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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of heating a target material, such as shredded resin components of used automobiles, up to a softening temperature to remove a film from a substrate thereof, and recyclably sorting the substrate which has succeeded in removing the film therefrom.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, great efforts have been made for recycling resin components of used automobiles, such as resin bumpers. In the recycling process, if the resin component is coated with a film, the film is likely to be not fully removed and left on a substrate. Consequently, a component made of a recycled material from such coated resin products has a problem about mechanical properties, such as occurrence of cracks in a portion having a residual film due to external force applied thereto, and/or a problem about deterioration in appearance.
Thus, there is the need for forming a recycled product using only a resin free of a residual film.
As one example of a technique of recycling such a coated resin product, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-353721 discloses a technique of shredding coated resin components into fragments, pre-heating the fragments up to a temperature just before a melting temperature thereof, agitating the pre-heated fragments in a treatment vessel, and rapidly increasing the temperature of the fragments under agitation at the start of the agitation to reduce a process time.
Generally, in a coated resin product, a film (typically, thermosetting resin) and a substrate (typically, thermoplastic resin) are different in melting point from each other, and plural types of resins different in melting point, as typified by ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) and PC (polycarbonate), are used for a resin molding process. Moreover, temperature characteristics of a resin material are varied depending on the types (talc, glass, calcium carbonate, etc.) and contents of additives to be contained in the resin material. For example, as shown in FIGS. 10A to 10D, a heat deflection temperature of a resin material, i.e., a temperature at which a resin material exhibits a certain deformation (the resin material is softened in a non-molten state) during heating at a constant speed under a constant load, is changed to some extent depending on the types and contents of additives or resin matrix compositions. Thus, in a recycling process for a mixture of plural types of resin products, if the mixture is simple heated up to a single softening temperature, a part of the resin products which have not being softened to have residual films will be undesirably mixed with the resin products which have succeeded in being soften to allow films to be removed therefrom. | {
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The invention relates to a process for the sulfur vulcanization of aqueous dispersions of unsaturated polymers and in particular to the use of dithiocarboxylic acids or their salts as vulcanization accelerators. Optionally, the vulcanization is performed in the presence of other conventional additives. The process according to the invention makes possible the production of acceptable vulcanizates, with the avoidance of nitrosamines, which are considered health risks according to present knowledge.
Both the new hazardous materials decree and the new TRGS 522 "Nitrosamines" (Technical Rules for Hazardous Materials) confront producers and processors in the rubber industry with the task of reducing nitrosamine concentrations. There is agreement that this is to be achieved only with the avoidance of potential nitrosamine sources. But potential nitrosamine sources are the most important vulcanization accelerators in use. (See Kautschuk und Gummi--Kunststoffe 42, 1/89, page 16 ff.).
The vulcanization of latex items, such as, e.g., mattresses, rubberized hair curlers, shoe components or carpet undercoatings, takes place because of the presence of water mainly at temperatures less than or equal to 100.degree. C. To achieve a sufficient crosslinking density and a high vulcanization rate, the vulcanization is performed with accelerator combinations which almost always contain dialkylzinc dithiocarbamates. In the course of the vulcanization process, these disintegrate into amines, which react with the omnipresent (NO).sub.x to nitrosamines. These nitrosamines, which are considered health risks according to present knowledge (cf. Umschau 1985 (1), 24), can be detected in the ambient air of the production units.
Nitrogen-free vulcanization accelerators are known, e.g., in the form of xanthates and dithiophosphates. However, they are not effective at low vulcanization temperatures and, therefore, are not used. It is known to vulcanize solid rubber with aromatic hydroxydithiocarboxylic acids or their salts. But in this case, the vulcanization takes place at temperatures greater than or equal to 100.degree. C., preferably between 120.degree. and 240.degree. C. (See German Patent Appln. P 39 41 001.3). | {
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The present invention relates to a stand structure for an article which supports the body of an article in a backward inclined state.
A stand structure is available which can support the body of an article (hereinafter, referred to as “article body”) in a backward inclined state. For example, JP-UM-B-63-3277 discloses a structure in which the article body is attached to an attachment table, and the inclination angle of the article body to the attachment table can be changed.
In a music stand disclosed in JP-A-2005-115163, a shaft disposed on a music score board is guided along forward and backward paths, whereby the music score board is enabled to take either of postures which lie and stand with respect to the music stand. When the shaft is engaged with a falling part which is formed in the boundary between the forward and backward paths, a stable supported state is attained. In the supported state, the support can be cancelled by pulling an upper part of the music score board.
In the structure disclosed in JP-UM-B-63-3277, however, it is not easy to perform an operation of causing the music score board to be supported at a predetermined angle. Moreover, the article body must be stably supported. Therefore, the attachment table has a large width, and the whole structure is bulky. In the structure disclosed in JP-A-2005-115163, a mechanism for forming the lying and standing postures is disposed on the right and left sides of the body. Therefore, the whole structure is bulky, and the shapes of the paths in the mechanism are not simple, with the result that the configuration is complicated. In each of operations of setting the lying and standing postures, moreover, the direction of applying the operation, and the timing of performing the operation must be considered, and therefore it is not always easy to operate the structure. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a continuous-time sigma-delta modulator, and more particularly, to a sigma-delta modulator using low-jitter pulses.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A sigma-delta modulator may be composed of a discrete-time system or a continuous-time system.
The discrete-time system uses switched capacitor techniques by which signals are stored and transferred through capacitors. For example, an integrator and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) are configured such that an input signal and a fed-back DAC signal are stored as charge in a capacitor in a sampling phase of a clock, and the sampled charge is transferred to an integrating capacitor in an integration phase.
The continuous-time system operates without an input signal sampling process. In the continuous-time system, a DAC transfers an analog current signal to an integrator in response to a clock signal.
Due to fewer requirements for design of an amplifier of the integrator than in the discrete-time system, a continuous-time system enables a sigma-delta modulator to operate at high speed under low power. Also, since the integrator does not perform sampling, the sigma-delta modulator basically has an anti-aliasing filtering function. Further, since an input terminal is coupled to a resistive element or a gate of a transistor, it is easy to design a preceding circuit block of the sigma-delta modulator when forming a system with the sigma-delta modulator.
However, the continuous-time sigma-delta modulator has a weak signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is highly dependent on jitter in a clock signal applied to its internal DAC.
If a pulse width of a clock signal applied to the DAC is irregular due to jitter, it has the same effect as adding noise to the DAC signal. That is, noise is further generated as shown by the dotted line from the frequency response of the sigma-delta modulator. Accordingly, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance of the sigma-delta modulator is deteriorated. | {
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Generally, a coating of a pharmaceutical product consists of one or more films and each film consists of one or more layers. Below, “coating” is used as a comprehensive expression encompassing everything from an individual layer to a combination of several different films. Each film is the result of a single coating step, generally performed in a coating vessel, where for instance layers of the film are built up. The coating process takes place either in a fluidized bed wherein particles, so-called nuclei, arc sprayed with a specific coating liquid, or by passing the particles through a spray dust of said liquid. Several other generally used coating techniques are known in the prior art, such as melting, aggregation etc. The total process of manufacturing a complete coating may involve a plurality of such coating steps. However, the process may as well be sequential, whereby the whole process represents a continuous flow.
Pharmaceutical products are coated for several reasons. A protective coating normally protects the active ingredients from possible negative influences from the environment, such as for example light and moisture but also temperature and vibrations. By applying such a coating, the active substance is protected during storage and transport. A coating could also be applied to make the product easier to swallow, to provide it with a pleasant taste or for identification of the product. Further, coatings are applied which perform a pharmaceutical function such as conferring enteric and or controlled release. The purpose of a functional coating is to provide a pharmaceutical preparation or formulation with desired properties to enable the transport of the active pharmaceutical substance through the digestive system to the region where it is to be released and/or absorbed. A desired concentration profile over time of the active substance in the body may be obtained by such a controlled course of release. An enteric coating is used to protect the product from disintegration in the acid environment of the stomach. Moreover, it is important that the desired functionalities are constant over time, i.e. during storage. By controlling the quality of the coating, the desired functionalities of the final product may also be controlled.
There are strict requirements from the different Registration Authorities on pharmaceutical products. These requirements will put high demands on the quality of the coating and require that the complex properties of the coating will be kept within narrow limits. In order to meet these demands, there is a need for accurate control of the coating process.
The quality of the coating depends on physical and/or chemical properties of the coating, such as chemical composition, local inhomogeneities, physical and chemical homogeneity, density, mechanical properties, static parameters, modulus, tensile strength, elongation at break, compression, ductility, viscoelastic parameters, morphology, macro-and microscopic properties, amorphous and/or crystallinity, permeability, porosity, aggregation, wettability, degree of coalescence/maturity, stability and ability to resist chemical and/or physical degradation. There are also other properties not listed above. The quality of the coating affects to a great extent the release properties and has a significant impact on the storage stability. In order to keep the quality of the coating within the desired narrow limits it is necessary to control the manufacturing process of the coating accurately.
In an industrial plant for coating pharmaceutical products, selected process parameters are monitored and controlled to achieve a desired quality of the end product. Such process parameters are generally global and could include, for example, the pressure in the coating vessel, the flow rate and temperature of gas and coating liquid supplied to the coating vessel, etc. However, the influence of such global process parameters of the coating process, and ultimately on the coating properties of the end product, is known only from experience in a specific plant. Thus, a processing scheme is developed for each specific plant by extensive testing. When, for example, the size or shape of the coating vessel is changed during scaling up of the process, the local environment of the particles may be altered. This calls for time-consuming measurements and adjustments in order to regain the same coating properties of the end product.
There is also a need to improve existing manufacturing processes as well as to improve existing plants. Today, this is a laborious task since the influence of any change in the process scheme or the plant design on the end product has to be investigated by extensive testing, often in full scale. The same applies to the development of new products, for example when a new type of particle or coating liquid should be used.
An attempt to fulfil the above-identified needs is disclosed in the article “Fluidized bed spray granulation, investigation of the coating process on a single sphere” by K. C. Link and E.-U. Schlünder, published in Chemical Engineering and Processing, No. 36, 1997. A laboratory-scale apparatus is designed for analysis of a single particle, in order to investigate the fundamental physical mechanisms that lead to particle growth by layering. In this apparatus, a single aluminum sphere is made to levitate on a fluidizing air flow which is supplied by a capillary tube. Thereby, the sphere is freely and rotatably suspended at a stable location in a coating vessel. An ultrasonic nozzle arranged above this stable location is intermittently activated to generate a spray dust of coating liquid that falls down onto the sphere and forms a coating thereon. This type of nozzle generates a spray of droplets, the velocity of which is adjusted by means of a separate air flow through the nozzle. The apparatus is used for investigating the influence of different parameters, such as droplet velocity, temperature of fluidizing air, drying time, and type of coating liquid, on the thickness and morphology of the resulting coating. A rough measurement value of the overall thickness of the coating is obtained by weighing the sphere before and after the actual coating process and determining the difference in weight. The morphology of the coating is qualitatively examined by arranging the sphere, once coated, in a scanning-electron-microscope (SEM). For both of these measurements, the sphere must be removed from the apparatus for analysis. The apparatus also includes a lamp for illumination of the sphere and a video camera for continuous and qualitative observation of the continuous of the sphere during the coating process.
One drawback of this prior-art apparatus resides in the difficulty to make quantitative, time-resolved measurements of coating properties. After a specific time period, the coating process must be interrupted for analysis of the coating on tile sphere, whereupon a new and non-coated sphere must be subjected to a new coating process for a longer time period, and so on. In this approach, the formation of a coherent time series of measurement data requires that identical conditions are maintained in the environment of each sphere. Thus, the coating process must be repeated in exactly the same manner for each sphere. This is difficult. For example, any small variations in the masses of the aluminum spheres will necessitate an adjustment in the flow rate of the fluidizing air, to maintain each sphere at the same location in the vessel. Such a change in now rate will also change the environment of the sphere during the coating process, thereby making it difficult to compile the measurement data from several consecutive measurements into a coherent time series.
A further drawback of this known apparatus is that only a few properties of the coating, i.e. average thickness and surface morphology, can be measured.
Another drawback is that the course of a coating process can only be studied on standardized spheres, so that the coating process can be repeated in exactly the same manner for each sphere. However, the coating process is believed to be highly dependent on the properties of the particle itself, such as the size, density, porosity and shape of the particle. Thus, it may be difficult, or even impossible, to draw any conclusions lot a realistic particle from experiments made in the known apparatus. | {
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Industrial processes for production of cellulose-rich pulps from harvested wood are well-known and typically involve the steps of physical disruption of wood into smaller pieces and particles followed by chemical digestion under elevated temperatures and pressures to dissolve and separate the lignins from the constituent cellulosic fibrous biomass. After digestion has been completed, the solids comprising the cellulosic fibrous pulps are separated from the spent digestion liquids which commonly referred to as black liquors and typically comprise organic solvents, solubilized lignins, solid and particulate monosaccarides, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and other organic compounds released from the wood during the chemical digestion. The cellulosic fibrous pulps are typically used for paper manufacturing while the black liquors are usually processed to remove the soluble lignins after which, the organic solvents are recovered, purified and recycled. The lignins and remaining stillage from the black liquors are typically handled and disposed of as waste streams.
During the past two decades, those skilled in these arts have recognized that lignocellulosic materials including gymnosperm and angiosperm substrates (i.e., wood) as well as field crop and other herbaceous fibrous biomass, waste paper and wood containing products and the like, can be potentially fractionated using biorefining processes incorporating organosolv digestion systems, into multiple useful component parts that can be separated and further processed into high-value products such as fuel ethanol, lignins, furfural, acetic acid, purified monosaccharide sugars among others (Pan et al., 2005, Biotechnol. Bioeng. 90: 473-481; Pan et al., 2006, Biotechnol Bioeng. 94: 851-861; Berlin et al., 2007, Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 136-140:267-280; Berlin et al., 2007, J. Chem. Technol Biotechnol. 82: 767-774). Organosolv pulping processes and systems for lignocellulosic feedstocks are well-known and are exemplified by the disclosures in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,941,944; 5,730,837; 6,179,958; and 6,228,177. Although it appears that biorefining using organosolv systems has considerable potential for large-scale fuel ethanol production, the currently available processes and systems are not yet economically feasible because they require expensive pretreatment steps and currently produce only low-value co-products (Pan et al., 2006, J. Agric. Food Chem. 54: 5806-5813; Berlin et al., 2007, Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 136-140:267-280; Berlin et al., 2007, J. Chem. Technol Biotechnol. 82: 767-774). | {
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The invention relates to a device for the handling of merchandise in dynamic warehousing systems.
In a dynamic type of warehousing system, items of merchandise, consisting generally of pallets or bins stacked or filled with cartons, boxes &c., do not occupy a permanent place; instead, one has a number of lines along which items are shunted one behind the next. Thus, each single line of the warehouse will carry a string of items positioned nose-to-tail along its length.
In certain systems, the lines are installed on a gradient in order that items of merchandise can gravitate nose-to-tail toward one end of the line, from which collection is made. In a `first-in last-out` system, where set-down and pick-up operations occur at one and the same end, the single line, and in effect the entire system, will be installed on a reverse gradient. In a `first-in first-out` type of system, the items are simply set down at one end of the line and picked up from the other.
In a first type of embodiment of conventional systems as referred to above, the line consists of rollers -i.e. of an ordinary roller conveyor, on which the pallet base is set down direct. Compared with other expedients, the roller conveyor provides the advantage of affording simple and economical adjustment of the speed at which items are propelled along the line, achieved mechanically by means of conventional brake rollers. Such an advantage is offset however, by the drawback of potential, and all-too-frequent jamming. A pallet base may be defective, or become splintered, such that one has a part or parts projecting from the moving item that can stick fast between the rollers and prevent its ongoing movement.
In another type of embodiment, the line consists in a length of track along which bogies can be rolled, the pallet in this instance being carried by the bogie. Such an expedient automatically overcomes the problem of jamming occasioned by defective pallets, though it has its attendant drawbacks, one of which is that propulsion speed of the bogies cannot be controlled simply and economically. What is more, the bogies, which are cumbersome, must be marshalled and parked in a space other than that occupied by the lines (a problem not encountered with rollers); at all events, simple logic dictates that the bogie be loaded outside the warehousing area in order that the items of merchandise can be rolled in. Further drawbacks are encountered at the collection stage, as the bogie must be either raised or tilted to effect a pick-up; one thus has the risk of a pallet load striking against that next in line, resulting in damage to the merchandise of one of the pallets, or perhaps both.
Accordingly, the object of the invention described herein is that of overcoming the drawbacks mentioned above. | {
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Wireless power is becoming increasingly popular to transfer energy to a device, for example, to charge a battery in the device and to do so without having to plug the device in to a power source. Power is transferred through the inductive coupling of a magnetic field generated by a transmitter and delivered wirelessly to a receiver (e.g., in a battery-operated device). A pair of coils of wire (one in the transmitter and the other in the receiver) may be used to wirelessly transfer the energy from transmitter to receiver. Charging pads are available which employ this technology. In a charging pad, a battery-operated device such as a smart phone is placed on the charging pad and can be charged without making an electrical connection to the phone.
A concern with wireless power transfer systems is the heating of metallic objects which may be unintentionally exposed to the magnetic field. For example, a coin, candy wrapper or car keys inadvertently might be placed on the charging pad along with the smart phone to be charged. Such objects, because they are metal, may absorb the energy being wirelessly transmitted and intended for the phone. As a result, the metal object warms up. The worst possible place for such an object is between the phone and the charging pad. A metal object in that location may be heated to temperatures that can melt the plastic surfaces of the phone and the charging pad and pose a risk of fire. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a routing method, and more particularly, to a network communication system, a software-defined network controller and a routing method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Software-defined network (SDN) is a network virtualization technology. SDN overturns the long-standing network architecture by changing control mode of traditional network architecture from distributed control into centralized control, so that network equipments tend to be more standardized and simplified. SDN becomes the focus of development in the next generation network technology since it not only can improve flexibility and performance in network operation, but also reduce operational management costs.
The main concept of the SDN technology is to adopt a generic “data flow table” for data exchange. The routing and exchanging information in the network may be expressed as a data flow to be stored into the data flow table. Each data flow entry in the data flow table may be used to describe forwarding policy, data operation, data state and the like.
A SDN network generally includes at least one network equipments (e.g., a SDN switch) and a SDN controller. The SDN controller is charge of a routing control for generating the data flow table according user's configuration or a dynamically operated protocol and transmitting the data flow table to the SDN switch. The SDN switch is in charge of a data forwarding based on the data flow table, and is configured to match and process packets according to the data flow table when receiving the data flow table from the SDN controller. In other words, the SDN controller can issue the data flow table to the SDN switch through a control channel, so as to achieve the data forwarding and realize separation of the data forwarding from the routing control.
With rapid development and increasing traffic of the Internet, accessing traffic of network-based data also shows a rapid growth, which is hard to be handled simply by using one single server. In order to provide a better service quality, services must be provided by deploying a large amount of service nodes for providing the same service. A load balancing technology may be used to spread the service traffic across different nodes for processing.
However, if a service chaining is further introduced to the nodes for providing the same service when the SDN controller adopts the centralized management, in order to achieve the load balancing during the service chaining of network traffic, chaining of the service nodes and establishment of routing paths thereof may result in an excessive setting for the data flow table entry. This means that the SDN controller has to store a massive amount of data flow table entries, which leads to overloading.
In other words, it is one of the most concerned issues for person skilled in the art as how to develop a method for the SDN controller to reduce the loading thereof during the service chaining in the SDN network. | {
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In an apparatus that measures and inspects a pattern that is formed on a semiconductor wafer, matching to a field of view of an inspection apparatus in a predetermined measurement position is performed using template matching technology. The template matching is a process that picks out a region, which coincides most with a template image that is registered in advance, from an image of a retrieval subject. For example, in PTL 1, an example of such a template matching method is described.
Measurement of a pattern on a semiconductor wafer using a scanning electron microscope is an example of an inspection apparatus that uses template matching. In the present apparatus, the field of view of the apparatus moves to an approximate position of a measurement position due to stage movement, but in terms of the positioning accuracy of the stage only, there are often cases in which large shifts occur in an image that is captured using a high magnification of the electron microscope. In addition, a wafer is not necessarily placed on the stage in the same direction each time, and a coordinate system (for example, an alignment direction of a chip of the wafer, or the like) of a wafer that is placed on the stage does not completely coincide with a driving direction of the stage, and this can also correspond to a cause of shifting in an image that is captured using a high magnification of the electron microscope. Template matching is performed in order to perform measurement and inspection at an accurate position by correcting such shift. Specifically, after performing alignment with an optical camera having a lower magnification than that of the electron microscope image, alignment is performed in multiple stages by performing alignment using the electron microscope image. Hereinafter, a case of performing alignment of a coordinate system of a water, which is placed on the stage, using an optical camera, will be described. In this instance, a case of performing alignment using an image of a plurality of chips, which are in positions that are separated from one another on a wafer (for example, chips on both the left and right ends of the wafer), will be considered. Firstly, an image of a unique identical pattern, which is within or in the vicinity of the respective chips (a pattern, which is relatively in the same position within the respective chips), is captured in a practical sense, and registered as a template. Normally, there are often cases in which a pattern, which is created on a wafer as an alignment pattern for an optical camera, is used as a unique identical pattern that is used in registration as a template. Next, an image is acquired in the respective chips by performing stage movement so that an image of a pattern that is registered as a template in the respective chips is captured. Template matching is performed on the acquired image. A shift amount of stage movement is calculated on the basis of respective matching positions that are obtained as a result, and matching of a coordinate system of stage movement and a coordinate system of the wafer, is performed with the shift amount set as a correction value of stage movement. In the alignment using the electron microscope that is performed subsequently, a unique pattern that is close to the predetermined measurement position is set as a template and registered in advance, and the relative coordinates of the measurement position viewed from the template are stored. Additionally, the relative coordinates in this case are decided by also taking correction amounts determined beforehand by the optical camera into consideration. Further, during determination of a measurement position from an image that is captured by the electron microscope, a matching position is decided by performing template matching in a captured image, and a point at which movement from the matching position of an amount that is equivalent to the relative coordinates stored in advance corresponds to a measurement position. Movement of the field of view of the apparatus up to a predetermined measurement position is performed using this kind of template matching.
In addition, in PTL 2, a method in which a template for template matching is created on the basis of design data of a semiconductor device, is described. If it is possible to create a template on the basis of design data, there is an advantage in that the labor of purposely acquiring an image with the inspection apparatus for template creation is not necessary, and the like. The invention also relates to template matching using this design data. | {
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The present invention relates to a tape loading device for use in a recording/reproducing apparatus, typically VTRs, in which a tape as a recording medium is made to run in contact with a guide drum incorporating therein a transducer, over a predetermined wrap angle.
FIG. 44 shows, by way of example, a conventional tape loading device which is adapted for use, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 171070/1984, in a recording/reproducing apparatus of the type mentioned above.
A tape 103 is extracted from a supply reel 102 of a tape cassette 101 and runs past guide posts and an eraser head. Then, after making a turn on a guide drum 104 through a predetermined angle which is in this case 221.degree., the tape is taken up by a take-up reel 106 past a capstan 105. In this known tape loading device, the tape cassette 101 as a unit with a reel drive mechanism (not shown) is slidable with respect to the guide drum 104, so that the guide drum 104 finally comes into the opening 101a in the tape cassette 101, whereby a reduction is attained in the size of the device as a whole. This arrangement is generally referred to as "cassette overlap system".
Another proposal for the reduction in the size of the tape loading device is to reduce the size of the guide drum. A recording/reproducing apparatus incorporating such a guide drum of reduced size, referred to as "VHS video movie", is shown in FIG. 45. This video movie incorporates a guide drum 107 having a diameter which is as small as 2/3 that of the standard guide drum 110, by virtue of the use of four heads A, B, A', B' as shown in FIG. 46. FIG. 47 shows a tape pattern which illustrates the fact that both guide drums are completely interchangeable. As is well known to those skilled in the art, the wrap angle of the tape on the reduced-diameter guide drum 107 is about 3/2 that on the standard size guide drum 110. When this art is applied to the 8 mm video, the arrangement is as shown in FIG. 48 with the following specifications: | {
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FIG. 21 (A) shows a DC/DC converter 91 of a step-up and -down type which runs with a current critical mode, and it shows a control device 92.
The DC/DC converter 91 consists of a power supply PSDC (it generates an input voltage Ei of the direct current), a transistor switch Tr, a reactor L, a diode D and a capacitor C.
One terminal of the power supply PSDC is connected to one terminal of the transistor switch Tr.
Another terminal of the transistor switch Tr is connected to one terminal of the reactor L and a cathode terminal of the diode D.
Another terminal of reactor L is grounded.
An anode terminal of the diode D is connected to one terminal of the capacitor C and one terminal of a load R.
Another terminal of the capacitor C is grounded, and another terminal of the load R is grounded, too.
In FIG. 21 (A), a resistance (a resistance for measurement) rL to measure a reactor current (a current iL which flows through the reactor) is connected to the reactor L in series.
The control device 92 comprises a control circuit 921 and a driver 922.
The control circuit 921 inputs an input voltage (an input voltage E) of the DC/DC converter 91 and an output voltage eo and a reactor current iL, and a control in the current critical mode can be performed.
In the current critical mode, the reactor current iL changes in a form of a saw wave pattern (or a shape that was similar in a shape of a saw wave pattern). In the current critical mode, a lowest current value of the reactor current iL is zero (or a value which is almost zero).
The control device 92 measures a voltage (a reactor voltage vL) between two terminals of the reactor L.
And the control device 92 calculates the time when iL changes to zero based on vL/L (=m1) and (eo−vL)/L (=m2); wherein “vL/L” is a slant of the reactor current iL in an ON period (t1−t2), “(eo−vL)/L” is a slant of the reactor current iL in an OFF period, and the time when iL changes to zero means a timing for turn-on.
As above, a control by the current critical mode is performed.
FIG. 22 (A) shows another DC/DC converter 93 of step-up and -down type and another control device 94.
In FIG. 22 (A), the reactor L is provided with a secondary winding TL for a measurement.
The control device 94 comprises a control circuit 941 and a driver 942.
The control circuit 941 inputs an input voltage (input voltage E) of the DC/DC converter 93, an output voltage eo of that and a reactor voltage vL of that.
The DC/DC converter 93 can perform a control with the current critical mode in this way.
As shown in FIG. 22 (A), a reactor voltage vL is measured as a measurement voltage vL′.
The control circuit 941 calculates a time when the reactor current iL becomes zero, based on formula “Ldi=−vLdt”.
FIG. 23 shows an AC/DC converter (a switching power supply) 95 and a control device 96.
A technology to detect the reactor current iL is used in the system in FIG. 23.
In FIG. 23, a rectifier circuit RCD which inputs AC power to the input side of an AC/DC converter 95 is comprised.
The control device 96 comprises a control circuit 961 and a driver 962.
The control circuit 961 includes a third control part (a power factor improvement part) 9611.
By a control quantity which the third control part 9611 generates the AC/DC converter 95 runs with a current critical mode.
A power factor of the AC/DC converter 95 is improved in this way. | {
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1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a method for manufacturing a silicon carbide semiconductor device and the silicon carbide semiconductor device, and relates, in particular, to a method for reducing the number of defects of a silicon carbide epitaxial film formed on a silicon carbide substrate.
2. Related Art
Although conventional power semiconductor devices have been formed on a silicon substrate, silicon material has approached a physical limit in performance properties. Attention has focused on silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor devices, in which a substrate has excellent breakdown electric field strength, holding low power loss capability, and exercising excellent performance in high temperature condition and also in high frequency operation. With regard to the SiC semiconductor device, a device structure is generally fabricated as follows: a SiC epitaxial film is formed on a SiC substrate being a primary substrate with low resistance, and processes such as implanting impurity ions are successively performed on the SiC epitaxial film.
