gas chromatography is conducted on a miniaturized scale from traditional gas chromatography. One specific type of micro-gas chromatography is comprehensive two-dimensional (2-D) gas chromatography (“GC×GC”). Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) is well-suited to analysis and separation of complex mixtures of volatile and/or semi-volatile compounds. Generally, GC×GC or comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography utilizes two columns of differing selectivities connected in series by a modulator device. In a conventional two-dimensional (2-D) comprehensive gas chromatography (GC) system, the modulator device is placed between the first (1st) and second (2nd) dimensional columns. The modulator device thus sends slices of eluent from the 1st column to the 2nd column, continuously trapping, focus, and re-injecting components eluted from the first column into the second column (as a continuous injector for the second column). The modulator cuts the eluents from the 1st dimension (1D) column periodically (modulation period (PM): about 1-10 seconds) and then re-injects each sliced segment into the 2nd dimension (2D) column sequentially. Consequently, each analyte is subject to two independent separation processes, first by its vapor pressure in the 1D column and then by its polarity in the 2D column. A 2-D chromatogram consisting of the 1D and 2D retention times can be reconstructed by analyzing the eluted peaks detected by a vapor detector installed at the end of the 2D column. Peak capacity is a characteristic of GC systems that describes an overall quantity of peaks that elute—corresponding to the number of discernable chemicals—that can be separated out from a sample by the system. A total peak capacity of GC×GC is nGC×GC=n1×n2, where n1 and n2 are the peak capacity for 1D and 2D separation, respectively. Thus, higher peak capacity is desirable in a GC system.
However, conventional 2-D comprehensive GC suffers from (1) lower peak capacity in the 1st dimension due to the peak broadening during reconstruction caused by sampling; and (2) short 2nd dimensional separation time (and hence lower peak capacity), which is limited by the modulation period (or sampling period). Accordingly, it would be desirable to solve these issues to improve 2-D comprehensive gas chromatography. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A storage server is a computer system that is used to store and retrieve data on behalf of one or more clients on a network. A storage server typically stores and manages data in a set of mass storage devices, such as magnetic or optical storage-based disks or tapes. In conventional network storage systems, the mass storage devices may be organized into one or more groups of drives (e.g., redundant array of inexpensive drives (RAID)).
A storage server may be configured to service file-level requests from clients, as in the case of file servers used in a Network Attached Storage (NAS) environment. Alternatively, a storage server may be configured to service block-level requests from clients, as done by storage servers used in a Storage Area Network (SAN) environment. Further, some storage servers are capable of servicing both file-level and block-level requests, as done by certain storage servers made by NetApp®, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif.
To facilitate data access, a file system can be implemented to logically organize the data stored in a storage server's underlying NAS or SAN environment. The contents of the file system are often indexed for searching or monitoring purposes. In order to provide a complete and up-to-date overview of the contents of the file system, a “crawling”, or scanning, of the file system is periodically performed by a crawler processor. During crawling, various information about the contents of the file system can be acquired. However, the speed of a file system crawler is often inadequate, especially when indexing a large-scale storage system which can contains millions of files with storage sizes in petabytes.
Further, the performance cost of periodically crawling an entire file system is often disproportionate to the rate of change of the file system. Even if there is only one file being updated after a prior crawl, the file system needs to be crawled completely in order to determine which file has changed. One approach to eliminate a complete re-crawling is to require all applications to notify the file system whenever a file is updated by the applications. However, on a large, enterprise file system, the overhead from keeping track of all the file-updating notifications can be overwhelming. Also, such approach requires modification of every file-updating application with notification functionalities. Another approach is to modify the file system to generate a log each time the file system detects a file changing event. The log is then leveraged by an indexing service to determine the files to be re-indexed. However, such approach may require updating of the file system software in order to accommodate such functionality. To further complicate matters, the above approaches can incur a significant amount of latency and therefore significantly reduce a crawler's performance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to the field of matrix calculations on a computer, and more particularly to performing matrix calculations using Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) operations. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to aircraft and engine control systems. More specifically, the subject disclosure relates to aircraft and engine control systems for air intake threat detection and mitigation.
Modern aircraft, including fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft, employ full authority digital engine control (FADEC) systems for engine management. These systems typically include two or more fully redundant and independent control channels, and have no manual backup engine control capability to be employed in the event of full FADEC failure. In addition, the engines often utilize highly reactive inlet guide vanes (IGV's) disposed at or near the engine inlet to control and manage airflow into the engine compressor section. The IGV's are positioned and repositioned throughout the flight envelope to attempt to balance aircraft and engine performance requirements such as power and specific fuel consumption with operability requirements such as surge margin. These requirements are often at odds with each other, making control of the air intake flow critical.
From recent field and flight test experience, it has become known that these engine systems are very sensitive to sudden and dynamic changes in temperature of airflow entering the engine via the air intake. Typically, a temperature sensor located in the inlet of the engine is utilized by the FADEC system to ascertain the temperature of the incoming airflow and manage engine systems, such as the IGV accordingly. When this sensor, however, cannot provide data to the FADEC system quickly enough in cases of rapidly changing inlet temperature, the controls set by the FADEC will be in error, potentially resulting in significant power loss and/or engine stall. Such stall condition may persist for as long as the adverse thermal condition (or thermal threat) is present and may ultimately result in engine damage or flameout. Further, a significant thermal threat can affect all of the intakes of multi-engine aircraft simultaneously. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to an adjustable continuous casting mold, and a method of adjusting a casting mold prior to, during and after casting in an effective manner. More particularly, the apparatus and method of the present invention relate to a continuous casting mold, the cross-sectional area of which can be adjusted by moving at least one of the side walls forming the mold.
Adjustable continuous casting molds for vertical casting machines are known. In these continuous casting machines, however, no sealing problems arise in the region between supply container and mold which are comparable to those of horizontal continuous casting machines for metals.
From West German Patent 26 58 242 there is known a horizontal continuous casting machine for metals which has a clamping device which is connected, on the one hand, to the mold and, on the other hand, directly to a liquid-metal conduit, a device for regulating the contact pressure of the liquid-metal conduit against the mold being provided so as to assure a tight, metal-impervious joint. This patent does not teach changing the cross-section of the mold. With respect to sealing, the device known from this patent has the disadvantage that the mount which fixes the rigid mold at its one end rests at its other end on the liquid-metal conduit. In order to absorb the forces between the liquid-metal conduit and the supply container, the rigid mold is connected via an expensive arrangement, namely foundation, base plate, bearing pedestal and displacement apparatus. The multitude of elements and the great number of possible external influences do not permit the short paths and precise adjustments of force in the region of the sealing surface which are required for an adjustable mold.
Leaking liquid metal, however, could lead to the interruption of the casting. The discontinuation of the casting has the result, in the case of a rigid mold, that solidified residual pieces remain in the mold and can only be removed with great difficulty.
It is the object of the invention to avoid the above-mentioned disadvantages and to provide a method and an apparatus for an adjustable continuous casting mold which enables a reliable changing of the passage cross-section of the mold in a structurally simple manner before, during and after the casting.
This object is obtained by providing a horizontal casting apparatus for metals, in particular steel, which comprises a liquid metal supply container having a metal outlet opening therein; a continuous casting mold adjacent the outlet of the supply container, the casting mold comprising side walls having side edges and forming a conduit having an adjustable cross-sectional area for the metal to flow therethrough; and elements for adjusting the position of at least one of the side walls parallel and transverse or perpendicular to the center axis or center line of the outlet opening thereby adjusting the cross-sectional area of the casting mold. For the sealing off of the separation area between separation ring and edge surface of the mold, adjustment elements are provided which detachably connect together the mold, forming a force-locked connection facing in the direction of the center line towards the supply container. From the contact surfaces of the side walls arranged parallel to the center line an intimate or force-locked connection is provided. Depending on the number of detachable sealing surfaces, the passage cross-section can be varied in height and width or only in height or only in width.
The change in position of the displaceable side walls is so controlled with respect to time that the most strongly stressed sealing surface in the region of the separation ring is relaxed first. In order to facilitate the starting of the displacement, the displacement force is applied in pulsating manner.
For the adjustment of the mold elements are selected which provide a high degree of reliability after the adjustment process. Depending on the requirements, adjustment apparatus with energy-storing elements (for instance springs) or self-locking elements (for instance spindles) can be used.
With the horizontal continuous casting apparatus of the present invention, only a small supply of molds is required, since the adjustable mold covers entire ranges of cross-sections. Before the casting, the variation in "thickness" or "width" can be selected by a corresponding mold.
The casting of small lots or of several casting cross-sections from a large melt is rendered possible without interrupting the casting or changing of the molds.
The adjustable mold of the invention makes it possible to adapt the mold not only to a different quality of casting but also to a different speed of casting. This adaptation is possible during the casting by adjusting the passage cross-section with simultaneous adjustment of the conicity even during the casting. This is particularly important for the beginning and ending of the casting.
The method is particularly suitable for thin casting products (thickness less than 50 mm) since the start of the process is less sensitive. This is possible since, to be on the safe side, upon the starting up a larger initial thickness can be selected which can then be corrected during casting. Only a single starting head is required in this connection for different casting cross-sections. In addition, this process is made more reliable as a whole by the longer time of filling of the mold.
The already greater reliability of the tightness resulting from the use of the adjustment elements disclosed can also be increased by shaping the sealing surfaces. Excellent sealing results are obtained when the edge surface of the side walls is developed as elements which are compressible in the region of the sealing surface and have a high restoring force, such as is true of the lip-shaped development of the front surfaces. Good results are also obtained by the combination of a straight edge surface and a seal which is operatively connected therewith, for instance a squeezable metallic seal.
As a further advantageous seal there is provided a conical sealing surface of the separation ring in the region of the displaceable side wall. In this embodiment, after the relaxation of the side wall in the direction of the center line by the pressure of the liquid casting material, the side wall is pressed, as a function of the pre-established relaxation, against the "higher" located conical part of the separation ring.
Another advantage of the horizontal continuous casting mold of the present invention becomes evident when the casting process is not properly terminated. Handling and repair after a so-called mold plug or a casting frozen in the mold are considerably facilitated by the possibility of displacing the side surfaces, in contradistinction to other non-adjustable horizontal continuous casting molds. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a MIMO receiving apparatus and a MIMO transmitting apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a MIMO receiving apparatus and MIMO transmitting apparatus in which the transmitting system performs transmission control on a per antenna basis by feedback information from the receiving system.
2. Background Art
In standardization of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), PARC (Per Antenna Rate Control) scheme, which is one of MIMO (Multi Input Multi Output) transmission schemes, is discussed. In PARC, modulation and coding schemes are selected according to channel quality (CQI) report values on a per transmission antenna (stream) basis. Patent Document 1 discloses a conventional MIMO PARC scheme.
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of the MIMO transmitting apparatus in the MIMO communication system adopting the conventional MIMO PARC scheme. As shown in the figure, the MIMO transmitting apparatus transmits pilot signals on a per antenna basis by using several subcarriers. On the other hand, the receiving apparatus (not shown) measures the received intensity of each pilot signal transmitted from the antennas in the MIMO transmitting apparatus, generates a CQI (channel quality indicator) per antenna based on the channel quality condition for each antenna, and feeds back the CQIs to the MIMO transmitting apparatus. The MIMO transmitting apparatus determines the optimal modulation scheme (QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM and so on) and coding rate on a per antenna basis based on the CQI information per antenna and transmits substreams from the antennas. In this way, by selecting optimal modulation and coding scheme based on the channel quality condition of each antenna, the maximum peak rate and communication capacity are achieved. Non-patent Document 1: Lucent 3GPP R1-010879 | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Disclosed herein is a support structure that supports a load measurement sensor, and particularly, a support structure that supports a load measurement sensor by a support bracket while an extension shaft portion provided in the load measurement sensor is located at the lateral side of a sensor body.
For the purpose of improving the safety or the comfortable sitting feeling of the passenger, there has been proposed a technique that controls the operation of a peripheral unit of a vehicle seat in response to the weight of the passenger sitting on the vehicle seat. In such a technique, a load measurement sensor is generally disposed below the vehicle seat on which the passenger sits in order to detect the weight of the passenger sitting on the vehicle seat.
As for the load measurement sensor arrangement position, the load measurement sensor is generally disposed below the vehicle seat. For example, there is known a vehicle seat in which the load measurement sensor is disposed between a slide rail that slides the vehicle seat in the front to back direction and a seat frame that constitutes the vehicle seat (Japanese Patent Document No. 4205028 B1, “the '028 Document”).
As illustrated in FIG. 26, the '028 Document discloses a configuration in which a load measurement sensor 130 (which is described as a “load sensor” in the '028 Document) is attached to an upper position of an upper rail 112 (which is described as a “slider” in the '028 Document) sliding relative to a lower rail 111 (which is described as a “rail body” in the '028 Document) attached to a vehicle body floor and a seat frame 101 is disposed above the load measurement sensor 130. Furthermore, FIG. 26 is a partially perspective view illustrating a vehicle seat that employs a load measurement sensor support structure according to the related art.
Then, as illustrated in FIG. 27, a shaft portion 131 (which is described as a “male screw” in the '028 Document) is provided in order to fix the load measurement sensor 130 to the seat frame 101, and is disposed so that the axial direction of the shaft portion 131 becomes the perpendicular direction. FIG. 27 is a cross-sectional view illustrating the load measurement sensor support structure according to the related art.
In recent years, there has been a demand for a technique of decreasing a height of a vehicle seat in order to improve the convenience of the passenger when the passenger sits on the vehicle seat or to improve the design of the vehicle seat. However, in a case where the load measurement sensor 130 is attached by the above-described configuration, the seat frame 101 is disposed at a position that is high by the height of the load measurement sensor 130, and hence a problem arises in that the height of the vehicle seat increases.
In order to solve the above-described problems, there is proposed a technique in which the shaft portion supporting the load measurement sensor is disposed so that the axial direction thereof becomes the horizontal direction instead of the perpendicular direction (Japanese Patent Document No. 2010-42809 A, “the '809 Document”). In the '809 Document, the load measurement sensor (which is described as a “body weight detection sensor” in the '809 Document) is attached so that the axial direction thereof becomes the horizontal direction, and the load measurement sensor is disposed within the height range of the seat frame. For this reason, the height of the vehicle seat may be decreased compared to the technique of the '028 Document. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Immunosuppressants, nucleic acid antagonists, antimetabolites, etc., are used in the medicinal treatment of autoimmune diseases today. Anti-inflammatory agents, anticoagulants, etc., are also used in the symptomatic therapies of the diseases. The effects of these agents are, however, not yet sufficient.
It is known that the immunosuppressants have side effects of provoking diabetes, renal disorders, infectious diseases, etc. Also the use of the nucleic acid antagonist or antimetabolite is frequently accompanied by side effects such as hepatic disorders and medullary disorders. Thus the medicinal treatment of autoimmune diseases is so far very insufficient.
It has been demanded to develop a remedy for autoimmune diseases which acts on the immune system and which has a function mechanism different from that of conventional drugs for the diseases and less serious side effects. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a robot control apparatus which controls a robot.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a robot system is known in which a person performs work in collaboration with a robot. In this robot system, the robot and the person perform work in a state where no safety fence is provided around the robot. A switch known as a deadman switch is disposed in a robot control apparatus. For example, when a worker presses the deadman switch at a time when the robot is to be stopped, the robot can be urgently stopped. Including the deadman switch can improve safety.
In addition, during operation of a robot, the robot sometimes comes in contact with a surrounding object or person. For example, when a person is working in collaboration with a robot, the robot may come in contact with surrounding equipment or may come in contact with a worker. In such a case, a robot system is known to control so as to detect an external force and stop the robot or perform a retreat operation for avoiding the contacted object (for example, see Japanese Patent No. 3367641, Japanese Patent No. 3459973, or Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-18901).
A robot is controlled so as to move along a previously produced trajectory. The trajectory of the robot can be produced based on teaching points and a speed designated by a worker. The teaching points can be set by operation of a teaching operation panel by the worker. For example, by operating the teaching operation panel, the robot is placed in a desired position and posture. The position of a tool tip point of the robot at that time can be stored as a teaching point. Then, the robot control apparatus can produce a trajectory so that the robot passes through or near the teaching point.
In a period during which teaching points are taught to the robot, the robot may frequently contact with surrounding equipment. For example, when teaching an operation of placing a workpiece on a work table, the hand of the robot is opened in a state where the workpiece is brought close to the work table. In this case, when a position for opening the hand is too high, the workpiece can be damaged. Accordingly, the position for opening the hand is preferably a position at which the workpiece is close to the work table.
The worker moves the robot up and down for adjustments in order to teach a position at which the workpiece is located slightly above the work table. When the worker is performing the operation of bringing the workpiece close to the work table, the workpiece may contact with the work table.
When the robot comes in contact with an outside object, it is preferable to cause the robot to retreat by an appropriate method. In a method of stopping a robot when the robot comes in contact with an outside object, the contact state continues and therefore the robot cannot be operated, which causes a problem in that teaching cannot be continued.