There are many polytypes (crystal polymorphism) such as 2H—SiC, 3C—SiC, 4H—SiC, 6H—SiC, 15R—SiC based upon a periodic structure difference when Si and C are bonded to form SiC. Then, there is a problem that a mismatch can be easily created during crystal growth. Therefore when a SiC single crystal is prepared, different polytypes are inevitably mixed in the crystal, resulting in the existence of multiple crystal defects such as dislocations caused by crystal mismatching. When the SiC epitaxial film is deposited on the SiC substrate, threading screw dislocations and threading edge dislocations may propagate, with just the geometry as they are or with conversion into basal plane dislocations and carrot defects, to the epitaxial film, producing defects in the epitaxial film.
The epitaxial film also has defects created from other causes not depending on the primary substrate. There are defects such as, for example, step bunching which occurs during film deposition and further so-called downfall defects produced when particles are attached to the wafer surface during epitaxial growth.
If a crystal defect may exists in the SiC epitaxial film, the manufactured SiC semiconductor device may cause abnormality in leak current and breakdown voltage failure, resulting in low yield of the product.
Patent Literatures 1 through 5 listed below disclose methods for reducing defects so that the methods are carried out on the SiC substrate surface before forming the epitaxial film. Further, in Patent Literature 6 listed below, a method for reducing defects in the epitaxial film is disclosed so that the SiC epitaxial film formed on the SiC substrate is heated to become up to 1 nm or more in surface roughness Ra of the epitaxial film and then flattened to become less than 0.5 nm in Ra.
Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Application LAID-Open No. 2005-311348
Patent Literature 2: JP-A 2006-032655
Patent Literature 3: JP-A 2008-230944
Patent Literature 4: JP-A 2010-182782
Patent Literature 5: WO 2010/090024
Patent Literature 6: JP-A 2008-222509 | {
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Presently, several devices to achieve a longitudinal spacing between transversal ranks of articles are known.
For instance, patent document IT-927.943 substantially discloses a closed loop conveyor, provided with thrust bars, orbiting in a vertical closed loop longitudinally extending upstream to downstream and surrounding the articles transport path. Thrust bars are driven at a constant speed and provide to route pre-formed groups of articles along a straight translation path comprising, arranged upstream to downstream: a first sliding surface, the upper branch of a closed path transport tape conveyor, and a second sliding surface, where the transport tape has a linear speed greater than that of the thrust bars.
When a group of articles is transferred by the thrust bars from the first sliding surface to the transport tape, transversal ranks of articles, because of the difference in longitudinal speed existing between bars and tape, are sequentially accelerated toward downstream with a speed equal to that of the tape, so achieving a longitudinal spacing between the transversal ranks of articles, that allows a partition element to be inserted between them.
Successively, the transversal ranks of articles are transferred via the transport tape to the second sliding surface, passing from the maximum speed down to zero speed, to be then accumulated on said second Sliding surface, consequently to the conveyance of the following transversal ranks, by means of the transport tape and the bar. Said bar, coming from the back, transports the group downstream for all further operation.
A first drawback of such a device is that the articles acceleration and deceleration, obtained by means of a force applied at their bottom end (the acceleration occurring on the transport tape and the deceleration on the second sliding surface), causes the article to upset, respectively in an upstream and downstream direction.
A further drawback is that during the deceleration phase occurring on said second sliding surface, the articles belonging to a group can violently bump one against the other and, although they are equipped with partition elements, this can damage or even break them, especially in the case where they are glass bottles or cans.
Moreover, it must be noted that, in order to reduce the occurrence of the above mentioned drawbacks, the device must slow down its operating speed, accordingly reducing its productive capacity.
A second device longitudinally spacing up transversal ranks of articles is described in patent document IT-1.543.364.
Said device substantially describes a sliding surface provided with longitudinal shims, on which a flow of transversely and longitudinally ranged articles is routed, and a plurality of a transversal rows of pegs, carried by respective transversal bars, said bars being supported by an underlying chain conveyor, having chains wrapping in a closed loop on respective parallel vertical planes. According to the device arrangement, said pegs follow a closed loop vertical orbit, whose upper branch acts in the operating area of the articles translating path.
The device operates by vertically inserting the pegs, from the bottom upwards, between the articles moving on the sliding surface. Near the downstream end of the chain conveyor, the upper end of said pegs is inclined downstream, providing for a slight spacing between the transversal article ranks.
That device has its drawback in achieving only a small longitudinal spacing between the transversal ranks, and only for a short while, so that the transversal partition element must be inserted in a very fast and accurate way. | {
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Such tools are known, and are generally used where rock or the like has to be broken up without the use of explosives. One such tool known to the applicant comprises a firing chamber and firing mechanism for a blank cartridge, which is connected to an impulse barrel having lateral outlets for the cartridge discharge.
The tool is used by drilling a downwardly directed hole of suitable diameter into the rock or like structure which has to be broken up, filling it with water, and then inserting the tool into the hole and discharging the cartridge.
On insertion of the barrel, the water enters through the lateral holes to a depth just beneath the barrel throat, and the impulsive force of the discharged gas from the cartridge cause shock waves in the water in the barrel, which are transmitted through the lateral discharge outlets to cause the rock to split and break up.
As far as applicant is aware, these tools are not particularly successful, since they are of relatively low power and cannot be used to break up large areas of, or very hard, rock. Increasing the cartridge charge increases the dangers of using the tool, and can result in localised fracture of rock around the hole without effectively splitting or breaking the rock up. | {
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Deployment Scenario 4 of the Cooperative Multi-Point Transmission (CoMP) Study Item (SI) for LTE Rel. 11 involves a network comprising low-power RRHs (Remote Radio Heads) within the coverage of a macro cell in which transmission/reception points have the same Cell IDs as the macro cell. The multiple transmission and reception points in the macro cell requires an efficient technique for coordinating the uplink power control the User Equipment (UE) within the macro cell.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and/or clarity of illustration, elements illustrated in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, if considered appropriate, reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding and/or analogous elements. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a driving technique for a fluorescent tube, more particularly, to a driving apparatus for a hot-cathode fluorescent tube, a method thereof and an illumination apparatus using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Fluorescent tubes are generally used as illumination apparatus in daily life, wherein straight long tube type (hot-cathode) fluorescent tubes are most commonly used, and the fluorescent tubes have different tube diameters of T3, T5, T8 and T9 in specification. However, regardless of the fluorescent tube of the T3, T5, T8 or T9 specification, a light emitting principle thereof is the same, by which a tube current induces a mercury vapor to stimulate a fluorescent material on an inner wall of the tube to emit light.
Driving apparatuses of the existing fluorescent tubes (T9/T8/T5/T3) are generally divided into two types, and one type provides none protection mechanism/measure when the fluorescent tube is broken, and another type may provide a shutdown protection mechanism/measure when the fluorescent tube is broken. In detail, when the fluorescent tube installed on a lamp holder is broken, and when the driving apparatus of the fluorescent tube does not provide any protection mechanism/measure, the driving apparatus of the fluorescent tube continuously supplies power to both ends of the broken fluorescent tube. However, a person replacing the fluorescent tube is not necessarily a professional personnel, who may probably replace the fluorescent tube without first turning off a power switch related to the fluorescent tube. Therefore, during a fluorescent tube replacing process, the tube-replacing personnel may have a security problem of electric shock.
On the other hand, when the fluorescent tube installed on the lamp holder is broken, and when the driving apparatus of the fluorescent tube can provide the protection mechanism/measure, the driving apparatus of the fluorescent tube stops supplying power to both ends of the broken fluorescent tube, so that the tube-replacing personnel does not have the security problem of electric shock. However, the lamp holder of the fluorescent lamp is generally installed on the ceiling, and the power switch related to the fluorescent tube is generally installed on a wall, so that when the fluorescent tube is broken and is required to be replaced, since a height of the ceiling is relatively high, the tube-replacing personnel has to replace the broken fluorescent tube with assistance of a ladder.
However, in order to confirm whether the newly installed fluorescent tube is properly installed or whether the newly installed fluorescent tube is usable, the tube-replacing personnel has to first climb down the ladder to switch (i.e. to turn on or turn off) the power switch installed on the wall, so as to determine whether the newly installed fluorescent tube normally emits light. If the newly installed fluorescent tube cannot emit light, it represents that the newly installed fluorescent tube is probably not installed well or is not good, and the tube-replacing personnel has to re-climb up the ladder to fix the fluorescent tube or again replace the broken fluorescent tube, and then climbs down the ladder to switch the power switch installed on the wall to further confirm whether the newly installed fluorescent tube normally emits light.
Therefore, the tube-replacing personnel probably need to repeatedly climb up and down the ladder to successfully replace the fluorescent tube. In this way, not only more time and labor are consumed, there is a potential risk of falling down. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to wired digital communications systems. In particular, the invention relates to the equalization of signals that can be severely distorted by non-linearities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Any of a variety of physical impairments can limit the effective transmission of data signals over communications channels. For example, the frequency selective nature of the channels can cause different frequency components of the input signal to be attenuated and phase-shifted differently. This can cause the impulse response of the channel to span several symbol intervals, resulting in time-smearing and interference between successive transmitted input symbols, commonly known as intersymbol interference (ISI). The ISI resulting from the channel distortion, if left uncompensated, can cause high error rates. The solution to the ISI problem is to design a receiver that compensates for the ISI in the received signal. The compensator for ISI is known as an equalizer.
A number of equalization techniques to mitigate ISI exist, including: (a) maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE), in which a dynamic programming algorithm is used to determine the most likely transmitted sequence given observations of the received noisy and ISI-corrupted sequence and knowledge of the channel impulse response coefficients; (b) sub-optimal equalizer structures such as a linear equalizer (LE), wherein one simple finite impulse response (FIR) filter is used to mitigate ISI, or a non-linear decision feedback equalizer (DFE) that, in addition to the feed-forward FIR filter, employs a feedback filter (FBF) on the previously detected symbols; and (c) multi-carrier modulation (MCM), wherein the spectrum of the frequency-selective channel is divided into a large number of parallel, independent and approximately flat sub-channels using an orthogonal transformation.
MLSE uses a sequence of received signal samples over successive symbol intervals to make decisions about the transmitted symbols, and can be considered to be optimal from a bit error rate (BER) perspective. However, MLSE has a computational complexity that grows exponentially with the length of the channel time dispersion, and is typically prohibitively expensive to implement. In sub-optimal structures such as LE and DFE, data detection is done on a symbol-by-symbol basis and hence is much simpler to implement than the optimal MLSE. Linear equalization uses a linear filter with adjustable coefficients. Decision feedback equalization exploits a FBF to suppress that part of the ISI from the present estimate that was caused by previously detected symbols.
Advanced equalization techniques are usually too complex to be implemented using analog circuit design. Furthermore, even in the case of plain baseband communications that employ a simple LE, digital implementations are advantageous because of easy scalability to integrated circuit (IC) technologies of smaller dimensions. For this reason, most of the modern data receiver designs are digital, and a high-level description is illustrated in FIG. 1.
The received signal passes through the analog-front-end (AFE) block 102 that may include functions such as analog filtering, variable gain amplification (VGA), analog demodulation etc., depending on the application. Then, the signal is digitized in an analog-to-digital (ADC) conversion block 104. Finally, the digital signal samples are processed in a DSP receiver 106 that may include timing recovery, equalization and other types of advanced signal processing techniques.
Non-linearity of the overall communications channel from the data source to the DSP receiver 106 is one of the problems that can severely distort the signal and hence degrade the overall system performance. Examples of severe non-linearity are harsh signal compression and clipping.
A digital equalizer is typically very sensitive to a harsh non-linear distortion of the received signal. As an illustration, clipping can significantly reduce an equalizer's performance unless clipping occurs relatively infrequently, such as in less than 1% of the data transmission.
When dealing with the problem of equalizing clipped signals in MCM systems, some techniques are used to remove the effect of clipping by restoring the signal linearity through interpolation (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,606,047 to Borjesson, et al.). Or, some other algorithms are proposed to reduce the signal peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) (see U.S. Pat. No. 7,340,006 to Yun, et al.).
In a wire-line application, one technique uses an equalizer on the transmit side and clips the transmit signal when overshoot occurs due to filtering (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,975 to Hannah).
Many digital communication systems attempt to avoid signal clipping. Examples of those approaches can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,336,729 to Agazzi and U.S. Pat. No. 7,346,119 to Gorecki, et al., both of which are applicable to high-speed serializer-deserializer (SerDes) digital designs.
One application of SerDes is to transfer data over backplane channels in chip-to-chip communications. An example of a channel impulse response (CIR) of a typical backplane at 6 Gbit/s is illustrated in FIG. 2.
The cursor level of the illustrated CIR is at 486.1 millivolts (mV), while its dominant post-cursor component is at 183.7 mV.
The following illustrative example is based on non-return to zero (NRZ) signaling that is relatively popular in SerDes applications. Under the assumptions of no correlations among the transmitted data, a Gaussian noise environment, and no non-linear distortions, the illustrated channel can be readily equalized with a linear minimum mean-squared-error (MMSE) equalizer because the MMSE equalizer is designed to minimize the slicer error variance and consequently bit-error-rate (BER).
The channel described earlier in connection with FIG. 2 does not introduce a severe ISI distortion, and hence, a relatively simple 2-tap equalizer having values as computed from CIR using the formulas can be used:
c 0 = h 0 · ∑ n h n 2 - h - 1 · ∑ n ( h n - 1 · h n ) ( ∑ n h n 2 ) 2 - ( ∑ n ( h n - 1 · h n ) ) 2 Eq . 1
c 1 = h - 1 · ∑ n h n 2 - h 0 · ∑ n ( h n - 1 · h n ) ( ∑ n h n 2 ) 2 - ( ∑ n ( h n - 1 · h n ) ) 2 Eq . 2
In Equations 1 and 2 above, hn represent samples of CIR at baud rate, with h0 being the cursor and h-1 the precursor.
The optimal tap values of the example channel are [c0, c1]=[2.12, −0.80].
In high-speed SerDes designs, the equalizer taps are usually normalized so that the first tap is equal to 1. Then, a 2-tap post-cursor equalizer is usually called a single tap equalizer.
This normalization does not change the equalizer shape or overall system performance. In the following example, a normalized equalizer, but this does not limit the equalizer does not need to be normalized.
As a result, the normalized tap C1 can be found from Equations 1 and 2 as:
c 1 ′ = h - 1 · ∑ n h n 2 - h 0 · ∑ n ( h n - 1 · h n ) h 0 · ∑ n h n 2 - h - 1 · ∑ n ( h n - 1 · h n ) Eq . 3
The optimal single tap post-cursor equalizer of the foregoing example is [1, −0.38].
If the received and equalized signal samples are denoted as xn and yn respectively, their relation in the normalized equalizer form is given in Equation 4:
y n = x n + c 1 ′ · x n - 1 Eq . 4
FIG. 3 illustrates received and equalized signal traces. FIG. 3 illustrates that equalizing clipped signals can be ineffective. | {
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Object recognition by forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imaging involves comparing selected portions of FLIR images to predetermined appearance criteria of known objects. For this purpose, and for the sharpness of the image to an observer in general, it is desirable to clearly define the edges of objects in the image and to smooth the image areas between the edges.
The FLIR image, like any digital video image, it composed of individual pixels (typically 512.times.512) of varying intensity. In the raw image, edges of objects tend to be diffuse, i.e. the intensity of adjacent pixels gradually and (in noisy images) erratically varies across the true edge. Under these circumstances, complex recognition algorithms have to be applied to many pixels, and recognition becomes excessively computation-intensive and can be inaccurate.
The spatial averaging techniques conventionally applied to noisy images exacerbate the edge definition problem, and separate algorithms for noise reduction and for edge definition have to be used on each pixel if the image is to be segmented for recognition purposes or for visual enhancement of a displayed image. Because FLIR imaging must be done in real time (typically at 30 frames per second), computation intensiveness is a very real practical problem.
Prior art in this field is as follows: U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,373 to Hartless et al.; No. 4,827,533 to Tanaka; No. 4,797,806 to Krich; No. 4,731,865 to Sievenpiper; No. 4,703,513 to Gennery; and No. 4,365,304 to Ruhman et al., all of which involve related image processing schemes, but none of which teach the substitution of least-edge-value averages of pixel sub-matrices for a pixel value. | {
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The present invention relates generally to data storage, and particularly to methods and systems for restoring data in data storage systems.
Data storage systems typically store data on physical media in a manner that is transparent to host computers. From the perspective of a host computer, data is stored at logical addresses located in file systems, or logical volumes. Logical volumes are typically configured to store the data required for a specific data processing application. Data storage systems map such logical addresses to addressable physical locations on storage media, such as direct access hard disks.
System administrators frequently make copies of logical volumes, for example in order to perform backups or to test and validate new applications. Such copies are commonly referred to as snapshots. | {
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Most microactuator arrays, used as MEMS devices, are fabricated in silicon. Despite the many favorable attributes of silicon, however, it is not always a suitable or ideal material for every application of MEMS. Silicon is brittle and subject to breaking, particularly as the total device size increases. This brittleness limits devices, especially actuators, to relatively small sizes capable of only small displacements and forces. The shapes that can be realized in silicon are typically restricted by crystalline planes or 2-D fabrication processes, and more complicated structures often result in prohibitively high cost and low yield.
It would be of great advantage to the art if another material, other than silicon, could be used for MEMS and actuators.
It would be another great advance in the art if the material would not be brittle and subject to breaking, thus not limiting the size and therefore the displacement and force of the final device. Other advantages will appear hereinafter. | {
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Administration of injections causes trauma to underlying tissues. In many cases, such as when vaccines are administered in a doctor's office or a peripheral venous catheter is placed during a short a hospital stay, the tissue is only exposed to medication for a short period of time and the tissue has an opportunity to heal before it is subjected to more trauma. As a result, few complications occur when injections occur sporadically. However, for those patients that have chronic conditions or diseases, such as diabetes, repeatedly injecting the same area of the body or placing infusion sets or similarly invasive devices in the same area of the body can result in complications that affect a patient's ability manage his or her disease. Rotation of injection/insertion sites is required for effective management of chronic conditions.
In some cases, repeated injections result in the formation of masses of fibrocollagenous scar tissue at the injection site. Localized lipodistrophy, or loss of fat, may also occur as a result of trauma and also as a result of exposure to medications or treatments being administered subcutaneously. The repeated subcutaneous administration of insulin in the same area can also lead to lipohypertrophy, the accumulation of hardened pocket of fat under the skin. Lipohypertrophy occurs at the injection sites of diabetic patients because insulin has a hypertrophic effect on fat cells—it causes fat cells to get larger.
When the underlying tissue around an injection site changes, the body's ability to absorb whatever is being injected into that site also changes. As a result, the efficacy of medications delivered into the subcutaneous tissue changes. In the case of patients having diabetes, changes in absorption can contribute to variable glucose levels (hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia), leakage and therefore loss of the injected insulin dose from under the skin, and reduced or slowed absorption of insulin resulting in gradual increases in insulin dosage (as much as a 20% increase over the course of a year). Changes in underlying tissue can also reduce the availability of healthy injection sites to a patient.
An international survey on insulin injection technique (DeConinck C et al., “Results and analysis of the 2008-2009 insulin injection technique questionnaire survey”, Journal of Diabetes 2010; 2:168-179) revealed that: 47% of the participants had experienced lipohypertrophy and this was associated with repeated injections into a site smaller than a postage stamp. The survey also revealed that 28% of the participants could not remember ever having their injection sites checked by a health care provider. The survey also indicated that higher A1C levels have been reported with patients injecting into lipohypertrophic sites, indicating that lipohypertrophy contributes to changes in insulin absorption. Clearly there exists a need to rotate injection sites and to monitor injection sites for complications in order to effectively manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes, that require repeated injections.
Another factor that contributes to the high rate of lipohypertrophy or similar tissue damage is the reuse of needles/injection devices that are intended to be sterile, disposable, single use items. A recent study by Berard L. et al., “Injection technique practices in population of Canadians with Diabetes: Results from a recent patient/diabetes educator survey”, Canadian Journal of Diabetes, (2015), Vol. 39, Issue 2, 146-151, indicated that only 60.7% patients dispose of a needle after use (use the needle only one time. The table below shows the number of times a patient uses a single-use needle versus the percentage of patients. Nearly 40% of the population surveyed re-uses single use, disposable needles, with 30.2% of the population reusing these needles 2 to 5 times.
Number of time(s)Over1234567891010%60.7%13.0%8.4%5.2%3.6%2.3%0.8%0.4%0.2%1.0%4.4%patients
Reuse of needles or injection devices increases trauma at the injection site because a needle is damaged, bent, and/or dulled each time it penetrates the skin. Thus, while reusing a needle might seem economical and convenient, it results in increased trauma at the injection site and increasingly painful injections. Further, reuse of needles increases the opportunity for infection. Devices intended for self-injection/auto-injection vary from syringes having an integrated needle permanently or semi-permanently incorporated to insulin pens whereby a sterile, disposable pen needle is attached to facilitate drug container access allow fluid egress from the container through the needle into the patient to single use pen-style injectors. However, none of these devices intend for the portion of the device that penetrates a patient's skin to be reused. Exemplary devices used to inject self-administered medication via a combination of a pen injector and a sterile, single use pen needle are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,645,264 B2 (Marsh) or U.S. Pat. No. 8,882,706 B2 (Cronemberg), and in Canadian Patent Application No. 2 858 665 (Herr). Given the high rate of reuse of needles, there also exists a need to remind or prompt a patient or user to use a new needle for each injection to reduce complications that occur as a result of repeated injections at a limited number of injection sites.
In the survey by Berard L. et al. mentioned above, the vast majority of participants (80.4%) injected medication into the abdomen; 36.6% had no explicit injection routine, and 31.4% injected into the same site at the same time each day. Overall, 24.6% of patients observed lipohypertrophy at injection sites, while only 13.3% of diabetes educators observed the same complication. In order to maximize efficacy of an insulin or other injection regimen and minimize complications resulting from repeated injections at the same site, there exists a need to facilitate creation of and compliance with a personalized injection plan for diabetic patients and others patients that receive frequent subcutaneous injections.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,857,138 B2 (Temple) teaches a system for organizing and storing pre-determined dosages of medication by matching indicia on both the storage apparatus and the apparatus containing the medication. The invention by Temple is particularly directed to a method for administering the good dosage but does not resolve the problem of changing needles and injection sites.
US Patent Application Publication Nos. 2013/0144256 A1 (Wessel et al.) and 2014/0188074 A1 (Jacques R. et al.) teach usage of a medical marking apparatus and tattoo activation device containing a medical ink barrel. This method will increase the complications of injection and administration of medication because it adds extra mechanical parts to the injection device and extra steps to each injection. This method might not be well accepted by the patient, because it creates random ink marks on the skin, which can be unpleasant for the patient. A similar injection site marking method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,574,194 B2 (Taylor), but has the same drawbacks mentioned above.
International Patent Application No. PCT/US2014/068469 (Fiedler et al.) discloses providing injection devices having removable markers that are pre-associated with different injection sites to facilitate an injection regiment, with the markers being removed from the injection devices and applied to a physical or electronic chart to track compliance with an injection regimen. The removable markers, however, can easily be lost or damage when carrying injection devices, and carrying a chart and applying a sticker to it each time an injection is administered can be burdensome to a patient/user/caregiver. Further, pre-assignment of injection sites can present problems because it does not account for the needs of users or patients. Not all injection sites are suitable for all users, for example, because of the condition of underlying tissue, accessibility, and/or pain. In one embodiment, Fiedler et al. discloses that injection devices can be provided in a compartmentalized container, where each compartment corresponds to part of an injection scheme. In practice, however, users do not carry large containers of injection devices around on a daily basis. A user carries only those injection devices he or she will need for the day (or trip), along with emergency supplies in case of delay. Thus, any association based on compartmentalization will be lost in daily use.
Thus, there exists a need for new tools and methods that can be personalized to the needs of an individual, yet are easy to understand and implement, in order to help patients to integrate regular change of the needle and rotation of injection site to their daily disease management routine. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a burn-in equipment for screening out a defective semiconductor and, more particularly, to a burn-in equipment capable of conducting burn-in at an optimally set burn-in temperature.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, dynamic burn-in screen test is carried out when, for example, semiconductor devices are received, by burning in the semiconductor devices in a burn-in chamber while inputting burn-in signals to the semiconductor devices from a signal generator.
A burn-in equipment comprises, for example, a burn-in chamber, a characteristic monitoring unit made up of an IC tester, etc., a temperature controller for controlling the temperature inside the burn-in chamber, a burn-in control unit for controlling start and stop of burn-in and a timer unit for setting a burn-in time.
A semiconductor device to be tested, such as an LSI, is mounted on an IC socket provided to a burn-in card and accommodated in the burn-in chamber.
In the burn-in chamber, a temperature sensor for measuring the temperature inside the chamber is provided. The temperature inside the burn-in chamber is detected by the temperature sensor, the temperature inside the burn-in chamber is kept at a predetermined temperature by the temperature controller, a burn-in signal is inputted, and a burn-in acceleration test of a semiconductor device is conducted.
Conventionally, the temperature inside a burn-in chamber is set in advance to the value which is calculated by an operator based on the thermal resistance value, etc., of the specifications of the IC so that the temperature inside an IC chip will be brought to a desired temperature.
However, in a conventional burn-in equipment, the power source current may fluctuate because of the variations in the quality of production lots the semiconductor devices, therefore, the burn-in acceleration test was not always conducted at an expected temperature inside a chip.
Further, the burn-in acceleration test was not necessarily conducted with a proper burn-in time.
Furthermore, in a conventional burn-in equipment, it was impossible to analyze in detail, e.g. which portion of an IC was defective, when a defect was found. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of specialized structures and, more particularly, to a skeletal building structure in spherical or hemispherical form similar to a geodesic dome. It is comprised of resiliently flexible rings that are interwoven. The resulting structure is curved to approximate the shape of a sphere or a hemisphere with each of the rings remaining in tension. The resulting skeletal structure achieves incredibly great strength and yet is extremely lightweight. Further related aspects of the invention are that because the curved surface is comprised solely of interwoven rings normally lacking fixed point to point connection, the entire area circumscribed by the ring is available for openings to the structure, and any one of the rings may be opened at its closure point and readily removed from the skeletal structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Ever since man has been building structures, he has chiefly relied on vertical components like posts in combination with horizontal components like beams. The posts achieve their function in compression while beams achieve their function with both tension and compression. That is, when a beam is supported by two posts, the space between the posts tends to sag due to the force of gravity with the result that the top side of the beam is compressed while the lower side is tensioned. This was a severe limiting factor because early materials used for construction were frequently dense materials such as stone, which are strong in compression, but considerably weaker in tension. Furthermore, dense material is inefficient for supporting weight as beams are expected to do. That is, the weight of stone is such that is has very little capacity for supporting anything but itself.
The ineffectiveness of beams made from such material was partially overcome sometime around the time of the Romans by engineers who developed archways that distributed sideways the load at the center of the arch to posts on either side. This had the additional advantage of utilizing a structure in which more space could be disposed between the posts, since the span length of beams made from materials that were weak in tension was necessarily limited, resulting in greatly reduced floor space in such structures.
The difficulty with such arches, particularly when constructed of such dense materials, is a tendency of the arch to collapse outwardly. This problem was overcome with the aqueducts because all the arches were placed end to end and supported each other laterally. In the construction of many of the great cathedrals, outward collapse of arches was prevented by exterior structures known as flying buttresses. When the arch concept is revolved about an axis at its center, a dome results and the problem of the external collapse of the dome was then sometimes solved by surrounding the base of the dome with a large chain. The dome at St. Peter""s Basilica in the Vatican employs this technique thereby avoiding the necessity for flying buttresses such as are used at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
As engineering and building materials improved, such building construction resolved into skeletal structures of wood or steel, simple beams were replaced in many instances by trusses and the skeletal structures were covered by surfaces that acted as a skin and played little or no part in the support of the structure.
In the relatively recent past, structures that rely more on tension than compression have been developed. Consider, for example, a balloon in which the entire surface is in tension and there is no supporting skeleton or framework utilizing members which are in compression. This concept has been employed in the extreme case to temporary structures which are supported almost entirely by air trapped inside, any losses from which are supplied by a blower. Such losses can be minimized by the use of airlocks for ingress and egress.
The concept of using tension as the principal force can also be employed in structure utilizing a framework or skeleton, particularly when the surfaces of those structures are curved in more than one dimension. Since a balloon in its simplest form is geometrically described as a sphere, portions of a sphere referred to as sections can be employed in structures which principally rely on tension forces for support. In modern architecture, certain domed structures rely principally on tension for support, and thereby are employed most commonly where large areas are sought to be enclosed without any central supporting posts. Examples particularly include structures in which athletic activities occur like domed stadiums, in which no internal posts can be utilized.
The use of surfaces in the design of structures that curve in two dimensions leads to other complications, however, since construction materials are not naturally found or easily fabricated into such shapes. Complex mathematical and geometric relationships result from the efforts to employ essentially planar and linear building materials in the construction of curved structures. This is frequently achieved by subdividing a curved surface, a sphere, or a section of a sphere, into a multiplicity of small planar surfaces that fit together into a regular and coherent pattern, which surfaces, when small enough in comparison to the diameter of the structure, approximate a curved surface. To understand how this is achieved, it is important to examine the geometry of various polygons that can be employed as the small planar surfaces to approximate a curved surface.
The simplest regular polygon is an equilateral triangle, since it employs the fewest number of sides that can enclose a surface area in a symmetrical form. Since our objective is to achieve three dimensional structures, it is also important to consider the construction of convex polyhedra utilizing polygons. Four equilateral triangles joined together at their edges form the simplest regular polyhedron, a regular tetrahedron.
The next regular polygon is a square, and six squares joined at their edges form the regular polyhedron known as a cube.
The following regular polygon is a pentagon having five equal length sides and five corners with equal interior angles. If regular pentagons are employed to form a three dimensional regular convex polyhedron, it has been established that twelve regular pentagons joined at all their edges will form a regular polyhedron known as a dodecahedron. It is so named because it has twelve faces all of which are identical regular pentagons.
The next regular polygon is a hexagon. However, the regular hexagon cannot be employed to form three dimensional convex polyhedra because three regular hexagons fitted closely together at one corner of each of them produce a flat surface. This results from the fact that the inside angle at any corner of a hexagon is 120 degrees, which in each of the three interior angles of the hexagons attached at one of their corners results in 360 degrees or a complete circle about the point of the three corners. Of course a flat surface cannot be used to form a convex polyhedron because regardless of how many hexagons are used, the surface remains flat. For the same reason, any regular polygon having more than six sides cannot even been joined together at a common corner, so the pentagon is the polygon with the largest number of sides that can be used to form a regular convex polyhedron if no other polygon is employed.
It is noted generally that the triangle can be used to form two other regular convex polyhedra besides the tetrahedron. Eight equilateral triangles formed together at their edges will form a regular convex polyhedron called a octahedron. One other regular convex polyhedron is possible, and it is a icosahedron. It is comprised of twenty equilateral triangles all joined at their edges. These are the only regular convex polyhedra that can be constructed. For an explanation and more information concerning this fact, reference should be made to Polyhedra A Visual Approach by Anthony Pugh, published by University of California Press Berkeley, copyright 1976.
Returning to the question of the design of structures utilizing curved surfaces, it is next important to consider the pioneering inventive activity of Richard Buckminster Fuller with geodesic domes and spheres. In the analysis of these structures, Fuller utilized a term, referring to the tensional force employed for support, that was a contraction of the two words xe2x80x9ctensionalxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cintegrityxe2x80x9d which he referred to as xe2x80x9ctensegrityxe2x80x9d. He has stated that geodesic domes are tensegrity structures and that they accomplish their purpose because they have the properties of hydraulically or pneumatically inflated structures, such as the balloon example described above. Fuller has also defined geodesic line as the shortest surface distance between two points on the outside of a sphere. A great circle when used in reference to a sphere is a line formed on the surface of that sphere by a plane that passes through the sphere""s center. An example is the earth""s equator. Therefore, spherical great circles are geodesics, and the equator is a great circle geodesic. Further information concerning these definitions is available in Fuller""s book Synergetics 2, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. New York, copyright 1979, pp.177, et seq.
As noted above, the mathematics of structures built from curved surfaces, and specifically geodesic spheres and domes is very complex. As such it is also completely beyond this background, but information concerning it is available in Geodesic Math and How To Use It, by Hugh Kenner, published by the University of California Press Berkeley, copyright 1976.
Fuller received numerous U.S. patents on structure involving these principles. The first apparently was U.S. Pat. No. 2,682,235 issued Jun. 29, 1954. In the summary of that patent, Fuller points out a comparison between conventional building structures and geodesic ones in terms of weight per square foot of enclosed space. He asserts that in conventional wall and roof designs the structural weight of the building frame is often fifty pounds to the square foot whereas a specific example of the geodesic dome of his invention weighs only 0.78 pounds per square foot of enclosed space or 1.56 percent of conventional construction weight. In the specific example, he asserts the construction of a 49 foot diameter dome that enclosed 20,815 cubic feet of space which structure was made from a frame that weighed only 1,000 pounds and a plastic skin that weighed 140 pounds for a total weight of only 1,140 pounds. Yet the structure is asserted to be able to withstand wind velocities up to 150 miles per hour.
The present invention relates to a building component to be employed in structures that utilize the prior art geodesic dome principles to achieve objectives similar in type to that of the foregoing reference.
Other Fuller references include U.S. Pat. No. 2,881,717, issued Apr. 14, 1959, for a paperboard dome. This reference describes the use of cardboard in place of wood, aluminum, steel and other materials and employs particularized folding techniques to maximize structural strength beginning with a substantially planar material.
Another Fuller reference that preceded the paperboard dome was the plydome, U.S. Pat. No. 2,905,113, patented Sep. 22, 1959. A further such Fuller reference is the catenary (geodesic tent), U.S. Pat. No. 2,914,074, issued Nov. 24, 1959. Other Fuller references are the tensegrity, U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,521, issued Nov. 13, 1962, the aspension (geodesic structures), U.S. Pat No. 3,139,957, issued Jul. 7, 1964, monohex (geodesic structures), U.S. Pat. No. 3,197,927, patented Aug. 3, 1965, and the laminar dome, U.S. Pat. No. 3,203,144, patented Aug. 31, 1965. In the detailed example of use of the present invention described hereinafter, a circular building component will be employed to construct a surface the more nearly approximates a true spherical surface. Another reference is that of Fuller in regard to FIGS. 23 and 24 of the last reference, U.S. Pat. No. 3,203,144.
Another reference is U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,336, for the geodesic hexa-pent by Shoji Sadao, a Fuller associate, which shows the above-described combinations of pentagons and hexagons formed from triangles to create a structure that is a section of what amounts to an icosahedron.
One of the other references located in a pre-examination search is Lodrick, U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,258, dated Jun. 26, 1984, which teaches an icosahedral geodesic sphere gameboard. The same geometry is seen showing a sphere structure formed of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons formed respectively from six triangles and five triangles to create a three frequency icosahedron.
Another interesting reference is Schwam, U.S. Pat. No. 4,907,382, dated Mar. 13, 1990, showing a structure of a geodesic dome with an assembly and method. The panels are interlocking and an individual panel cannot be removed once assembled. A further reference is Wheeler, U.S. Pat. No. 1,292,188, dated Jan. 21, 1919, which illustrates construction of a dodecahedron, formed from regular pentagons and other polyhedra. Other reference are Arnstein, U.S. Pat. No. 4,380,133, dated Apr. 19, 1983, showing a flat pattern for a dodecahedron, Quick, U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,143, dated Mar. 18, 1975, showing a building element for beach and play structures generally using triangles, Goldbach, U.S. Pat. No. 1,880,130, dated Sep. 27, 1932, showing three dimensional polygon puzzles, and finally Tuitt, U.S. Pat. No. 3,785,066, dated Jan. 15, 1974, for modular paper sculptures.
While the prior art clearly defines and establishes the advantages and use of geodesic structures and teach means of building same from various planar materials, none of the prior art employ the highly particularized shape of resilient interwoven rings to achieve great strength, flexibility (resiliency), interlocking, removability, and flexibility of use of the present invention.
Bearing in mind the foregoing, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a skeletal structure having a surface with a double curve substantially defining at least a region of a sphere, which is referred to hereinafter as a spherical surface, comprised of resiliently flexible interwoven rings, with each of the rings remaining in tension to achieve great strength with very light weight.
A closely related principal object of the present invention to utilize the foregoing skeletal structure as the framework of hemispherical buildings.
Another related object of the invention to provide a skeletal hemispherical building structure which can be formed from an essentially linear material such as resiliently flexible steel formed into rings that are interwoven with each other.
One more related object of the invention is to construct the skeletal structure using rings formed from a resiliently flexible linear member having first and second member ends, wherein the first and second member ends are preferably releasibly interconnected by an overlapping clasp.
A further object of the invention is that its particularized functions include removability of one or more rings from a spherical surface or any other shaped surface without disassembly of the entire surface.
An additional object of the invention is to provide skeletal support with easy addition, removability and interchangeability of a plurality of functional or decorative surfaces attached to the interior area of the rings. As an example, if a geodesic like full sphere is assembled having a diameter of only a few feet, decorative surfaces can be applied that are mirrors and the sphere then rotated in an environment of bright spotlights to create moving points of light in a darkened room for entertainment purposes. While such devices are well known from a functional standpoint, none are believed to be supported using anything remotely similar to the inventive skeletal structure, which illustrates one of numerous objects and advantages of the invention.
One more object of the invention is enhanced strength of a spherical surface constructed from components in the form of resiliently flexible rings, which enhanced strength results from unique aspects of the inventive skeletal structure. The first two are that the rings are in tension and are interwoven. This interwoven design causes segments of the rings to bear against other rings in a way in which each ring is perpendicular to sphere radial lines and each is pressed inwardly and outwardly in an alternating series of contact points along its circumference by abutment with interwoven rings to place each ring in static equilibrium. The enhanced strength also result from the fact that the resiliently flexible rings normally lack fixed point to point connection, and therefore can slide relative to each other to compensate for and absorb impact forces at any given point on the surface of the skeletal structure, or on the functional and/or decorative surfaces attached to the interior areas of the rings.
The present invention accomplishes the above-stated objectives, as well as others, as may be determined by a fair reading and interpretation of the entire specification.
A skeletal structure is provided, including a plurality of preferably resiliently flexible rings, usually of substantially equal diameters, each ring passing through and thus being interwoven with several immediately adjacent rings, so that the rings collectively form a flexible mesh, the flexible mesh being formed into a surface having a double curve substantially defining at least a region of a sphere, which is referred to as a spherical surface. The diameter of the rings is selected relative to the diameter of the spherical surface so that the curvature of that spherical surface is sufficient to cause each ring to place each of its interwoven adjacent rings in slight bending contact. In addition, the thickness of the linear members from which the rings are made is selected to make the rings resiliently flexible, yet strong enough to provide skeletal structure support.
Each ring preferably is interwoven with at least five immediately adjacent rings. Each ring is formed from a resiliently flexible linear member having first and second member ends. The first and second member ends are preferably releasibly interconnected by an overlapping clasp. The overlapping clasp preferably includes a first interlocking structure at the first member end. To form the preferred first interlocking structure, a doubled back segment of first member end is curved to an extent that it reverses direction and parallels itself to define a first loop. Then the remainder of the doubled back segment of the first member end is bent into a lateral hook to arch around the adjacent parallel portion of member end to form a snap fastener. See FIG. 4. To form the preferred second interlocking structure, the second member end is bent into a second loop and then spirally wrapped around the portion of second member end adjacent the second loop in the configuration of a noose. The second loop is large enough to receive and pass the entire first interlocking structure when open.
As a first alternative, the first and second member ends may be more permanently interconnected by a weld, in which case the linear member preferably employs butt member ends. As a second alternative, the first and second member ends are held butt to butt with a butt end connector. As a third alternative, the first and second member ends may be threaded male end to female end. Other connection means may be alternatively employed and are within the contemplation of the inventor.
The spherical surface may be a whole sphere, and may comprise thirty two rings. The spherical surface alternatively may be a hemisphere, which is preferable when the skeletal structure is used as the frame for a building, or the roof of a building such as a domed stadium.
A skeletal structure is further provided, including a plurality of preferably resiliently flexible rings of preferably uniform diameter. Each ring passes through and thus is interwoven with several immediately adjacent rings, so that the rings collectively form a flexible mesh. The flexible mesh is formed into a surface having a double curve substantially defining a spherical surface.
The diameter of the rings is selected relative to the diameter of the spherical surface so that the curvature of that spherical surface is sufficient to cause each ring to place each of its interwoven adjacent rings in slight bending contact. In addition, the thickness of the linear members from which the rings are made is selected to make the rings resiliently flexible, yet strong enough to provide skeletal structure support.
The spherical structure is primarily contemplated for the numerous practical applications described in this specification elsewhere, but it is within the contemplation of the inventor that the same structure could be assembled in space as an earth motor with very large diameter rings around the earth to intercept the earth""s electromagnetic fields, generating and collecting energy thereby. | {
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coronary artery imaging method and apparatus, and more particularly to a method for noninvasively imaging a coronary artery using a nuclear magnetic resonance phenomenon.
(2) Description of Prior Art
X-ray angiography is a typical coronary artery imaging method. This method employs an iodine contrast agent and includes the steps of inserting a catheter into a coronary artery from a foot artery to thereby inject the contrast agent into a coronary artery through the catheter and imaging the coronary artery on the basis of absorption of x-rays by the contrast agent.
Of late, this type of coronary artery imaging method has been frequently employed for pre-detecting heart diseases such as heart attack or myocardial infarction, which have recently been increasing.
The foregoing coronary artery imaging method requires an operation to insert the catheter into a foot artery. In the operation, the catheter must be handled carefully to avoid damaging the artery. Furthermore this method is hazardous, because much of the contrast agent must be administered for a short time. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to graphical user interfaces for computer displays. More particularly, this invention relates to a graphical user interface that facilitates system control.
2. The Prior Art
Many computer printer users are not thoroughly familiar with printer driver software. Since printer driver software is used from within an application, it is less obvious than more frequently used software. Furthermore, it is used by people of varying skill levels for multiple printing tasks. Existing printer-related help files and user manuals typically contain user technical printer jargon (e.g., xe2x80x9chalftoningxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cdpixe2x80x9d), as does the driver interface. However, many typical users do not understand such jargon.
Printer controls are typically grouped semantically across various tab sheets. While this layout may be meaningful to expert users, new users are often unsure about which controls need adjustment, how these controls relate to each other and where certain controls are located. Such users may not understand, for example, why paper type is not listed along with paper size. While typical help screens usually explain what the controls do, they often do not explain how to accomplish specific tasks or why certain controls may need to be adjusted. Also, most help screens relate to a particular tab that is open. If a user is not sure where to go to find a certain control, or what the control is named, the help screen often does not direct the user to the appropriate tab. Compounding the confusion of navigation and use of controls is the fact that only a few words are used in the small tab indicators across the top of the tab sheets displayed in the printer control interface. Therefore, limited information is conveyed by such tabs.
When considering typical user goals during printing, the problem worsens. For example, a user may wish to optimize the software for photographic printing. Upon entering the printer driver, the user will be confronted with a variety of user interface controls and choices tabs. Both quality and paper size controls may each require adjustment to print a photograph. Not only are these items likely to be located in different regions of the printer driver interface, but the user may not even know that a particular item needs to be adjusted. Traditional help, because it is control-designated, rather than task-designated, does not specifically state which of the controls needs to be adjusted or what the settings should be in order to achieve a desired result. Even if the user does know which adjustments are needed, the act of switching between tabs may cause confusion regarding which items have been selected and what will happen when changes to the driver are effected.
Therefore, there exists a need for a printer property graphical user interface that is goal-oriented and that presents relevant control information in a concise format.
In one aspect, the invention is a method of providing a control interface for a digital device in which a plurality of divider images are displayed so that one of the divider images appears to be on top of the plurality of divider images. Each divider image displays control information relating to a different controllable feature of the digital device. A tab extends from a selected edge of each divider image. Each tab displays a summary of the control information displayed on the corresponding divider image.
Another aspect of the invention is a method of providing a control interface for a digital device, in which a plurality of divider images are displayed so that one of the divider images appears to be on top of the plurality of divider images. Each divider image has a top edge, an opposite bottom edge, a left edge and an opposite right edge and each divider image displays control information relating to a different controllable feature of the digital device. A tab extends from the left edge of each divider image and each tab displays text that describes the control information displayed on a corresponding divider image. A pull-down menu that provides a plurality of desired results relating to a selected controllable feature of the digital device is displayed and input indicating a selection of a desired result by a user is received from the user. A plurality of instructions that indicate which divider image should be selected by the user to achieve the selected desired result and how to achieve the selected desired result are displayed to the user.
In yet another aspect, the invention is a computer programmed to display a control interface icon for a digital device. The computer includes a computer monitor and a processor. The processor is programmed to execute the following operations: display a plurality of divider images so that one of the divider images appears to be on top of the plurality of divider images, wherein each divider image has a top edge, an opposite bottom edge, a left edge and an opposite right edge and wherein each divider image displays control information relating to a different controllable feature of the digital device; and display a tab extending from the left edge of each divider image, wherein each tab displays text that describes the control information displayed on a corresponding divider image.
These and other aspects will become apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment taken in conjunction with the following drawings, although variations and modifications may be effected without departing from the spirit and scope of the novel concepts of the disclosure. | {
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The inventions described herein relate to systems and methods for automating the creation of an episode of an interactive show. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an optical scanner, an image display device, and a head mounted display.
2. Related Art
For example, Patent Document 1 (JP-A-2013-109359) discloses an optical scanner including a mirror part having a reflection surface, a torsion bar that swingably supports the mirror part, a support part that supports the torsion bar. Further, the optical scanner of Patent Document 1 has an impact relaxation part provided in an air gap between the mirror part and the support part, and the impact relaxation part prevents breakage of the mirror part due to collision with the support part. Furthermore, these respective parts are integrally formed by patterning of a silicon substrate using an etching technique.
However, in the optical scanner of Patent Document 1, spaces around the mirror part vary. That is, the space between the mirror part and the impact relaxation part is small compared to the space between the mirror part and the support part, and the shape of the impact relaxation part is very minute compared to the other parts. Accordingly, if the silicon substrate is patterned by etching, the amounts of processing vary in the respective parts of the silicon substrate due to differences in etching opening size, and manufacturing of the optical scanner is difficult.
Specifically, in order to form the impact relaxation part with higher accuracy, the etching time is longer. Then, the mirror part and the torsion bar are excessively etched, and the mirror part becomes smaller and the torsion bar becomes thinner. On the other hand, in order to form the mirror part and the torsion bar with higher accuracy, the etching time is shorter. Then, the etching may be ended before the impact relaxation part is formed. | {
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Various types of mobile terminals have been introduced. Most mobile terminals are equipped with a multi-touch sensing display unit. For example, a smart phone equipped with a multi-touch sensing display unit has become popular. The smart phone provides many convenient features to a user. A user may perform daily tasks using the smart phone instead of using other computing devices including a computer, a fax, and a phone.
Such a typical smart phone may display a graphic user interface to interact with a user and allow a user to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. Such a typical mobile terminal may, however, display one application window at a time although multiple applications are in operation as a background mode. For example, a typical mobile terminal may display only one application window associated with one that a user most recently activates among applications in operation. When a user wants to display another application window associated with another application running in a background mode, a user may be required to close a current application window and initiate another desired application to display an associated application window on a display unit. Such a manner of displaying application windows by opening and closing windows might be inconvenient to a user of the mobile terminal. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the bulk storage and distribution of discs from a hopper assembly and more particularly to the selective distribution of discs that are sequentially guided to an exit opening for a speedy discharge to a desired direction.
2. Description of Related Art
Disc delivery apparatuses for delivering monetary coins, medallions, tokens, or the like, for use in a money exchanger, a coin dispenser, a ticket vending machine, an arcade game, a gambling game machine, or the like, are known in the art. Bulk discs are generally stored within a hopper and selectively discharged in accordance with a controller to a user. The coin dispensing industry has attempted to increase the speed and anti-jamming features of such coin dispensers. Frequently, it is desirable to not only select and dispense a disc or a coin, but to further divert the disc to different locations. For example, a supplemental lock box can be provided to divert excess coins to a storage device when they are not needed for dispensing to the user. A slot machine in the gaming industry may accept quarters from a player during the play of the slot machine and can also dispense the quarters as a jackpot if the user aligns a winning combination of images. If the deposited coins exceed the desired reserve of bulk coins necessary for a jackpot, it can be desirable to divert some of the coins to an auxiliary lock box within the gaming machine for storage.
Thus, the prior art has proposed various devices to not only accelerate the dispensing of the coins or discs from an exiting disc passageway, but has also proposed guiding the dispensed coins in different directions. An example of such a device can be found in the Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 10-49725 and Laid Open Publication No. 9-305817. These references disclose a storage hopper for coins having an elevated coin passageway wherein coins can be delivered from a rotating selector in the storage hopper to be elevated to a discharge device that can selectively discharge individual coins in one of two passageways or directions.
The prior art is seeking to increase the speed of dispensing such coins, while eliminating the possibility of jammed coins at such discharge devices.
The present invention provides a disc guiding device that is capable of directing discs to a desired location. The disc guiding device can be installed as original equipment on, for example, a coin discharging apparatus, or can be retrofitted to such equipment. The disc guiding device can be attached to a coin passageway that has coins or discs being guided from a bulk storage hopper. The disc guiding device connects its guiding passageway to the passageway from the coin hopper to guide and align individual discs in an exit position on the guiding passageway. A pushing device can contact a disc located at the exit position, and can move the disc out of the guiding passageway. An adjacent diverter unit with diverting passageways can receive the disc and direct it to the desired location. A supporting device, such as a conical roller, can be positioned traverse to the exit position to initially receive an upper edge of a disc to align the disc in an operative position for subsequent contact with the pushing device wherein the disc is positioned at an inclined angle to a longitudinal axis of the guiding passageway. The pushing device can have a cam surface and be spring biased to cause a pair of rollers to contact a lower surface of the disc and eject it from the exit position. The conical roller can be further spring biased to initially contact an upper edge of the disc as it is translating along the guiding passageway and to partially move upward with the disc until it is properly aligned in an inclined position in the exit position of the guiding passageway. The cam surface of the pushing device can move the lower edge of the disc onto a rotatable roller positioned adjacent the lower surface of the exit position whereby the disc is released into the diverting passageway. The diverting passageway can have an inverted V shape with a roller positioned at the apex of the lower surface of the V shape to further reduce friction during the release of the disc. The diverter unit can further have a roller mounted on a movable lever that can be controlled by a motive device, such as a solenoid, to block one of two directions in the diverter passageway for direction of the disc to the desired location. The above combination of features and sub-combination of features permit a high speed, low friction, discharging of discs to desired directions. | {
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The present invention relates generally to multi-level voltage sources used to power electric devices, and, particularly, to a multi-level Pulse Width Modulated voltage source used to power electric motors used in seagoing vessels.
The Navy has committed to the development of the xe2x80x9call electric shipxe2x80x9d and has compared the impact on ship operations with the changing from sail to steam and from fossil to nuclear power. The heart of the all electric ship is the so-called xe2x80x9cintegrated power systemxe2x80x9d (IPS), which includes the propulsion motor subsystem.
In a seagoing vessel, such as a surface ship or a submarine, the propulsion motor is important to achieving performance objectives, especially in the area of acoustics. In order to avoid so-called xe2x80x9cpassive detectionxe2x80x9d by enemy ships, submarines, aircraft, and land-based detection and tracking systems, the energy associated with the acoustic signature of Navy vessels should be minimized and dispersed.
Electric motors in Navy vessels may be driven with Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) inverters to control motor speed, output torque, output power, and other parameters. Several challenges are presented by the use of PWM voltage sources to power electric motors.
For example, a challenge presented by the use of PWM voltage sources to power electric motors relates to the issue of waveform distortion. In particular, harmonic distortion in the PWM voltage waveform (referred to herein as the xe2x80x9charmonic distortion problemxe2x80x9d) can significantly degrade electric motor performance. For example, harmonic distortion can increase high frequency noise, thereby degrading acoustic performance of the electric motor.
Harmonic distortion can also increase heating of the motor, thereby causing breakdowns and reducing reliability (e.g., mean time between failures [MTBF]) of the electric motor. Significant heating can also adversely affect other equipment or components near the electric motor.
Harmonic distortion can also increase vibrations in the motor. These vibrations represent a power loss, thus reducing the electromechanical efficiency of the system.
Typically, PWM voltage sources are PWM inverters that provide an output voltage waveform having a series of voltage pulses that can have several discrete levels. For example, FIG. 1 shows a simulated 5-level PWM voltage waveform with a step size of 0.5 volts. The five output levels are +1, +0.5, 0, xe2x88x920.5, and xe2x88x921 per unit. The smooth sinusoidal curve is reference current 100. The slightly noisy sinusoidal curve overlaying the smooth sinusoidal curve is the PWM current 150. The stepped curve is the PWM voltage output 175. As can be seen, the PWM voltage output 175 generally tracks the magnitude and shape of reference current 100.
The relatively granular step size and the low number of output levels means that the sharp departures between pulses will cause harmonics to be present in the voltage input to the electric motor. These harmonics can cause the efficiency, reliability, and noise performance problems discussed above.
Some commercially available inverters used for industrial motors use a 3-level H-bridge cell. These inverters provide 3-level PWM voltage outputs, usually at less than 600 volts. With the small number of levels and the large step size, these 3-level H-bridge cells will lead to many of the difficulties discussed above when waveform fidelity is important to satisfactory system performance.
It has been proposed that a multi-level (greater than three) inverter could be constructed using two or more (n) cascaded or stacked 3-level H-bridge cells. For example, this inverter could use n voltage inputs at the same voltage level in order to provides n times the voltage level of a single 3-level H-bridge cell. Such an inverter could provide at least 5-level PWM voltage output levels at much greater than 600 volts.
The interested reader is referred to Hammond, U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,545, entitled xe2x80x9cMedium Voltage PWM Drive and Method,xe2x80x9d Opal, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,263, entitled xe2x80x9cLow and Medium Voltage PWM AC/DC Power Conversion Method and Apparatus,xe2x80x9d and Duba, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,339, entitled xe2x80x9cModular Static Power Converter Connected in a Multi-Level Multi-Phase, Multi-Circuit Configuration,xe2x80x9d for discussions relating to the above approach. Each of the aforementioned three patents is herby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
It has also been proposed that an n-cascaded 3-level PWM H-bridge cell voltage inverter could receive different DC voltages, rather than the same voltage for all n cells. Such an approach may permit an increase in the number of the PWM voltage output levels, such as up to 9 levels for an n=2 device Just by way of example, the DC input voltage on one cell could be double or triple the DC input voltage as the other cell in an n=2 configuration.
The interested reader is referred to Mueler, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,565, entitled xe2x80x9cReducing Switching Losses in Series Connected Bridge Inverters and Amplifiers,xe2x80x9d and Lipo, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,788, entitled xe2x80x9cHybrid Topology for Multi-Level Power Conversion,xe2x80x9d for discussions related to the aforementioned approach. Each of the aforementioned two patents is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
One reference in the literature touches upon the concept of connecting two five-level cells in series. The interested reader is referred to M. R. P. Kumar and J. M. S. Kim, xe2x80x9cDeadbeat Control of Hybrid Multilevel Switching Converter,xe2x80x9d Proceedings of the IEEE Power Electronics Specialst Conference, Vol.1, pp. 782-788, January 1996.