On the other hand, when the robot automatically performs a retreat operation, there is a problem in that efficiency of teaching work is deteriorated. For example, when the workpiece descends and comes in contact with the work table, control for causing the robot to automatically ascend is considered. Then, an operation of causing the robot to automatically ascend is set so as to be greatly moved in consideration of safety. Due to this, the worker needs to cause the robot to descend again to move the workpiece close to the work table. However, when the operation is not performed as desired, the workpiece may contact with the work table again. In other words, a state where the workpiece is in contact with the work table and a state where the workpiece is away therefrom may be repeated alternately. Since the worker needs to repeat the same operation, there is a problem in that teaching time becomes long. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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For economic and humanitarian reasons, it is desirable to decrease the number of traffic collisions between multiple vehicles, between vehicles and stationary objects, and between vehicles and moving objects such as humans. Accordingly, the development of image processing systems for vehicles that enable detection of an impending collision is desirable. In addition, the development of such image processing systems that are able to determine the context of an image, for example whether the object is a vehicle, stationary object, or person, is even more desirable since such a system can be used in a collision avoidance system installed in a vehicle.
Such collision avoidance systems can actuate the brakes or steering of a car, for example, so as to avoid an impending collision. The contextual information can be used to alter the brake or steering actuation of the car so as to help minimize economic loss, or so as to help avoid injury to a person during a collision between the vehicle and the person. One successful way to derive this contextual information from an image is to generate histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) descriptors from that image, and to analyze the HOG descriptors to derive the contextual information.
A variety of techniques used for extracting HOG descriptors exist. For example, two leading techniques are the Dalal-Triggs technique, and the Felzenszwalb technique. While these techniques are useful, the resulting data generated is voluminous. This can be a disadvantage in image processing systems utilizing multiple processors, as the bandwidth used to send this data between the multiple processors may not be available.
Therefore, further advances in the field of image processing so as to enable the extraction of HOG descriptors and the transmission of the HOG descriptors without the use of excessive bandwidth are desired. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a display device, a method of controlling the same, and a computer program.
2. Related Art
In the related art, various display devices which can display an image in front of user's eyes are suggested (JP-A-2012-173664, JP-A-2007-243540, and JP-A-2006-30802). In these display devices, a display unit is rotatably connected to a holder, when a user needs to look at an image, the display unit is positioned in front of user's eyes, and when the user does not need to look at an image, the display unit is moved to a position far away from the user's eyes. Therefore, the display devices with high convenience for the user are provided.
JP-A-2012-173664 describes a display device which turns on a display function of a display unit when it is detected that the display unit is positioned in front of the user's eyes by a proximity sensor and turns off the display function of the display unit when it is detected that the display unit is far away from the user's eyes by the proximity sensor. According to this display device, it is possible to avoid wasteful battery consumption.
However, in the display device of the related art, in order to try to avoid battery consumption, if the face of the user is not close to the display unit, display is not performed, and thus, the convenience as the display device tends to be sacrificed. Depending on the usage of the display device, there is a request to secure the convenience as the display device rather than to suppress power consumption in the display unit. In addition, in the display device of the related art, there is demand for improvement of security, power saving, compactness of the device configuration, reduction in cost, resource saving, facilitation of manufacturing, and the like. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field
The disclosure is directed to a polarization film, an antireflection film, and a display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A display device such as a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) and an organic light emitting diode (“OLED”) device typically includes a polarizing plate attached to an outer surface of a display panel. The polarizing plate may only transmit light of a specific wavelength, and absorb or reflect light of other wavelengths, to control the direction of incident light into the display panel or light emitted from the display panel.
However, the polarizing plate may be manufactured using a complicated process with high production costs, and may increase a thickness of the polarizing plate, which leads to an increased thickness of a display device.
Accordingly, a polarization film that does not include a separate protecting plate has been researched. The polarization film having no separate protecting plate may be effectively used for a thin display device. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to fuel delivery modules for automotive fuel systems, and, more particularly, to fuel delivery modules having contaminant collection traps.
Automotive fuel systems typically include a reservoir in the fuel tank and a primary fuel pump submerged in the reservoir to supply fuel to the engine. The purpose of the reservoir is to. keep the primary pump inlet submerged under operating conditions which could otherwise expose the inlet, such as when the vehicle is parked on an incline with an almost empty fuel tank or during cornering maneuvers wherein fuel moves away from the fuel inlet. A secondary pump is dedicated to filling the reservoir. In such systems, the primary pump delivers fuel from the reservoir to the engine and the secondary pump delivers fuel from the tank to the reservoir. In addition, filters may be used in cooperation with the inlet to the pumps to filter any contaminants in the fuel. The reservoir, fuel pumps and other components are typically, collectively referred to as a fuel delivery module, which will be used herein.
The inventors of the present invention have recognized certain disadvantages with these systems. For example, because the inlets to the primary and secondary pumps may require a filter, the fuel delivery module may include a large number of associated component parts resulting in a relatively large size to accommodate the components and filters. In addition, the filters may become prematurely occluded with contaminants due to the relatively large amount of contaminants that may be contained within the fuel, thereby decreasing the service life of the filter. Also, these filters may not be effective in filtering relatively small contaminants, which may prematurely wear the components of the primary pump, such as the fuel pump impeller, as well as adversely effect the fuel system. Thus, it is desirable to collect and trap contaminants in the fuel prior to the contaminants reaching the inlet to the primary pump.
An object of the present invention is to reduce the amount of contaminants entering a primary fuel pump. This object is achieved, and disadvantages of prior art approaches are overcome, by providing a novel fuel delivery module for an automotive fuel system. In one particular aspect of the invention, the fuel delivery module includes a reservoir having a bottom and a side. The reservoir stores a portion of the fuel stored in the fuel tank. A fuel pump is disposed within the reservoir and has a fuel tank inlet, a reservoir outlet, a reservoir inlet and an engine outlet. The fuel pump pumps fuel from the tank to the reservoir via the fuel tank inlet and reservoir outlet and pumps fuel from the reservoir to the engine via the reservoir inlet and engine outlet. The fuel delivery module also includes a plurality of contaminant traps formed in the bottom of the reservoir for collecting contaminants contained in the fuel as fuel is pumped through the reservoir such that the contaminants settle into the contaminant traps thereby reducing the amount of contaminants entering the reservoir inlet of the fuel pump. In a preferred embodiment, the contaminant traps have an oblong-shaped cross-section for enhancing retention of the fuel contaminants within the traps.
Also, in a preferred embodiment, the fuel delivery module includes a deflector disposed within the reservoir for directing contaminants away from the reservoir inlet of the fuel pump and toward the contaminant traps.
An advantage of the present invention is that the number of fuel filters used for the fuel delivery module is reduced.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the service life of the primary pump filter is increased.
Still another advantage of the present invention is that small contaminants are collected and contained so that it is unlikely that they will pass through the primary pump filter.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be readily appreciated by the reader of this specification. | {
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This invention relates to a semiconductor device and, more particularly, to a semiconductor device with a high beak-down power semiconductor device.
A lateral DMOS field effect transistor, which has a drain electrode on the surface of a semiconductor substrate, is abbreviated as xe2x80x9cLDMOSxe2x80x9d transistor. The other surface area of the same p-type semiconductor substrate is available for other circuit components such as other kinds of semiconductor device or other LDMOS transistor electrically isolated from the LDMOS transistor. For this reason, the LDMOS transistor is popular to the semiconductor manufacturers as an output transistor of a power semiconductor integrated circuit device.
FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate the prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor. Reference numeral 301 designates a p-type silicon substrate. A lightly doped n-type impurity region 302 is grown on the major surface of the p-type silicon substrate 301. A field oxide layer 303 is selectively grown on the upper surface of the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302. A gate oxide layer 304 is further grown on the upper surface of the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302, and is contiguous to the field oxide layer 303. A gate electrode 305 is patterned on the gate oxide layer 304 and the field oxide layer 303. In other words, the gate electrode 305 is partially on the gate oxide layer 304 and partially on the field oxide layer 303. The field oxide layer 303 is patterned in such a manner that the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302 is exposed to a gap formed therein.
A p-type impurity region 306 is formed in the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302, and is located on both sides of the gap. The side surfaces of the gate electrode 305 on the gate oxide layer 304 are aligned with the p-n junction between the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302 and the p-type impurity region 306. The lightly doped n-type impurity region 302 penetrates into the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302 under the end portions of the gate electrode 305. A heavily doped p-type impurity region 311 is nested in the p-type impurity region 306, and a heavily doped n-type impurity region 312 is further formed in the p-type impurity region 306. The heavily doped n-type impurity region 312 and the heavily doped p-type impurity region 311 form a p-n junction in the p-type impurity region 306. A heavily doped n-type impurity region 313 is formed in the lightly doped n-type impurity region 302 in such a manner as to be exposed to the gap formed in the field oxide layer 303.
The lightly doped n-type impurity region 302, the p-type impurity region 306, the heavily doped n-type impurity region 312 and the heavily doped n-type impurity region 313 respectively serve as a drain region, a channel forming region, a source region and a drain contact region, which form parts of the prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor.
The heavily doped n-type source region 312 is equal in depth to the heavily doped n-type drain contact region 313. The heavily doped p-type impurity region 311 is deeper than the heavily doped n-type source region 312, and is shallower than the lightly doped p-type channel forming region 306. The p-n junction between the p-type channel forming region 306 and the lightly doped n-type drain region 302 is shallower than the p-n junction between the lightly doped n-type drain region 302 and the p-type substrate 301. The field oxide layer 303 enhances the breakdown voltage of the drain region.
The heavily doped p-type impurity region 311 has a comb-like configuration, and the heavily doped n-type drain contact region 313 also has a comb-like configuration. The gate electrode 305 and the heavily doped n-type source region 312 are wound between the heavily doped p-type comb-like impurity region 311 and the heavily doped n-type comb-like drain contact region 313.
The prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor is covered with an inter-layered insulating layer 321, and a source contact hole 323 and a drain contact hole 324 are formed in the inter-layered insulating layer 321. The heavily doped n-type source region 312 and the heavily doped p-type impurity region 311 are exposed to the source contact hole 323, and the heavily doped n-type drain contact region 313 is exposed to the drain contact hole 324. A source electrode 325 is formed on the inter-layered insulating layer 321, and passes through the source contact hole 323. The source electrode 325 is held in contact with the heavily doped n-type source region 312 and the heavily doped p-type impurity region 311. A drain electrode 326 is further patterned on the inter-layered insulating layer 321, and passes through the drain contact hole 324. The drain electrode 326 is held in contact with the heavily doped n-type drain contact region 313.
A problem is encountered in the prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor in that a hot spot takes place. The hot spot is causative of serious damage to the prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor. In detail, the heavily doped n-type source region 312 and the p-type impurity regions 306/311 form the p-n junction, and the p-type impurity region 306 and the lightly doped n-type drain region 302 form another p-n junction. These p-n junctions serve as an emitter-base junction and a base-collector junction, and the heavily doped n-type source region 312, the p-type impurity regions 306/311 and the lightly doped n-type drain region 302 behave as an emitter, a base and a collector of a parasitic n-p-n bipolar transistor. When excess voltage is applied to the drain electrode 326 due to surge or an inductance-load turn-off, strong electric field is produced in the depletion layer developed on both sides of the reversely biased p-n junction. Then, the avalanche break-down phenomenon takes place, and bread-down current Ibd flows. Moreover, the carriers flow out from the depletion layer around the reversely biased p-n junction as displacement current Idis. The total current Ibd and Idis passes through the surface of the lightly doped n-type drain region 302 and the p-type channel forming region 306, and flows into the source electrode 325. While the total current Ibd and Idis is flowing through the p-type channel forming region 306 against the resistance Rb, the potential level Vb in the p-type channel forming region 306 becomes higher than the potential level in the heavily doped n-type source region 312 by dVb=(Ibd+Idis)xc3x97Rb. Then, the p-n junction between the heavily doped n-type source region 312 and the p-type channel forming region 306 is forwardly biased, and the total current Ibd and Idis serves as base current in the parasitic n-p-n bipolar transistor. The parasitic n-p-n bipolar transistor turns on, and a large amount of collector current flows in the parasitic bipolar transistor. The collector current gives rise to increase of temperature. This results in reduction of the resistance, and the reduction of the resistance gives rise to further increase of the temperature. Thus, the parasitic n-p-n bipolar transistor is increased in temperature due to the positive feedback between the increase of the temperature and the reduction of the resistance. All the current is locally concentrated to the current path of the parasitic n-p-n bipolar transistor, and the hot spot takes place in the prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor. Current due to the avalanche break-down is also locally concentrated, and gives rise to increase of the temperature.
The current path for the total current Ibd and Idis takes place in the p-type channel forming region 306 immediately under the heavily doped n-type source region 312. The p-type dopant impurity concentration in the current path is much lower than that of the remaining p-type channel forming region 306, because the p-type dopant impurity is compensated by the n-type dopant impurity in the heat treatment after introduction of the n-type dopant impurity for the heavily doped n-type source region 312. In other words, the dopant concentration in the current path is extremely low, and, accordingly, the resistance Rb is large in value. The larger the resistance Rb, the larger the increment of the potential level. Thus, the parasitic n-p-n bipolar transistor is liable to turn on, and the prior art n-channel type LDMOS transistor tends to be damaged. In an actual LDMOS transistor, the bipolar function locally takes place, and the LDMOS transistor is immediately damaged due to the rapid temperature rise before the positive feedback.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide an LDMOS transistor, which is hardly damaged.
To accomplish the object, the present invention proposes to offer passages for breakdown current generated at a predetermined portion.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor device comprising a field effect transistor fabricated on a substrate, and the field effect transistor includes a drain layer formed on the substrate and doped with a first dopant impurity for imparting a first conductivity type thereto, a gate insulating layer formed on a first surface portion of the drain layer, a gate electrode formed on the gate insulating layer and having at least one gate portion elongated in a first direction, a drain contact region doped with the first dopant impurity heavier than the drain layer for imparting the first conductivity type thereto and having at least one drain contact sub-region formed in a second surface portion of the drain layer contiguous to one side of the first surface portion and elongated in the first direction, a channel forming region doped with a second dopant impurity for imparting a second conductivity type opposite to the first conductivity type thereto and formed in a third surface portion of the drain layer contiguous to the other side of the first surface portion and elongated in the first direction, an impurity region formed in the channel forming region and doped with the second dopant impurity heavier than the channel forming region, plural source regions doped with the first dopant impurity, formed in the channel forming region between the impurity region and the first surface portion in a self-aligned manner with the gate electrode and spaced from one another in the first direction, a drain electrode held in contact with the drain contact region and a source electrode held in contact with the plural source regions and the impurity region, wherein at least one of the drain contact region and the channel forming region has a deformed portion directed to the gap between the plural source regions, and the distance between the drain contact region and the channel forming region is measured in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction so as to be different between the deformed portion and a remaining portion of aforesaid at least one of the drain contact region and the channel forming region. | {
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Monitoring operating conditions in commercial or industrial applications is often crucial to maintaining proper and safe operation of machinery. Material temperature can affect the performance of machines, apparatus, or systems. Continuous operation or repeated use often elevates the temperature of machines or apparatus, and uncontrolled or overly elevated temperatures may impair their operation.
The military has similar concerns as those of commercial or industrial entities regarding material conditions such as temperature. In particular, the military recognizes that operating conditions, such as temperature, affect the performance and the safe and proper operation of structures subject to extreme temperature variations. Such structures include outer body surfaces of high-speed vehicles and inner surfaces of chambered structures. For example, an outer structure of a vehicle in hypersonic flight will undergo surface temperature changes due to frictional heating when traveling at high Mach numbers. A chambered structure that can undergo extreme temperature changes is a combustion chamber of a liquid rocket motor. In either case, the structures are virtually inaccessible for direct temperature measurements during operation. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved lithography system and method. More specifically, this invention relates to a lithography system and method using catadioptric exposure optics that projects high precision images without image flip.
2. Background Art
Lithography is a process used to create features on the surface of substrates. Such substrates can include those used in the manufacture of flat panel displays, circuit boards, various integrated circuits, and the like. A frequently used substrate for such applications is a semiconductor wafer. While this description is written in terms of a semiconductor wafer for illustrative purposes, one skilled in the art would recognize that this description also applies to other types of substrates known to those skilled in the art. During lithography, a wafer, which is disposed on a wafer stage, is exposed to an image projected onto the surface of the wafer by exposure optics located within a lithography apparatus. The image refers to the original, or source, image being exposed. The projected image refers to the image which actually contacts the surface of the wafer. While exposure optics are used in the case of photolithography, a different type of exposure apparatus may be used depending on the particular application. For example, x-ray or photon lithographies each may require a different exposure apparatus, as is known to those skilled in the art. The particular example of photolithography is discussed here for illustrative purposes only.
The projected image produces changes in the characteristics of a layer, for example photoresist, deposited on the surface of the wafer. These changes correspond to the features projected onto the wafer during exposure. Subsequent to exposure, the layer can be etched to produce a patterned layer. The pattern corresponds to those features projected onto the wafer during exposure. This patterned layer is then used to remove exposed portions of underlying structural layers within the wafer, such as conductive, semiconductive, or insulative layers. This process is then repeated, together with other steps, until the desired features have been formed on the surface of the wafer.
Exposure optics comprise refractive and/or reflective elements, i.e., lenses and/or mirrors. Currently, most exposure optics used for commercial manufacturing consist only of lenses. However, the use of catadioptric (i.e., a combination of refractive and reflective elements) exposure optics is increasing. The use of refractive and reflective elements allows for a greater number of lithographic variables to be controlled during manufacturing. The use of mirrors, however, can lead to image flip problems.
Image flip occurs when an image is reflected off of a mirror. FIG. 1 shows an example of image flip. In this example, if one were to hold up plain English text to a mirror, one would notice that the text, viewed in the mirror, would appear to be written backwards. Thus, an image of the letter “F” would be seen as “” in the mirror. This shows that when an image is reflected off of a mirror, the projected image results in an incorrect image orientation, i.e., the image transfer produces image flip. Of course, if the image is reflected off of two mirrors, the image orientation of the projected image would be correct because the image is flipped twice. Thus, an image of the letter “F” would be seen as “F” after the second reflection. Therefore, it can be seen that image flip results when an image is reflected an odd number of times. Conversely, it can be seen that image flip does not result when the image is reflected an even number of times.
Current lithographic systems typically include a reticle stage that is parallel to a wafer stage, such that the image from the reticle stage is projected downward onto the wafer stage. In addition, current lithographic systems typically include catadioptric exposure optics that require a magnifying mirror, such as a concave asphere. This mirror enhances the projected image and enables better exposure of the wafer. The parallel wafer and reticle stages together with the geometry of a magnifying mirror, however, makes it difficult for the catadioptric exposure optics to perform an even number of reflections.
To illustrate this point, FIG. 2 shows a simplified example lithographic system 200. System 200 shows a parallel reticle stage 202 and wafer stage 204 using catadioptric exposure optics 212, having a first mirror 206, a beam splitter 208, a quarter wave plate 209, and a magnifying mirror element group 210. In this example system 200, an image is projected from reticle stage 202 using P polarized light. This polarized light is reflected by first mirror 206 directly into magnifying mirror element group 210. It should be noted that quarter wave plate 209 can rotate the polarization angle of the light. The reflected image from first mirror 206 passes through beam splitter 208. This is due to the P polarization of the light being transmitted by beam splitter 208. The reflected image from magnifying mirror element group 210 has its polarization angle rotated 90°. This light is reflected at the beam splitter surface onto wafer 204. Thus, S polarization is not transmitted by beam splitter 208. Subsequently, the image is reflected directly out of magnifying mirror element group 210 that contains quarterwave plate 209. Besides flipping the image, magnifying mirror element group 210 also reverses the polarization of the image. Thus, the image reflected out of magnifying mirror element group 210 is then reflected by beam splitter 208, since the image now has the opposite polarization as beam splitter 208. The image is then projected onto parallel wafer stage 204. Using this configuration, an odd number of reflections occur. As a result, image flip problems occur.
Several alternative lithographic system designs, however, have attempted to overcome the image flip obstacle. One such design is a centrally obscured optical system design. FIG. 3 shows an example lithographic system 300 with a centrally obscured optical system design. System 300 shows a parallel reticle stage 302 and wafer stage 304 using catadioptric exposure optics 312 with a first mirror 306 and a magnifying mirror 308. In this example system 300, an image is projected from reticle stage 302 directly into magnifying mirror 308. It should be noted that the image projected from reticle stage 302 passes through first mirror 306. This is because first mirror 306 is polarized (in the same way as beam splitter 208 above). The image is then reflected directly out of magnifying mirror 308 and onto first mirror 306. Besides flipping the image, magnifying mirror 308 also reverses the polarization of the image. The image is then reflected downwards by first mirror 306, through a small hole 310 in magnifying mirror 308 and onto wafer stage 304. In this configuration, magnifying mirror 308 is in the path of the projected reflection of first mirror 306, which is why small hole 310 exists within magnifying mirror 308. The projected reflection of first mirror 306 travels through small hole 310 in magnifying mirror 308 to reach wafer stage 304. Using this configuration, an even number of reflections occur. Thus, there is no image flip problem. However, this configuration has its drawbacks. As the image is reflected by magnifying mirror 308, some of the image information (namely the portion of the image that passes through small hole 310 in magnifying mirror 308) is lost. This can produce aberrations or inconsistencies in the projected image.
Another lithographic system that has attempted to overcome the image flip obstacle is an off-axis design. FIG. 4 shows an example lithographic system 400 with an off-axis design. System 400 shows a parallel reticle stage 402 and wafer stage 404 using catadioptric exposure optics 412 with a first mirror 406 and a magnifying mirror 408. In this example system 400, an image is projected from reticle stage 402 onto a first mirror 406, reflected from first mirror 406 and into magnifying mirror 408, reflected out of magnifying mirror 408 and onto wafer stage 404. In this configuration, reticle stage 402 is off-axis from wafer stage 404. This is because the image is reflected away from the reticle stage in order to magnify it using magnifying mirror 408. As shown, there is a small angle 410 between first mirror 406 and wafer stage 404. Using this configuration, an even number of reflections occur. However, this configuration has its drawbacks. Magnifying mirror 408 does not directly (i.e., perpendicularly) receive the reflected image from first mirror 406. This is because magnifying mirror 408 must be able to receive a reflected image from first mirror 406 and reflect that image through a small angle 410 onto wafer stage 404. Further, magnifying mirror 408 does not directly reflect the image onto wafer stage 404. As a result, aberrations and perspective warping of the image can occur.
Therefore, it is difficult to create a lithographic system with catadioptric exposure optics that can produce a high quality image without image flip. Consequently, most lithographic systems today use a design similar to the design of FIG. 1. This design performs an odd-number of reflections that result in image flip problems. As a result, when exposing an image using these catadioptric exposure optics, it must be kept in mind that the projected image is the reverse of the desired image. This can lead to increased processing time and preparation. This problem is further compounded by the fact that most lithographic systems used today do not result in image flip. As a result, manufacturers that use both catadioptric exposure optics and non-catadioptric exposure optics (i.e., systems that have the image flip problem and systems that do not have the image flip problem) must use two reticle plates-one with each image orientation. This can lead to higher production costs.
In view of the above, what is needed is a lithographic system and method, using catadioptric exposure optics, which produces a high precision image without image flip. | {
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This invention relates generally to a device for attaching a data sensor and, more particularly, to a device for attaching a fixed, non-contacting data sensor opposite a bearing equipped with an encoding element capable of being read by the sensor.
Publications FR 2 703 740, FR 2 730 283, and FR 2 740 186 describe different supports for a fixed sensor in the immediate vicinity of a fixed race of a bearing. Such supports are generally annular and include a guideway on which the sensor is mounted and held by an elastic immobilization means.
As can be seen in various documents, the described bearing assemblies involve a variety of designs for the data sensor supports, which may be attached to one or another of the bearing races, depending on whether the turning race is the outer or the inner race. The supports may also be clamped between the fixed race and a bearing seat mounting element or may even be adapted to an armature on the bearing seal.
However, such sensor supports require the design and specification of special tooling in order to make a different support for each possible type of application, which results in significant cost increases. Additionally, there is a need for a device that provides an easy immobilization of the sensor on the support, a device which is also simple and economical to make.
The foregoing illustrates limitations known to exist in present devices and methods. Thus, it is apparent that it would be advantageous to provide an alternative directed to overcoming one or more of the limitations set forth above. Accordingly, a suitable alternative is provided including features more fully disclosed hereinafter. | {
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Plastic cards bearing a magnetisable stripe are known. Information in the form of differentially magnetised zones of the magnetic stripe can be written using a magnetic write head and can be read by a read head provided there is relative movement between the card and the head.
Where the card is one which signifies pre-payment of a service or facility such as electricity or gas, it is important that the card be cancelled after the card has been entered into a card reader associated with the service or facility for which pre-payment has been made.
A card reader will normally include a reading head and hitherto, adjacent the reading head has been located an erase head comprising an electro-magnet, current for which has been derived from an appropriate control circuit which is triggered to provide the erasure current as soon as the information derived from the read head has been indicated as satisfactory by logic circuitry associated with the reading head. However the current requirements for an erase head and the time required for the current to flow make quite significant demands on the power supply for the unit and in addition, since the current for the erase head is controlled by a processor, the latter cannot be turned off until after the card has been detected as having been removed from the card reader. Again this makes considerable demands on the power supply requirements for the card reader.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative erasure device for erasing magnetically stored information on the card after it has been read. | {
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In the past, soil additives and plant fertilizers have been made synthetically from petroleum by-products and mineral salts. However, increasing public awareness of the environmental drawbacks of using chemical-based fertilizers has created a demand for safe, natural and more environmentally friendly fertilizers.
Waste organic materials such as waste from the food industry can be used to produce plant and soil fertilizers. Such fertilizers are relatively cheap to produce, and are also environmentally friendly, as they are made from a renewable resource, rather than non-renewable petroleum products. Another important advantage of such fertilizers over petroleum-based fertilizers is that they can improve the health of the soil, which in turn improves the health and yield of the plants. Organic fertilizers contain micronutrients and macronutrients that are not found in chemical fertilizers. The most important macronutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Secondary macronutrients include calcium, magnesium and sulfur. Micronutrients are elements essential for plant growth that are required in trace quantities. Important micronutrients include boron, copper, iron, chloride, manganese, molybdenum and zinc. In addition to these essential elements, “organic” fertilizers (e.g. not petroleum-based or otherwise chemical fertilizers) contain amino acids that aid plant and soil health. Organic fertilizers replenish the nutrient level of the soil and feed important soil organisms, such as nematodes, earthworms and microorganisms, which are essential for overall plant and soil health.
Chemical fertilizers do not contain the micronutrients and macronutrients found in organic fertilizers. As such, chemical fertilizers can only treat plants but not the soil. Also, chemical fertilizers may kill important soil organisms and tend to be readily leached from the soil, as they are usually composed of water soluble inorganic compounds that are easily washed away. Thus, chemical fertilizers are not retained long enough to have a significant effect on plant growth, while the chemicals leached from the soil can cause environmental damage, by pollution of nearby bodies of water.
A type of organic fertilizer is fertilizer produced from fish or fish by-products, which utilizes whole fish or fish parts left over from food processing. The use of the term “fish” throughout the application will be used to refer to whole fish, fish parts or by products of fish processing, unless stated otherwise. Fish fertilizer can be produced in two ways: (a) the formation of a fish emulsion; and (b) the hydrolysis of whole fish or fish parts to produce hydrolyzed fish fertilizer.
To produce a fish emulsion, whole fish or fish by-products are heated to extract oils and the solid material is pressed into a cake and dried to make fish meal, which can then be used for livestock feed. The liquid residue that has been pressed out of the fish cake is the fish emulsion used for fertilizer. There are two main drawbacks associated with fish emulsion fertilizer. Fish emulsion has a very strong, unpleasant odour due to the presence of decomposing proteins, caused by the high temperatures used during the fish extraction process. As fish emulsion is composed of the liquid pressed out of the fish cake, fish emulsion is primarily composed of water soluble nutrients and contains a relatively low concentration of oil-soluble nutrients. Therefore, fish emulsion is lacking in a number of macro and micro nutrients including oils, proteins and vitamins that are beneficial for optimal plant and soil health.
The second method of preparing fertilizer from fish involves the hydrolysis of whole fish or fish parts to produce hydrolyzed fish fertilizer. In this method, the starting material is ground into meal and then digested or hydrolyzed. There are numerous methods of hydrolyzing fish protein to break down solid fish into a liquid form, which fall into two categories: (1) enzymatic hydrolysis and (2) chemical digestion.
Fertilizer produced by the fish hydrolysis process has a number of advantages over fertilizer produced by the fish emulsion process. The hydrolysis process retains much more of the nutrients than the emulsion process, as the hydrolysate utilizes all of the starting material. In particular, hydrolyzed fish fertilizer retains the oil soluble nutrients which are excluded from fish emulsion. Therefore, hydrolyzed fish fertilizer provides superior results to fish emulsion fertilizer, as it contains the full spectrum of nutrients. Hydrolyzed fish fertilizer contains essential oils, vitamins, trace minerals, enzymes, and amino acids, which feed important soil organisms and are taken up more easily by the plant roots. Another advantage of the hydrolysis process is that it usually does not involve high temperatures. Consequently, the hydrolysate has very low odour as it does not contain decomposing proteins.
In some instances, consumers may wish to continue using chemical fertilizers as they are cheap and easy to apply. Organic fertilizer, including fertilizer prepared from fish, can also be used as an additive to regular chemical fertilizer. By using organic fertilizer as an additive, the chemical fertilizer is supplemented with nutrients found in organic fertilizer but not in chemical fertilizer.
In enzymatic hydrolysis, either preparations of enzymes or microorganisms are used to hydrolyze proteins into smaller peptides. The digested fish meal is then filtered to produce a whole fish hydrolysate composition. An example of enzyme hydrolysis is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,318.
Enzymatic hydrolysis of fish can be carried out using preparations of enzymes such as papain, which break down proteins into smaller peptides and individual amino acids. However, enzymes are sensitive to pH and temperature, as well as the presence of inhibitors and denaturants. Enzymes will only catalyze reactions within a specific pH and temperature range. Therefore, the hydrolysis reaction must be carefully monitored and controlled. As enzymes must be isolated and refined from natural sources without destroying their catalytic activity, this further increases the manufacturing cost. Enzymatic hydrolysis of fish can also be carried out with microorganisms, e.g. anaerobic digestion as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,022,665 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,106.
Hydrolysis of fish protein can also be effected with chemicals. However, due to the strength of the peptide bond, stringent conditions, i.e. concentrated acid or base and heat are usually required to completely hydrolyze the fish protein. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,788, fish is hydrolyzed with potassium hydroxide and heating, and then neutralized with phosphoric acid. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,383,845, fish solids are digested with ammonia under 300 psi with steam. Chinese Patent 1207380 uses formic acid, sulfuric acid and propionic acid at 80-90° C. Japanese Patent No. 4037679 describes refluxing defatted fish skin in 4 to 8 N phosphoric acid. However, as noted above, the application of heat causes the decomposition of fish protein, which produces unpleasant odours. Moreover, the application of heat to fish protein generally results in a reduction in the concentration of micronutrients such as molybdenum.
A common drawback of hydrolyzed fish fertilizers is inefficient hydrolysis or uneven mechanical breakdown of the fish protein during processing, which creates a mixture of liquid and solid fish particles. This creates a fertilizer product of high viscosity that is difficult to handle, such as measuring and mixing to desirable strengths for spraying from commonly available agricultural equipment.
Accordingly, there is a need for alternative processes that overcome the above-noted drawbacks. | {
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mixing-grade, quick-setting and slow-setting cationic aqueous bituminous emulsion-aggregate paving slurry seal mixtures. More particularly, the present invention relates to paving slurries formed with cationic and anionic emulsions prepared by emulsifying bitumen, such as an asphalt, in water with cation-active or anionic-active emulsifier and combining the emulsion with fine-grained aggregate.
The invention relates specifically to Plaster of Paris (Stucco, calcium sulfate hemihydrate) which is added to the slurry mix to extend mixing time at ambient and elevated temperatures and improve adhesion performance of the asphalt to the aggregate.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, emulsion slurry seals are formulated from (1) mineral aggregate which is a fine stone aggregate and/or mineral filler and (2) about 15% to about 25% by weight thereof of a mixing-grade, slow-setting emulsion containing from about 50% to about 75% by weight of bituminous residue (usually asphalt), with a further addition of about 5% to about 25% of water, based on the weight of the dry aggregate, to attain slurry consistency. Usually, densely-graded aggregates, such as granite screenings, limestone screenings, dolomite screenings and blast furnace slag, are combined with bituminous emulsions to produce slurry seal compositions. These aggregates range in size from anything passing all through a sieve of No. 4, and even No. 10 mesh, with from 15% to 20% passing through as fine a mesh as 200 mesh, as described in ASTM C136.
The advent of slurry seal as a paving and road maintenance technique was first developed for use with anionic aqueous bituminous emulsions. A slurry seal is an intimate mixture of emulsified bituminous material and fine-grained aggregate held in suitable suspension until applied to the road surface. The slurry seal emulsion must be of an oil-in-water type. In such a mixture with aggregate, the aqueous emulsion form of the bituminous material has been generally preferred because it is less hazardous and more economical to use than hot mix or cutback (solvent containing) asphalts. Further, the aqueous emulsion form can be stored, transported and applied at much lower temperatures, obviating the necessity of heating equipment to maintain a bitumen-aggregate system in a workable or usable form. While these advances have been recognized, widespread acceptance has not been achieved due to disadvantages found in previous aqueous bituminous emulsions.