In order to provide a contextual backdrop, the aforementioned has focused on problems and applications in the military context. However, it should be unders tood that these issues exist in non-military commercial and other applications where PWM voltage sources are used to drive electric motor s and other electrical devices.
An embodiment of the present invention comprises a multi-level PWM inverter that is constructed by cascading multi-level H-bridge inverters and providing different voltage inputs to the multi-level H-bridges. The values of the voltages, or the ratios of the voltages, are selected in order to provide an increased number of output levels. In the cascaded arrangement, at least one of the multi-level H-bridge inverter s has more than three levels. Preferably, at least one of the multi-level H-bridge inverters is a 5-level inverter.
According to one aspect of the invention, the cascaded arrangement may use a primary 5-level H-bridge with at least one 3-level H-bridge (referred to as a xe2x80x9c5/3Hxe2x80x9d arrangement). This arrangement can provide up to fifteen output levels if regenerative voltage sources are used, and up to eleven output levels if a non-regenerative voltage sources are used. According to another aspect of the invention, the cascaded arrangement may be used to provide a rectifier output instead of an inverter output. Other types of outputs could be provided by the cascaded arrangement.
The invention can yield improved power quality and control by providing more PWM voltage levels with fewer H-bridges. Good total harmonic distortion (THD) performance is observed. The improved power quality and control can mitigate the power performance, reliability performance, and the noise performance problems associated with the matching problem, harmonic distortion problem, and the switching problem discussed above. Additionally, fewer H-bridges can result in lower cost and can enhance reliability.
Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to overcome one or more of the aforementioned and other limitations of existing systems and methods for driving and/or controlling electric motors.
It is another object of the invention to provide a multi-level voltage source that mitigates the matching problem associated with driving and/or controlling electric motors.
It is another object of the invention to provide a multi-level voltage source that mitigates the harmonic problem associated with driving and/or controlling electric motors.
It is another object of the invention to provide a multi-level voltage source that mitigates the switching loss problem associated with driving and/or controlling electric motors.
It is another object of the invention to provide a multi-level voltage source that provides a greater number of voltage levels at a reduced part count.
It is another object of the invention to provide a multi-level voltage source that provides a greater number of voltage levels at a reduced cost, while maintaining good reliability and overall system performance.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute part of this specification, illustrate several embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. It will become apparent from the drawings and detailed description that other objects, advantages and benefits of the invention also exist. | {
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Silicon nitride (SiN), silicon carbon nitride (SiCNy), silicon oxide (SiOx), and silicon carbon oxide (SiCOx) are known in the semiconductor art as dielectric materials. These dielectric materials are fainted by various techniques including chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or atomic layer deposition (ALD). As semiconductor devices get smaller with high aspect ratio features, often including sensitive materials, conventional CVD and ALD processes are no longer suitable for forming these dielectric materials. In addition, ALD processes are slow and do not form a desired thickness of the dielectric material at a sufficient rate. Also, when these dielectric materials are formed by an ALD process that uses ammonia or an amine as a precursor, by-products include hydrogen and partially fragmented ammonia or amines, which degrade exposed components of a semiconductor device structure on which the dielectric material is formed. In addition, conventional ALD processes are conducted at a temperature that may damage already-formed components on the semiconductor device structure.
It would be desirable to have improved methods of forming silicon-containing dielectric materials by ALD, such that good quality, conformality, and electrical properties are achieved. | {
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Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a connector assembly configured for use with electrosurgical systems that utilize electrosurgical cables configured to couple an electrosurgical instrument to a source of electrosurgical energy. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a connector assembly configured for use with electrosurgical cables that utilize a double helix wound electrical connector configuration.
Description of Related Art
Electrosurgery involves application of high radio frequency current to a surgical site to cut, ablate, seal, coagulate or desiccate tissue. An electrosurgical generator, typically, delivers radio frequency energy to one or more active electrodes of an electrosurgical instrument. The electrosurgical instrument may be configured to function in various modalities, e.g., bipolar or monopolar modes.
Various types of electrosurgical cables may be utilized to transmit the electrosurgical energy from the electrosurgical generator to the electrosurgical instrument. Due to the radiative nature of RF energy, stray electrosurgical RF energy is emitted outside the transmission path of certain types of electrosurgical cables, which may reduce treatment energy. Moreover, electrical fields associated with the stray electrosurgical RF energy may interfere with the operation of other electronic equipment in the operational theatre, e.g., patient monitoring equipment in the surgical environment.
In order to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings associated with certain types of electrosurgical cables, electrosurgical cables have been developed which utilize a double helix wound electrical connector configuration. Present day connector assemblies, however, currently provide connection solutions for IDC ribbon cables, solder-cup D-subminiature cables, crimp style plastic connectors and surface mount PCB connectors (e.g., right and straight angle PCB connectors) and are not, typically, suitable for use with electrosurgical cables that utilize double helix wound electrical connector configuration. That is, the integrity of the double helix configuration of an electrosurgical cable is compromised when these types of connectors are utilized to connect the electrosurgical cable to the electrosurgical generator and/or electrosurgical instrument. | {
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IEEE 802.11 is a set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specification for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) communication, called Wi-Fi, in the unlicensed (2.4, 3.6, 5, and 60 GHz) frequency bands. The standards and amendments provide the basis for wireless network products using the Wi-Fi frequency bands. Wi-Fi plays an important role in the growing application of Indoor Location. The key applicable Wi-Fi technology is that of ranging using time-of-flight (TOF) ranging measurements defined in IEEE 802.11v. Once the distance between devices is measured, the information can be used to determine device location.
In IEEE 802.11-REVmc, Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) protocol is proposed for Indoor Location. Based on FTM, an initiating station (STA) exchanges FTM frames with a responding station (STA) to measure the time-of-flight (TOF) or the Round Trip Delay (RTD/2). The initiating station then computes its range to the responding station after receiving timing measurements (i.e., timestamps corresponding to the departure time and arrival time of the FTM frames) from the responding station. To calculate a station position, the STA performs ranging measurements with multiple access points (APs) via FTM frame exchange and obtains AP's positions. FTM positioning requires the initiating station to exchange FTM frames with multiple responding APs for TOF measurements in order to determine its absolute location. For 3D positioning, the station needs to exchange FTM frames with four APs in order to determine its absolute location.
As well known in the teaching of navigation science, the STA positioning error, obtained from processing the timing measurements, is related to the geometry of the AP positions. This is typically describes by a parameter called PDOP (Position of Dilation). The PDOP is inversely proportional to the volume of tetrahedron formed by unit directional vectors between AP and STA positions. To achieve low positioning error, it is necessary that APs be deployed at strategically selected positions within a coverage area. Specifically, co-located basic service sets (BSSs) (e.g., BBSs on the same physical device or BSSs configured with the same location as a neighboring BSS) should not be used for FTM positioning. STA should know which BSSs are co-located to avoid initiating FTM with those APs managing the co-located BSSs. Configuring APs that share the same location with an mBSSID or LocationID element may not always be feasible. First, it requires an admin to manually configure these elements in the beacons of co-located BSSs. Second, it hardly works in a public environment with APs independently operated by different business entities. A solution for avoiding FTM with co-located BSSs is sought. | {
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It has long been recognized that vehicles having ground engaging/propulsion systems which utilize track have higher traction in soil and cause less ground compaction than vehicles of comparable weight equipped with propulsion systems utilizing solid or pneumatic-tire-equipped wheels. The "footprint" or engagement area of track propulsion systems with the ground is larger than the footprint which is practically achievable by wheel propulsion systems due to the footprint of each wheel being relatively small. In an attempt to compensate for such reduced footprint, large wheel vehicles such as agricultural tractors often have four and sometimes six wheels mounted on each axle. Propulsion systems for agricultural applications today, however, nearly exclusively utilize pneumatic tires rather than track. Present day efforts to increase traction and reduce soil compaction have centered around optimizing wheel propulsion systems even though track systems inherently provide such objectives. As stated in the Agricultural Engineer, Winter 1982 Edition, page 109, "Now that the pneumatic tire provides the almost universal means of obtaining traction in agriculture, it is timely to incorporate a system of in-work tire pressure control which will enable tire deflection levels to be kept constant throughout the working cycle. The quest for increased traction with reduced levels of soil compaction makes the adoption of such a system increasingly desirable."
The popularity and nearly universal acceptance of wheel propulsion systems rather than track systems in agricultural use stems primarily from the present day track system's relatively higher noise levels, higher initial cost, lower maximum travel speed, and inability to transport itself on improved road surfaces without inflicting unacceptable damage. While the noise level and roading problems exhibited by conventional track may be minimized by cushioning the ground engaging surface thereof, commercially unacceptably high wear rates generally occur at the moveable joints between the rigid track sections when such conventional track is used in high speed applications.
Those skilled in the art have recognized that the foregoing advantages of wheel and track propulsion systems could be realized by utilizing a propulsion system in which a continuous rubber belt is entrained about a pair of wheels. Problems encountered in actually reducing such belt system to practice include how to drive such belt with the entrained wheels, how to maintain structural integrity of the belt and wheels, how to retain the belt in lateral alignment with the wheels when the wheels are subjected to large lateral loads, how to provide long life for the belt and wheels, and how to accommodate debris ingestion between the wheels and belt while maintaining the driving relationship therebetween without damaging either.
Limited success has been achieved in providing belt systems for some light duty applications such as snowmobiles. Light duty belt systems utilizing positive drives are illustrated, by example, in U.S. Pat. Nos., 3,510,174 and 3,858,948 which issued May 5, 1970 and Jan. 7, 1975, respectively. An example of a light duty vehicle utilizing friction drive is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,103 which issued Apr. 15, 1980. Attempts to expand the use of belt systems to heavy-duty commercial applications have, in general, met with failure. The following U.S. patents are directed toward resolving the previously described belt system problems by utilizing positive belt drives and applying them to heavy-duty applications: U.S. Pat. No. 2,338,817 which issued Jan. 11, 1944; U.S. Pat. No. 2,461,849 which issued Feb. 15, 1949; U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,321 which issued Nov. 21, 1972; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,241,956 which issued Dec. 30, 1980. The 'U.S. Pat. No. 849 patent which is assigned to B. F. Goodrich explained why positive drive was preferred over others: "It has also been proposed to eliminate the use of cross bars and to drive the track by friction alone, but use of such a construction requires a great area of angular contact or `wrap` about the driving wheel and confines the use of such tracks to drives for light vehicles providing great angular contact of the drive wheel."
Notwithstanding the 'U.S. Pat. No. 849 recommendation, still other U.S. patents sought to apply friction drive to heavy-duty applications: U.S. Pat. No. 2,476,828 issued Jul. 19, 1949; U.S. Pat. No. 2,476,460 issued Jul. 19, 1949; U.S. Pat. No. 2,998,998 issued Sep. 5, 1961; U.S. Pat. No. 1,411,523 issued Apr. 4, 1922; U.S. Pat. No. 2,537,745 issued Jan. 9, 1951; U.S. Pat. No. 2,531,111 issued Nov. 21, 1950; U.S. Pat. No. 2,494,065 issued Jan. 10, 1950; U.S. Pat. No. 2,429,242 issued Oct. 21, 1947; U.S. Pat. No. 2,350,076 issued May 30, 1944; U.S. Pat. No. 2,898,965 issued Aug. 11, 1959; U.S. Pat. No. 2,644,539 issued Jul. 7, 1953; U.S. Pat. No. 3,369,622 issued Feb. 20, 1968; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,882 issued Aug. 4, 1981. Other friction drive systems are shown in Otter Tractor Corporation advertising circular, U.K. Patent 1,604,615 published Dec. 9, 1981; U.K. Patent 2,048,800B published Jan. 12, 1983; U.K. Patent 278,779 published Oct. 20, 1927; Netherlands Patent 7,605,810 published Nov. 30, 1977; and German Patent 678,785 granted Jun. 29, 1939. Many of the aforementioned friction drive systems have a dual purpose driving/guiding structure which utilizes a driving slot having sloped lateral facing side surfaces and a belt having cooperatively sloped, laterally facing side surfaces which are frictionally engaged with the slot's side surfaces through an interference fit similar to V-belt drives. The driving slots of such structures tend to accumulate debris which disengages the frictionally engageable side surfaces. Radial grooves in the walls bounding such slots have been used in attempts to expel debris from the slots but have been generally uneffective.
The aforementioned patents are representative of a large body of patents which purport to solve one or more of the belt system implementation problems. Such body of patents constitutes documentary evidence that efforts to achieve this blend of track and wheel propulsion systems have been exerted for over half a century without realizing any practical measure of success. Solutions to the problems of actually implementing a heavy-duty vehicular belt drive system have proven ellusive and scientific scaling techniques have not, to date, been successfully applied to light duty vehicles for purposes of developing a heavy-duty belt system. Thus, despite the long felt need for and the advantages thereof, a heavy-duty application vehicle utilizing such belt system is commercially unavailable today.
It is, thus, the objective of this invention to provide a workable solution to the problems by taking into account that such vehicle's undercarriage, to be truly useful, should be roadable, provide high traction and low ground compression, and minimally disturb the underlying terrain, as well as operate in the heavy-duty working mode and provide a smooth ride for the operator in most soil conditions and topography from level land to steep inclinations while performing useful work without breaking the belts, losing drive capability between engaged wheels and belts, or disengaging the belts from the wheels. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an opto-electric hybrid board in which an electric circuit board with an optical element mounted thereon and an optical waveguide are stacked together.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the increase in the amount of transmission information, optical interconnection in addition to electrical interconnection has been used in recent electronic devices and the like. As an example of such a technique, an opto-electric hybrid board has been disclosed in Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2009-288341. As shown in FIG. 7, this opto-electric hybrid board includes: an electric circuit board E0 including an insulative layer 51, and electrical interconnect lines 52 formed on the front surface of the insulative layer 51; an optical waveguide (optical interconnect lines) W0 (including an under cladding layer 56, cores 57 and an over cladding layer 58) stacked on the back surface (a surface opposite from the surface with the electrical interconnect lines 52 formed thereon) of the insulative layer 51 of the electric circuit board E0; and a light-emitting element 11 and a light-receiving element 12 which are mounted on portions of the surface with the electrical interconnect lines 52 formed thereon, the portions corresponding to opposite end portions of the optical waveguide W0. The opposite end portions of the optical waveguide W0 are formed into inclined surfaces inclined at 45 degrees with respect to the electric circuit board E0. Portions of each of the cores 57 positioned at the inclined surfaces function as first and second light reflecting surfaces 57a. Portions of the insulative layer 51 corresponding to the light-emitting element 11 and the light-receiving element 12 have first and second through holes 55, respectively, for an optical path. The first and second through holes 55 allow a light beam L to propagate therethrough between the light-emitting element 11 and the first light reflecting surface 57a provided in a first end portion of the optical waveguide W0 and between the light-receiving element 12 and the second light reflecting surface 57a provided in a second end portion thereof.
The propagation of the light beam L in the aforementioned opto-electric hybrid board is performed in a manner to be described below. First, the light beam L is emitted from the light-emitting element 11 toward the first light reflecting surface 57a. The light beam L passes through the first through hole 55 for an optical path formed in the insulative layer 51, and then passes through the under cladding layer 56 in the first end portion (the left-hand end portion as seen in FIG. 7) of the optical waveguide W0. Then, the light beam L is reflected from the first light reflecting surface 57a of each of the cores 57 (or the optical path is changed by 90 degrees), and travels through the interior of each core 57 in an axial direction. Then, the light beam L is reflected from the second light reflecting surface 57a provided in the second end portion (the right-hand end portion as seen in FIG. 7) of each core 57 (or the optical path is changed by 90 degrees), and travels toward the light-receiving element 12. Subsequently, the light beam L passes through the under cladding layer 56 in the second end portion, and travels outwardly of the optical waveguide W0. Then, the light beam L passes through the second through hole 55 for an optical path, and is received by the light-receiving element 12.
However, the light beam L is diffused as shown in FIG. 7 when emitted from the light-emitting element 11 and when reflected from the second light reflecting surface 57a. Thus, the light beam L is low in the efficiency of propagation. To solve such a problem, Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2002-258081, for example, discloses a technique in which a lens 60 is mounted to an opening surface of the second through hole 55 for an optical path to change the light beam L passing through the second through hole 55 into a collimated light beam or a convergent light beam by the effect of the lens 60, as shown in FIG. 8. This technique changes the light beam L into a collimated light beam or a convergent light beam as mentioned above to achieve the efficient propagation of the light beam L.
However, the lens 60, which is mounted, involves the need for the step of mounting the lens 60, resulting in a problem such that the productivity is lowered. The process of mounting the lens 60 also results in a problem such that variations occur in the accuracy of the position of the mounting.
In view of the foregoing, an opto-electric hybrid board is provided which includes a lens formed in an optical path between an optical element and a core with stable positional accuracy without the decrease in productivity. | {
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The metal coating of solar cells is understood to mean the production or application of current-discharging, electrically conductive contacts on or to the front and rear sides of solar cells. The metal coating must, therefore, be able to establish a good resistive contact with the semiconductor in order to ensure that the charge carriers emerge from the semiconductor into the current-discharging contacts without any disturbances. In order to avoid current losses, the metal coating must additionally have an adequate current conductivity, that is to say either a high conductivity and/or a sufficiently high conductor track cross section.
A multiplicity of processes which meet these requirements exist for the metal coating of rear sides of solar cells. The aim when metal coating the front side, or light incidence side, of the solar cell is to achieve the least possible shading of the active semiconductor surface, in order to use as much of the surface as possible for capturing photons. However, this can be achieved only with a smaller conductor track cross section, which conflicts with the requirements of high current conductivity. With fine conductor track structures, moreover, the metal coating may manifest adhesion problems, in particular on crystalline silicon.
Metal coating using a thick-film technique is an economical and conventional technique. The pastes used comprise metal particles (predominantly silver) and are electrically conductive as a result. They can be applied by screen, mask and pad printing or by paste writing. A widely used process at the present time is the screen printing process, by means of which finger-shaped metal coating lines having a width of up to approximately 80-100 .mu.m are possible for the metal coating. Even at this grid width, electrical conductivity losses are evident in comparison with a pure metal structure, and this can have an adverse effect on the series resistance and thus on the filling factor and the efficiency. At even smaller printed-on conductor track widths, this effect is intensified since the process causes the conductor tracks simultaneously to become flatter as well. The nonconductive oxide and/or glass components between the metal particles constitute a fundamental cause of this reduced conductivity. On the other hand, the glass component is necessary for the adhesion of the conductor tracks on the solar cell.
More complex processes for producing the front side contacts make use of a laser or photographic technique for the definition of the conductor track structures. Various metal coating steps are often necessary in order to apply the metal coating with adhesive strength and to the thickness required for the electrical conductivity. It is thus proposed in German references DE 43 11 173 A1, which is not a prior publication that is, it is not prior art to the present application, that with wet-chemical metal coating, a first, fine metal coating takes place by means of palladium nuclei and is reinforced with adhesive strength by means of currentless deposition of nickel. In order to increase the conductivity further, copper is deposited currentlessly or electrolytically over this, said copper, in turn, expediently being protected against oxidation by means of a fine silver or tin layer.
The disadvantage of these processes, which often require a plurality of metal coating baths and therefore also have a high outlay as far as disposal is concerned, is, moreover, that they have a damaging effect to a greater or lesser extent on a rear side metal coating (which is printed on, for example) and therefore the latter is often specially protected.
European references EP-A 0 542 148 discloses a process for the production of an electrode structure for the front side metal coating of a solar cell. In this case, an electrode structure is initially produced on the solar cell body using a thick-film technique and is subsequently reinforced by the electrodeposition of silver or copper.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,139 discloses a process for the production of a front side contact for solar cells in which a metallic base is thickened by means of currentless, light-assisted metal deposition from the solution. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to slide fasteners, and more particularly to a slider for slide fastener.
2. Prior Art
Slide fastener sliders 10 are known which generally comprise, as shown in FIG. 6 of the accompanying drawings, a slider body 11 including upper and lower (right and left in this Figure) wings 12,13 joined at their front end 12a so as to define between the wings 12,13 a Y-shaped guide channel 14 for the passage of a pair of opposed coupling element rows of the slide fastener. The prior slider 10 has an arch-shaped lug 15 projecting from the front end 12a of the upper wing 12 over the top surface 12b of the upper wing and terminating short of the rear end 12c thereof. The lug 15 has a bent free end 15a directed toward the top surface 12b of the upper wing 12 and spaced apart therefrom by a gap described below. The lug 15 extends loosely through an opening 16a (FIGS. 7 and 9) of a pull tab 16, thus pivotably connecting the pull tab 16 to the slider body 11.
In assembly, the gap between the free end 15a of the lug 15 and the top surface 12b of the upper wing 12 is initially large enough to allow the pull tab 16 to be threaded on the lug 15. The lug 15, with the pull tab 16 thus mounted thereon, is then bent or deformed so as to prevent the pull tab 16 from being dismounted. During this deforming, the free end 15a of the lug 15 is temporarily in contact with the top surface 12b of the upper wing 12 when the deforming force is applied; however, the lug 15 slightly springs back due to its resiliency, when the deforming force is removed, to such an extent that the gap s is small enough to prevent the pull tab 16 from being dismounted.
Because of the gap s, the prior slider 10 has the following problem. In the manufacture of slide fasteners, sliders having been assembled are fed successively from a hopper (not shown) of known construction to the next station by a parts feeder of known construction, only a guide 17 (FIGS. 6-9) of which is illustrated for clarity. During this feeding, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the successive sliders 10 (only one illustrated for clarity) are mounted astride of the guide 17, i.e. with the upper and lower wings 12,13 disposed on opposite sides of the guide 17. However, since the sliders are in disorderly position in the hopper, some of them tend to be mounted on the guide 17 in such a manner that the guide 17 extends through the gap s between the upper wing 12 and the lug's free end 15a, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9. This improper mounting not only causes nonsmooth feeding of the successive sliders 10 (only one illustrated for clarity), but also causes the guide 17 to be easily deformed or otherwise damaged.
Yet, if the amount of the deforming force to be applied to the lug 15 were to be increased in an attempt to minimize the gap s, the lug 15 would be so excessively deformed as to impair the pivotal movement of the pull tab 16. Further, with such an excessively deformed lug, the slider would be unsightly. | {
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Generally, giant magneto-resistance (GMR) elements for detecting presence or absence of a magnetic field are widely known. The phenomenon that an electric resistance changes when a magnetic field is applied, is called magnetoresistance effect. Although the resistance change of a common substance would be several percent, the resistance change of such GMR elements reaches several tens of percent. For this reason, the GMR elements are widely used for recording heads of hard disks.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating the operation principle of the conventional GMR element, and FIG. 2 is a partial cross-sectional view of FIG. 1. In the drawings, reference numeral 1 denotes an antiferromagnetic layer, reference numeral 2 denotes a pinned layer (fixed layer), reference numeral 3 denotes a Cu layer (spacer layer), and reference numeral 4 denotes a free layer (free rotation layer). A magnetization direction of a magnetic material changes electronic spin scattering, and changes a resistance. In other words, the change of the resistance is represented by ΔR=(RAP−RP)×RP (where RAP is a resistance when magnetization directions on upper and lower sides are not parallel, and RP is a resistance when the magnetization directions on upper and lower sides are parallel).
As for the magnetic moment of the pinned layer 2, the direction is fixed by magnetic coupling with the antiferromagnetic layer 1. When the direction of the magnetic moment of the free rotation layer 4 changes due to leakage field, a resistance applied on the current flowing through the Cu layer 3 changes, and a change of the leakage field can be detected.
FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram illustrating a stack structure of the conventional GMR element. In the drawing, reference numeral 11 denotes an insulating film, reference numeral 12 denotes a free layer (free rotation layer), reference numeral 13 denotes a conductive layer, reference numeral 14 denotes a pinned layer (fixed layer), reference numeral 15 denotes an antiferromagnetic layer, and reference numeral 16 denotes an insulating film. The free layer (free rotation layer) 12 is a layer in which a magnetization direction rotates freely, and is made of NiFe or CoFe/NiFe. The conductive layer 13 is a layer in which a current flows and the electrons are scattered dependent on their spin, and is made of Cu. The pinned layer (fixed layer) 14 is a layer in which a magnetization direction is fixed in a specific direction, and is made of CoFe or CoFe/Ru/CoFe. The antiferromagnetic layer 15 is a layer for fixing the magnetization direction of the pinned layer 14, and is made of PtMn or IrMn. The insulating films 11 and 16 are made of Ta, Cr, NiFeCr, or AlO. It is to be noted that the pinned layer 14 may use a self-bias structure instead of the antiferromagnetic layer.
PTL 1, for example, describes a magnetic sensor including magnetoresistance effect elements and a soft magnetic material provided at a position where it does not come into contact with each of the magnetoresistance effect elements through an insulating layer. In the magnetic sensor, the magnetoresistance effect elements are arranged at both sides of the soft magnetic material in a first horizontal direction in plan view such that fixed magnetization directions of fixed magnetic layers thereof are directed in the first horizontal direction. And the fixed magnetization directions of the magnetoresistance effect elements arranged at both sides of the soft magnetic material are set to be opposite to each other, or the fixed magnetization directions of the magnetoresistance effect elements arranged at the same side of the soft magnetic material are set to be opposite to each other. | {
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The invention relates to an integrated memory having a redundancy function.
In addition to the regular word lines and bit lines, integrated memories often have so-called redundant word lines and/or redundant bit lines. If there is a fault on one of the regular word lines or bit lines, this word line or bit line is replaced by the appropriate redundant line on an address basis. Therefore, such a memory can operate without faults.
Published, European Patent Application EP 0 612 074 A1 describes an integrated memory which has redundant columns. In order to allocate one of the redundant columns to a corresponding regular column, which has a plurality of bit lines, on an address basis, the memory has coding units. These can be used independently of block, with the result that, by programming a block address and a column address, each coding unit can be allocated to a redundant column in any memory block. In this way, fewer coding units are required for repairing faults than if each coding unit were allocated to only one particular memory block.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,354 describes a memory in which redundant word or bit lines are each subdivided into subregions which, independently of one another, can be allocated to corresponding subregions of the regular bit lines or word lines and replace these on an address basis. In this way, a plurality of faults on different regular bit lines can be repaired using only one redundant bit line, for example.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,356 each subregion of the redundant line has associated coding elements allowing allocation to a regular subregion which is to be replaced. Hence, there is exactly the same number of groups of coding elements as subregions of all the redundant lines.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide an integrated memory having a redundancy function that overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art devices of this general type, in which the number of coding units necessary for allocation to regular lines on an address basis can be reduced without significantly reducing the reparability of the memory. With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, an integrated memory, including:
addressable first lines having subregions;
addressable second lines intersecting said first lines;
memory cells disposed at intersections of the first lines and the second lines;
redundant lines each subdivided into subregions on an address basis for replacing the first lines and intersecting the second lines;
redundant memory cells connected to the redundant lines; and
coding units for allocating any one of the redundant lines at a time to any one of the first lines on the address basis, each of the coding units having a programmable activation unit whose programming state determines if an associated coding unit, when programmed, allocates a complete redundant line to a complete first line on the address basis, and if the associated coding unit, when programmed, allocates only one of the subregions of one of the redundant lines to a corresponding subregion of one of the first lines on the address basis.
In the integrated memory according to the invention, each coding unit has an associated programmable activation unit whose programming state affects the operation of the coding unit. In a first programming state of the activation unit, the associated coding unit, when programmed, allocates a complete redundant line to a complete first line on an address basis. In a second programming state of the activation unit, the associated coding unit, when programmed, allocates only one of the subregions of one of the redundant lines to a corresponding subregion of one of the first lines on an address basis.