More recently, cationic bituminous emulsions have come into use and eliminate many of the disadvantages of the earlier conventional anionic emulsions. Bituminous emulsions formulated using cationic emulsifiers do not "break" in the same manner as anionic emulsions, but rather the bituminous material is deposited from the emulsion due to the attraction of polar charges between the bituminous droplets and negatively charged aggregate surfaces. Thus, cationic bituminous emulsions deposit more rapidly than the anionic bituminous emulsions on aggregate surfaces and are bonded to the aggregate by the electrostatic action at the interface of the bitumen and the aggregate material.
The aqueous cationic and anionic bituminous emulsions themselves are relatively stable, and the emulsion stability may be enhanced by various additives well known in the art. Most cationic bituminous emulsions, however, deposit on the surface of aggregate materials rapidly when aggregate is contacted with the emulsions. Bitumen from an aqueous cationic bituminous emulsion is deposited from the emulsion due to the charge attraction between the bituminous droplets and the aggregate materials. The rapid setting action of cationic bituminous emulsions is of considerable advantage in road building, such as seal coats, since the roads can be opened to traffic shortly after application of the coating. Although the rate of asphalt deposition, for example, from the emulsion can be controlled to some extent, the time required for complete deposition is never very long and it is therefore the practice to combine the cationic emulsion with the aggregate at the site of road construction, either on the surface of the road itself, or in a mobile mixer which permits the emulsion aggregate mix to be rapidly spread. Due to the charge attraction mechanism, the rapidity of deposition of bituminous materials from the cationic emulsion is closely related to the generally negatively charged surface area of the aggregate or filler material. Thus, while a specific cationic bituminous emulsion might provide suitable properties for use in conjunction with some aggregates, the same cationic emulsion may not exhibit suitable properties when used with very finely ground materials having vastly larger total surface area. The rapid deposition characteristics of the cationic bituminous emulsions frequently makes it impossible to use such emulsions with fine-grained aggregate in slurry form such as in gun application or spreader box application. Therefore, since the slurry seal should mix well, pump well, lay down well, not stiffen while being applied, and, after setting, wear well under traffic, it is particularly desirable to be able to control the setting time of the slurry for various aggregates employed.
Acidified polyamine condensates of certain polycarboxylic acids, anhydrides, sulfonated fatty acids and epoxidized glycerides with certain polyamines are suitable emulsifiers yielding asphalt emulsions which can be mixed with fine grained aggregate to give workable aggregate/emulsion mixes.
These types of emulsifiers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,269 to Schreuders et al., U. S. Pat. No. 4,450,011 to Schilling et al., U. S. Pat. No. 4,547,224 to Schilling et al., U. S. Pat. No. 4,462,890 to Schilling et al., U. S. Pat. No. 4,464,286 to Schilling, and U. S. Pat. No. 4,597,799 to Schilling.
However, cationic emulsions produced with the emulsifiers can only be mixed with aggregates when the temperature of the emulsion or the aggregate is below 100.degree. F or when the aggregate surfaces are only moderately charged. In hotter climates where the temperature of the mixes are as high as 120.degree. F and when highly charged aggregates have to be used, these emulsions fail the mixing process.
Anionic emulsifiers, which are very versatile and which properties can be widely varied by changing of the pH-value of the corresponding soap solutions, are prepared by reacting the above described polyamine condensates with acrylic acid, metacrylic acid, fumaric acid, maleic acid, chloroacetic acid, formaldehyde and sodium sulfite and other reactive acids capable to substitute one or more hydrogens attached to the nitrogen atoms of the polyamines. Emulsifiers of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,642 to Schilling et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,992 to Schilling et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,547,224 to Schilling.
Ferm in U.S. Pat. No. 3,740,244, teaches the preparation of quick setting anionic slurry seal compositions by applying a combination of anionic emulsifiers such as arylethyl sulfonates and condensation products of alkylphenols with ethyleneoxide; Schreuders in U.S. Pat. No. 3,615,796 teaches the use of petroleum sulfonates a quick setting anionic emulsifier. However, emulsions prepared with these types of emulsifiers show, in contrast to emulsions prepared with cationic emulsifiers, poor adhesion of asphalt to the aggregate. This can be determined with the boiling test, where slurry seal specimens after setting and curing are boiled in water for 10 minutes and the area of uncoated stone (aggregate) is determined.
When alkyl sulfonates are used as the emulsifier, the adhesion of the asphalt to the aggregate in the final matrix is known to be very poor (less than 30-40%). The tall oil derived aminoalkyl carboxylic acids are improved products in this respect (50-70% coating). The percent coating achieved by using these emulsifiers can be influenced by the pH-value at which the emulsions are prepared. In order to obtain better mixing performance of the emulsions with the aggregate, it is necessary to increase the pH-value of the soap to pH-values higher than 11.0 or to add small amounts of alkali to the mixing water prior to the addition of the anionic bituminous emulsion. The higher the pH-value, the higher the degree of ionization of the carboxyl groups. However, increasing the pH-value is detrimental to the adhesion performance of the asphalt to the aggregate. Both properties are based on the repulsive forces between the negatively charged asphalt droplets and the negatively charged aggregate surfaces.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a neutral mixing aid which, when added in small amounts to a cationic slurry seal mix, prolongs mixing time and allows to place mixes at elevated temperatures (up to 120.degree. -130.degree. F.), and improves adhesion.
A further objective is to provide a neutral mixing aid which, when added in small amounts to an anionic emulsion prepared at high pH-value, restores or improves the adhesion of asphalt to aggregate in the resulting slurry seal matrix after evaporation of the water.
A further object of this invention is to provide a novel mixture of aggregate and bituminous emulsion.
A further object is to provide a mixture of the above character which is workable under a broad range of conditions.
Another object is to provide a mixture of cationic bituminous emulsion and aggregate whose setting time can be varied.
A particular object is to provide an aqueous bituminous emulsion fine-grained aggregate slurry mixture which deposits at a fairly rapid rate after being applied to the surface to be treated, and is usable for a longer period of time to enable application in slurry form. | {
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Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of energy management, and more particularly to a demand response dispatch system employing weather induced facility energy consumption characterizations.
Description of the Related Art
One problem with resources such as electricity, water, fossil fuels, and their derivatives (e.g., natural gas) is related to supply and demand. That is, production of a resource often is not in synchronization with demand for the resource. In addition, the delivery and transport infrastructure for these resources is limited in that it cannot instantaneously match production levels to provide for constantly fluctuating consumption levels. As anyone who has participated in a rolling blackout will concur, the times are more and more frequent when resource consumers are forced to face the realities of limited resource production.
Another problem with resources such as water and fossil fuels (which are ubiquitously employed to produce electricity) is their limited supply along with the detrimental impacts (e.g., carbon emissions) of their use. Public and political pressure for conservation of resources is prevalent, and the effects of this pressure is experienced across the spectrum of resource providers, resource producers and managers, and resource consumers.
It is no surprise, then, that the electrical power generation and distribution community has been taking proactive measures to protect limited instantaneous supplies of electrical power by 1) imposing demand charges on consumers in addition to their monthly usage charge and 2) providing incentives for conservation in the form of rebates and reduced charges. In prior years, consumers merely paid for the total amount of power that they consumed over a billing period. Today, most energy suppliers are not only charging customers for the total amount of electricity they have consumed over the billing period, but they are additionally charging for peak demand. Peak demand is the greatest amount of energy that a customer uses during a measured period of time, typically on the order of minutes. In addition, energy suppliers are providing rebate and incentive programs that reward consumers for so called energy efficiency upgrades (e.g., lighting and surrounding environment controlled by occupancy sensors, efficient cooling and refrigeration, etc.) in their facilities that result in reductions of both peak and overall demand. Similar programs are prevalent in the water production and consumption community as well.
Demand reduction and energy efficiency programs may be implemented and administered directly by energy providers (i.e., the utilities themselves) or they may be contracted out to third parties, so called energy services companies (ESCOs). ESCOs directly contract with energy consumers and also contract with the energy providers to, say, reduce the demand of a certain resource in a certain area by a specified percentage, where the reduction may be constrained to a certain period of time (i.e., via a demand response program) or the reduction may permanent (i.e., via an energy efficiency program).
The above examples are merely examples of the types of programs that are employed in the art to reduce consumption and foster conservation of limited resources. Regardless of the vehicle that is employed, what is important to both producers and consumers is that they be able to understand and appreciate the effects of demand reduction and efficiency actions that are performed, say, on individual buildings. How does a building manager know that the capital outlay made to replace 400 windows will result in savings that allow for return of capital within three years? How does an ESCO validate for a contracting regional transmission operator (e.g., Tennessee Valley Authority) that energy efficiency programs implemented on 1,000 consumers will result in a 15 percent reduction in baseline power consumption?
The answers to the above questions are not straightforward, primarily because, as one skilled in the art will appreciate, weather drives consumption. Weather is not the only driver in consumption, but it is significant. For instance, how can a building's energy consumption in January of one year be compared to its consumption in January of another year when average temperatures in the two month's being compared differ by 25 degrees? Is the difference between the two month's power consumption due to weather, or implementation of an energy efficiency program, or a combination of both?
Fortunately, those in the art have developed complex, but widely accepted, normalization techniques that provide for weather normalization of energy use data so that consumption by a building in two different months can be compared without the confusion associated with how outside temperature affects energy use. These modeling techniques provide for normalization of energy use data for buildings and groups of buildings, and they are accurate for the above purposes when employed for energy use periods typically ranging from years down to days. That is, given sufficient historical energy use data (“baseline data”), a model can be developed using these normalization techniques that can be used to accurately estimate the energy consumption of the building as a function of outside temperature. These estimates are used to remove weather effects from an energy use profile and also to predict energy use as a function of temperature.
The present inventors have observed, however, that conventional normalization techniques, utterly fail to be accurate and useful when energy use data granularity is less than a 24-hour period. Normalization models that are derived from energy use data having granularities on the order of six hours, one hour, 15 minutes, etc., have been shown to be exceedingly deficient in accuracy and are thus unreliable.
Accordingly, what is needed is a technique that provides for accurately estimating energy use as a function of temperature, where the technique is derived from and is applicable to, energy consumption periods less than 24 hours.
What is also needed is an apparatus and method for employing fine-grained (i.e., less than 24 hours) energy use data to derive an accurate model for energy use based upon outside temperature.
What is additionally needed is a fine-grained baseline energy data weather normalization apparatus and method.
What is further needed is a system for characterizing a building's energy consumption as a function of temperature that is applicable at resolutions less than one day.
What is moreover needed are mechanisms that understand and employ the transient energy use responses of buildings for purposes of energy consumption predictions covering individual buildings, groups of buildings, and larger areas. | {
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Acrylic compositions and their use in a wide variety of coating applications are known in the art. In a coating composition, acrylic compositions, along with a suitable cross-linking agent, generally produce a film having good film properties, such as resistance to scratch, mar, and chip. Coating compositions that utilize acrylic compositions typically require solvents to dissolve or otherwise reduce the acrylic composition for processing and application purposes. Solvents are required primarily due to a high molecular weight and a correspondingly high viscosity for the acrylic composition.
It is known that there is a movement toward utilizing acrylic compositions that have lower molecular weights so as to reduce the overall amount of solvents, i.e., volatile organic compounds (VOCs), required in the coating composition. However, it is also known that coating compositions that utilize acrylic compositions with lower molecular weights produce films that have poorer film properties as evidence by decreased scratch, mar, and chip performance.
Highly branched, e.g. star, compositions are being utilized more frequently because they offer higher molecular weights yet they exhibit low viscosity, as compared to the viscosity of conventional acrylic compositions, i.e., acrylic compositions that are not highly branched. These highly branched compositions have, to date, primarily been polyester-based. However, some highly branched acrylic compositions have been developed by complex methods such as Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP) and Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT) Polymerization. These methods are complex, and are therefore generally undesirable, for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, slow reaction times, poor manufacturability, and a requirement for post purification of the acrylic composition.
Due to the inadequacies associated with the acrylic compositions of the prior art, especially the highly branched acrylic compositions developed by ATRP and RAFT, it is desirable to provide a new and unique acrylic composition and a relatively non-complex method to form the acrylic composition. | {
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The desirable appearance of food has much to do with its cosmetic eye appeal. Foods that are subjectively pleasing to the eye are generally more appetizing than those foods that are prepared in an improper or careless manner. One of the subjectively pleasing aspects of a food's appearance is its color and shaded nuances. The color of a prepared food is an especially important factor in the eye appeal of meats, including, but not limited to, poultry, beef, pork and fish. Typically, consumers prefer a darker color, ranging from a light brown in poultry products to a much darker, nearly blackened, color for certain beef products. Unfortunately, many conventional one-step cooking processes properly cook the food, but impart an unacceptable, nonappealing color. Other such one-step processes may produce food products with an acceptable color, but which are inadequately or otherwise nonideally cooked, i.e., not cooked to a safe internal product temperature.
In addition, it is difficult to attain consistent, proper color in many preprocessed foods. For example, chicken may be fully cooked at large food processing facilities. The cooked chicken is then quickly frozen and shipped to restaurants, cafeterias and the like. These restaurants retain the food in freezers until shortly before it is to be consumed. The frozen, precooked chicken parts are placed on the shelves of large warming ovens. After an appropriate time period, the chicken in the oven has been thawed and warmed to the ideal and safe temperature for consumption. Such chicken, however, lacks the light- to medium-brown color preferred by most consumers. Instead, the surface of this chicken has a beige color. As a result, the chicken does not have "eye-appeal" and is rejected on sight by a certain number of consumers. This rejection occurs even though the chicken is otherwise perfect and has an excellent flavor, texture and aroma.
Devices for the preparation of food are disclosed in many United States patents. These patents include U.S. Pat. Nos. Re. 24,296, 3,249,741, 3,479,188, 3,559,564, 3,682,643, 3,783,220, 4,051,347, 4,396,817, 4,701,585, 4,771,154, 4,943,697, 4,957,041 and 4,957,042. | {
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1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
My invention is in the field of hand tools, and particularly relates to wrenches for gripping usually hexagonal nuts or bolt heads and rotating such nuts or heads. My invention is in a subcategory of this category of wrenches, whereby a bolt or nut can be tightened or loosened by a reciprocating motion of the wrenchhandle about the axis of the bolt or nut--whereby the user avoids problems of access or of limited space for manipulation, without the necessity of the wrench being repetitively removed from and replaced on the nut or bolt head.
2. PRIOR ART
Most wrenches in this subcategory are known as "ratchet wrenches." They make use of a ratchet and pawl, and of separate means for gripping the nut or bolt head. The gripping means may be on a common shaft with the ratchet, or indirectly driven from a shaft on which the ratchet is mounted; or in some cases may be at the center of the ratchet wheel itself, in which case the bolt to be driven, or the bolt on which the nut is being rotated, functions as the common shaft for the ratchet wheel and gripping means. In all of these configurations, however, the gripping means are separate from the ratchet wheel, giving rise to slight increases in bulk, which in occasional circumstances can be a considerable aggravation, and also giving rise to some additional mechanical complexity and cost.
Standard ratchet wrenches of the common-axis type include those familiarly called "socket wrenches"; these are quite expensive and often inconvenient or impossible to use when the clearance above a bolt head is too limited to accommodate the ratchet head and handle, or when a nut is to be rotated on a bolt further from the end of the bolt than the depth of the socket.
Most centerless ratchet wrenches, while designed to avoid or minimize the problems of the "socket" type, yet have these disadvantages:
1. they require some slight clearance above the bolt head for placement and removal of the wrench;
2. they cannot be placed (as can an ordinary end wrench) on a nut which is to be threaded onto a long length of pipe or tubing at a considerable distance from the ends of the pipe or tubing; and
3. they are relatively expensive to manufacture.
Certain special-purpose ratchet wrenches minimize or reduce the first two of these disadvantages, but at the expense of aggravating the third: in these wrenches, both the ratchet wheel and the gripping means are open-ended, and their open ends are capable of being brought into mutual alignment, so that they can be slipped over a pipe, for example, and then moved axially into engagement with a nut. These devices tend to be more elaborate and expensive than ordinary centerless ratchet wrenches. An example of wrenches in this category is the type covered by U.S. Pat. No. 2,954,715, issued Oct. 4, 1960 to C. E. Wycech.
With some very expensive open-end centerless ratchet wrenches it is even possible to move the open end directly onto a nut or bolt head, without any axial motion at all being necessary; these wrenches are generally power-driven, and designed for specialized use by professional craftsmen. Representative of these devices is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,711,110, issued June 21, 1955 to A. J. Brame.
None of the devices of which I know provides a true ratchet action in an inexpensive open-ended wrench, such as would be suitable for hand operation by an occasional user.
One commercially available device permits rotating a bolt or nut by generally reciprocating motion of the wrench handle about the axis of the bolt or nut, without need for clearance axially, and at very low cost. This device is an end wrench without moving parts, one jaw of which is cut away to permit back-rotation of the wrench to reengage the bolt head or nut without completely removing the wrench from the head or nut. However, this wrench has the disadvantage that it must be back-swung more than a full one-sixth of a turn (that is, more than 60 degrees) to reengage a hexagonal bolt head or nut, whereas most standard ratchet wrenches reengage every 15 degrees or thereabouts.
Thus I know of no inexpensive open-ended wrench providing the equivalent of ratchet action with a backswing of less than 60 degrees. My invention is directing to supplying such a device. | {
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Thermoforming is a known technique by which a heated plastic foil can be shaped using a mold assembly. Generally, the mold assembly comprises two molds that can be moved relative to each other for clamping the heated plastic foil. At least one of these molds is provided with one or more forming cavities. The other mold is provided, for each forming cavity, with a pre-stretcher that can be moved into the forming cavity thereby stretching the plastic foil. Thereafter, an overpressure will be generated on one side of the plastic foil to force the plastic foil against the wall of the forming cavity. There, the plastic foil cools down and the shape of the product is defined.
For some applications, wall thickness of the final product, both in terms of size and variation among different products, is an important parameter. For instance, the thermoformed product may be required to cooperate with another product or device, wherein the latter product or device imposes size restraints on the thermoformed product. Typically, the size restraints only apply to certain parts of the product. As an example, a particular region of the bottom wall of the product may need to have a thickness within a predefined range.
DE 10 2007 023 301 A1 presents a solution to address this problem. In this known system, an upper mold of the mold assembly of the thermoforming apparatus is provided with a calibration element in the form of a pen that is either fixedly attached to the upper mold or it is moveably attached thereto. In this known system, the pen is partially arranged in the pre-stretcher. During operation, the pen is moved downward to engage the plastic foil before pre-stretching the plastic foil using the pre-stretcher. By clamping the plastic foil in between the pen and a wall of the forming cavity, it becomes possible to accurately define the wall thickness of the product at the position where the plastic foil is clamped.
There is a continuing demand for increasing the throughput of thermoforming apparatuses while at the same time allowing smaller variations in product geometry. The applicant has found that although the abovementioned known system provides a solution for products having a particular geometry, it may still show wall thickness variations for some product geometries that may be unacceptable for some applications. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer networks and more particularly to methods and apparatus for enhancing the performance of displaying images on Internet browsers.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World-Wide-Web ("Web") has become immensely popular largely because of the ease of finding information and the user-friendliness of today's browsers. A feature known as hypertext allows a user to access information from one Web page to another Web page by simply pointing (using a pointing device such as a mouse) at the hypertext and clicking. Another feature that makes the Web attractive is having the ability to process the information (or content) in remote Web pages without the requirement of having a specialized application program for each kind of content accessed. Thus, the same content is viewed across different platforms. Browser technology has evolved to enable running of applications that manipulate this content across a wide variety of different platforms.
The Web relies on an application protocol called HTML (Hyper Text Mark Up Language) which is an interpretative scripting language for rendering text, graphics, images, audio, and real-time video on a Web compliant browser. HTML is independent of client operating systems. So HTML renders the same content across a wide variety of software and hardware operating platforms. Software platforms include Windows 95, Windows NT, Copeland, AIX, Unix, and equivalent. Popular compliant Web-Browser includes Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
HTML interprets links to files, images, sound clips, and video clips through the use of hypertext links. Upon user invocation of a hypertext link to a Web page, the browser initiates a network request to receive the desired Web page. The selected Web page is loaded according to its HTML script formatting. Typically any HTML page image is stored in its full size in the Web server. When a HTML Web page is selected by a user, the full size image is sent across the network along with the HTML page. The HTML scripting language provides position descriptors and size descriptors for each image to be loaded on the Web page. The client Web browser interprets these descriptors. Each image is placed in a position as specified by the position descriptor. Similarly, each image is scaled as specified by the corresponding size descriptor. It is common for the dimension specified by the size descriptor to scale the full image stored at the Web server to a smaller size. For example, a Web page designer may specify a thumbnail view of a full size image be displayed on a HTML page. Although, this system of placing and sizing the image at the client Web browser works well, it is not without costs. The scaling down or reduction of full size images by the client Web browser has two costs.
The first cost is the time required for the client Web browser to scale and display the image. Scaling images from the stored full size format to a smaller scaled format can take considerable time. Web pages containing several images can take 30 to 60 seconds to load. The user must wait until the image is completely loaded if they want to view the entire Web page. Therefore, a need exits to provide a faster method and apparatus for loading images for display on a HTML page.
The second cost is network congestion. Sending the entire full size image formats over a physically limited network link causes an increase in network congestion. Many times the full size image format is not required and only a smaller image size is specified by the HTML size descriptor. The client Web browser discards the unnecessary additional image content during the display of the reduced image size. The process of sending an entire full size image when only a small image size is specified is inefficient. Accordingly, a need exists for a method and apparatus to decrease network congestion for transmitting images for display on a HTML page.
Another problem with resizing images on a client Web browser is the limited availability of scaling algorithms. The most common method of reducing the size of an image is simply to discard image content through removal of pixels. For example, to reduce an image by a factor of 1/2, simply remove every other pixel in both the x and y direction of the image. This method requires little computation resources and can be implemented on a wide variety of client Web browser hardware platforms. The use of these simple discard methods does not produce the most desirable image results. Many other techniques such as sub-sampling and averaging adjacent pixels produce smaller image sizes with superior image qualities. The required computation resources to implement many of these more sophisticated image reduction algorithms can be large. Many slower and smaller Web browser client hardware platforms cannot implement these algorithms. Moreover, many of these Web browser client platforms may scale an image using different methods producing results that are not uniform across a variety of Web browser clients. Therefore, a need exists to provide more sophisticated image reduction algorithms that can deliver scaled images, uniformly, to a variety of Web browser clients, regardless of the hardware resources available at these clients. | {
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In general, since a solid electrolyte type fuel cell can use hydrogen gas, natural gas, methanol, coal gas or the like as a fuel, it can promote the substitution of alternative energy for oil in electric power generation, and further, since waste heat can be used, it has attracted attention from the viewpoint of resource savings and an environmental problem.
This solid electrolyte type fuel cell has a laminated structure as shown in an exploded perspective view of FIG. 1 and a sectional schematic view of FIG. 2. That is, a solid electrolyte type fuel cell 10 includes an electric power generation cell 14 made up of a solid electrolyte layer 11, a fuel electrode layer 12 and an air electrode layer 13, which are disposed at both sides of this solid electrolyte layer 11, a fuel electrode current collector 16 disposed to be in close contact with the fuel electrode layer 12, an air electrode current collector 18 disposed to be in close contact with the air electrode layer 13, and metal separators 17 constructed so that a fuel gas can be supplied to the fuel electrode layer 12 and an oxidizing agent gas containing oxygen can be supplied to the air electrode layer 13. Reference numerals 20 and 21 in FIG. 2 denote grooves which become a fuel passage and an air passage, respectively.
The conventional solid electrolyte type fuel cell is operated at a high temperature of 1000° C., so that chemical energy of fuel can be relatively efficiently converted into electric energy, however, in order to operate the solid electrolyte type fuel cell at 1000° C., materials used for component parts of the solid electrolyte type fuel cell are restricted especially to materials superior in heat resistance. For example, as a structure material of the separator or the like, it has been necessary to use dense ceramics such as lanthanum chromite (LaCrO3). Further, an attached apparatus (for example, a preheating apparatus of fuel gas, or the like) for operating the solid electrolyte type fuel cell is also required to be made of a material resistant to high temperature, and because of the operation at a high temperature, the consumption of the material becomes quick, the use life becomes short, and it is inevitable that the cost becomes high. Thus, in recent years, a solid electrolyte type fuel cell which can be efficiently operated at a temperature lower than 1000° C. and in which metal material can be used for peripheral members, has been developed.
In such a low temperature operating solid electrolyte type fuel cell, lanthanum gallate oxide, Sc-added zirconium, Y-added zirconium, ceria base oxide or the like is used for a solid electrolyte layer. By using these materials, the operation temperature can be lowered to about 700° C., and a metal material can be used for a peripheral member such as a separator. As a metal separator material, stainless steel, nickel base heat resistant alloy, cobalt base alloy or the like is used.
Besides, an air electrode current collector material is one of a plurality of important members influencing the power generation performance of a fuel cell, and mesh-shaped platinum is conventionally used as the air electrode current collector material.
However, the surface of the conventional metal separator material is covered with a chromium oxide film under conditions of, for example, 700° C. in the air, and the chromium oxide has conductivity at a high temperature, and has such a property that when temperature is lowered, its electric resistance increases. Accordingly, in the case where the operation is performed at a low temperature of about 700° C., it has a defect that the electric resistance is too large to be used as a separator material. Thus, even in the case where the fuel cell is operated at a low temperature while metal material is used for the separator, a material having a smaller electric resistance has been required.
Besides, in the case where a platinum mesh is used as an air electrode current collector, platinum is expensive since it is a noble metal, and for reduction in cost, a high performance air electrode current collector material substituting for platinum has been desired. | {
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1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an optical intensity modulator used in optical fiber communications or the like. Such a monitor controls the output intensity of incident coherent light with an electrical signal. The present invention is also directed to an optical modulating element and channel optical waveguide for such an optical intensity modulator.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of optical communications, a technique of controlling the light intensity at high speed by an electrical signal is being developed intensively in hopes of future key technology. The following two approaches are mainly investigated as the means of realizing high speed optical intensity modulation.
One approach is to directly modulate the drive current of a semiconductor laser used as a light source. Although this system is simple in structure, a change in the laser oscillation state, particularly the broadening of width of a laser oscillating wavelength, occurs inherently because the drive current of a semiconductor layer is turned on and off. This broadening (chirping) of a laser oscillating wavelength results in a limit of light transmission distance because of the wavelength dispersion in an optical fiber, posing a serious issue for long distance transmission.
Another approach to high speed light intensity modulation is to use an electrooptic intensity modulator which controls the intensity cf light radiated from a light source. Devices using ferroelectric material such as lithium niobate or using multiple quantum wells (MQWs) of semiconductor superlattice have been reported. The latter devices have a performance far superior to the former devices, and have been greatly researched. An MQW optical intensity modulating element using excitonic absorption was reported in Wood T. H., Burrus Jr. C. A., Miller D. A. B. , Chemla D. S. , Damen T. C., Gossard A. C., and Wiegmann W "High-Speed Optical Modulation with GaAs/GaA1As Quantum Wells in a p-i-n Diode Structure", Appl. Phys. Lett. 44, No. 1, Jan. 1, 1984, pp. 16-18. This element showed a response speed of about 100 ps and a modulation factor of 20 to 30%. Another element was also reported which used a waveguide structure and showed an upper limit frequency of 10 GHz or higher and a modulation factor over 90% (for example, refer to Wood T. H. , Burrus C. A., Tucker R. S., Weiner J. S. , Miller D. A. B. , Chemla D.S. , Damen T .C. , Gossard A. C., and Wiegmann W., "100 ps Waveguide Multiple Quantum Well (MQW) Optical Modulator with 10:1 on/off ratio", Electron. Lett. 21 (1985), pp. 693-694).
These elements using a change in excitonic absorption by the application of an external electric field also present a problem for long distance transmission over an optical fiber. Namely, the refraction index is changed if the carrier frequency is set near the exciton resonance frequency at which an external electric field can change the optical absorption greatly so that the modulation factor can be raised easily. A change in absorption along with the refraction index with time causes the broadening of carrier and subband frequencies (wavelength chirping) and hence the wavelength dispersion in an optical fiber, resulting in a limit transmission distance.
With an interferometer structure, a sufficient modulation factor can be obtained by using only a change in the refraction index by the application of an external electric field. An example of such an optical intensity modulator using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer made of an optical waveguide is described in Walker R. G., "High-Speed III-V Semiconductor Intensity Modulators", IEEE J. of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 27, No. 3, March 1991, pp. 654-667. This modulator was reported that it showed an upper limit frequency of about 36 GHz. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to imaging of human body parts. More particularly, the present invention relates to imaging the edges of a body part or an object, such as a human foot including the footprint, arch and instep using a patterned background.
Conventional measurements of 3-D objects have used a laser scanners or area image sensors that scans the area of the object to be imaged. The sensors may be CMOS or charged coupled device (CCD) sensors, such as used in a digital camera. The scanners may be a single line CCD scanner or a PC scanner. Generally, the overall dimensional of an object are measured by imaging the edges of the object. The periphery of the object is constructed when imaging object edges that are contrasted from a different colored background. The edge of the object is interpreted using software algorithms that discerns transitions from the edge of the object from the space behind the object. The space behind the object has to have some degree of color from white or black different from the object so that the data input to an image processing algorithm can indicate the edge of the object. The edges of an object are often blurred or indiscernible from the background as a result of shadowing or the use of similar colors between the background the object. When the object being measured has any edges of a color similar to the background, the algorithm fails to accurately detect the edges, and hence the algorithm inaccurately determines the edges of the object. When the object is multicolored, it is often difficult to accurately discern the edges of the object as the background will merge wit the edges of the object. The inability to accurately detect edges leads to inaccurate sizing of three-dimensional (3D) objects. When contour imaging a 3D object using imaged edges, the scanning or sensing means circumscribes the 3D outline of the object by moving the sensor around the object to image plurality of edges around the object. The 3D image of the object then constructed will be made up of the continuous outside dimensions of the object and will accurately display the outermost dimensional contour of the object.
Other methods of imaging 3D objects include laser imaging methods that measured the depth of laser projected light beams as the beams are reflected back to a detector using beam deformation and position changes to image depth. Typically, the detector used with the laser detects the position of the laser beam over the entire surface of the object as the laser is moved. The laser imaging method often fails due to color, texture and reflection of the imaging laser beam. In both scanning and laser methods, the software algorithms are complex because the imaging process requires scanning and detecting areas of objects having light intensity such that the detector means may not be able to definitive discern the edge of the object. To detect the edges, prediction algorithms are used to fill in areas of the object that are imprecisely detected. Typically, the software algorithm is complex and slow and inherently unreliable. These and other disadvantages are solved or reduced using the present invention.
An object of the invention is to provide a system and method that indirectly images objects by contrasting the object with a predetermined background pattern.
An object of the invention is to provide a system and method that indirectly images objects by contrasting the object with a predetermined background checkerboard grid pattern of alternating white and black colored areas.
Another object of the invention is provide a system and method for cross-referencing human body and body parts dimensions to manufacture apparel sizes for accurately ordering apparel form manufacturers.
Another object of the invention is to provide a means of capturing both the weighted and non-weighted variations of feet to enable the imaging of arch height and type, and the spread of the feed under weight.
The invention is directed to an imaging system and method that indirectly measures an object using a background pattern. An object to be measured is placed in front of a predetermined background grid. Imaging means image the background pattern that is interrupted by the object placed in front of the background pattern. The system and method images the background pattern. When the ordered regularity of the background pattern is interrupted by the object, the edge is accurately determined by counting the number of alternating areas, such as black and white areas, from a known border of the background pattern or from other predetermined fixed reference locations, targets or purposeful irregularities within the background pattern. Software algorithms then determine the overall measurement of the object where the background pattern has been interrupted to indirectly measure the periphery of the object. A plurality of images taken from different perspectives provide accurate 2D peripheral measurements that are combined to provide a 3D measurement of the object being measured.
The imaging means may include an array of light detecting cells such as charged coupled devices (CCD) or complementary metal oxide silicon (CMOS) area sensors. These sensors are commonly used in a digital cameras having appropriate lenses that focus the image to impinge the image over an image area onto the area sensors. The image in digital form can be stored in a processing system such as a personal computer. A computer processing system is used to process the stored image during an imaging process. A plurality of images may be stored for respective different angle positions of the imaging means. Preferably, for each image recorded, the imaging process counts repetitive marks to reconstruct the visible area of the background pattern. The repetitive marks are preferably blocks in rows and columns of alternating black and white blocks of a preferred checkerboard background pattern. The repetitive marks are counted starting from a known edge position usually known as a reference target.
The imaging process processes the stored image by determined the edge of the object relative to interruption in the regularity of the background pattern. An expected error of one or two blocks, that is, the background pattern image tolerance error, can occur depending on the color of the object being imaged contrasted from the color of the background pattern. Each background pattern, area, mark or block, may be as small as is detectable by the sensor means. In the case of a checkerboard pattern imaging a human foot, for example, the block dimension may be only one millimeter and well within sensor and focusing lens capabilities. Conventional edge average smoothing processes maybe be performed during computer image processing to obtain an average edge contour line depicting the edge of the object accurate to plus or minus one block dimension. Each mark or block represents a fixed dimension. Counting the number of marks or blocks from a plurality of reference targets or from fixed patterned borders will enable by imaging processing, a method for determining the dimensions of the object being measured within one mark or block dimension.
The background pattern only needs predetermining contrasting marks for image recognition and processing. Alternating checkerboard blocks is the simplest to make and use as the preferred background pattern. However, there are several other types of background patterns that may be used. For example, Fresnel patterns may be used where each block deflects the light to appear like lighted and unlighted blocks to the sensor means. For another example, a sublighted platform where black blocks are printed on a clear or translucent bottom material so that light emanates upward through the light translucent blocks. The sublighted platform is advantageous because it eliminates top lighting shadows. Other patterns such as circles, rectangles, triangle, hexagons, among many other, could be used as well, for different applications and accuracy considerations.