Thus, the activation unit of each coding unit determines whether, as a result of the programming of the coding unit, either a complete first line is replaced by a complete redundant line or only a subregion of a first line is replaced by a corresponding subregion of one of the redundant lines. Since each coding unit can be allocated to any one of the redundant lines, the invention makes it possible for the coding units to be allocated to the redundant lines or to their subregions in such a way that the existing redundant lines and the existing coding elements are utilized in optimum fashion.
In accordance with an added feature of the invention, the first lines are bit lines and the second lines are word lines. Alternatively, the first lines can be word lines and the second lines are bit lines.
If a plurality of faulty subregions are disposed on a common first line, it may be beneficial for the relevant first line to be replaced completely by a redundant line, for which purpose, according to the invention, only one of the coding units is necessary. In practice, for example, faults on a complete line are relatively frequent. The invention makes it possible to repair such faults by using only one of the coding units. At the same time, the memory according to the invention affords the advantage that subregions, too, of the redundant lines can be used on an individual basis to repair corresponding subregions of the regular first lines by allocating one of the coding units at a time. This permits faulty subregions of a plurality of the first lines to be repaired using a plurality of subregions of only one of the redundant lines. Therefore, in the first instance, the number of redundant lines in the memory according to the invention can be kept small in comparison with memories in which only complete lines can be replaced. In the second instance, the number of coding units can also be kept relatively small in comparison with a memory in which each subregion of the redundant lines has a respective coding unit permanently associated with it, as is the case, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,354, mentioned in the introduction. Since fewer redundant lines and/or coding units need to be provided for repairing faults in the memory according to the invention than in known memories, the memory according to the invention has a lower space requirement than known memories. This is because each additionally required redundant line and each additionally required coding unit increases the area required for producing the memory.
By way of example, the first lines can be bit lines and the redundant lines can be redundant bit lines. However, the first lines can also be word lines and the redundant lines can be redundant word lines. In other illustrative embodiments of the invention, each coding unit can also be used, by way of example, to allocate an appropriate redundant column to a regular column containing a plurality of bit lines.
In accordance with one development of the invention, the coding units of the integrated memory have, among other things, third subunits, which, when programmed, allocate the associated coding unit to a particular subregion of the redundant line associated with it via a first subunit and of the first line associated with it via a second subunit. The programming state of the third subunits is evaluated only if the activation unit associated with the respective coding unit has an appropriate programming state. This distinguishes whether the respective coding unit is allocating the associated redundant line to the associated first line completely or whether this is the case only for a subregion.
In accordance with one development of the invention, the subregions of the redundant lines and first lines are distinguished using a subaddress derived from second addresses, in which case the second addresses are used to address second lines intersecting the first lines. The memory cells of the memory are disposed at the intersections. If the respective coding unit is allocated to a complete redundant line, the subaddresses derived from the second addresses are not taken into account. However, if the coding unit is allocated to only a subregion of one of the redundant lines, this subregion is identified using the subaddresses derived from the second addresses.
In accordance with an additional feature of the invention, the coding units each have a first, a second and a third programmable subunit. The first programmable subunit when programmed allocates the associated coding unit to a particular one of the redundant lines. The second programmable subunit when programmed allocates the associated coding unit to a particular one of the first lines which is to be replaced on the address basis by a redundant line associated with the associated coding unit via the first programmable subunit. The third programmable subunit when programmed allocates the associated coding unit to a particular subregion of the redundant line associated with it via the first programmable subunit and of a first line associated with it via the second programmable subunit. And a programming state of the third programmable subunit is evaluated only if the programmable activation unit associated with the associated coding unit has an appropriate programming state.
In accordance with another feature of the invention, the first lines are addressed using first addresses and the second lines are addressed using second addresses. The coding units each have a first and a second comparison unit. The first comparison unit is supplied with the first addresses and with an address stored by the second programmable subunit and outputs a first result signal. The second comparison unit is supplied with subaddresses derived from the second addresses and with an address stored by the third programmable subunit and outputs a second result signal. The programmable activation unit has a first programming state in which the redundant line associated with the associated coding unit is activated on a basis of the first result signal output from the first comparison unit, but not from the second comparison unit. The programmable activation unit further has a second programming state in which the redundant line associated with the associated coding unit is activated on a basis of the first result signal and the second result signal from the first comparison unit and the second comparison unit, respectively.
In accordance with a concomitant feature of the invention, the number of the coding units is smaller than the number of the subregions of all of the redundant lines.
Other features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims.
Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in an integrated memory having a redundancy function, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a labelling machine for objects, in particular bottles, with several operating stations located behind one another along a track. The operating stations include an adhesive application apparatus, a label supply box and a label transfer cylinder. The machine includes at least one extracting element for the labels which is mounted so that it can rotate on a rotating support and move past the stations during each rotation of the support. The extracting element has an outwardly-curved receptacle surface for the label which rolls along the stations. The drive for each extracting element is a cam drive, which comprises common, stationary double cam discs for all the extracting elements. The cams are located on one side in two planes with one above and at some distance from the other. Two sets of followers are mounted on an extracting element drive shaft or on a bearing shaft coupled with it by means of a support element. The followers cooperate with the two cams to produce positive movement of each extracting element over its entire revolution when the support rotates.
The invention also relates to a support element for the followers of a cam drive mechanism and, more particularly, to a drive mechanism for a label extracting element in a labelling machine.
Still further, the invention relates to a labelling station of a labelling machine for containers, such as bottles, with a support table which can be driven by a central drive shaft. The table support has at least one extracting element which has a curved receptacle and is mounted so that it can rotate in the machine frame. When the table rotates, the extracting element rotates or pivots around its own axis and is moved along a closed track past stations for the application of adhesive to the receptacle surface and for the storage or transfer of the labels. Each extracting element is rotated or pivoted by a cam transmission which, in turn, is moved by a cam disc which is mounted on the machine frame and which is common for all of the extracting elements.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art includes various cam-controlled drive mechanisms to turn the extracting elements in labelling machines at the various stations in the same direction over their entire orbit. The extracting elements may turn at different angular velocities at different locations during the turning thereof.
In one drive system of the prior art as disclosed in German Patent No. 24 36 003 P2, the extracting elements are always driven by a pair of lever arms, which are guided with a follower in a closed grooved cam. The partly-overlapping grooved cams are in different planes for a clear guidance of the lever arms. Because of the guidance of each follower on two flanks of the corresponding grooved cam, each follower is clearly guided. The grooved cams are configured so that the one follower is under torque when the other follower is in an idle position. It does not appear that such a drive mechanism, however, has been realized in actual practice.
Nor, it seems, has it been possible to realize in actual practice another drive mechanism for a labelling machine of the type described in German Patent Publication Published for Opposition Purposes No. 27 09 521 A1. In this latter drive mechanism, there are two cam discs with cams having outside surfaces which are located in two planes, one above the other. For each cam, there is a set of two followers. The two pairs of followers are offset on the upper and lower side of a disc by 90 degrees in relation to one another. The disc is supported by a bearing shaft which extends to the plane between the cam discs. It cannot be determined from the teaching of this prior art device whether precautions have been taken to ensure a collision-free passage of the bearing shaft in the outside radial areas of the cam disc adjacent to the bearing shaft. Still further, the two pairs of followers are located at the same radial distance (same lever arm length) from the bearing shaft of the support element. It also cannot be determined whether particular precautions have been taken for a compact design of the drive mechanism in which there is the most favorable possible distribution of the load on the drive system at the various stations.
A labelling machine of the general type described above has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,422 and includes another drive mechanism, however, which appears to have been used in actual practice. In this labelling machine, the cam drive mechanism is designed as a lantern gear transmission including two sets of lantern gear teeth which are located on the inside of the double cam disc designed as a ring-shaped body. A support element supports one set of the followers designed as lantern wheels on its two sides and is located between the two lantern gears on the end of the downwardly extending drive shaft of the extracting element. So that a collision-free passage of the drive shaft along the lantern gear on the shaft side is possible, the points of the teeth of the lantern gear are cut off.
With such a drive mechanism, of course, a non-uniform rotation of the extracting elements can be achieved, but the cost and complexity of the lantern gear transmission would be significant. A further disadvantage includes the radial diameter of the lantern gears not being very compact because of the minimum width of the individual teeth.
Existing labelling machines comprise a series of interconnected parts which employ a thin insert of elastic material at the junction of the parts to reduce mechanical noise. Such machines include a labelling station in which an extracting element is employed to apply adhesive to the labels and transfer the labels to containers. The extracting element is driven by means of a lantern gear transmission which includes an annular body having two internal lantern gears and two lantern wheels engaged with the lantern gears which are located on the opposite side of a support and act as followers to damp noise and compensate for part tolerance. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,422 which is incorporated herein by reference as if the entire contents thereof was fully set forth herein.
Each follower is equipped with an insert designed to allow for the damping of noise and compensation of tolerances. The insert is in the form of a bushing interposed between the inner bearing and the outer running surface of a roller, with which each lantern wheel is equipped. The employment of such an insert in a cam drive mechanism is not practical, because of the high load exerted on the rollers, which are mounted on the followers, due to the small surface area of the insert. This is especially true if only a few rollers, for example, two, are employed.
Since the insert is constructed as thin as possible to achieve a precise guidance, large loads can reduce or entirely eliminate the damping action, because the bearing and the running surface come in direct contact with one another. Moreover, any eccentricity which occurs due to load will reduce the desired precise rotational movement of the extracting element.
It is not uncommon for prior art labelling stations, in which the extracting elements are located above a support table and are mounted on a shaft in bearings in the support table, to employ a hollow central shaft through which a central drive shaft runs and on which the table is mounted. The hollow drive shaft and a tension element running through it extend through an opening located in the base plate of the machine frame to below the base plate, where the coupling between the drive and the drive shaft is located. By activating the tension element, the coupling can be axially retracted, so that the drive shaft can be uncoupled from the drive. When uncoupled, the support table can then be realigned by rotating it. Such a realignment is used during format changes of containers or labels to center the labels on the containers. See, for example, German Patent No. 2,435,540 B2, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference as if set forth fully herein.
Such labelling stations have the disadvantage that a great deal of space is required for the mounting of the table on the hollow shaft of the machine frame. An additional disadvantage is that access to the coupling is located underneath the base plate of the machine frame and is extremely difficult to reach. When adjusting the degree of rotation during realignment it is useful to be able to check the degree of rotation if the service personnel can get to the coupling without a great deal of effort. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of replenishing a solution for a photosensitive material processor and a photosensitive material processor capable of stably maintaining the quality of a processing solution.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, a photosensitive material processor, called a "Mini-Lab", requires replenishment of a processing-solution in a quantity corresponding to the amount of the processed photosensitive material in order to maintain the quality of the processing solution.
When a replenishment solution (a replenishment solvent or a replenishment solute) has been injected into the processing solution, the volume of the processing solution is enlarged and an excessive amount of the processing solution flows over the processing tank. If the processing system is a cascade system, the excess processing solution is cascaded into another processing tank. If the processing tank is structured such that waste water is discharged, the overflow processing solution is discharged into a waste-water tank or a waste-water processing tank.
In a case where the processing solution is replenished in a large quantity and if the photosensitive material is, for each day, processed in a quantity larger than a predetermined quantity, replenishment is performed in a sufficient quantity.
However, the quantity of replenishment has been reduced in recent years such that the amount of replenishment for a unit quantity of each photosensitive material and the amount of the waste water are reduced.
Since the reduction in the amount of replenishment results in the operation for replenishing the solution to the processor and discharging waste water being reduced, the labor for a user and the amount of waste water can be reduced. Therefore, the cost for processing waste water and space for storing waste water can be saved. Since the reduction is a preferred fact for environmental protection, the amount will furthermore be reduced.
However, the reduction in the amount of replenishment encounters a problem in that it is difficult to stably maintain the quality of the processing solution in the processor.
If the amount of replenishment per unit time is too small due to the reduction in the amount of replenishment or if the processed amount of the photosensitive material per day is too small attributable to employment of the small-quantity replenishment method, the processing solution stored in the processing tank of the processor may evaporate and be condensed. If the amount of evaporation is larger than the amount of replenishment, the level of the processing solution in the processing tank is lowered.
The above-mentioned condensation, as has been known, deteriorates the processing performance of the processing solution.
In order to correct the amount of evaporation, some processors developed in recent years are provided with a system for adding water. Although the foregoing method is effective in correcting the amount of evaporation, it is difficult to accurately be correct the amount of evaporation by adding water in a in which uses the processing solution is used in a small quantity or which uses the small replenishment method. The foregoing method encounters a difficulty in stably maintaining the concentration of the stored processing solution because the concentration of the same is considerably affected by condensation or dilution attributable to the inadequate quantity of the added solution in a case where the quantity of a replenisher solution (the quantity of chemicals) is small.
As a method of correcting the amount of the evaporated solution, a method has been suggested in which the amount to be processed corresponding to the environment of the processor is previously measured and water is added in accordance with obtained data (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 4-1756 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 5-181250). Another method has been suggested in which detection of lowering of the level of the processing solution in the processor occurring due to evaporation from the processing tank is performed and water is added (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 7-5657).
In the latter method, in which the level is detected in accordance with a total result of replenishment, carry over by which the processing solution is carried from another tank when replenishment is performed or when the photosensitive material is carried, evaporation and the like, a critical error cannot be prevented. Thus, this method cannot be adapted to the small replenishment method.
Although the former method, in which the correction is performed in accordance with the previous measurement, is able to accurately correct the level of the solution, error sometimes takes place between the actual data and the previous value.
As described above, the amount of evaporation in the processing tank cannot easily and accurately be detected. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Not applicable to this application.
Not applicable to this application.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to aerial firefighting systems and more specifically it relates to an aerial firefighting system for increasing the amount of firefighting material available during an aerial application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Aerial firefighting systems have been in use for years. The most common type of aerial firefighting system utilized with helicopters is the usage of a bucket capable of releasing large volumes of water upon a fire. The bucket is attached to the helicopter by a cable or similar structure along with a release cord or actuator that opens the lower portion of the bucket upon demand.
The main problem with conventional aerial firefighting systems is that they provide a limited amount of firefighting material to the scene of a fire. A further problem with conventional aerial firefighting systems is that they require the operator to repeatedly fill the bucket with water which is time consuming. A further problem with conventional aerial firefighting systems is that they do not produce a significant volume of carbon dioxide filled foam.
Examples of patented devices which may be related to the present invention include U.S. Pat. No. 5,385,208 to Baker et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,580,339 to Nance; U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,862 to Rey; U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,571 to MacDonald; U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,436 to Kovaletz; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,371,384 to Garcia.
While these devices may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they are not as suitable for increasing the amount of firefighting foam available during an aerial application. Conventional aerial firefighting devices do not provide an adequate volume of foam during a single trip and require constant refilling of the water supply.
In these respects, the aerial firefighting system according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of increasing the amount of firefighting foam available during an aerial application.
In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known types of aerial firefighting devices now present in the prior art, the present invention provides a new aerial firefighting system construction wherein the same can be utilized for increasing the amount of firefighting foam available during an aerial application.
The general purpose of the present invention, which will be described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new aerial firefighting system that has many of the advantages of the aerial firefighting devices mentioned heretofore and many novel features that result in a new aerial firefighting system which is not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even implied by any of the prior art aerial firefighting systems, either alone or in any combination thereof.
To attain this, the present invention generally comprises a turbo motor, a catalytic converter connected to the turbo motor for creating carbon dioxide, a first reservoir for storing a volume of foam agent, a bucket having a second reservoir for storing a volume of water, a plurality of fluid valves within a reservoir floor of the second reservoir, a partition member below the partition member having a plurality of first apertures, a dispensing member fluidly connected to the first reservoir for dispensing the foam agent within a mixing chamber, and a foam screen attached to a lower portion of the bucket above a lower opening within the bucket. The carbon dioxide is fed into the screen area where the water and foam agent enter in a mixed solution from the mixing chamber thereby creating CO2 foam.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and that will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of the description and should not be regarded as limiting.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide an aerial firefighting system that will overcome the shortcomings of the prior art devices.
A second object is to provide an aerial firefighting system for increasing the amount of firefighting foam available during an aerial application.
Another object is to provide an aerial firefighting system that reduces the number of water refilling drops required by a firefighting helicopter.
An additional object is to provide an aerial firefighting system that efficiently utilizes water contained within a bucket.
A further object is to provide an aerial firefighting system that provides a carbon dioxide firefighting foam to the scene of a fire.
Another object is to provide an aerial firefighting system that may be applied in an aerial or non-aerial manner.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become obvious to the reader and it is intended that these objects and advantages are within the scope of the present invention. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data display apparatus, an image display apparatus, a data display method, an image display method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, when the auto bracket photographing function of an imaging apparatus such as a digital still camera is activated, high-speed imaging is sequentially performed multiple times based on reference values for imaging parameters (such as exposure, white balance, and the like) and values acquired by the reference values being changed. These imaging parameters for the auto bracket photographing function include more than one type of parameter. For example, technique is known in which imaging is sequentially performed multiple times while values of plural types of imaging parameters arbitrarily selected from among parameters such as white balance, exposure, saturation, sharpness, and the like are being changed, and whereby a plurality of images whose image statuses are slightly different from each other are acquired, as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2006-067464. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Through its interaction with receptors borne on neuronal and other cells, 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT; serotonin), exerts various physiological effects. Imbalances in this interaction are believed to be responsible for such conditions as anxiety, depression, hallucination, migraine, chemotherapy-induced nausea, and for disorders in sexual activity, cardiovascular activity and thermoregulation, among others. From an improved understanding of the 5-HT receptor population, it is apparent that these effects are mediated selectively through individual types and sub-types of 5-HT receptors. Migraine, for example, has been treated with ergotamine, dihydroergotamine and methysergide, all of which act at 5-HT-1D type receptors.
Given the physiological and clinical significance of the 5-HT-1D receptor, it would be desirable to provide compounds capable of binding with high affinity to this receptor, for medical use for example to treat indications such as migraine and others for which administration of a 5-HT-1D ligand is indicated, and also for diagnostic use for example to identify these receptors and to screen for drug candidates. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
No prior art is known to the Applicant
None of the known inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant disclosure as claimed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In recent years, virtual machine technology (virtualization technology) has been actively used for running virtual machines (VM) on physical machines (PM). By using the virtual machine technology, multiple virtual machines can run on a single physical machine. And each of the virtual machines can run an operating system and/or an application that may be different from those running on the other virtual machines.
By introducing the virtual machine technology on a server, multiple virtualized servers can be aggregated in one physical server. This aggregation is reasonable, and results in cost reduction. However, for example, there are cases where one of the aggregated virtual machines may adversely influence the other virtual machines when load states of the virtual machines change. Therefore, live migration technology has been developed in the virtual machine technology that migrates a virtual machine to another physical machine without stopping services provided by the virtual machine.
An overview of the live migration technology will be described. Live migration methods can be classified into the pre-copy method and the post-copy method. When executing a live migration, switching needs to be executed for a virtual machine to be migrated, at least for its contents of the physical memory, storage, and network. The pre-copy method is a method that moves the state of a CPU after having the content of the physical memory moved. In contrast to the above, the post-copy method moves the state of the CPU without moving the content of the physical memory. In this case, although the content of the physical memory has not been moved to a destination machine, the address translation table of the virtual memory system on the destination machine is set to an empty state. With this setting, when the CPU accesses the memory on the destination machine, data to be accessed does not exist in the physical memory at an initial stage. Therefore, a page fault occurs, which causes required pages loaded from a hard disk to fill the physical memory.
Note that a large-capacity memory does not need to be moved on the hard disk because the large-capacity memory on the hard disk is shared when using either of the methods.
There is a conventional technology that determines whether a live migration is feasible when a live migration is requested, and stops the live migration if a negative determination is obtained (see, for example, Patent Document 1). This technology assigns an attribute of safety level to each VM to prevent a low safety level VM and a high safety level VM from running on the same computer. This avoids a circumstance where execution of a high safety level VM is adversely influenced by a defect of a low safety level VM.
Also, there is a technology that determines necessity of a migration based on load information just before executing the migration to avoid unnecessary migrations (see, for example, Patent Document 2). Note that, as for the load information, Patent Document 2 only discloses CPU usage rates and memory usage rates of a source server, a destination server, and a virtual machine.
Also, there is a technology that estimates time required for movement for a virtual machine to move from a physical machine, on which the virtual machine is currently running, to another physical machine (see, for example, Patent Documents 3-4). Patent Documents 3 and 4 disclose that memory transfer time can be estimated using a memory change rate.
Also, there is a technology that determines a degree of difference between two consecutive frames of images using a counter value that counts the number of write accesses to a frame memory of a camera (see, for example, Patent Document 5).
A rate of memory overwrites during a memory transfer in a live migration (namely, a rate of copy operations that need to be executed again) is called a “dirty rate” (or “memory change rate”). The dirty rate is a value obtained by dividing an amount of memory change by an amount of memory transfer. If the dirty rate is too high, there may be a case where a memory transfer cannot be completed. To cope with such a case, an implementation may be adopted that stops the context to forcibly end a memory transfer. In this case, likelihood is high for service outage time to exceed an acceptable range. It should be avoided to exceed the limit of service outage time that is specified in a service level agreement (SLA) with a customer who uses a service of virtual machines. Therefore, to avoid such a long service outage, there is a case where load distribution is secured by stopping a live migration of a virtual machine to be migrated, and instead, executing a live migration of another virtual machine.
Therefore, it is necessary to avoid a state where a context stop continues for a long time due to a live migration, or stoppage of a live migration in advance. To achieve these requirements, it is necessary to keep load of a physical machine at a low level in usual operations before a live migration, and to obtain a memory dirty rate so that a memory transfer time can be predicted for executing a live migration.
Note that a prediction value T of a memory transfer time required for a live migration is obtained by the following formula where M is a memory capacity, tp is a data transmission band width (transfer throughput) used for a live migration, and r is a dirty rate (a value obtained by dividing an amount of memory change by an amount of memory transfer).T=M/{tp(1−r)} (1)
Therefore, the memory transfer time for a live migration can be estimated if the dirty rate in usual operations is obtained.
However, there is an overhead increase to detect the dirty rate in general. A method of detecting the dirty rate for a live migration is as follows. First, an area that has been copied is set as a write-protected area at a hardware level. Then, a write request to the write-protected area is trapped at a software level. The trap triggers a predetermined routine to operate for detecting the write to the specific area, and for storing information about the write. This process makes the routine operate every time a write is trapped, which causes an increase in overhead. Therefore, if this process is used for detecting the dirty rate in usual operations, a considerable overhead is inevitably generated. This makes the load greater for the usual operations of the virtual machine.
Therefore, a technology has been needed for quickly obtaining estimation values of a dirty rate and a memory transfer time for a pre-copy in usual operation while a live migration is not being executed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
When vessels filled with suspensions containing solids are emptied, solid deposits form on the bottom of the vessel to an increased extent, particularly with low filling levels. This is attributed to the fact that the agitating devices arranged in such vessels lose effectiveness as the filling level drops. However, it is necessary to discharge the deposits towards the outlet opening in order to reliably avoid accumulation of solids at the bottom of the vessel. This is especially the situation with vessels receiving radioactive liquids.
In nuclear reprocessing facilities, upright and lying circular vessels as well as annular vessels (so-called annular-slab vessels) are installed with the base walls thereof being at a slight inclination towards the discharge line. In this context, it has been proposed to mount spraying arrangements in the vicinity of the base wall or in the vicinity of the inner walls by means of which the solid deposits can be flushed out. In this connection, it is unsatisfactory that large amounts of flushing liquid are required for large vessels. These large amounts of flushing liquid required after emptying a vessel lead, with radioactive product solutions, to an undesirable increase of secondary waste, the removal of which is very costly. Another disadvantage is that the valuable substances of the radioactive product solution are present in a very highly diluted form because of the flushing liquid and this affects the economical processing of the product solution. Substantially increasing the inclination of the base of the vessel cannot be regarded as a satisfactory solution for reducing the amount of flushing liquid, since otherwise the height of the vessel would have to be considerably increased, especially with respect to annular vessels. This would require additional space which can be made available only at very high cost in a nuclear facility. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical head apparatus for obtaining a spherical aberration error signal to control a spherical aberration correcting means used for recording or reproducing information with respect to an information storage medium such as an optical disk or an optical card, an information recording and reproducing apparatus for recording and reproducing information with respect to an information storage medium, a method for detecting aberration, and a method for adjusting an optical head apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 28 shows a configuration of an optical head apparatus of a conventional information recording and reproducing apparatus. Light emitted from a semiconductor laser 101 as a light source is converted by a collimator lens 102 into a parallel beam of light and passes through a beam splitter 103. The beam passing through the beam splitter 103 is converged by an objective lens 105 on an optical disk 107 as an information storage medium. The converged beam is reflected and diffracted by a track on the optical disk 107. The reflected and diffracted beam passes through the objective lens 105 again, is reflected by the beam splitter 103 and is converged by a detecting lens 109. The converged beam is provided with astigmatic aberration in the 45-degree direction with respect to a track by a cylindrical lens 110 and enters a photodetector 901.
FIG. 29 is a front view of the photodetector 901 shown in FIG. 28. The photodetector 901 has detection regions 911 to 914, i.e., an upper left region, an upper right region, a lower right region and a lower left region. The beam 951 provided with astigmatic aberration is adjusted to be located in the center of the detection regions. A focus error signal can be obtained by subtracting a sum signal of signals from two detection regions located diagonally, from a sum signal of signals from two other detection regions located diagonally. Furthermore, a tracking error signal can be obtained by comparing the phase of the sum signal of signals from two detection regions located diagonally with the phase of the sum signal of signals from two other detection regions located diagonally.
In FIG. 28, an actuator 106 moves the objective lens 105 in the direction perpendicular to the track and in the focus direction. The movement in the direction perpendicular to the track is carried out by a tracking control system on the basis of the tracking error signal. The movement in the focus direction is carried out by the focus control system on the basis of the focus error signals. Herein, it is assumed that for the focus error signal generating means, the astigmatic aberration method is used and for the tracking error signal generating means, the phase differential method is used.
In order to increase the density of information recorded on the optical disk 107 as an information storage medium, there has been proposed a system in which a numerical aperture NA of the converging optical system is increased and the wavelength is shortened. However, the increase in the numerical aperture NA leads to the increase in spherical aberration generated due to the thickness error of a substrate as a protective layer of the optical disk 107. As a means for correcting this, a method for generating a spherical wave with a combination of lenses, thereby generating spherical aberration by an objective lens; and a method for generating an opposite spherical aberration with a liquid crystal are known. However, there has been no suitable method for detecting spherical aberration.
Therefore, as the density of information recorded on the information storage medium increases, the optically required condition becomes stricter, which may lead to problems in that a beam cannot be sufficiently narrowed on the information storage medium because of spherical aberration, etc. so that information cannot be recorded stably, and information cannot be reproduced stably. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Generally, a number used in a computer system requires a memory allocation specified by the operating system. In some cases, it is important to conserve memory by representing that number in a memory space smaller than that which the operating system defines. Such representations are especially valuable in applications that utilize large quantities of data. The process of reducing required memory is referred to as compression, and the opposite function, that of recovering the number to its original format, is called decompression.
Floating point numbers have been compressed using the subtract and multiply instructions to bias, as well as to scale a floating point number so that its value is in a desired range. The resulting floating point number is then converted to an integer. Due to the multiplication instructions, this technique is relatively slow.
Another technique is to separately truncate and store the exponent and the mantissa fields of the floating point number. The algebraic sign bit is also separately stored. Since not all combinations of bits in the compressed format represent floating point numbers in a desired range, the number of bits required is more than necessary. Also, two separate field store operations for compression, as well as two separate field extractions for decompression, are required--one each for the exponent and for the mantissa. There is also a store and a retrieve operation for the algebraic sign.
In order to better meet the dual requirements of reduced memory utilization which permits more data to be loaded into memory and of higher speed which increases application performance, a need exists for further improvements in methods of compressing and decompressing floating point numbers in computer systems. | {
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Recent social trends have led to an increase in injury and death from gunshot, to the point where, in some locales, the death rate from gunshot now exceeds that from automobile accidents. Persons exposed to risk from gunshot seek to protect themselves from such risk through a variety of methodologies. Many persons in high risk occupations such as law enforcement, security guards, bank tellers, couriers and the like seek to provide themselves with protection from gunshot by armed counterattack, or by using body armor or "bullet-proof" vests.
Armed counterattack to provide personal protection is not a satisfactory defense for several reasons. First, in order to be effective, self-defense using a firearm must be preemptive. This is seldom feasible. Secondly, guns in the hands of persons imperfectly prepared to use them are often the weapons used to victimize such persons. Finally, a person who fires a weapon in a populated area must do so with the knowledge that this can lead to unacceptable consequences to innocent bystanders.
The advantages of armor and other personal protective devices over counterattack are many and compelling. Effective use of personal armor does not require killing or maiming anyone, especially those persons who are not clearly threatening. Armor and other disabling devices can also can make the option of refraining from preemptive use of firearms a more viable tactic: if you can survive being fired upon, you can wait to be fired on before firing your own weapon. Non-lethal disabling methods, such as flash and incapacitating spray can be used more readily and more responsibly than firearms can, since the defensive user does not have to weigh the possibility of killing or maiming innocents. These non-lethal methods also present the psychological advantage of protecting the user while avoiding killing someone in self-defense. Armor and other protective devices pose little danger to the user's surroundings and bystanders. The materials which form modern armors are well consolidated, are typically unaffected by solvents, and pose no environmental hazard.
Body armor is, however, not a complete solution to the risk of gunshot in that it leaves one of the most vulnerable parts of the body, i.e. the head, exposed. What is needed therefore, to improve a user's survivability, is a rapidly deployable shielding device to temporarily cover those portions of the body, like the head, which are not covered by body armor. A solution applied by several workers to this problem rests in the fact that many persons, for instance police officers, often carry or have about them clipboards or similar devices. Such a clipboard, when composed of a suitably projectile-resistant material, can provide a rapidly deployable shield for the head or other unarmored portions of the body. Efforts by others have yielded several versions of an "armored clipboard" to provide the previously discussed shielding device.
The previous attempts by others to utilize a clipboard or other small, commonly available article as a shielding device all exhibit shortcomings. The most common problem which prior art attempts fail to address is that an assailant's first bullet may be deflected or stopped by the device, but the bullet will probably knock the device from the user's hand or move it sufficiently aside that a quickly fired second shot may leave the user unprotected in the head area. Given that almost all firearms in current production are capable of fairly rapid fire, this is a serious limitation of the prior art.
A second shortcoming of many ballistic clipboards is that they are prone to losing much of their resistance to penetration over time. U.S. Pat. No. 3,848,547 to Schafer discloses one such invention. The clipboard, as taught by Schafer, is typically formed of a polycarbonate material conforming to ASTM D-6300 standards. A shortcoming of polycarbonates is that within a fairly short span of time, up to 50% of their ballistic resistance may be lost or degraded due to internal changes in the material itself. This degradation in ballistic performance is often exacerbated with exposure to ultraviolet radiation or to a wide range of solvents.
Modern material science has produced several materials which are very effective at stopping bullets and other ballistic objects. Some are used in the previously discussed bullet-proof vests, and for other military applications. Many of these new armor materials serve to break up a projectile and catch its fragments, thereby preventing injury to the user. One example of these high strength armors is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,399.
Another advance in armor technology is the development of reactive armors. A reactive armor is one which performs some act or undergoes some change in response to a threat. U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,152 describes a typical reactive armor. Most reactive armors combine an advanced armor system with an explosive element which is fired in response to a projectile striking or approaching the surface of the armor. The outward blast of the explosive element of the reactive armor tends to blunt the intensity of the projectile's velocity, rendering it less capable of penetrating an armor sub-layer, or of deflecting the projectile so that it strikes the armor substrate at an oblique angle, again reducing the projectile's armor-piercing capacities. Other reactive armors are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,901,622 and 5,070,764.
Explosive reactive armors are generally not well suited for use in personal armor devices. While effective in some military applications, for instance mounted on the glacis of a tank, the potential for unwanted detonation while being carried by an individual makes them less than optimal for personal use. Having an explosive component, explosive reactive armors also introduce an unwanted element of lethality into a personal protective device. A reactive element, however, which would serve to incapacitate an assailant, if coupled with a modern armor material, would provide a significant advantage over the prior art. Specifically, such a device would provide both the required protection against the assailant's first shot and preclude or degrade his ability to deliver an accurate second shot.
In order to stop a bullet, many modern technical armor materials perform two functions. The first is to break the bullet into small fragments in order to reduce its penetrating ability. To break up a bullet requires a material that is at least as hard as the bullet itself. To this end many armors include materials like hardened steel, titanium alloys or ceramics as the first surface the bullet impacts. During the process of bullet breakup a significant portion of the fragments broken up by the hard material continues to move in substantially the same direction as the bullet's original trajectory. If any of these fragments succeed in piercing the hardened material, it is imperative that they be contained before they traverse completely through the armor and render injury to the person the armor is supposed to protect. The second function therefore of the armor is to catch these fragments before they fully penetrate that armor. To this end, many armors also include materials which serve to contain the projectile fragments. In engineering terms, a material chosen for this purpose should have a large strain before failure. Such materials include, but are not limited to: metals; various resins, which may in turn be reinforced by any of several polymers; such as Kevlar.TM., manufactured by Dupont and SpectraShield.TM., manufactured by Allied Signal Corp.; or Kevlar.TM. and SpectraShield.TM. bullet-resistant fabrics without being resin bonded. High strength glass fibers may also serve the previously discussed fiber-reinforcing function.
Many armor materials, when struck with a ballistic projectile, tend to dissipate much of the projectile's kinetic energy by ablating small fragments and particles from the body of the armor itself. At the same time that many of the projectile fragments continue substantially on their original trajectory, another portion of the bullet fragments, as well as a portion of the ablated armor fragments, are reflected back by the hardened component of the armor in a direction substantially opposite to the bullet's original trajectory. This shower of "splashback" fragments can be enhanced by confining the hard material in such a way that fragments ablated from the surface of the armor have no other path of travel other than substantially opposite to the bullet's original trajectory. Ablation, as used in this invention, is defined in the following paragraph. The action of these fragments serves to further erode the bullet into small fragments. Many of these splashback particles and fragments have a velocity component as high as one half of the projectile's velocity at impact. The splashback comprising bullet fragments and ablated armor fragments forms a relatively high-velocity spray of material which serves as one reactive method for incapacitating an assailant.
Ablation, as used herein, describes the complex erosive process, which is not necessarily or predominately a thermal process, that occurs when a high velocity projectile impacts an armor system. Ablation involves the fragmentation of at least a portion of the armor, and may refer to the fragmentation of the projectile as well. The energy the projectile expends in ablating the armor diffuses the projectile's directed energy, thus reducing or eliminating the projectile's ability to fully penetrate the armor.
Several other incapacitating methods or agents are currently available for use in rendering an assailant temporarily incapable of further hostile acts. Examples of such incapacitating agents include, but are not limited to: chemical agents such as: tear gas, Mace.TM., and pepper spray; electronic shock apparatus; and flash apparatus. The present invention specifically contemplates the incorporation of the such agents and methods to provide additional reactive incapacitation methodologies.
While the reactive ballistic protection device described above is exemplified as an armored clipboard, the principles of the present invention may, with equal facility and utility, be implemented in a variety of articles and devices. These devices include, but are not limited to: attache cases or other hand luggage; umbrellas; skateboards; partitions; and furniture panels. Several of these devices will be subsequently described herein.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,153,927; 4,919,037, and 4,442,780 detail the work of others to provide a ballistic protection device incorporated within a clipboard. U.S. Pat. No. 3,762,345 details the efforts of one worker to provide ballistic protection by an armored attache case. None of the cited references teach or disclose an effective method for eliminating or reducing the effectiveness of an assailant's second shot.
An apparatus which combines the ballistic resistance of modern armor technology with the reactive incapacitating feature will not only serve to protect the user from an assailant's first bullet, but will also, at least temporarily, disable such an assailant and prevent his making a potentially more lethal second shot. | {
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Given the increased awareness of the need for controlling emissions of CO2 has seen considerable investment in clean/green technology. One of the largest sources of CO2 emissions comes from the generation of power and more from coal powered stations. There are presently are number of power generation technologies which have a significantly lower carbon footprint to that of fossil fuel powered stations.
One such alternative is nuclear power, nuclear power provides about 6% of the world's energy and 13-14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity. While nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions, it is exceedingly controversial. As recent examples in Japan and those of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island have shown the threat of meltdown is an ever present concern.
Another concern with nuclear power plants is the production of nuclear waste. A typical 1000-MWe nuclear reactor produces approximately 20 cubic meters (about 27 tonnes) of spent nuclear fuel each year (but only 3 cubic meters of vitrified volume if reprocessed). Spent nuclear fuel is initially very highly radioactive and so must be handled with great care and forethought. However, it will decrease with time. After 40 years, the radiation flux is 99.9% lower than it was the moment the spent fuel was removed from operation. Still, this 0.1% is dangerously radioactive. After 10,000 years of radioactive decay, according to United States Environmental Protection Agency standards, the spent nuclear fuel will no longer pose a threat to public health and safety.
When first extracted, spent fuel rods are stored in shielded basins of water (spent fuel pools), usually located on-site. The water provides both cooling for the still-decaying fission products, and shielding from the continuing radioactivity. After a period of time (generally five years for US plants), the now cooler, less radioactive fuel is typically moved to a dry-storage facility or dry cask storage, where the fuel is stored in steel and concrete containers.
In addition to the problems of meltdown and waste there are also security concerns. Nuclear reactors and waste dumps are prime targets for terrorist, cause a meltdown and you can take out a large populated area and spread radioactive materials across a wider radius. The waste itself is also a target as it can be used in the manufacture of dirty bombs etc.
An alternate approach to nuclear power is that of geothermal power generation. Electricity generation from geothermal power requires high temperature resources that can only come from deep underground. The heat must be carried to the surface by fluid circulation. This circulation sometimes exists naturally where the crust is thin: magma conduits bring heat close to the surface, and hot springs bring the heat to the surface. Until recently most geothermal electric plants have been built exclusively where high temperature geothermal resources are available near the surface. The development of binary cycle power plants and improvements in drilling and extraction technology may enable enhanced geothermal systems over a much greater geographical range.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are a new type of geothermal power technologies that do not require natural convective hydrothermal resources. Until recently, geothermal power systems have only exploited resources where naturally occurring heat, water and rock permeability is sufficient to allow energy extraction from production wells. However, the vast majority of geothermal energy within reach of conventional techniques is in dry and non-permeable rock. EGS technologies “enhance” and/or create geothermal resources in this hot dry rock (HDR) through hydraulic stimulation.
When natural cracks and pores will not allow for economic flow rates, the permeability can be enhanced by pumping high pressure cold water down an injection well into the rock. The injection increases the fluid pressure in the naturally fractured rock which mobilizes shear events, enhancing the permeability of the fracture system. This process, termed hydro-shearing [3], used in EGS is substantially different from hydraulic tensile fracturing used in the oil & gas industries.
Water travels through fractures in the rock, capturing the heat of the rock until it is forced out of a second borehole as very hot water, which is converted into electricity using either a steam turbine or a binary power plant system. All of the water, now cooled, is injected back into the ground to heat up again in a closed loop. EGS/HDR technologies, like hydrothermal geothermal, are expected to be baseload resources which produce power 24 hours a day like a fossil plant. Distinct from hydrothermal, HDR/EGS may be feasible anywhere in the world, depending on the economic limits of drill depth.
In either case the thermal efficiency of geothermal electric plants is low, around 10-23% because geothermal fluids are at a low temperature compared with steam from boilers. By the laws of thermodynamics this low temperature limits the efficiency of heat engines in extracting useful energy during the generation of electricity. HDR wells are expected to have a useful life of 20 to 30 years before the outflow temperature drops about 10° C. and the well becomes uneconomic. If left for 50 to 300 years the temperature will recover. This limited life span and the expenses of drilling etc makes the use of such power stations economically undesirable limiting their application.
Clearly it would be advantageous to provide a system and method for power generation which has a relatively low carbon footprint and which ameliorates some problems associated with the aforementioned prior art. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for drying laundry, and more particularly to a method for controlling such a laundry drying apparatus, capable of controlling the output of a heater unit of the apparatus, based on the amount of laundry to be dried.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Referring to FIG. 1, there is illustrated a conventional apparatus for drying clothing. As shown in FIG. 1, the apparatus comprises a motor 1 disposed at the upper portion of the interior of an outer case 3 and adapted to rotate a drum 5 disposed in the interior of outer case 3 and a heater unit 2 attached to the inner side wall of the outer case and adapted to heat clothing contained in the drum 5. The apparatus also comprises a temperature sensor 6 disposed at the outside of the drum 5 and adapted to sense the internal temperature of the drum 5. At the outer case 3 is disposed a heat exchanging fan 4 which is driven by the driving force of the motor 1 to intake external air into the interior of outer case 3 through an intake opening 10 formed at the outer case 3 and carry out a heat exchange between the air and the high temperature and moist air in the drum 5. At the lower portion of the outer case 3, a dehumidifying passage 9 having a discharge port 11 is provided. Water condensed during the heat exchange is collected at the dehumidifying passage 9 and then discharged through the discharge port 11. Another temperature sensor 7 is disposed in the outer case 3, so as to sense the temperature of an exhaust air, that is, the air completed the heat exchange with the hot and moist air in the drum 5. Within the drum 5, a filter 8 is disposed which serves to filter the air in the drum, so as to separate bits of thread and nap from the air. A door 12 is mounted to the front portion of outer case 3, for giving clothing access to the drum 5.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a system for controlling the drying period of the clothing drying apparatus shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the control system comprises a microcomputer 13 for controlling the operations of the overall system of clothing drying apparatus, depending on the internal temperature of drum 5, the exhaust air temperature and key signals from a key pad 14, a load driving unit 15 including triacs TA1 to TA4 for driving the motor 1 and heater unit 2 under the control of the microcomputer 13, and a display unit 16 for displaying various conditions such as the clothing drying period and etc., under the control of the microcomputer 13. The heater unit 2 comprises three heaters H1 to H3 which are controlled by the triacs TA1 to TA3.
In FIG. 2, the reference character AC denotes an alternating current voltage source.
Now, the operation of the control system for controlling the conventional clothing drying apparatus with the above-mentioned arrangement will be described, in conjunction with FIGS. 3 to 5.
When a wet clothing, for example, a wet blanket is to be dried, the user opens the door 12 and puts the wet blanket into the drum 5. As a blanket key and a drying start key on the key pad 14 are manually pushed, the microcomputer 13 operates to turn on the triac TA4 of the load driving unit 15, thereby causing the motor 1 to be driven. By the driving of motor 1, both the drum 5 and the heat exchanging fan 4 are rotated. On the other hand, the triacs TA1 and TA2 are also turned on by the operation of microcomputer 13, so that the corresponding heater H1 and H2 of the heater unit 2 are actuated. Accordingly, the internal temperature of drum 5 is gradually increased so that the blanket disposed in the drum 5 is gradually dried (a step 1 in FIG. 1).
As air contained in the interior of drum 5 is saturated with a moisture evaporated from the wet blanket, it is changed into a very hot and moist air. This hot and moist air is fed to the heat exchanging fan 4, via the filter 8 mounted to the center portion of the rear portion of drum 5. At the heat exchanging fan 4, the hot and moist air performs a heat exchange with a cold air which is introduced into the interior of outer case 3 through the intake opening 10 by the heat exchange fan 4. Water condensed during the heat exchange is collected at the dehumidifying passage 9 and then discharged out of the dehumidifying passage 9 through the discharge port 11.
By the above-mentioned heat exchange, the dehumidified air is changed into an air which is low in temperature and humidity. The air passes through the dehumidifying passage 9 and is then heated by the heaters H1 and H2. The heated air is then introduced into the drum 5, to dry the blanket disposed in the drum 5.
As shown in FIG. 3, the internal temperature of drum 5 is increased by the operation of heater unit 2, during a predetermined primary drying period t1 after the start of drying. As the evaporation proceeds actively, however, the internal temperature increases no longer and is constantly maintained. When the evaporation is almost completed, the internal temperature of drum 5 increases again. During this primary drying period, the microcomputer 13 determines continuously whether the internal temperature of drum 5 sensed by the temperature sensor 6 has reached a predetermined maximum drying temperature Ta (a step 2 in FIG. 5).
For a maximum drying period of, for example, 5 hours, the microcomputer 13 continues the determination as to whether the sensed internal temperature of drum 5 has reached the predetermined maximum drying temperature Ta (a step 3 in FIG. 5). If the sensed internal temperature of drum 5 has not reached the predetermined maximum drying temperature Ta for the maximum drying period, the microcomputer 13 shut off both the motor 1 and the heater unit 2, thereby causing the drying to cease (a step 4 in FIG. 5). Simultaneously, the microcomputer 13 makes the display unit 16 display an error about the drying.
Where the internal temperature of drum 5 sensed by the temperature sensor 6 has reached the predetermined temperature Ta within the primary drying period t1, the drying rate exceeds 90%. In this case, the microcomputer 13 controls the load driving unit 15, to turn off the heater H2, but to proceed a secondary drying for a secondary drying period t2 (a step 5 in FIG. 5). Such a control of microcomputer 13 is needed for avoiding the blanket in the drum 5 from being maintained at a high temperature for a long time, since the blanket is susceptible to heat.
Thereafter, the microcomputer 13 determines whether the secondary drying period t2 has lapsed (a step 6 in FIG. 5). If the secondary drying period t2 has lapsed, the microcomputer 13 turns off the heater H1 (a step 7 in FIG. 5) and actuates the heat exchange fan 4, so as to proceed a third drying for a third drying period t3 (a step 8 in FIG. 5). After the third drying period t3 has lapsed, the microcomputer 13 shuts off the motor 1 to complete the drying (a step 9 in FIG. 5).
In the above-mentioned conventional clothing drying apparatus, however, there is no consideration about the amount of load, namely, the amount of blankets to be dried, in that the drying operation is continued until the internal temperature of drum sensed by the temperature sensor reaches the predetermined maximum drying temperature. The internal temperature of drum varies depending on the amount of blankets put into the drum, as shown in FIG. 4. Where the amount of blankets is large, the internal temperature of drum may not reach the predetermined maximum drying temperature even after the predetermined maximum period of, for example, 5 hours. In this case, the microcomputer 13 determines such a situation as that the blankets have not been dried yet, ceases the drying and displays an error about it. However, the blankets have already been at a dried condition, even though the internal temperature of drum does not reach the predetermined maximum drying temperature, due to the large amount of blankets in the drum. As a result, the conventional arrangement encounters problems of lengthening the drying period and erroneously determining an actual drying condition of almost 100% as an insufficient drying condition. | {
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The present invention relates to a refrigeration appliance and more particularly to a domestic refrigerator having an automatic icemaker as well as both a fresh food compartment and a freezer compartment.
Refrigeration appliances for domestic use typically have a freezer compartment and a fresh food compartment. The freezer compartment is maintained at a temperature below 0.degree. C. while the fresh food compartment is maintained below room temperature but above 0.degree. C. In some refrigeration appliances it is known to provide automatic ice making equipment in which water supplied On a continuous basis to the refrigeration appliance is periodically dispensed into the ice making equipment to form ice cubes.
Typically these refrigeration appliances have a single evaporator and the icemaker is placed in the freezer compartment. The capacity of such icemakers are generally limited to around five pounds of ice per day since they rely on natural convection during the off cycle of the freezer and forced convection during the on cycle of the freezer to freeze the water to make ice. Since the icemaker relies on freezer air which is cooled by an evaporator, typically operated around -15.degree. F. (-26.degree. C.), it substantially increases the energy consumption of the unit.
This type and location of the icemaker, being in a freezer compartment, does not lend itself to an outside ice and water dispenser well for top mount or bottom mount freezer compartments. Thus, such an arrangement is generally provided only in side-by-side refrigerators. Also, since the water freezing in the icemaker is stationary, air trapped in the water and the impurities in the water result in producing ice cubes that are usually cloudy.
It would be advantageous if there were provided an ice making system which could have a greater capacity of ice making using lower energy consumption, which could make clear ice cubes and which could be provided in top mount or bottom mount combination refrigerator-freezer appliances. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to integrated circuits. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system-on-a-chip integrated circuit device including a programmable logic block, at least one user non-volatile memory block, and temperature sensing and control analog and digital circuits on a single semiconductor integrated circuit chip or a flip chip, face-to-face, or other multiple die configuration.
2. Background
Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) integrated circuits are known in the art. An FPGA comprises any number of logic modules, an interconnect-routing architecture and programmable elements that may be programmed to selectively interconnect the logic modules to one another and to define the functions of the logic modules. To implement a particular circuit function, the circuit is mapped into the array and the appropriate programmable elements are programmed to implement the necessary wiring connections that form the user circuit.
An FPGA includes an array of general-purpose logic circuits, called cells or logic blocks, whose functions are programmable. Programmable buses link the cells to one another. The cell types may be small multifunction circuits (or configurable functional blocks or groups) capable of realizing Boolean functions of multiple variables. The cell types are not restricted to gates. For example, configurable functional groups typically include memory cells and connection transistors that may be used to configure logic functions such as addition, subtraction, etc., inside of the FPGA. A cell may also contain a plurality of flip-flops. Two types of logic cells found in FPGA devices are those based on multiplexers and those based on programmable read only memory (PROM) table-lookup memories. Erasable FPGAs can be reprogrammed many times. This technology is especially convenient when developing and debugging a prototype design for a new product and for small-scale manufacture.
An FPGA circuit can be programmed to implement virtually any set of digital functions. Input signals are processed by the programmed circuit to produce the desired set of outputs. Such inputs flow from the user's system, through input buffers and through the circuit, and finally back out the user's system via output buffers referred to as input/output ports (I/Os). Such buffers provide any or all of the following input/output (I/O) functions: voltage gain, current gain, level translation, delay, signal isolation or hysteresis. The input/output ports provide the access points for communication between chips. I/O ports vary in complexity depending on the FPGA.
Recent advances in user-programmable interconnect technology have resulted in the development of FPGAs which may be customized by a user to perform a wide variety of combinatorial and sequential logic functions. Numerous architectures for such integrated circuits are known. Examples of such architectures are found disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,302 to Freeman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,758,745 to El Gamal et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,571 to McCollum et al. The architecture employed in a particular FPGA integrated circuit will determine the richness and density of the possible interconnections that can be made among the various circuit elements disposed on the integrated circuit and thus profoundly affect its usefulness.
Traditionally, FPGAs and other programmable logic devices (PLDs) have been limited to providing digital logic functions programmable by a user. Recently, however, FPGA manufacturers have experimented with adding application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) blocks onto their devices (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,150,837). Such ASIC blocks have included analog circuits (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,776). In addition, ASIC manufacturers have embedded programmable logic blocks in their devices to add programmable functionality to otherwise hardwired devices (See, e.g., devices offered (or formerly offered) by Triscend Corporation, Adaptive Silicon Inc., and Chameleon Systems. In electronic systems, temperature management and control has traditionally been performed with dedicated ASICs designed for that purpose. For example, the ADM1031, available from Analog Devices, Inc., Norwood, Mass., is an ACPI-compliant three-channel digital thermometer and under/over temperature alarm, for use in personal computers and thermal management systems. The MAX1669, available from Maxim Integrated Products, Sunnyvale, Calif., is a fan controller chip that includes a precise digital thermometer that reports the temperature of a remote sensor. All these devices require multi-chip solutions, including microprocessors or microcontrollers for initialization and loading the threshold temperature settings, which may be stored in a separate flash memory chip. | {
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With the advance of information technology, the audio/video files need higher and higher resolution and demand greater and greater storage capacity. A high-quality terminal device should be equipped with a high-performance data transmission system to transmit an enormous amount of data. Thus, ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), which functions as a conversion interface, demands higher and higher specification, some of which may be far beyond the range that the testing stimulus signal generators can operate. Hence, the high-resolution ADC is usually performed verification by lowering the resolution thereof during testing. Consequently, the test results are usually unpractical.
A US Publication No. 20090040199 entitled an “Apparatus for Testing Driving Circuit for Display” discloses an analog-to-digital converter having a ramp generator. The ramp generator generates a linear triangular wave or a ramp wave (the so-called testing stimulus signal) for testing the analog-to-digital converter. The fundamental problems of a ramp generator include whether the linearity of signals can be used for testing the circuit under test having higher and higher resolution, whether it is expensive, whether the test result thereof is as accurate as expected when considering the non-ideality of the fabrication process, whether it can overcome the factors of environmental interference, probe pointing, loads, etc., and whether it is practical to generate testing stimulus signals externally to input to a chip in case of SOC (System-on-a-Chip). A digital-to-analog converter can provide testing stimulus signals. However, a high-resolution digital-to-analog converter built in a chip not only is expensive but also increases the complexity of design and integration of the chip.
Another typical method for generating testing stimulus signals is to connect a constant current source to a capacitor. Refer to FIG. 1. Via a constant current source 1 and a capacitor 2, the output current can be converted into the voltage drop of the capacitor 2, which is a testing stimulus signal desired. The constant current source 1 is provided by incorporating a current mirror with great output impedance. Such a method is instinctive. However, the method can only apply to a chip where a constant current source 1 and a capacitor 2 exist simultaneously. Refer to FIG. 2. In practice, the constant current source 1 and the capacitor 2 are non-ideal and have parasitic effects which causes the stray charging curve 3 pretty different from the ideal charging curve 4. | {
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Conventionally, the standard approach for gaining access to third-party applications and/or websites requiring authentication involves providing a login name and password. This approach presents many disadvantages. One disadvantage is the inconvenience of having to remember and manually enter login names and passwords. Another disadvantage is the ease of theft of login names and passwords, which can result in identity theft. | {
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As the cost of sensors, communications systems and navigational systems has dropped, operators of commercial and fleet vehicles now have the ability to collect a tremendous amount of data about the vehicles that they operate, including geographical position data collected during the operation of the vehicle.
Vehicle fleet operators often operate vehicles along predefined and generally invariant routes. For example, buses frequently operate on predefined routes, according to a predefined time schedule (for example, along a route that is geographically, as well as temporally defined). Migrating route data from one software platform to another software platform can be a tedious task.
It would be desirable to provide such fleet operators with additional tools for moving data between different software platforms, and for collecting and analyzing data (such as Global Positioning System (GPS) data, as well as other route related data) collected from vehicles traversing a predefined route. | {
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hydraulic brake device which functions to ensure an appropriate control of brake fluid pressure in a hydraulic circuit connected to wheels of an automotive vehicle.
(2) Description of the Related Art
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 4-221258, there is known a hydraulic brake device that electrically controls a brake fluid pressure supplied into a wheel cylinder. Such a hydraulic brake device is provided with a master cylinder which generates a brake fluid pressure (hereinafter called the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C), and a high pressure source which generates a boosted brake fluid pressure (hereinafter called the accumulator pressure) which is higher than the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C.
The master cylinder generates the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C in response to a brake pedal pressure exerted on a brake pedal by a vehicle operator. Hence, a braking force that is proportional to the brake pedal pressure is exerted on a wheel by the wheel cylinder when the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C is supplied into the wheel cylinder. The high pressure source generates the accumulator pressure which is higher than the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C. Hence, an increased braking force that is higher than the brake pedal pressure is exerted on the wheel by the wheel cylinder when the accumulator pressure is supplied into the wheel cylinder. In the latter case, the operator can perform the braking operation more easily than in the former case to effect the braking force on the vehicle.