The accuracy of the imaging process system and method is determined by the area, mark or block size of the background pattern. Each repetitive background pattern mark or block in the chosen background pattern will have a predetermined minimum number of imaged pixels that is greater than one. The sensory means provides an adequate number of pixels to image the marks or blocks in the background pattern. Each mark or block should have at least two pixels per mark or block in the background pattern. The sensor means must accurately detect each individual mark over a field of view (FOV), such as over a predetermined area of the white or black blocks in the checkerboard pattern when no object is placed in front of the background pattern. The FOV determines the lens focusing requirements for the sensor means. The lens focusing of the sensor means and the number of pixels over the FOV area to be measured must be such as to have at least two pixels focused on each colored block. When using more than two pixel per mark or block, the resolution and resulting quality of the process image is enhanced with improved resolution.
When an object of any color or pattern is placed within the checkerboard area, the imaging means detects an interference in the order of repetitive marks of the background pattern. In the case of a checkerboard background pattern, the regularity of the white to black block images are interrupted by the object. Of course, the object should not have a colored pattern the same as the background pattern. A detection tolerance error can occur when the object being imaged has a color pattern that matches the pattern of the background and when the object pattern is perfectly aligned with the background pattern, when is a highly unlikely event. Various background patterns may be used to accommodate the imaging of any arbitrary colored object.
A preferred use of the invention is for sizing a human being, more particularly, human feet for selecting suitably sized footwear and human bodies for selecting suitably sized clothing. In the case of footwear, great care is needed to provide accurate foot measurements and sized shoes, less the person wearing incorrectly sized fitted shoes may be subject to discomfort and even damage and injury to the feet.
The important parts of a foot to be measured are the periphery of the foot, including the length and width of the foot, as seen from the top of the foot over the approximate center of the forefoot, the side view of the instep and the side view of the arch. In the operation of the system and method, the foot is placed on a floor mat that is printed with an alternating checkerboard pattern preferably in black and white one millimeter blocks. As the scanned pixels in the CCD reach the edge of the foot being scanned, the color could be anything and the output of the CCD could be any voltage between zero and full scale, such as five volts. However, the CCD output sensor will still put out a zero or a one depending if the CCD output is greater than or lesser than one half of the full scale, such as 2.5 volts. From an edge border or target of the checkerboard reference to when the edge of the object is indirectly observed, there will be a discontinuity in the regular pattern of blocks imaged in the presence of the edge of the objects. The discontinuity is detected by a change in the regular image pattern. The computer process method will scan for discontinuities over the FOV area covering the placement of the foot all the way from the reference target positions of the checkerboard to the edge of the object being imaged. An image map will be compiled and stored in memory indicating each location point of discontinuity. The location points will trace an edge of the image of the foot. Repeated images taken from the sensor means at various relative angle to the foot, are then used to create a 3D image of the foot. Computer processing can convert the 2D images into a single 3D image of the foot.
In this manner, the system and method enables the creation of a 3D image of an object, such as a foot, by sensing the extent of a background pattern within a field of view to create a 2D image at a respective relative angle between the sensor and the object placed on a background pattern. The processing method indirectly determines the edge of the object on the background pattern at pixel locations relative to one or more reference targets to where the regular background pattern is interrupted by the object. The processing method converts the 2D image of the interrupted background pattern into a 2D edge image of the object. Multiple 2D edge images taken from different perspectives are combined together to create a 3D image of the object. During imaging of a foot, a unique bar code associated with the object being image is placed within the FOV and is imaged by the same sensor so as to associate a bar code with the image foot.
Once a body part, such as a foot, has been imaged by scanning and then dimensioned by computer processes imaged into precise foot dimensions including the top of the foot periphery, arch and instep, the foot dimensions are crossed referenced to the bar code for identifying the individual of the foot that was imaged. The foot dimensions can then be cross-referenced to the inside dimensions of footwear types sold by various footwear manufacturers. An individual then need only provide a retailer with an identification of the bar code card. Retail processing methods can then cross reference the bar code card and corresponding bar code to the imaged foot dimensions that are in turn cross referenced to the correct footwear size so that a customer can be provided with the best fitting footwear size produced by the footwear manufacturer, thereby, improving the footwear procurement process eliminating to a large extent returns of footwear due to incorrect sizing. These and other advantages will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Carbon nanotubes have been used by many for field emission applications. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) come in two families, single wall nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-wall nanotubes (MWNTs). Both materials are long (11–10,000 microns) and thin (0.001–0.1 microns in diameter). This high aspect ratio and the fact that they are semiconducting or metallic makes them ideal candidates for field emission applications. One problem, however, is if the CNTs are too densely packed, the CNTs shield each other from the strong electrical fields needed to extract the electrons from the material. The field emission from these materials is further improved if the CNT fibers are aligned in parallel to the applied electrical field. Also desired is an inexpensive way of applying the CNT material onto suitable substrate materials at low temperature and aligning these materials using methods that are suitable for large-scale manufacturing.
By growing CNTs directly on a catalyst, some success has been achieved in growing the CNT materials with acceptable density and alignment, but not always in a predictable fashion. Furthermore, the growth temperatures are high, too high for using low-temperature sodalime glass that is commonly used in the display industry. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to control of a motor, and particularly relates to a motor driver that drives a stepping motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stepping motor is used in order to operate sheet feed units of a copier and a printer or a capture unit of a scanner. The stepping motor includes a plurality of coils and a rotor. In the stepping motor, the rotor is pulled by magnetization force generated in such a manner that these coils are magnetized every time when a pulse signal is applied thereto from outside, and the rotor rotates by step by step. In general, a drive current for driving the stepping motor is adjusted by a motor driver, and rotation of the stepping motor is controlled.
For the purpose of reducing damped oscillations of the stepping motor, for example, a method is proposed, in which the drive current is decreased to reduce the oscillations in a low-speed rotation range and at the time of stopping the rotor.
However, in order to realize the optimum control states individually for a variety of stepping motors, it is necessary to set rates of attenuating the drive currents (hereinafter, referred to as “decay rates”) in response to magnetization methods, drive current values and the like of the stepping motors. Therefore, the motor driver is required to have a function to make it possible to set in detail the decay rate of the drive current in response to specifications, usage purpose and the like of each of the stepping motors. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Particulate filters are utilized to remove particulate matter from an engine's exhaust flow. After an extended period of use, however, the particulate filter can become overloaded with particulate matter, creating a risk for filter damage and reducing engine performance. The collected particulate matter can be removed from the particulate filter through a process called regeneration.
Two different regeneration strategies are known, including active regeneration and passive regeneration. Active regeneration is the burning away of trapped particulate matter at high temperatures, typically in excess of 600° C. These temperatures can be periodically achieved through engine control, electric grids, and fuel fired burners located upstream of the filter to heat the exhaust flowing through the filter. Passive regeneration involves the use of a catalyst to reduce an oxidizing temperature of the trapped particulate matter such that it can be continually burned away at a low temperature without the use of engine control, electric grids, and fuel fired burners.
When a machine is stationary, active regeneration is undesirable, as it can heat the exhaust system too high for the immediate environment. For example, if a machine was to stop and remain located over dry debris, it might be possible for the high regeneration temperature of the exhaust system to ignite the debris. Thus, when a machine is parked and idling for long periods of time, such as occurs during an overnight stay, active regeneration is generally disabled and/or prohibited.
Unfortunately, when the machine idles, the exhaust temperatures of the machine can be so low that the oxidation catalyst of a passive regeneration system performs poorly. That is, the catalyst only functions properly when the exhaust temperature is within a predetermined activation range (250-400° C.), and this range can be difficult and expensive to attain during extended idling. Thus, without operator intervention, passive regeneration may only be marginally successful at removing the trapped particulate matter during extended idling and, in some situations, may not work at all. When regeneration does not function properly, the particulate filter can become completely clogged, resulting in malfunction of the engine that requires immediate servicing.
One attempt at addressing the problems described above is disclosed by U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0284138 (the '138 publication) by Imai et al., published on Dec. 29, 2005. The '138 publication discloses a regeneration control method for use with a continuously regenerating trap (CRT). The CRT includes a diesel particulate filter (DPF), and an oxidation catalyst located upstream of the DPF. The oxidation catalyst converts NO from an engine's exhaust to NO2, which is then used to oxidize particulate matter trapped within the DPF. The NO2 oxidizes the particulate matter at a lower temperature than would otherwise be possible. As long as an activating temperature of the catalyst is maintained, regeneration of the DPF is occurring, and occurring at a rate corresponding to the exhaust temperature.
The regeneration control method of the '138 publication includes monitoring soot loading of the DPF, and classifying the soot loading into three or four different categories of increasing amounts. The method further includes monitoring a temperature of the exhaust. Based on the soot loading classification and the exhaust temperature, different regeneration strategies are employed. In one strategy, when the soot loading of the DPF is classified as high and the exhaust temperatures are low such as during extended idling, the exhaust temperature can be artificially elevated such that the catalyst is activated and passive regeneration is promoted. The exhaust temperatures are elevated through the use of multiple post fuel injections of the associated engine.
The system of the '138 publication may lack efficiency. Specifically, artificially elevating the exhaust temperatures during idling requires large quantities of fuel and, at an idling condition, the temperature must be maintained at the elevated state for long periods of time to remove all of the soot present within the DPF. Without further control over the regeneration process, time and fuel efficiency of the process may be low.
The disclosed exhaust system is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to a window regulator of the type used to raise and lower a window in a vehicle such as an automotive vehicle, and in particular to such a window regulator that has a long design life and an efficient braking system.
Window regulators are currently in wide spread use on vehicles such as cars and trucks. Conventional window regulators include a frame having a vertical guide portion which guides a traveller in movement between a raised position and a lowered position. A tension member such as a cable is secured to the traveller and passes around guide pulleys to a hub.
One type of window regulator employs a gear mechanism to rotate the hub. The hub is connected to a larger driven gear, which is driven by a smaller drive gear. The smaller drive gear in turn is rotated, typically by a manually operated crank arm or a motor.
In the past it has been conventional to use torsion springs positioned concentrically with the drive gear to engage an outer housing surrounding the gear, to form a type of drum brake. That is, the outer surface of the coil spring frictionally engages the inner surface of the surrounding housing to brake the window regulator and to prevent the weight of the window from causing the traveller to creep downwardly.
When window regulators of the type described above are used with unusually large, heavy windows certain wear problems are encountered. In particular, the bushings and the teeth of the drive gear may wear excessively. Furthermore, when the brake mechanism operates on the drive gear, the gear reduction provided by the gear linkage tends to make it more difficult for the brake to immobilize the traveller properly.
According, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved window regulator which can readily be serviced to provide extended life, and which provides a particularly efficient and effective brake mechanism. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The petroleum industry is increasingly turning to heavy crudes, resids, coals and tar sands as sources for feedstocks. Feedstocks derived from these heavy materials contain more sulfur and nitrogen than feedstocks derived from more conventional crude oils, requiring a considerable amount of upgrading in order to obtain usable products therefrom. These heavier and high sulfur crudes and resides also present problems as they invariably also contain much higher metals contaminant metals such as nickel, vanadium, and iron, which represent operating problems in terms of metal deposit/build-up in the equipment.
The upgrading of heavy oil feedstock is accomplished by hydrotreating processes, i.e., treating with hydrogen of various hydrocarbon fractions, or whole heavy feeds, or feedstocks, in the presence of hydrotreating catalysts to effect conversion of at least a portion of the feeds, or feedstocks to lower molecular weight hydrocarbons, or to effect the removal of unwanted components, or compounds, or their conversion to innocuous or less undesirable compounds.
Catalysts commonly used for these hydrotreating reactions include materials such as cobalt molybdate on alumina, nickel on alumina, cobalt molybdate promoted with nickel, nickel tungstate, at least a group VIB metal compound with at least a promoter metal compound, etc. High catalyst dosage will improve the conversion rate and reduce solid accumulation in the process equipment. However, there is an economic limitation as how much catalyst can be used, as a high dosage will drive up capital and operating costs.
There is still a need for improved catalysts with balanced material costs, while still offering excellent morphology, structure and catalytic activity. There is also a need for improved processes to prepare catalysts for use in the conversion of heavy oils and residua. There is a further a need for improved heavy oil upgrade processes with reduced build-up of heavy metal contaminants. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to weapon systems employing a liquid propellant, and particularly to such systems wherein the propellant is continuously pumped into the combustion chamber as the projectile advances along the firing bore.
2. Prior Art
Weapons systems providing traveling charge effects on projectiles, or rockets, or other related systems, are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,431,816; 3,411,403; 3,459,101; 3,496,827; 3,601,056; 3,613,499; 3,628,457; 3,648,616; 3,665,803; 3,696,749; 3,698,321; 3,712,171; and 3,728,937. In a final report for the Bureau of Ordnance, Department of the Navy, under Contract NOrd 16217 Task 1, dated Sept. 1, 1957, work was described on a propellant carrying projectile. "This projectile contained approximately 100 grams of a hydrazine, hydrazine nitrate, water monopropellant (63, 32, and 5% by weight respectively). Upon ignition of the primary bipropellant charge in the breech, regenerative injection of the bipropellants progresses in the usual manner, and the projectile is accelerated. The accelerating forces upon the projectile components are so adjusted as to produce relative motion between the projectile body and the center plunger. This motion expels the extrapped monopropellant rearward past the fragile seal disk into the hot combustion chamber gases, where it burns while the projectile is accelerated." The projectile apparently comprised a forward solid cylindrical projectile whose outer wall engaged the inner wall of the firing bore, an intermediate, longitudinally central rod journaled through a bore in the projectile, and an aft sealing disk fixed to the rod and whose periphery engaged the inner wall of the firing bore. The monopropellant was trapped between the forward cylindrical projectile and the aft disk within the firing bore. Solid primary charges were also used in lieu of liquid primary charges. A separate static sealing disk was also used in lieu of the peripheral seal on the aft sealing disk. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer networks and more particularly to dispersed storage of data and distributed task processing of data.
2. Description of Related Art
Computing devices are known to communicate data, process data, and/or store data. Such computing devices range from wireless smart phones, laptops, tablets, personal computers (PC), work stations, and video game devices, to data centers that support millions of web searches, stock trades, or on-line purchases every day. In general, a computing device includes a central processing unit (CPU), a memory system, user input/output interfaces, peripheral device interfaces, and an interconnecting bus structure.
As is further known, a computer may effectively extend its CPU by using “cloud computing” to perform one or more computing functions (e.g., a service, an application, an algorithm, an arithmetic logic function, etc.) on behalf of the computer. Further, for large services, applications, and/or functions, cloud computing may be performed by multiple cloud computing resources in a distributed manner to improve the response time for completion of the service, application, and/or function. For example, Hadoop is an open source software framework that supports distributed applications enabling application execution by thousands of computers.
In addition to cloud computing, a computer may use “cloud storage” as part of its memory system. As is known, cloud storage enables a user, via its computer, to store files, applications, etc. on an Internet storage system. The Internet storage system may include a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) system and/or a dispersed storage system that uses an error correction scheme to encode data for storage. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to data processing and, in particular, to inter-thread communication within a multithreaded data processing environment.
In conventional symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) data processing environments, it is typical for programming to subdivide the various workloads into multiple (and possibly numerous) concurrent software threads of execution. Commonly, some software threads are generally employed to produce data and are therefore termed “producer threads,” while others of the threads generally consume the data produced by the producer threads and are therefore termed “consumer threads.” This division of labor between threads requires inter-thread communication in order to deliver the data produced by the producer threads to the consumer threads.
In conventional SMP data processing environments, such as that illustrated in FIG. 1, inter-thread communication is typically implemented utilizing a “yank-and-pull” methodology. According to this methodology, a producer thread 100 produces a value, represented in this example as cache line A, which is accessed and processed (i.e., consumed) by a (possibly remote) consumer thread 102. In the depicted processing scenario, the current value of cache line A resides at some initial time in the local memory (e.g., a cache) of consumer thread 102. In order to establish an updated value of cache line A, producer 100 “yanks” the value back to its local memory by acquiring a semaphore that grants permission to modify cache line A and by issuing, via a coherent communication network, a request 104a for the current value of cache line A. In response to request 104a, consumer 102 invalidates its copy of cache line A, and the value of cache line A is transmitted to producer 100 in a data tenure 106a.
In response to receipt of the current value of cache line A, producer thread 100 performs the processing necessary to produce an updated value of cache line A. At the conclusion of its processing, producer thread 100 executes a store operation to release the semaphore and a barrier operation to make the release of the semaphore visible to other threads, including consumer thread 102. While producer thread 100 is performing the processing necessary to produce the updated value of cache line A, consumer thread 102 executes a polling loop in which it seeks to acquire the semaphore. When the release of the semaphore by producer thread 100 becomes visible to consumer thread 102, consumer thread 102 exits the polling loop and “pulls” the updated value of cache line A to its local memory (e.g., cache) by issuing, via the coherent communication network, a request 104b for cache line A. In response to request 104b, the updated value of cache line A is transmitted to consumer thread 102 in data tenure 106b.