In the conventional device of the above-mentioned publication, when the hydraulic brake device is operating normally, an electrical brake control is performed so that the master cylinder is separated or cut off from the wheel cylinder and the high pressure source is brought in line with the wheel cylinder. The accumulator pressure from the high pressure source is supplied into the wheel cylinder. In such a configuration, it is possible for the wheel cylinder to exert a large braking force on the vehicle wheel in comparison with the brake pedal pressure. According to the electrical brake control, the wheel cylinder pressure of the wheel cylinder is set at the accumulator pressure.
When a malfunction in the conventional device of the above publication is detected, the electrical brake control is switched to a manual operation mode so that the high pressure source is separated or cut off from the wheel cylinder and the master cylinder is brought in line with the wheel cylinder. The master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C from the master cylinder is supplied into the wheel cylinder. In such a configuration, when the operator manually exerts the brake pedal pressure on the brake pedal, it is possible for the wheel cylinder to exert a braking force which is approximately equal to the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C. Hence, although the malfunction has occurred, the wheel cylinder pressure of the wheel cylinder is set to be almost equal to the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C by the manual operation of the operator.
However, in the conventional device of the above publication, when the high pressure source is operating normally but a malfunction in a sensor of an electrical system is detected, the electrical brake control is stopped and the switching to the manual operation mode is performed so that the high pressure source is cut off from the wheel cylinder, and the master cylinder is connected with the wheel cylinder. Only the master cylinder pressure P.sub.M/C from the master cylinder is supplied into the wheel cylinder. In such a configuration, the accumulator pressure from the high pressure source cannot be supplied into the wheel cylinder even if the high pressure source is operating normally. The level of the braking force exerted on the wheel in such a case is proportional to the brake pedal pressure on the brake pedal by the operator. In order to exert a large braking force on the wheel, the vehicle operator must depress the brake pedal very heavily.
Practically, there exist many cases in which the accumulator pressure from the high pressure source can be utilized to exert an increased braking force on the vehicle wheel even when a malfunction in an electrical system is detected. However, the conventional device of the above publication does not supply the accumulator pressure from the high pressure source into the wheel cylinder when a malfunction in the electrical system is detected. It is difficult for the conventional device of the above publication to ensure an appropriate control of the brake fluid pressure when such a malfunction is detected. | {
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The female vagina is naturally colonized by a variety of bacteria, yeast, and microorganisms. For example, a normal vagina generally contains more than about 104 lactobacilli per milliliter of vaginal fluid. Under normal conditions, the vagina flora provides a mildly acidic environment that helps guard against the invasion of pathogenic microbes. Unfortunately, this vaginal balance may be easily upset by a variety of external factors that ultimately lead to vaginal infection. Vaginal infection is a clinical syndrome and exists in three primary forms, i.e., bacterial vaginosis, candidal vaginitis (“yeast”), and trichomonas vaginitis (“trich”).
Bacterial vaginosis, for example, is a polymicrobial vaginal infection believed to be caused by an increase in the number of anaerobic organisms with a concomitant decrease in lactobacilli in the vagina. The decrease in the number of lactobacilli in the vagina has the dual effect of decreasing competition for nutrients and decreasing the amount of lactic acid present (i.e., increasing the pH). This allows for the multiplication of opportunistic pathogens in the vagina, whose growth is normally suppressed by the lactobacilli and the acidic pH of the vagina. The principal pathogen associated with bacterial vaginosis is believed to be Gardnerella vaginalis. Symptoms of bacterial vaginosis generally include an unpleasant smell, an elevated vaginal pH greater than about 5.0, a thin homogeneous discharge, and the presence of Gardnerella clue cells (i.e., vaginal epithelial cells coated with small Gram-variable rods). Current treatment regimens for bacterial infection of the vagina involve the use of various broad spectrum antibiotics, such as metronidazole. However, antibiotics are often undesirable because they may kill a broad range of the normal bacterial flora in the vagina, including the beneficial lactobacilli. This may cause secondary complications, because the lactobacilli keep various opportunistic pathogens in the vagina in check. The treatment may then necessitate a further treatment regimen, such as the ingestion of cultured dairy products to replace the lactobacilli in the body, as well as treatment by antifungal agents. Moreover, a rise in the level of anaerobes due to a lack of lactobacilli could further complicate the infection. Additionally, antibiotics, when used frequently within the vagina, may cause systemic toxicity through absorption from the vagina.
In addition, trichomonas vaginitis (or “trich”) is one of the most common vaginal infections and is considered a sexually transmitted disease. Symptoms of trichomonas vaginitis include vulvar itching and odorous vaginal discharge. Trichomonas vaginitis is caused by Trichomonas vaginalis, a single-celled protozoan parasite not normally found in the flora of the genitourinary tract. Trichomonas vaginalis is a flagellate protozoa that is pear-shaped and about the size of a white blood cell. These motile cells have four flagellae and a single nucleus. Like bacterial vaginosis, this pathology is generally treated with metronidazole.
Further, the yeast Candida albicans causes the disease known as candidiasis (or “thrush”), as well as vulvitis (or “vulval” infection). Candida albicans is present in most humans as a harmless commensal organism. Problems arise, however, when a person experiences a loss of normal bacterial flora. In severely immune compromised patients, for example, Candida albicans infection may spread throughout the body and cause systemic infections. Candidiasis is usually treated with fluconazole, but this may have serious side effects and is not recommended for use during pregnancy.
As such, a need currently exists for an improved vaginal treatment composition. | {
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The present invention relates to dispensing devices for collapsible, tubular containers, and, more particularly, to an improved manually operated tube press member for such devices.
The manufacturers of dispensing devices for tubular containers have long been confronted with the difficulty of manufacturing a dispenser which will accommodate a large variety of container sizes as well as the problem of providing a dispensing operation that can be easily controlled to dispense a broad range of quantities of material from a collapsible tube. In view of the fact that a large number of commercial products are presently stored in tubular containers for sale and use by the consumer, it has become particularly desirable to provide flexibility in the amount of material that can be dispensed from such devices so that the consumer market for a single type of dispensing device can be broadened to accommodate a wider range of products.
By way of example, presently, not only are dental creams and shaving creams packaged in collapsible tubes, but also, a number of pharmaceutical products, shampoos, and cleansing detergents are now available in such tubular containers. In addition, a number of products of the foregoing types are packaged in a variety of concentrations of ingredients for the purpose of varying their properties. Thus, where members of a single family have purchased a product at a given concentration, individual members of the family will utilize the product in a corresponding variety of quantities for their individual applications. This is particularly important in the use of body cleansing creams and hair dye solutions.
Previously, dispensing devices for tubular containers were primarily concerned with dental cream or toothpaste containers which, therefore, were intended to dispense only small quantities of paste from a fairly standardized size of container. Thus, such dispensing devices, in general, could only be used for toothpaste tubes. As a result, the market for such devices was severely limited.
In the known devices in this field, in order to provide the capability of dispensing material both completely from a collapsible tube in one operation as well as in small increments, complicated tube contacting and manipulating devices have been employed so that the manufacturing expense has been increased, and, correspondingly, the commercial acceptance of such devices has been limited. Also, often, since these types of devices are subject to abuse such as by the children in a family, the tube manipulating mechanisms have been short-lived particularly where rack and gear arrangements or threaded member advancing arrangements have been employed.
Where cleaning of the dispensing device becomes necessary with the prior art devices, it has been difficult to disassemble the element particularly where complicated tube manipulating mechanisms are employed. The cleaning operation can be particularly time consuming and troublesome where a defective tube is installed in the dispensing device and breakage of the tube occurs during the dispensing operation.
In many of the prior art devices, a cylindrical roller or ball has been employed to carry out the tube squeezing operation. Such arrangements have been useful where the material from which the tubular container is constructed is relatively stiff and not subject to resilient reaction when subjected to pressure. However, many types of cosmetic products as well as other commodities are now packaged in containers of relatively flexible or flowable material so that where a roller or ball member is employed, which is movable along a cylindrical housing to effect dispensing, such tubular containers exhibit a tendency to flow around the roller or ball element resulting in jamming of the element in the housing.
Prior art references relating to the field of the present invention are as follows:
______________________________________ U.S. Patents Issue Dates ______________________________________ 1,311,354 July 9, 1919 1,352,425 September 14, 1920 1,353,747 September 21, 1920 3,326,419 June 20, 1967 ______________________________________
The dispensing device of the present invention avoids the foregoing and other drawbacks found in the prior art and provides a dispensing device for tubular containers of the collapsible type which can be very inexpensively constructed and yet will be very durable in use. Also, the device of the present invention can be readily disassembled for cleaning as well as for replacement of an expended tubular container.
In one embodiment, the device of the present invention includes a retaining means in the form of a housing which is shaped to hold a tubular container in a predetermined orientation therein. The housing has a wall portion provided with a slot which extends along the length of the housing. Disposed on the interior of the housing is a press member in the form of a solid block of material such as plastic, wood or the like which is formed with a leading edge, a base portion and a smooth gradually sloping surface which extends between the leading edge and base portion. An elongated handle is attached to the topside of the press member above the base portion with the handle extending upwardly through the slot in the wall of the housing. The handle is located toward the rear portion of the press member remote from its leading edge so that pivoting of the handle by an individual will result in a rocking motion of the press member on the curved surface of the member.
The upper wall of the housing of the dispensing device of the present invention is provided with guide means for the press member in the form of shoulders located on opposite sides of the housing. The upper surface of the press member is flat to cooperate with the shoulders formed on the upper wall of the housing. The shoulders of the housing extend in and define a plane so that when an individual pulls on the handle of the press member, the press member will move along a line parallel to the plane defined by the shoulders of the housing. With a tubular container located in the housing, when the press member is moved along the housing to bring the curved surface of the press member into contact with the tube, dispensing of the material from the tube is initiated by simply pivoting the handle to squeeze the tube between the press member and the bottom wall of the housing.
The dispensing device of the present invention can be very economically manufactured in view of the fact that there is only one moving part which also renders it capable of very simple operation by even very young children. Moreover, disassembly of the housing and press member can be very quickly effected to permit cleaning of the elements and substitution of a new tubular container. Moreover, the device of the present invention can be constructed to accommodate a great variety of tube sizes in view of the fact that the press member can effectively operate on very small tubes just as well as on tubes of a size equivalent to the full capacity of the housing due to the unique rocking movement afforded by the sloping curved surface of the press member.
In another embodiment, the handle is rigidly secured to the press member and has a planar stem portion having a length approximately equal to the length of the top surface of the press member and which extends through the slot in the upper wall of the housing. Fixed to the protruding end of the stem is a manually engageable portion having a length approximately equal to the length of the press member and which is bent or curved approximately at its midpoint so that the section of the portion lying over the leading edge of the press member extends at an angle away from the plane of the top surface of the press member. Thus, a user of the device can effect pivoting of the press member by rocking the manually engageable portion of the handle about the bent or curved section to bring the forward section of the handle portion into flush engagement with the top wall of the housing. The trailing section of the manually engageable portion of the handle will extend in a plane that is parallel to the plane of the top surface of the press member and thus serve to space the bottom of the press member a predetermined distance from the bottom wall of the housing when this trailing section of the handle engages the top wall of the housing adjacent the slot. The spacing or gap between the bottom of the press member and the bottom wall of the housing will serve to facilitate movement of the press member along the longitudinal length of the housing by permitting the collapsed portion of the tube to interfit through the clearance thus provided. As a consequence, the possibility of the press member becoming jammed between the guide shoulders and the partially collapsed or totally collapsed tube is eliminated. In addition, accurate control of the dispensing is assured by virtue of the limited pivotability of the press member which is dependent on the angle of bend between the forward and trailing sections of the manually engageable portion of the handle. | {
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The present invention relates to a method of reclaiming various kinds of crosslinked rubbers such as non-sulfur crosslinked rubber, sponge rubber, silicone rubber and diene-type rubber.
Heretofore, a reclaiming method wherein crosslinked rubber is converted into reclaimed rubber by applying heat and shear stress thereto has been known as a method of reutilizing wastes of rubber moldings such as tire wastes, or scrap, defective moldings etc. occurring in a process for producing rubber moldings.
According to the above reclaiming method, cross-linkages among rubber molecules constituting crosslinked rubber are cleaved by heat and shear stress, thus making the rubber molecules in a state similar to non-crosslinked molecules.
By re-crosslinking such reclaimed rubber singly or after being blended with new non-crosslinked rubber, the reclaimed rubber can form moldings.
The crosslinked rubber can thereby be recycled.
However, there are some kinds of crosslinked rubbers whose reclamation is difficult or not feasible by the prior art techniques described above.
For example, even if rubber such as non-sulfur crosslinked rubber (peroxide-crosslinked rubber) is heated and subjected to shear stress, the rubber is merely pulverized by the shear stress, resulting in little cleavage of the cross-linkages. Pulverization of rubber into fine powder is estimated to cause the rubber molecules to be hardly subjected to shear stress.
Further, when sponge rubber having a foamed phase, or a rubber blend prepared by blending such sponge rubber with normal crosslinked rubber (solid rubber), is reclaimed according to the prior art techniques, there arose the following problems.
Also, because of the gaseous components such as entrained air, the sponge rubber is poor in heat conductivity, requires longer preheating, and is slow in the progress of plasticization. Further, the sponge rubber is hardly sheared due to low bulk density, thus making the progress of plasticization slow. Accordingly, reclamation treatment thereof requires a longer time.
Further, due to entrained gaseous components, the pressure during reclamation treatment may be varied, and there may arise troubles such as pulsation, abnormal blowing or blowing back of rubber, so that stable reclamation treatment thereof was difficult.
For example, rubber such as silicone rubber or a rubber blend containing silicone rubber could not be reclaimed by the conventional method.
This is because main chains or cross-linkages of silicone rubber are stable to heat and difficult to be cleaved. Further, in an oxygen atmosphere, its molecules are recombined due to oxide deterioration.
During reclamation, a rubber blend, e.g., consisting of natural rubber and butadiene-type rubber used in automobile tires is deteriorated due to oxidation with air, thus rendering rubber molecules low-molecular by cleavage of their main chains or causing the molecules to be crosslinked with one another. Accordingly, reclamation that is excellent in qualities was difficult in the conventional method.
The present invention was made in view of these problems in the prior art, and the object of the present invention is to provide a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber, which is capable of reclaiming various kinds of crosslinked rubbers whose reclamation is difficult.
The present invention relates to a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber including a step of reclaiming crosslinked rubber by applying shear stress to the crosslinked rubber, wherein the maximum pressure in the reclaiming step is 1.5 MPa or more.
The most remarkable feature of the present invention is that the maximum pressure in the reclaiming step is 1.5 MPa or more.
When the maximum pressure is less than 5 MPa, crosslinked rubber may not be reclaimed.
The upper limit of the maximum pressure is preferably 100 MPa. Since a device capable of realizing the maximum pressure of higher than 100 MPa is very large-scale, realization may be difficult.
The lower limit of the maximum pressure is preferably 2 MPa, and the lower limit of the maximum pressure is more preferably 3 MPa.
By increasing the pressure in the reclaiming step as described above, rubber molecules in crosslinked rubber, whose reclamation is difficult in the conventional method because of failure in sufficiently subjecting them to shear stress, can be sufficiently subjected to shear stress, thus efficiently cleaving the cross-linkages therein to reclaim the crosslinked rubber whose reclamation is difficult.
According to the present invention as described above, a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber can be provided, which is capable of reclaiming various kinds of crosslinked rubbers whose reclamation is difficult.
The reclaiming step in the present invention preferably includes a preheating step and a plasticizing step. In this plasticizing step, shear stress is applied while the maximum pressure is made preferably 1.5 Pa or more.
In the reclaiming method of the present invention, the temperature of crosslinked rubber to be reclaimed is increased due to evolution of heat by shear stress and/or heating from the outside. This is the preheating step.
When the crosslinked rubber attains a predetermined temperature in the preheating step and is further subjected to shear stress, cleavage of cross-linkages and/or some main chains in the crosslinked rubber is initiated, thus softening the crosslinked rubber. This is the plasticizing step.
These steps in the reclaiming method of the present invention can be independently conducted, but from the viewpoint of efficiency of production, it is preferable that the respective steps are conducted successively in one vessel. In this case, the process may proceed successively or simultaneously because the boundary between the respective steps is indefinite.
The two steps described above may be followed by a step of further applying shear stress to the softened crosslinked rubber in order to cleave cross-linkages sufficiently and to disperse and mix rubber molecules. This step is the kneading step. By this step, reclaimed rubber of uniform quality can be obtained.
In addition to the steps described above, there may be further steps such as a step of blending with other materials, a step of re-crosslinking by adding a vulcanizing agent, a step of deodorization, degasification and exhaust, and a step of denaturation-and modification by adding an additive and a reacting agent.
In the reclaiming method of the present invention, the crosslinked rubber is sheared preferably at such a temperature that the cross-linkages in the crosslinked rubber are cleaved and simultaneously cleavage of main chains of rubber molecules constituting the crosslinked rubber does not extremely proceed.
As the shear stress applied is increased, cross-linkages are cleaved more easily, and thus as the shear stress is increased, the temperature during reclamation (temperature of the crosslinked rubber and/or reclaimed rubber) can be lowered.
Specifically, the reclaiming step is conducted preferably at the temperature of 100 to 520xc2x0 C. When the reclaiming step is conducted at a temperature of less than 100xc2x0 C., the cleavage of cross-linkages etc. may not sufficiently proceed. Also, when the temperature is higher than 520xc2x0 C., cleavage of main chains may extremely proceed to deteriorate the physical properties of reclaimed rubber. The upper limit of the above temperature range is more preferably 450xc2x0 C.
In the reclaiming step, the crosslinked rubber is heated or cooled as required so as to be in the above temperature range. When the heat evolved by the crosslinked rubber upon shearing is too low, the rubber is heated, and when the heat evolved is too high, the rubber is cooled down. When the above temperature range is attained by the heat evolved by the crosslinked rubber upon shearing, heat transfer (heating or cooling) from the outside is not necessary.
The optimum temperature range is varied depending on the type of the crosslinked rubber. For example, when automobile tires etc. are to be reclaimed, the temperature range is preferably 180 to 360xc2x0 C. When peroxide-crosslinked rubbers such as EPDM are to be reclaimed, the temperature range is preferably 220 to 450xc2x0 C.
The upper limit of the temperature range during reclamation is varied depending on the duration of reclamation, and the temperature should be raised when short.
The shear stress applied in the plasticizing step in the present invention is preferably 1 to 100 MPa. When the shear stress is less than 1 MPa, cleavage of cross-linkages cannot sufficiently proceed and the efficiency of reclamation may be lowered. When the shear stress is higher than 100 MPa, the shear stress may cause not only cleave of cross-linkages but also extreme cleavage of main chains, whereby the physical properties of the reclaimed rubber may be deteriorated.
The upper limit of the shear stress is more preferably 15 MPa.
The optimum range of the shear stress is also varied depending on the type of crosslinked rubber, and the shear stress is most preferably 1 to 5 MPa for e.g. automobile tires. When the crosslinked rubber is used peroxide-crosslinked rubber such as EPDM, the shear stress is preferably 3 to 10 MPa.
The shear stress can be calculated by multiplying the shear rate in a device used for applying shear stress by the viscosity of the crosslinked rubber.
The crosslinked rubber includes non-sulfur-type crosslinked rubber such as peroxide-crosslinked rubber.
The peroxide-crosslinked rubber is crosslinked rubber crosslinked by a peroxide-based crosslinking agent, and examples thereof include EPDM (ethylene/propylene/diene terpolymer), EPR (ethylene/propylene rubber), NBR (acrylonitrile/butadiene rubber), silicone rubber etc.
When such crosslinked rubber is subjected to shear stress for reclamation, the rubber is merely pulverized by the shear stress, resulting in little cleavage of the cross-linkages. Pulverization of rubber into fine powder is estimated to cause the rubber molecules to be hardly subjected to shear stress.
According to the present invention, such crosslinked rubber or a rubber blend containing such crosslinked rubber can be reclaimed, thus enabling recycling of more kinds of rubber products.
The present invention can also be applied to crosslinked rubbers other than those described above.
Like the conventional method, various reclaiming promoters and additives such as coloring agents, fillers and antioxidants can be added in the reclaiming method of the present invention.
The present invention further provides a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber including a step of reclaiming crosslinked rubber by applying shear stress to the crosslinked rubber, wherein the crosslinked rubber is sponge rubber and the degree of packing in the reclaiming step is 80 vol-% or more.
The most remarkable feature of this invention is that the degree of packing in the reclaiming step is 80 vol-% or more.
If the degree of packing is less than 80 vol-%, the heat conductivity of the crosslinked rubber may be low, the progress of preheating may be slow, and the efficiency of reclamation may be lowered. Further, loading of the shear stress to the crosslinked rubber proceeding from the preheating step to the plasticizing step would be insufficient to make cleavage of cross-linkages difficult, and thus the efficiency of reclamation may be lowered and reclamation may be insufficient.
The degree of packing is more preferably 95 vol-% or more.
The reclaiming step in the present invention preferably includes a preheating step and a plasticizing step.
In this case, the degree of packing in the plasticizing step is preferably 80 vol-% or more. Further, the plasticizing step is preferably followed by a step of degasification.
The degree of packing is determined by dividing the volume of a solid part of sponge rubber (excluding constrained air) by the volume of a zone for retaining the sponge rubber in the reclaiming step (that is, the preheating step or the plasticizing step).
By raising the degree of packing in the preheating step and plasticizing step as described above, the volume of gas contained in sponge rubber having a foamed phase and in a rubber blend containing such sponge rubber is decreased, and thus the heat conductivity of such material can be increased, and the time required in the preheating step can be shortened.
By raising the degree of packing, the bulk density of sponge rubber can be increased, and the shear stress can be efficiently applied to the sponge rubber. Accordingly, the efficiency of reclamation can be increased, thus realizing shortening of the time needed for reclamation.
In the present invention, there is the step of degasification. The step of degasification is a step where gaseous components are removed from the place where the reclamation treatment is conducted.
Accordingly, a rapid fluctuation in the pressure during the reclamation treatment can be prevented, and troubles such as pulsation, abnormal blowing and blowing back of rubber can be prevented. Therefore the reclamation can be carried out safely and stably. Accordingly, the method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber can be provided, which is capable of reclaiming a wide variety of crosslinked rubbers whose reclamation is difficult.
In this reclaiming method, the maximum pressure in the plasticizing step is preferably 1.5 MPa or more as described above.
With this arrangement, the shear stress and optimum temperature necessary for reclaiming sponge rubber can be efficiently applied.
The upper limit of the maximum pressure is preferably 100 MPa. Since a device capable of realizing a pressure of higher than 100 MPa is very large-scale, realization may be difficult.
The lower limit of the maximum pressure is preferably 2 MPa. The lower limit of the maximum pressure is more preferably 3 MPa.
The sponge rubber described above includes sponge rubber having an expansion ratio of 1.5 or more and a specific gravity of 0.75 or less.
Such sponge rubber is hardly reclaimed by the conventional reclaiming method by shear stress, but effectively reclaimed according to the reclaiming method of the present invention.
For a rubber blend prepared by blending the sponge rubber with other rubber, the same effect can also be obtained.
This reclaiming method can be applied to sponge rubber such as sulfur-crosslinked (vulcanized) EPDM composed of various materials.
For the reclamation in this invention, the temperature is preferably in the range of 100 to 520xc2x0 C., which is the same as in another present invention described above. The shear stress in the plasticizing step is preferably in the range of 1 to 100 MPa, which is also the same as in another present invention described above. The upper limit of the shear stress is more preferably 15 MPa.
This invention, similar to another present invention described above, also includes a preheating step and a simultaneously with a step after the plasticizing step (see Embodiment 3).
The degasifying step is performed by using e.g. an extruder provided with vent(s) arranged just over each steps such as plasticizing step and a full-flighted screw for connecting the steps such as plasticizing step.
Other features are the same as in the reclaiming method described above.
The reclaiming method is preferably conducted by use of an extruder that is pressurized by a means of suppressing the forward conveying of crosslinked rubber to an extrusion orifice of the extruder.
By suppressing the feeding of crosslinked rubber, the degree of packing of crosslinked rubber in the cylinder can be easily increased.
The feeding of crosslinked rubber in the present invention is suppressed but not stopped, so the crosslinked rubber (turning into the reclaimed rubber as the reclamation process proceeds) is sent gradually toward the extrusion orifice.
The suppressing means is preferably constituted by the screw possessed by the extruder, wherein the direction of the screw is switched at a certain position in the extruder (see FIG. 1). The feeding of crosslinked rubber can thereby be easily realized.
The extruder used is e.g. a twin-screw extruder having a cylinder with an extrusion orifice and a screw arranged in the cylinder, as shown in FIG. 1 described below.
In the case where such twin-screw extruder is used, the crosslinked rubber is introduced into the cylinder, heated in the cylinder by an external heating source, and subjected to shear stress by rotation of the screw.
The direction of the screw can be switched at a switching part in the screw as shown in FIG. 1. By rotating this screw in the cylinder, the crosslinked rubber is loaded, at the switching part, force P1 in the direction toward the extrusion orifice and force P2 in the opposite direction, so that forward conveying of the crosslinked rubber is suppressed and stopped at the switching part, thereby pressurizing the cylinder. The degree of packing of the crosslinked rubber in the cylinder can be raised by suppressing forward conveying of the crosslinked rubber and stopping the forward conveying.
The present invention also provides a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber including a step of reclaiming crosslinked rubber by applying shear stress to the crosslinked rubber, wherein a main chain-cleaving agent is present in the reclaiming step. Crosslinked rubber such as non-sulfur-type crosslinked silicone rubber whose reclamation is difficult by the conventional reclaiming method and whose qualities are hardly influenced even if its main chains are cleaved can be reclaimed according to this method.
According to the present invention as described above, a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber, which is capable of reclaiming various kinds of crosslinked rubbers such as silicone rubber whose reclamation is difficult, can be provided.
As the main chain-cleaving agent, a material capable of cleaving siloxane bonds is preferably used. By cleaving siloxane bonds constituting non-sulfur-type crosslinked silicone rubber, reclamation of the silicone rubber can be realized.
The material includes e.g. basic catalysts such as potassium hydroxide, polar solvents such as dimethyl formamide and dimeithyl sulfoxide, acid catalysts such as hydrochloric acid and active china clay, water, and alcohols such as ethanol, butanol and isopropyl alcohol.
It is preferable that the reclaiming step includes a preheating step and a plasticizing step, and the main chain-cleaving agent is added during the plasticizing step. With this arrangement, the main chain-cleaving agent can effectively act on the crosslinked rubber.
When the main chain-cleaving agent is added during the process, a pressure pump is preferably used. Alternatively, the main chain-cleaving agent may be allowed to be coexistent with crosslinked rubber by previously impregnating the crosslinked rubber therewith.
This reclaiming method also includes a preheating step and a plasticizing step, which is similar to another reclaiming method described above, and these steps are the same as described above.
The main chain-cleaving agent is added preferably in an amount of 0.1 to 20 parts by weight based on 100 parts by weight of the crosslinked rubber. With this arrangement, main chains in silicone rubber etc. can be certainly cleaved to realize reclamation of the crosslinked rubber. If the amount of the added main chain-cleaving agent is less than 0.1 part by weight, cleavage of main chains in the crosslinked rubber may be insufficient to make reclamation of the crosslinked rubber difficult, while if the amount exceeds 20 parts by weight, the characteristics of reclaimed rubber cannot further be improved, the ability to reclaim the rubber maybe lowered, and the material characteristics of the resulting reclaimed rubber can be deteriorated due to the presence of the non-acting main chain-cleaving agent.
The lower limit is preferably 0.5 part by weight, more preferably 5 parts by weight.
The above reclaiming step is conducted preferably at 100 to 520xc2x0 C. as described above.
The present invention also provides a method of reclaiming crosslinked rubber including a step of reclaiming crosslinked rubber by applying shear stress to the crosslinked rubber, wherein the crosslinked rubber is pressurized in the reclaiming step, and the reclaiming step is conducted in a non-oxidizing atmosphere.