The present disclosure appreciates that the conventional yank-and-pull methodology for inter-thread communication depicted in FIG. 1 has a number of drawbacks. First, the yank-and-pull methodology has a relatively high latency due to the execution of both the “yank” and “pull” phases and a barrier operation. Second, the yank-and-pull methodology consumes significant data bandwidth of the coherent communication network due to the two movements of cache line A. Third, the polling employed by the consumer thread in the yank-and-pull methodology contributes to low processor efficiency and unproductive power dissipation. Fourth, the yank-and-pull methodology is limited to communication between threads executing within the same SMP system that both have access to a shared address space (e.g., threads within the same process or logical partition (LPAR)). Fifth, to ensure security, the yank-and-pull methodology requires an underlying operating system to establish appropriate page table settings to authorize communication between the producer thread 100 and consumer thread 102. Sixth, the yank-and-pull methodology is limited to one-to-one pairwise communication between threads and does not support one-to-many, many-to-one, or many-to-many thread communication. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to novel amides, which are inhibitors of enzymes, in particular cysteine proteases, such as calpain (=calcium-dependent cysteine proteases) and its isoenzymes, and cathepsins, for example B and L.
Calpains are intracellular, proteolytic enzymes from the so-called cysteine proteases group and are found in many cells. Calpains are activated by an increased calcium concentration, a differentiation being made between calpain I or xcexc-calpain, which is activated by xcexc-molar concentrations of calcium ions, and calpain II or m-calpain, which is activated by m-molar concentrations of calcium ions (P. Johnson, Int. J. Biochem. 1990, 22(8), 811-22). Still further calpain isoenzymes are postulated today (K. Suzuki et al., Biol. Chem. Hoppe-Seyler, 1995, 376(9), 523-9).
It is suspected that calpains play an important part in various physiological processes. These include cleavage of regulatory proteins such as protein kinase C, cytoskeletal proteins such as MAP 2 and spectrin, muscle proteins, protein breakdown in rheumatoid arthritis, proteins in the activation of platelets, neuropeptide metabolism, proteins in mitosis and others which are listed in M. J. Barrett et al., Life Sci. 1991, 48, 1659-69 and K. K. Wang et al., Trends in Pharmacol. Sci., 1994, 15, 412-9.
Increased calpain levels have been measured in various pathophysiological processes, for example: ischemias of the heart (e.g. cardiac infarct), of the kidney or of the central nervous system (e.g. xe2x80x9cstrokexe2x80x9d), inflammations, muscular dystrophy, cataracts of the eyes, injuries to the central nervous system (e.g. trauma), Alzheimer""s disease etc. (see K. K. Wang, above). A relationship of these diseases with increased and lasting intracellular calcium levels is suspected. As a result, calcium-dependent processes are overactivated and are no longer subject to physiological regulation. Accordingly, overactivation of calpains can also initiate pathophysiological processes.
It was therefore postulated that inhibitors of the capain enzymes can be useful for the treatment of these diseases. Various investigations confirm this. Thus Seung-Chyul Hong et al., Stroke 45 1994, 25(3), 663-9 and R. T. Bartus et al., Neurological Res. 1995, 17, 249-58 have shown a neuroprotective action of calpain inhibitors in acute neurodegenerative disorders or ischemias, such as occur after cerebral stroke. Likewise, after experimental brain traumata, calpain inhibitors improved recovery from the memory power deficits and neuromotor disorders which occurred (K. E. Saatman et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1996, 93,3428-3433). C. L. Edelstein et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1995, 92, 7662-6, found a protective action of calpain inhibitors on kidneys damaged by hypoxia. Yoshida, Ken Ischi et al., Jap. Circ. J. 1995, 59(1), 40-8, were able to show favorable effects of calpain inhibitors after cardiac damage which was produced by ischemia or reperfusion. Since calpain inhibitors inhibit the release of the xcex2-AP4 protein, potential use as a therapeutic for Alzheimer""s disease was proposed (J. Higaki et al., Neuron, 1995, 14, 651-59). The release of interleukin-1xcex1 is also inhibited by calpain inhibitors (N. Watanabe et al., Cytokine 1994, 6(6), 597-601). It was furthermore found that calpain inhibitors show cytotoxic effects on tumor cells (E. Shiba et al., 20th Meeting Int. Ass. Breast Cancer Res., Sendai Jp, Sep. 25-28 1994, Int. J. Oncol. 5(Suppl.), 1994, 381).
Further possible uses of calpain inhibitors are listed in K. K. Wang, Trends in Pharmacol. Sci., 1994, 15, 412-8.
Calpain inhibitors have already been described in the literature. These are mainly, however, either irreversible or peptide inhibitors. As a rule, irreversible inhibitors are alkylating substances and have the disadvantage that they react nonselectively in the body or are unstable. Thus these inhibitors often show undesirable side effects, such as toxicity, and are accordingly restricted in their use or unutilizable. Among the irreversible inhibitors can be included, for example, the epoxides E 64 (E. B. McGowan et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 1989, 158, 432-5), xcex1-haloketones (H. Angliker et al., J. Med. Chem. 1992, 35, 216-20) or disulfides (R. Matsueda et al., Chem. Lett. 1990, 191-194).
Many known reversible inhibitors of cysteine proteases, such as calpain, are peptide aldehydes, in particular dipeptide and tripeptide aldehydes such as, for example, Z-Val-Phe-H (MDL 28170) (S. Mehdi, Tends [sic] in Biol. Sci. 1991, 16, 150-3). Under physiological conditions, peptide aldehydes have the disadvantage that they are often unstable on account of the great reactivity, can be rapidly metabolized and are prone to nonspecific reactions which can be the cause of toxic effects (J. A. Fehrentz and B. Castro, Synthesis 1983, 676-78.
In JP 08183771 (CA 1996, 605307) and in EP 520336, aldehydes which are derived from 4-piperidinoylamides and 1-carbonylpiperidino-4-ylamides have been described as calpain inhibitors. In WO 97/21690, aldehydes derived from N-sulfonylprolinamide were prepared. WO 96/06211 describes an aldehyde derivative analogous to the general structure I, but where Y is a xanthine derivative which does not carry any further radicals such as R1-X. However, the aldehydes claimed here, which are derived from heteroaromatically substituted amides of the general structure I, have never previously been described.
Peptide ketone derivatives are also inhibitors of cysteine proteases, in particular calpains. Thus, for example, in the case of serine proteases ketone derivatives are known as inhibitors, the keto group being activated by an electron-withdrawing group such as CF3. In the case of cysteine proteases, derivatives with ketones activated by CF3 or similar groups are not very active or inactive (M. R. Angelastro et al., J. Med. Chem. 1990, 33, 11-13). Surprisingly, in the case of calpain hitherto only ketone derivatives, in which, on the one hand, leaving groups in the xcex1-position cause an irreversible inhibition and, on the other hand, a carboxylic acid derivative activates the keto group, were found to be effective inhibitors (see M. R. Angelastro et al., see above; WO 92/11850; WO 92,12140; WO 94/00095 and WO 95/00535). However, of these ketoamides and ketoesters, hitherto only peptide derivatives have been described as effective (Zhaozhao Li et al., J. Med. Chem. 1993, 36, 3472-80; S. L. Harbenson et al., J. Med. Chem. 1994, 37, 2918-29 and see above M. R. Angelastro et al.).
Ketobenzamides are already known in the literature. Thus the keto ester PhCOxe2x80x94Abuxe2x80x94COOCH2CH3 was described in WO 91/09801, WO 94/00095 and WO 92/11850. The analogous phenyl derivative Phxe2x80x94CONHxe2x80x94CH(CH2Ph)xe2x80x94COxe2x80x94COCOOCH3 was found in M. R. Angelastro et al., J. Med. Chem. 1990, 33, 11-13 to be, however, only a weak calpain inhibitor. This derivative is also described in J. P. Burkhardt, Tetrahedron Lett., 1988, 3433-36. The significance of the substituted benzamides, however, has never been investigated until now.
In the present invention, substituted nonpeptide aldehydes, ketocarboxylic acid esters and ketoamide derivatives were described. These compounds are new and surprisingly show the possibility of obtaining potent nonpeptide inhibitors of cysteine proteases, such as, for example, calpain, by incorporation of rigid structural fragments.
The present invention relates to heterocyclically substituted amides of the general formula I
and their tautomeric and isomeric forms, possible enantiomeric and diastereomeric forms, as well as possible physiologically tolerable salts, in which the variables have the following meanings:
R1 can be phenyl, naphthyl, quinolyl, pyridyl, pyrimidyl, pyrazyl, pyridazyl, imidazolyl, thiazole, quinazyl, isoquinolyl, quinazyl, quinoxalyl, thienyl, benzothienyl, benzofuranyl, furanyl, and indolyl, where the rings can be additionally substituted by up to 3 radicals R5,
R2 is chlorine, bromine, fluorine, C1-C6-alkyl, C1-C6-alkenyl, C1-C6-alkynyl, C1-C6-alkylphenyl, C1-C6-alkenylphenyl, C1-C6-alkynylphenyl, phenyl, NHCOxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, NHSO2xe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHCOphenyl, xe2x80x94NHCO-naphthyl, NO2, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl and NH2, where the aromatic rings can additionally carry one or two radicals R5 and two radicals R2 together can also be a chain xe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90CHxe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90CHxe2x80x94 and thus form a fused benzo ring, which for its part can be substituted by one R5 and
R3 is xe2x80x94C1-C6-alkyl, which is branched or unbranched, and which can additionally carry an Sxe2x80x94CH3 radical or a phenyl, cyclohexyl, cycloheptyl, cyclopentyl, indolyl, pyridyl or naphthyl ring which for its part can be substituted by by at most two radicals R5, where R5 is hydrogen, C1-C4-alkyl, which is branched or unbranched, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, OH, Cl, F, Br, I, CF3, NO2, NH2, CN, COOH, COOxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHCOxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHCOxe2x80x94phenyl, xe2x80x94NHSO2xe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHSO2-phenyl, xe2x80x94SO2xe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94(CH2)nxe2x80x94NR12R13 and xe2x80x94SO2-phenyl;
X is a bond, xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94SOxe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94SO2xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90CHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Cxe2x89xa1Cxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94COxe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90CHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94COxe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94NHCOxe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94CONHxe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94NHSO2xe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94NHxe2x80x94COxe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90CHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94SO2NHxe2x80x94(CH2)oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90CHxe2x80x94CONHxe2x80x94 and
and in the case of CHxe2x95x90CH double bonds can be either the E or the Z form and
R1-X together are also
Y is an unsaturated heterocyclic ring such as pyridine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, imidazole and thiazole and
R4 is hydrogen, COOR6 and COxe2x80x94Z, in which Z is NR7R8, and is
R6 is hydrogen, C1-C6-alkyl, which is linear or branched, and which can be substituted by a phenyl ring which itself can additionally be substituted by one or two radicals R9, and
R7 is hydrogen, C1-C6-alkyl, which is branched and unbranched, and
R8 is hydrogen, C1-C6-alkyl, which is branched or unbranched, which can additionally be substituted by a phenyl ring which can additionally carry a radical R9, and by
xe2x80x83and
R9 can be hydrogen, C1-C4-alkyl, which is branched or unbranched, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, OH, Cl, F, Br, I, CF3, NO2, NH2, CN, COOH, COOxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHCOxe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHCOxe2x80x94phenyl, xe2x80x94NHSO2xe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl, xe2x80x94NHSO2-phenyl, xe2x80x94SO2xe2x80x94C1-C4-alkyl and xe2x80x94SO2-phenyl
R10 is hydrogen, C1-C6-alkyl, which is linear or branched, and which can be substituted by a phenyl ring which itself can additionally be substituted by one or two radicals R9, and
R11 is hydrogen, C1-C6-alkyl, which is linear or branched, and which can be substituted by a phenyl ring which itself can additionally be substituted by one or two radicals R9, and
n is a number 0, 1 or 2, and
m,o independently of one another is a numeral 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4.
The compounds of the formula I can be employed as racemates, as enantiomerically pure compounds or as diastereomers. If enantiomerically pure compounds are desired, these can be obtained, for example, by carrying out a classical racemate resolution with the compounds of the formula I or their intermediates using a suitable optically active base or acid. On the other hand, the enantiomeric compounds can also be prepared by use of commercially obtainable compounds, for example optically active amino acids such as phenylalanine, tryptophan and tyrosine.
The present invention also relates to compounds which are mesomeric or tautomeric with compounds of the formula I, for example those in which the aldehyde or keto group of the formula I is present as an enol tautomer.
The present invention further relates to the physiologically tolerable salts of the compounds I, which can be obtained by reaction of compounds I with a suitable acid or base. Suitable acids and bases are listed, for example, in Fortschritte der Arzneimittelforschung, 1996, Birkhxc3xa4user Verlag, Vol. 10, pp. 224-285. These include, for example, hydrochloric acid, citric acid, tartaric acid, lactic acid, phosphoric acid, methanesulfonic acid, acetic acid, formic acid, maleic acid, fumaric acid, malic acid, succinic acid, malonic acid, sulfuric acid etc. or sodium hydroxide, lithium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, xcex1,xcex1,xcex1-tris(hydroxymethyl)methylamine, triethylamine etc.
The amides I according to the invention can be prepared in various ways, which have been outlined in the synthesis scheme.
Heterocyclic carboxylic acids II are linked to suitable aminoalcohols III to give the corresponding amides IV. Use is made here of customary peptide coupling methods, which are mentioned either in C. R. Larock, Comprehensive Organic Transformations, VCH Publisher, 1989, page 972f. or in Houben-Weyl, Methoden der organischen Chemie [Methods of organic Chemistry], 4th Edition, E5, Chap. V. The reaction is preferably carried out using xe2x80x9cactivatedxe2x80x9d acid derivatives of II, the acid group COOH being converted into a group COL. L is a leaving group such as, for example, Cl, imidazole and N-hydroxybenzotriazole. This activated acid is then converted to the amides IV using amines. The reaction is carried out in anhydrous, inert solvents such as methylene chloride, tetrahydrofuran and dimethylformamide at temperatures from xe2x88x9220 to +25xc2x0 C.
These alcohol derivatives IV can be oxidized to the aldehyde derivatives I according to the invention. It is possible to use various customary oxidation reactions for this (see C. R. Larock, Comrenhensive Organic Transformations, VCH Publisher, 1989, page 604 f.) such as, for example, Swern and Swern-analogous oxidations (T. T. Tidwell, Synthesis 1990, 857-70), sodium hypochloride/TEMPO (S. L. Harbenson et al., see above) or Dess-Martin (J. Org. Chem. 1983, 48, 4155). Preferably, here the reaction is carried out in inert aprotic solvents such as dimethylformamide, tetrahydrofuran or methylene chloride using oxidants such as DMSO/pyxc3x97SO3 or DMSO/oxalyl chloride at temperatures from xe2x88x9250 to +25xc2x0 C., depending on the method (see above references).
Alternatively, the carboxylic acid II can be reacted with aminohydroxamic acid derivatives VI to give benzamides VII. In this case, use is made of the same reaction procedure as in the preparation of IV. The hydroxamic [lacuna] derivatives VI are obtainable from the protected amino acids V by reaction with a hydroxylamine. In this process, use is also made here of an amide preparation process which has already been described. The removal of the protective group X, for example Boc, is carried out in the customary manner, for example using trifluoroacetic acid. The amidohydroxamic acids VII thus obtained can be converted into the aldehydes I according to the invention by reduction. In this process, use is made, for example, of lithium aluminum hydride as a reductant at temperatures from xe2x88x9260 to 0xc2x0 C. in inert solvents such as tetrahydrofuran or ether.
Analogously to the last process, carboxylic acids or acid derivatives, such as esters IX (Y=COORxe2x80x2, COSRxe2x80x2) can also be prepared, which can likewise be converted into the aldehydes I according to the invention by reduction. These processes are listed in R. C. Larock, Comprehensive Organic Transformations, VCH Publisher, 1989, page 619-26.
The preparation of the heterocyclically substituted amides I according to the invention, [lacuna] carry a ketoamide or ketoester group, can be carried out in various ways, which have been outlined in synthesis schemes 2 and 3.
If appropriate, the carboxylic acid esters IIa are converted into the acids II using acids or bases such as lithium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide in aqueous medium or in mixtures of water and organic solvents such as alcohols or tetrahydrofuran at room temperature or elevated temperatures, such as 25-100xc2x0 C.
These acids II are linked to an xcex1-amino acid derivative, customary conditions being used, which are listed, for example, in Houben-weyl, Methoden der organischen Chemie [Methods of Organic Chemistry], 4th Edition, E5, Chap. V, and C. R. Larock, Comprehensive Organic Transformations, VCH Publisher, 1989, Ch.
For example, the carboxylic acids II are converted into the xe2x80x9cactivatedxe2x80x9d acid derivatives IIb=Y-COL, where L is a leaving group such as Cl, imidazole and N-hydroxybenzotriazole, and are then converted into the derivative XI by addition of an amino acid derivative H2Nxe2x80x94CH(R3)xe2x80x94COOR. This reaction is carried out in anhydrous, inert solvents such as methylene chloride, tetrahydrofuran and dimethylformamide at temperatures from xe2x88x9220 to +25xc2x0 C.
The derivatives XI, which as a rule are esters, are converted into the ketocarboxylic acids XII analogously to the hydrolysis described above. The ketoesters Ixe2x80x2 are prepared in a reaction analogous to that of Dakin-West, the reaction being carried out according to a method of ZhaoZhao Li et al., J. Med. Chem., 1993, 36, 3472-80. In this process, carboxylic acids such as XII are reacted with oxalic acid monoester chloride at elevated temperature (50-100xc2x0 C.) in solvents, such as, for example, tetrahydrofuran and the products thus obtained are then reacted with bases such as sodium methoxide in ethanol at temperatures of 25-80xc2x0 C. to give the ketoesters Ixe2x80x2 according to the invention. The ketoesters Ixe2x80x2 can be hydrolyzed as described above, for example to ketocarboxylic acids according to the invention.
The reaction to give ketobenzamides Ixe2x80x2 is also carried out analogously to the method of ZhaoZhao Li et al. (see above). The keto group in Ixe2x80x2 is protected by addition of 1,2-ethanedithiol under Lewis acid catalysis, such as, for example, boron trifluoride etherate, in inert solvents, such as methylene chloride, at room temperature, a dithian being obtained. These derivatives are reacted with amines R3-H in polar solvents, such as alcohols, at temperatures of 0-80xc2x0 C., the ketoamides I (R4=Z or NR7R8) being obtained.
An alternative method is shown in scheme 2. The ketocarboxylic acids II are reacted with aminohydroxycarboxylic acid derivatives XIII (for preparation of XIII see S. L. Harbenson et al., J. Med. Chem. 1994, 37, 2918-29 or J. P. Burkhardt et al. Tetrahedron Lett. 1988, 29, 3433-3436) under customary peptide coupling methods (see above, Houben-Weyl), amides XIV being obtained. These alcohol derivatives XIV can be oxidized to the ketocarboxylic acid derivatives I according to the invention. Use can be made for this of various customary oxidation reactions (see C. R. Larock, Comprehensive Organic Transformations, VCH Publisher, 1989, page 604 f.) such as, for example, Swern and Swern-analogous oxidations, preferably dimethyl sulfoxide/pyridine-sulfur trioxide complex in solvents such as methylene chloride or tetrahydrofuran, if appropriate with addition of dimethyl sulfoxide, at room temperature or temperatures of xe2x88x9250 to 25xc2x0 C. (T. T. Tidwell, Synthesis 1990, 857-70) or sodium hypochloride/TEMPO (S. L. Harbenson et al., see above).
If XIV are xcex1-hydroxy esters (X=O-alkyl), these can be hydrolyzed to carboxylic acids XV, the reaction being carried out analogously to the above methods, but preferably using lithium hydroxide in water/tetrahydrofuran mixtures at room temperature. The preparation of other esters or amides XVI is carried out by reaction with alcohols or amines under coupling conditions which have already been described. The alcohol derivative XVI can be oxidized again to give ketocarboxylic acid derivatives I according to the invention.
The preparation of the carboxylic acid esters II have already been described in some cases or are carried out according to customary chemical methods.
Compounds in which X is a bond are prepared by customary aromatic coupling, for example the Suzuki coupling with boric acid derivatives and halides with palladium catalysis or copper-catalyzed coupling of aromatic halides. The alkyl-bridged radicals (X=xe2x80x94(CH2)mxe2x80x94) can be prepared by reduction of the analogous ketones or by alkylation of the organolithium, e.g. ortho-phenyloxazolidines, or other organometal compounds (cf. I. M. Dordor et al., J. Chem. Soc. Perkin Trans. I, 1984, 1247-52).
Ether-bridged derivatives are prepared by alkylation of the corresponding alcohols or phenols with halides.
The sulfoxides and sulfones are accessible by oxidation of the corresponding thioethers.
Alkene- and alkyne-bridged compounds are prepared, for example, by Heck reaction from aromatic halides and appropriate alkenes and alkynes (cf. I. Sakamoto et al., Chem. Pharm. Bull., 1986, 34, 2754-59).
The chalcones are formed by condensation of acetophenones with aldehydes and can optionally be converted into the analogous alkyl derivatives by hydrogenation.
Amides and sulfonamides are prepared from the amines and acid derivatives analogously to the methods described above.
The heterocyclically substituted amides I contained in the present invention are inhibitors of cysteine proteases, in particular cysteine proteases such as the calpains I and II and cathepsins B and L.
The inhibitory action of the heterocyclically substituted amides I was determined using enzyme tests customary in the literature, a concentration of the inhibitor at which 50% of the enzyme activity is inhibited (=IC50) being determined as a scale of action. The amides I were measured in this manner for inhibitory action of calpain I, calpain II and cathepsin B.
Cathepsin B Test
The cathepsin B inhibition was determined analogously to a method by S. Hasnain et al., J. Biol. Chem. 1993, 268, 235-40.
2 xcexcL of an inhibitor solution, prepared from inhibitor and DMSO (final concentrations: 100 xcexcM to 0.01 xcexcM), are [lacuna] to 88 xcexcL of cathepsin B (cathepsin B from human liver (Calbiochem), diluted to 5 units in 500 xcexcM buffer). This mixture is preincubated at room temperature (25xc2x0 C.) for 60 minutes and the reaction is then started by addition of 10 xcexcL of 10 mM Z-Arg-Arg-pNA (in buffer with 10% DMSO). The reaction is monitored at 405 nM in a microtiter plate reader for 30 minutes. The IC50s are then determined from the maximum gradients.
Calpain I and II Test
The testing of the inhibitory properties of calpain inhibitors is carried out in buffer using 50 mM tris HCl, pH 7.5; 0.1 M NaCl; 1 mM dithiotreithol; 0.11 mM CaCl2, the fluorogenic calpain substrate Suc-Leu-Tyr-AMC (25 mM dissolved in DMSO, Bachem/Switzerland) being used. Human xcexc-calpain is isolated from erythrocytes and, after several chromatographic steps (DEAE-Sepharose, phenyl-Sepharose, Superdex 200 and Blue Sepharose), enzyme having a purity of greater than 95%, assessed according to SDS-PAGE, Western blot analysis and N-terminal sequencing, is obtained. The fluorescence of the cleavage product 7-amino-4-methylcoumarin (AMC) is monitored in a Spex-Fluorolog fluorimeter at xcexex=380 nm and xcexem=460 nm. In a measuring range of 60 min, the cleavage of the substrate is linear and the autocatalytic activity of calpain is low if the experiments are carried out at temperatures of 12xc2x0 C. The inhibitors and the calpain substrate are added to the experimental batch as DMSO solutions, where DMSO should not exceed 2% in the final concentration.
In an experimental batch, 10 xcexcl of substrate (250 xcexcM final) and then 10 xcexcl of xcexc-calpain (2 xcexcg/ml final, i.e. 18 nM) are added to a 1 ml cuvette which contains buffer. The calpain-mediated cleavage of the substrate is measured for 15-20 min. 10 xcexcl of inhibitor (50-100 xcexcM solution in DMSO) are then added and the inhibition of the cleavage is measured for a further 40 min.
Ki values are determined according to the classical equation for reversible inhibition:
Ki=I/(v0/vi)xe2x88x921; where I=inhibitor concentration, v0=initial velocity before addition of the inhibitor; vi=reaction velocity in equilibrium.
The velocity is calculated from v=release of AMC/time i.e. height/time.
Calpain is an intracellular cysteine protease. Calpain inhibitors must pass through the cell membrane in order to prevent the breakdown of intracellular proteins by calpain. Some known calpain inhibitors, such as, for example, E 64 and leupeptin, only cross the cell membranes with difficulty and accordingly show, although they are good calpain inhibitors, only a poor action in cells. The aim is to find compounds having better membrane accessibility. As a demonstration of the membrane accessibility of calpain inhibitors, we use human platelets.
Calpain-mediated Breakdown of Tyrosine Kinase pp60src in Platelets
After the activation of platelets, the tyrosine kinase pp60src is cleaved by calpain. This was investigated in detail by Oda et al. in J. Biol. Chem., 1993, Vol 268, 12603-12608. It was shown in this context that the cleavage of pp60src can be prevented by calpeptin, an inhibitor of calpain. The cellular effectiveness of our substances was tested following this publication. Fresh human blood treated with citrate was centrifuged at 200 g for 15 min. The platelet-rich plasma was pooled and diluted 1:1 with platelet buffer (platelet buffer: 68 mM NaCl, 2.7 mM KCl, 0.5 MM MgCl2 xc3x976 H2O, 0.24 mM NaH2PO4xc3x97H2O, 12 mM NaHCO3, 5.6 mM glucose, 1 mM EDTA, pH 7.4). After a centrifugation and washing step with platelet buffer, the platelets were adjusted to 107 cells/ml. The isolation of the human platelets was carried out at RT.
In the test batch, isolated platelets (2 H 106) were preincubated at 37xc2x0 C. with different concentrations of inhibitors (dissolved in DMSO) for 5 min. The platelets were then activated with 1 xcexcM ionophore A23187 and 5 mM CaCl2. After incubation for 5 min, the platelets were briefly centrifuged at 13000 rpm and the pellet was taken up in SDS sample buffer (SDS sample buffer: 20 mM tris HCl, 5 mM EDTA, 5 mM EGTA, 1 mM DTT, 0.5 mM PMSF, 5 xcexcg/ml leupeptin, 10 xcexcg/ml pepstatin, 10% glycerol and 1% SDS). The proteins were separated in a 12% strength gel and pp60src and its 52 kDa and 47 kDa cleavage products were identified by Western blotting. The polyclonal rabbit antibody anti-Cys-src (pp60c-src) used was purchased from the company Biomol Feinchemikalien (Hamburg). This primary antibody was detected using an HRP-coupled second antibody from goats (Boehringer Mannheim, FRG). The Western blotting was carried out according to known methods.
The quantification of the cleavage of pp60src was carried out by densitometry, the controls used being nonactivated platelets (control 1: no cleavage) and platelets treated with ionophore and calcium (control 2: corresponds to 100% cleavage). The ED50 value corresponds to the concentration of inhibitor at which the intensity of the color reaction is reduced by 50%.
Glutamate-induced Cell Death in Cortical Neurones
The test was carried out as in Choi D. W., Maulucci-Gedde M. A. and Kriegstein A. R., xe2x80x9cGlutamate neurotoxicity in cortical cell culturexe2x80x9d. J. Neurosci. 1989, 7, 357-368.
The halves of the cortex of 15 day-old mouse embryos were dissected and the individual cells were obtained enzymatically (trypsin). These cells (glia and cortical neurons) are inoculated into 24-well plates. After three days (laminin-coated plates) or seven days (ornithine-coated plates), the mitosis treatment is carried out using FDU (5-fluoro-2-deoxyuridines). 15 days after the cell preparation, cell death is induced by addition of glutamate (15 minutes). After the removal of glutamate, the calpain inhibitors are added. 24 hours later, the cell damage is determined by means of the determination of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in the cell culture supernatant.
It is postulated that calpain also plays a part in apoptotic cell death (M. K. T. Squier et al. J. Cell. Physiol. 1994, 159, 229-237; T. Patel et al. Faseb Journal 1996, 590, 587-597). Therefore, in a further model, cell death was inducted with calcium in the presence of a calcium ionophore in a human cell line. Calpain inhibitors must pass into the cell and inhibit calpain there in order to prevent the induced cell death.
Calcium-mediated Cell Death in NT2 Cells
Cell death can be induced in the human cell line NT2 (precursor cells, Strategene GmbH) by means of calcium in the presence of the ionophore A 23187. 105 cells/well were plated out into microtiter plates 20 hours before the experiment. After this period, the cells were incubated with various concentrations of inhibitors in the presence of 2.5 xcexcM ionophore and 5 mM calcium. 0.05 ml of XTT (cell proliferation kit II, Boehringer Mannheim) was added to the reaction batch after 5 hours. The optical density is determined approximately 17 hours later, according to the instructions of the manufacturer, in the Easy Reader EAR 400 from the company SLT. The optical density at which half of the cells have died is calculated from the two controls with cells without inhibitors, which were incubated in the absence and presence of ionophore.
In a number of neurological diseases or psychological disorders, increased glutamate activity, which leads to states of overstimulation or toxic effects in the central nervous system (CNS), occurs. Glutamate mediates its effects by means of various receptors. Two of these receptors are classified by the specific agonists NMDA receptor and AMPA receptor. Substances which weaken these glutamate-induced effects can thus be employed for the treatment of these diseases, in particular for therapeutic administration against neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington""s chorea and Parkinson""s disease, neurotoxic disorders after hypoxia, anoxia, ischemia and after lesions, such as occur after stroke and trauma, or alternatively as antiepileptics (cf. Arzneim. Forschung 1990, 40, 511-514; TIPS, 1990, 11, 334-338; Drugs of the Future 1989, 14, 1059-1071).
Protection Against Cerebral Overstimulation by Excitatory Amino Acids (NMDA or AMPA Antagonism in Mice)
As a result of intracerebral administration of excitatory amino acids (EAA), such a massive overstimulation is induced that in a short time this leads to spasms and to the death of the animals (mice). These symptoms can be inhibited by systemic, e.g. intraperitoneal, administration of centrally active compounds (EAA antagonists). Since the excessive activation of EAA receptors of the central nervous system plays an important part in the pathogenesis of various neurological disorders, a conclusion can be drawn from the demonstrated EAA antagonism in vivo regarding a possible therapeutic utility of the substances against CNS disorders of this type. As a measure of the efficacy of the substances, an ED50 value was determined at which 50% of the animals become symptom-free as a result of a fixed dose of either NMDA or AMPA as a result of the prior i.p. administration of the standard substance.
It has already been shown that calpain inhibitors, too, have protective activity in cell cultures against cell death caused by EAA (H. Cauer et al., Brain Research 1993, 607, 354-356; Yu Cheg and A. Y. Sun, Neurochem. Res. 1994, 19, 1557-1564). Surprisingly, the calpain inhibitors included in this application are active even against spasms elicited in vivo (mouse) by EAA (for example NMDA or AMPA), thus pointing to a possible therapeutic use for the abovementioned CNS disorders.
The heterocyclically substituted amides I are inhibitors of cysteine derivatives such as calpain I or II and cathepsin B or L and can thus be used for the control of diseases which are associated with an increased enzyme activity of the calpain enzymes or cathepsin enzymes. The present amides I can accordingly be used for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases which occur after ischemia, trauma, subarachnoid hemorrhages and stroke, and of neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple infarct dementia, Alzheimer""s disease, Huntington""s disease and of epilepsies and furthermore for the treatment of damage to the heart after cardiac ischemia, reperfusion damage after vascular occlusion, damage to the kidneys after renal ischemia, skeletal muscle damage, muscular dystrophy, damage which occurs due to proliferation of the smooth muscle cells, coronary vasospasms, cerebral vasospasms, cataracts of the eyes, restenosis of the blood vessels after angioplasty. Moreover, the amides I can be useful in the chemotherapy of tumors and metastasis thereof and for the treatment of diseases in which an increased interleukin-1 level occurs, such as in inflammations and rheumatic disorders.
In addition to the customary pharmaceutical auxiliaries, the pharmaceutical preparations according to the invention contain a therapeutically efficacious amount of the compounds I.
For local external application, for example in powders, ointments or sprays, the active compounds can be contained in the customary concentrations. As a rule, the active compounds are contained in an amount from 0.001 to 1% by weight, preferably 0.001 to 0.1% by weight.
In the case of internal administration, the preparations are administered in individual doses. 0.1 to 100 mg are provided in an individual dose per kg of body weight. The preparation can be administered daily in one or more doses depending on the nature and severity of the disorders.
According to the desired type of administration, the pharmaceutical preparations according to the invention contain the customary excipients and diluents in addition to the active compound. For local external application, pharmaceutical auxiliaries such as ethanol, isopropanol, ethoxylated castor oil, ethoxylated hydrogenated castor oil, polyacrylic acid, polyethylene glycol, polyethylene glyco stearate, ethoxylated fatty alcohols, paraffin oil, petroleum jelly and wool fat can be used. For internal administration, for example, lactose, propylene glycol, ethanol, starch, talc and polyvinylpyrrolidone are suitable.
Antioxidants such as tocopherol and butylated hydroxyanisole as well as butylated hydroxytoluene, flavor-enhancing additives, stabilizers, emulsifiers and lubricants can additionally be contained.
The substances contained in the preparation in addition to the active compound and the substances used in the production of the pharmaceutical preparations are toxicologically acceptable and compatible with the respective active compound. The pharmaceutical preparations are prepared in a customary manner, for example by mixing the active compound with other customary excipients and diluents.
The pharmaceutical preparations can be administered in various administration procedures, for example, orally, parenterally such as intravenously by infusion, subcutaneously, intraperitoneally and topically. Thus preparation forms such as tablets, emulsions, infusion and injection solutions, pastes, ointments, gels, creams, lotions, powders and sprays are possible. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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