By using the non-oxidizing atmosphere, the reclaimed rubber can be prevented from being oxidatively deteriorated by air and oxygen gas, thus preventing re-crosslinking of the molecules during reclamation from occurring and improving the quality of the reclaimed rubber.
By pressurization, rubber molecules in crosslinked rubber, whose reclamation is difficult by the conventional method because of failure in sufficient subjection of shear stress, can be sufficiently subjected to shear stress, thus efficiently cleaving the cross-linkages therein to reclaim the crosslinked rubber whose reclamation is difficult.
The same preheating and plasticizing steps, as described above, are also preferably conducted in this reclaiming method.
As described above, the reclaiming step is conducted preferably at the temperature of 100 to 520xc2x0 C.
The crosslinked rubber which is easily oxidatively deteriorated includes diene and butadiene type rubber such as SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber), NBR (acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber) and BR (butadiene rubber), as well as rubber blends including such diene or butadiene type rubber and other rubber.
The means of realizing the non-oxidizing atmosphere includes a method of replacing the air in ambient atmosphere by non-oxidizing gas when the crosslinked rubber is introduced into a reclaiming device (e.g. twin-screw extruder in FIG. 4), whereby the air is introduced together with the crosslinked rubber into the device.
As the non-oxidizing atmosphere, a nitrogen gas atmosphere etc. can be used.
The reclaimed rubber obtained in this reclaiming method can be reutilized as rubber moldings by re-crosslinking it with a crosslinking agent. Further, the reclaimed rubber can also be reutilized as rubber moldings by mixing new non-crosslinked rubber with the reclaimed rubber and re-crosslinking the resulting blend with a crosslinking agent.
The reclaimed rubber obtained in this reclaiming method is in such a state that gel components insoluble in toluene (or good solvent for the reclaimed rubber) remain in an amount of preferably 20% by weight or more, more preferably 30% by weight or more, and most preferably 40% by weight or more.
When the amount of gel components insoluble in toluene is less than 20% by weight, cleavage of not only cross-linkages but also of main chains of rubber molecules may proceed extremely. The reclaimed rubber is often sticky, and the physical properties and processability thereof may be lowered.
The amount of gel components is preferably less than 90% by weight, more preferably 80% by weight and most preferably 70% by weight. When the amount is 90% by weight or more, reclamation of the crosslinked rubber is estimated to be insufficient. Accordingly, dispersibility of the resulting reclaimed rubber in new non-crosslinked rubber and adhesion thereof may be lowered, and the surface properties and mechanical properties of rubber moldings obtained by re-crosslinking the reclaimed rubber may be deteriorated.
Although the gel components described above are varied depending on the type of reclaimed crosslinked rubber, for example, they are made of e.g. polymer gel formed by three-dimensional crosslinkage of rubber, carbon gel including rubber and carbon black, and inorganic materials such as carbon black.
The network chain density of rubber in gel components in the reclaimed rubber obtained by this reclaiming method is preferably in the range of {fraction (1/50)} to xc2xc relative to that of the crosslinked rubber before reclamation. Such reclaimed rubber is in such a state that its rubber molecules maintain a crosslinked structure to a certain degree.
When the network chain density of rubber in the gel components exceeds xc2xc relative to the network chain density in the crosslinked rubber before reclamation, the dispersibility thereof in new non-crosslinked rubber and compatibility thereof with the new non-crosslinked rubber may be deteriorated because of insufficient reclamation of the crosslinked rubber.
On the other hand, when the network chain density therein is less than {fraction (1/50)}, cleavage of not only the cross-linkages but also of main chains of rubber molecules proceeds, thus readily making the reclaimed rubber sticky and deteriorating the physical properties and processability thereof.
The network chain density therein is more preferably in the range of {fraction (1/20)} to xc2xc most preferably {fraction (1/20)} to xe2x85x9.
The Mooney viscosity (ML1+4, 100xc2x0 C.) at 100xc2x0 C. of the reclaimed rubber obtained in this reclaiming method is preferably 10 to 150. When the Mooney viscosity exceeds 150, the dispersibility thereof in new non-crosslinked rubber and compatibility thereof with the new non-crosslinked rubber may be deteriorated because of insufficient reclamation of the crosslinked rubber. When the Mooney viscosity is less than 10, cleavage of main chains of rubber molecules proceeds, thus readily making the reclaimed rubber sticky and deteriorating the physical properties thereof.
The Mooney viscosity is more preferably in the range of 15 to 120, most preferably in the range of 20 to 80. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Industrial hemp is legally defined in the United States as Cannabis which contains 0.3% or less total sample dry weight of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinal (THC). THC content is normally well above the 0.30% threshold in modern varieties of Cannabis. THC is one of an estimated 85 cannabinoids (a class of terpenoids) synthesized in Cannabis species (El-Alfy et al., 2010, “Antidepressant-like effect of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and other cannabinoids isolated from Cannabis sativa L”, Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 95 (4): 434-42).
Cannabinoids act on endogenous cannabinoid receptors located throughout the human body (Kreitzer and Stella, 2009, “The therapeutic potential of novel cannabinoid receptors”, Pharmacology & Therapeutics 122 (2): 83-96). These receptors are present in humans because the human body manufactures a similar class of cannabinoids known as the endocannabinoids (Pertwee et al., 2010, “International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology. LXXIX. Cannabinoid Receptors and Their Ligands: Beyond CB1 and CB2”, Pharmacological Reviews 62 (4): 588-631).
The demand for the medicinal properties of cannabinoids derived from Cannabis is growing. Over the last 15 years, medicinal marijuana has gained similar regulatory ground as hemp. This is a reflection of consumer demand. In 2013, medical marijuana sales were estimated at 1.5 billion dollars. The medicinal effects of cannabinoids on human health continue to be validated as clinical research in this field expands and gains traction (Scott et al., 2014, “The Combination of Cannabidiol and Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol Enhances the Anticancer Effects of Radiation in an Orthotopic Murine Glioma Model”, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 13 (12): 2955-2967). The ability to create this medicine without THC is highly desired by many patients and regulatory agencies.
Terpenes are a large class of volatile organic hydrocarbons. In plants, they function as hormones (e.g. abscisic acid), as photosynthetic pigments (e.g. carotenoids) and are involved in many other vital physiological processes. Secondary terpenoids (secondary metabolites) account for the majority of terpenoid molecular structural diversity. The secondary terpenoids play a major role in the plant's response to environmental factors such as such as pathogen and photooxidative stresses (Tholl, 2006, “Terpene synthases and the regulation, diversity and biological roles of terpene metabolism”, Current Opinion in Plant Biology 9 (3): 297-304). Apart from their functions in the plant, terpenes from hops (Humulus lupulus) such as myrcene and humulene serve as major aromatic and flavor compounds in beer. Cannabis synthesizes many terpenes including myrcene and humulene.
Cannabis normally reproduces under a dioecious system where male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers develop on separate plants. Monoecious plants (containing both male and female flowers) do exist. Female floral anatomy is characterized by pistils protruding from a calyx covered with resinous glandular trichomes. The glandular trichomes of the female flower are the primary site of cannabinoid synthesis. The female calyx contains ovaries and, therefore, is the site of seed development when fertilized by pollen produced by a male plant.
A vast majority of the Cannabis produced in the United States is done so by clonal propagation. Under this production scheme, meristems are cut from a selected plant and treated by various methods to induce rooting so that many, genetically identical progeny may be derived from the original. This is primarily done because breeding Cannabis seeds which consistently express a particular cannabinoid profile, often elevated for a particular cannabinoid (e.g. THC), is generally regarded as difficult. The simplicity of breeding varieties to be produced under a clonal reproduction system is quickly offset by the cost of clonal production, among other factors (Mckey et al., 2010, “The evolutionary ecology of clonally propagated domesticated plants”, New Phytologist 186 (2): 318-332). There is a need in the industry for industrial hemp varieties which are reliably low in THC when produced in diverse environmental conditions and which express elevated levels of certain other cannabinoids. The present invention provides a Cannabis variety that consistently and reproducibly has nearly zero THC (thus qualifying as industrial hemp) and elevated levels of CBD.
There are numerous steps in the development of any novel, desirable plant germplasm. Plant breeding preferably begins with the analysis and definition of problems and weaknesses of the current germplasm, the establishment of program goals, and the definition of specific breeding objectives. The next step is preferable selection of germplasm that possess the traits to meet the program goals. The goal is to combine in a single variety or hybrid an improved combination of desirable traits from the parental germplasm. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to a process for dewatering sludges, preferably municipal sewage sludges in sewage treatment with rapid pressure filters, particularly chamber filter presses and membrane filter presses, using water-soluble polyelectrolytes as flocculation aids in sludge conditioning.
In addition to agricultural utilization, the obligatory disposal of sewage sludges is effected by thermal treatment of the sewage sludge with combustion or degassing and gasification, and predominantly via landfill.
Sewage sludges represent compositions including exceedingly high levels of water, so that both in landfill and in thermal processes, the solids content of the sludge is increased by at least one mechanical dewatering stage, preferably using screen belt presses, centrifuges or pressure filtration. Particularly in improving such dewatering on filter presses, the sludge preconcentrated by thickening has to be conditioned by means of an additional treatment. To this end, the sewage sludge is flocculated using organic, polymeric flocculation aids, preferably high molecular weight cationic polyelectrolytes, and subsequently subjected to dewatering in a batchwise procedure using chamber filter presses or membrane filter presses.
According to EP-B-19176, dewatering can be performed in two steps. Initially, the flocculated sludge is subjected to dewatering in a screening drum or on separate screening belts and collected in an intermediate container, subsequently fed into the chamber filter press using a piston membrane pump or an eccentric screw pump, and filtrated under a pressure of up to 15 bars. Owing to the previous dewatering, this process is remarkable for its shorter batch times in the chamber filter press. However, this advantage is compensated by the measures and time required for the first step of the process.
In gfw-wasser/abwasser 126 (1985), pp. 124-130, V. Zees, T. Clausdorf and G. Gerardts make the supplementary statement that following sludge conditioning and removal of supernatant water, only limited dewatering of the flocculated sludge in the chamber filter press is possible because no sufficient stability of the flocs is achieved for this purpose.
According to K. J. Thomxc3xa9-Kozmiensky, Klxc3xa4rschlammentwxc3xa4sserung, TK-Verlag K. J. Thomxc3xa9-K., Neuruppin, 1998, p. 266, polymer conditioning of sewage sludge for dewatering on filter presses is advantageous only in those cases where high demands with respect to shear strength are not made.
Therefore, a dewatering process is known according to EP-A-151,747 wherein the flocculent is metered to the conveyed amount of sludge as a function of sludge density and the sludge thus pretreated is fed directly into the chamber filter press. With pressure times of 3 hours, a dewatered sewage sludge having a dry matter content of 30-40 wt.-% is achieved in the press discharge.
However, this procedure involves the disadvantageous process that the water which is difficult to remove from the sludge flocs is not predominantly withdrawn during pressure filtration and also, those amounts of water in the flocculated sludge mixture already made free of turbidities by flocculation undergo filtration through a developing layer having a filtering effect and compacting under pressure exposure. Consequently, this dewatering process on chamber filter presses which is widely used for sewage sludges involves considerable technical and economical drawbacks.
DE-OS-38 20 110 describes a process wherein the conditioning of sewage sludge is performed using at least two organic polymer flocculation aids having low and high molecular weights, respectively. Again, partial dewatering of the flocculated sludge is possible upstream the chamber filter press.
According to WO 88/03048, previous dewatering is effected on screen belts arranged in a story-like fashion, by means of which the sludge is conveyed to a sludge silo without the use of pumps.
Furthermore, a process is known according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,492, wherein sewage sludge is flocculated using polymeric flocculation aids, sedimented, and subsequently held in a rest phase without mechanical load for at least 2 minutes. Thereafter, the supernatant waste water is decanted, and the thickened sludge is subjected to dewatering in a rapid pressure filter with additional flocculant aid. This process requires additional equipment-related input for decanting, as well as time and means to stabilize the flocculated state.
In another process, according to Chem. Ing. Techn. 66, No. 9 (1994), pp. 1222, 1223, the sewage sludge previously added with flotation coal and ashes is subjected to a pressure flocculation in a pressure-resistant flocculation reactor; the flocculated sludge is to reach the filter press without further mechanical stress, and minimum filter drag throughout the feeding cycle is to be ensured.
In 44th Purdue Industrial Waste Conference Proceedings, 1990, Lewis Publishers, Inc., Chelsea Mich. 48118, 1989 (1990), pp. 513-518, J. T. Shah reports on the possibilities of optimizing the dewatering process on chamber filter presses by stepwise pressure increase during the dewatering process, thus enabling an increase of the filter cake solids content.
DE 93 07 712 U1 describes a special design of a sludge dewatering press wherein the pressurized air used in secondary pressing subsequently is utilized to blow out the dewatered sludge. By using this sludge dewatering press, the high consumption of pressurized air is intended to be reduced.
DE 93 20 903 U1 describes a filtering means for liquids, particularly swimming pool water, where the liquid to be filtrated is sucked out of a container over filtering elements with precoat filter layer. The design of this filtering means is intended to improve the cleaning operation, i.e., removal and disposal of the consumed filtering aid, and reduce the amount of water required for this purpose.
DE 36 17 519 A1 describes a process and a device for removing residual impurities from a pre-clarified potable liquid, wherein a filter press having precoated layers of filtering aids is used. Here, the structure of the regeneratable layer of filtering aids is regarded as crucial to the invention, precoating with said layer of filtering aids being effected at a specific flow rate. Filtration in the filter press is performed under pressure as usual.
DE 41 19 167 A1 describes a method of determining the characteristics and parameters essential for the sizing and dimensioning of filter presses, as well as a device for performing said method. It is a measuring procedure wherein a hydrostatic pressure corresponding to the previous filtration pressure is applied in the filter chamber, which hydrostatic pressure is continuously monitored in order to detect the pressure drop characteristic of completion of the filtration process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,275,740 describes a method and a device for controlling the sludge pressure in a filter press and, in particular, for controlling the final pressure of the stepwise and automatic filtration cycles in order to have simultaneous optimization of the press feeding process and to maintain a constant pump pressure. In this case as well, filtration is effected in the press under pressure and in a way previously known from prior art.
JP 07124600 A describes a process and a device for the treatment of organic sludges, wherein the organic sludge initially is flocculated using an organic polymer flocculant and subsequently subjected to dewatering on a filter press using gravity filtration, i.e., solely by the hydrostatic pressure of sludge supplied to the filter press.
Depending on type and amount of organic and mineral components, municipal sludges exhibit diverse, frequently varying properties affecting the dewatering behavior, particularly during flocculation of dispersed solids by means of organic flocculation aids and during filtration. Particularly in the dewatering of municipal sludges on chamber filter presses, the individual operations of the process therefore have to be optimized and balanced. In addition to selecting suitable flocculation aids and apparatus, the dewatering process consequently is controlled by computer-controlled systems where the flocculation aid is metered to the sewage sludge pump at the pressure or suction side, and flocculation is optimized using a floc probe and mixing energy control. Also, with currently common initial feed capacities of 0.15-0.30 m3 of sludge per m2 filter area and hour, conveying of sludge to feed the chamber filter press during the filling phase and the pressure filtrationxe2x80x94the latter taking a prolonged period of timexe2x80x94is controlled electronically in a way so as to avoid an excessively rapid pressure increase by means of control, because such an increase would give rise to massive, irreversible compacting of the developing filter cake, thereby affecting the dewatering process. At present, the sludge dewatering capacity of such a process is 6 m3 of sludge per m3 filter volume and hour or 0.09 m3 of sludge per m2 filter area and hour at maximum.
Accordingly, the well-known dewatering processes are characterized in that a dynamic pressure is generated in the system even by sludge conveying of the pumps during the first phase of filtration, which pressure is increased by an augmenting filtration drag caused by simultaneous compacting of the developing filter cake as a result of this process.
Accordingly, the well-known dewatering processes on chamber filter presses involve process operations of complicated structure, which also are expensive because these processes have to performed separately and in multiple stages.
It was therefore the object of the present invention to find a straightforward process for dewatering sewage sludge or other sludges, which process would meet the requirements of improved technical conditions and reduction in costs. In particular, the object was to find a process for removing the water which is contained in the sewage sludge after polymer conditioning and free of dispersed solids without impairing the shear stability of the flocculated sewage sludge, and without the other drawbacks encountered when performing separate process steps. The object is supplemented by the additional aspect of optionally improving the plate filters as well, namely, in a way so as to be suitable in performing an improved dewatering process, preferably for improving the plate filter feeding process.
According to ATV-Handbuch Klxc3xa4rschlamm, Ernst and Sohn Verlag Berlin, 4th edition, 1996, pp. 357 and 358, the chamber filter presses currently employed are constructed in such a way that the filtrate free of solids is discharged via filtrate discharge channels or collecting channels in the plate assembly at the bottom and, towards the end of filtration, at the top as well. With high specific throughput capacities, the hydraulic conditions in the filtrate discharge channels, characterized as drags, represent a limitation, i.e., a bottleneck according to Abwassertechnik No. 2, 1991, pp. 44-48.
According to the ATV manual referred to above, chamber filter presses having open filtrate outlets are also well-known, where the filtrate is discharged from the separate plates through lateral outlets, normally on one side. Particularly due to malodors caused by digester gas or ammonia in an optionally required lime conditioning, such chamber filter presses are not used in sewage sludge dewatering.
It has now been found that dewatering of sewage sludge can be improved considerably according to the process specified in claim 1 where the sewage sludge is subjected to conditioning using at least one organic flocculation aid and optionally other auxiliary agents, and the treated and flocculated sewage sludge is introduced into the plate filterxe2x80x94also referred to as filter press hereinbelowxe2x80x94which is a chamber filter press or a membrane filter press or a frame filter press. Therein, hydrostatic filtration is effected, removing the major amount of water from the treated, flocculated sewage sludge, whereafter the partially dewatered sewage sludge is subjected to pressure filtration. At least 50 wt.-%, preferably at least 60 wt.-%, more preferably at least 70 wt.-% of the water is removed in the first step of the hydrostatic filtration.
The invention is based on the finding that, in a hydrostatic filtration of flocculated sewage sludge, the amount of water of the flocculated sewage sludge mixtures which is largely free of non-dispersed solids can easily be removed in a plate filter by introducing the flocculated amount of solids together with the amount of water into the chamber filter press wherein these amounts are subjected to said straightforward filtration without equipment-related pressure load.
According to the invention, it has also been established that, compared to the conventional filter press feeding operation, the amount of flocculated sludge conveyed to the filter press can be substantially increased in the initial phase of the filtration process, i.e., during hydrostatic filtration.
In performing the process of the invention, filter presses are used that are provided with filtrate discharge channels permitting filtrate discharge at a flow rate of 1.0 m/s at maximum. Thus, in particular, plate filters (filter presses) are used where the filtrate can be discharged through filtrate outlets having large cross-sectional areas, or plate filters having open filtrate outlets or open filtrate outlet systems comprised of single outlets and/or discharge manifolds and optionally other outlet elements, so that each filtrate can discharge at a flow rate of 1.0 m/s at maximum. Such plate filters are well-known but have been used for other purposes until now.
Furthermore, plate filters having closed filtrate outlets can be modified in a way so as to have open filtrate outlets exclusively or partially or additionally, so that the specified value of the filtrate flow rate would not be exceeded. For example, another improvement of the process according to the invention is achieved by optionally enlarging the cross-section of the filtrate collecting channels formed by the corner borings of the plates in the plate assembly, and/or by providing additional openings in least part of the filter plates, preferably in the lower lateral section of the filter plates, in the vicinity of the filtrate outlets that are present. Optionally, the discharging filtrate can be passed through open pipes or grooves arranged on the outlet openings. According to the invention, plate filters according to DE 197 07 167 A1 are also used in this process.
On the whole, short filtration times and high flow rates of sewage sludge, as well as filtrates free of solids are to be achieved in the batchwise dewatering of sewage sludge on filter presses. According to the process of the invention, conveying of the flocculated sewage sludge during the feeding phase is performed at an initial feed capacity of at least 0.3 m3 sludge per m2 filter area and hour, preferably in a range of 0.35-0.70, and more preferably in a range of 0.40-0.60 m3 sludge per m2 filter area and hour. The specified capacity range inevitably results from the flocculation behavior and the flocculation properties of the sewage sludge and the process-related and equipment-related situation resulting therefrom.
In addition, the process offers the advantage of conveying the flocs of sewage sludge and the water to the filter press in a gentle fashion. Towards the end of the feeding phase, the amount of flocculated sewage sludge undergoes compacting in the filled chambers as a result of the hydrostatic filtration, thereby generating a pressure increase throughout the filter press system. During the next phase of pressure filtration, the feed capacity is reduced to values in a range of below 0.3 m3 sludge per m2 filter and hour and down to a selected lower value, the so-called turn-off value, with maximum pressure values ranging from 10 to 20 bars, preferably from 10 to 15 bars being adjusted in the plate filter.
The dewatering process according to the invention is suitable for municipal and/or industrial sludges having solids levels ranging from 0.5 to 15 wt.-%. Primary, excess and activated sludges, as well as mineralized and preferably, digested sludges, as well as mixtures thereof are employed as municipal sludges. The sludges, normally preconcentrated in a concentrator, are subjected to conditioning by treatment with organic polymer flocculation aids, optionally with addition of inorganic and/or organic builder substances such as lime, iron salts, ashes, filter dust, coal fines, and finely divided parts of plants, such as sawdust or chopped straw or mixtures thereof. Water-soluble and/or largely water-soluble, partially crosslinked polymers, co- and terpolymers of water-soluble non-ionogenic and/or ionic monomers and comonomers are used as organic flocculation aids in the form of a powder, as an aqueous solution, or as a water-in-water dispersion, or as a water-in-oil dispersion. Such polymers are homo-, co- and terpolymers of monoethylenically unsaturated monomers having acid groups present at least in part as salts, or their esters with di-C1-2-alkylamino-C2-6-alkylalcohols or their amides with di-C1-2-alkylamino-C2-6-alkylamines present in a protonated or quaternized form, such as described in EP-A 113,038 and EP-A 13,416, and optionally other monoethylenically unsaturated monomers.
Preferably, homo- and/or copolymers of monoethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids and sulfonic acids such as acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, maleic acid, itaconic acid, crotonic acid, and/or their alkali salts, preferably sodium, potassium or ammonium salts, vinylsulfonic acid, acrylamidoand methacrylamidoalkylsulfonic acids, such as 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid, 2-sulfoethyl methacrylate and styrenesulfonic acid and/or their alkali salts, preferably sodium, potassium or ammonium salts are suitable as anionic polyelectrolytes, and also, vinylphosphonic acid and styrenephosphonic acid, as well as their alkali salts, preferably sodium, potassium or ammonium salts.
Preferably, cationically active flocculants, e.g. homo- and/or copolymers and/or terpolymers of water-soluble, monoethylenically unsaturated vinyl compounds, such as acrylic acid esters and methacrylic acid esters of dialkylaminoalkylalcohols in protonated or quaternized form, such as dimethylaminoethyl acrylate, acrylic acid amides and methacrylic acid amides of dialkylaminoalkylamines in protonated or quaternized form, such as acrylamidopropyltrimethylammonium chloride and/or acrylamidopropyltrimethylammonium methylmethosulfate are employed, preferably together with acrylamide. Copolymers which can be used according to the invention are also described in EP-B-228,637.
The copolymers can be formed of ionic monomers and non-ionogenic, water-soluble, monoethylenically unsaturated monomers, such as acrylamide, methacrylamide, N-C1-2-alkylated (meth)acrylamides, and also with N-vinylamide, vinylformamide, N-vinylacetamide, N-vinyl-N-methylacetamide, N-vinylpyrrolidone. In addition, suitable water-soluble monomers are N-methylolacrylamide, N-methylolmethacrylamide, as well as N-methylol(meth)acrylamides partially or completely etherified with monohydric C1-4 alcohols, and diallyldimethylammonium chloride.
Likewise, the copolymers may include limited amounts of ethylenically unsaturated monomers sparingly soluble and/or insoluble in water, such as (meth)acrylic acid alkyl esters and vinyl acetate, as long as the solubility or swellability of the copolymers in water is retained.
In addition, the polymers can be produced using at least bi-reactive monomers, preferably diethylenically unsaturated monomers, so as to have swellability in water or limited solubility therein, or, they may be comprised of water-soluble and water-swellable polymers.
According to the invention, water-soluble or water-swellable amphiphilic copolymers formed of cationic and anionic monomers and optionally non-ionogenic monomers may also be employed.
The flocculation aid is selected using flocculation and dewatering tests on sewage sludges on a laboratory and pilot plant scale. The agents are employed in the form of a 0.05-0.5% aqueous practical solution.
In total, the process according to the invention achieves sludge dewatering capacities of 0.1-0.175 m3 sludge per m2 filter and hour, or more than 6 m3, preferably 6-12 m3 sludge per m3 filter volume and hour.
Furthermore, the procedure of the process according to the invention is characterized by the advantage of short batch times. A short time period of a filter press feeding phase is followed by a pressure filtration phase which is massively reduced in time compared to conventional processes, the time period of which being reduced to 50-20%, preferably 35-25%, relative to the previous pressure filtration time, with comparable values of dry solids content in the filter cake in either case, which range from 30 to 42 wt.-% in the process of the invention when exclusively using organic polymer flocculation aids.
The process according to the invention preferably is performed on chamber filter presses or membrane filter presses, the membrane filter presses achieving additional advantages, particularly a further reduced batch time, as well as a further increased dry solids content. Relative to the filter area per plate level, the size of the filter plates used in the process of the invention is at least 1 m2, preferably 1-6 m2, more preferably 1-4 m2, corresponding to filter plate dimensions of from 1.0xc3x971.0 m to 2.0xc3x972.0 m, for example.
Moreover, the dewatering process of the invention is characterized in that the sewage sludge is flocculated by said conditioning and partially dewatered during hydrostatic filtration in such a way that feeding of the plate filter with sludgexe2x80x94largely in a controlled fashion at presentxe2x80x94can be cut down or optionally omitted because the major amount of sludge is introduced into the filter chambers during the hydrostatic filtration. | {
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As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As the capabilities of information handling systems have improved, the power requirements of information handling systems and their component information handling resources have increased. Accordingly, the amount of heat produced by such information handling resources have increased. Because the electrical properties of information handling resources may be adversely affected by the presence of heat (e.g., some information handling resources may not operate correctly outside of a particular range of temperatures), information handling systems often include cooling systems configured to cool such information handling resources.
Traditionally, information handling resources have been cooled via the impingement of air driven by one or more fans. As the density of information handling resources present in information handling systems have increased, and as information handling resources have become faster (and thus hotter), the airflow required to provide adequate cooling has increased, leading to the need for more powerful fans and/or greater numbers of fans. This leads to yet more power consumption, larger information handling system size, and excessive noise. In addition, because fans often transfer heat the those areas proximate to the information handling system being cooled, users of such information handling systems are often required to tolerate higher-than-typical temperatures.
As an improvement over traditional fan-based cooling systems, some information handling system manufacturers have provided mechanisms to cool individual component information handling resources with liquid. Such approaches use pumps to circulate cooling fluid over a heat exchanger plate or “cold plate”) in contact with a component, and then to a liquid-to-air heat exchanger (e.g., radiator). Most such approaches to liquid cooling cool a handful of information handling resources with liquid, while the rest of the information handling system may be air cooled. Thus, such systems may still generate undesirable noise and discharge undesirable heat into an office space environment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Backup has been an important aspect of computing since the invention of persistent memory systems, such as disk drives. With increasing data storage and personal computer (“PC”) usage trends, the need for backup solutions is growing in importance. Medium sized and large businesses can typically afford data protection solutions, such as backup systems, and have a wide range of choices and an entire industry available to support them. However, the technology and products available to the typical consumer, home based business, or small business for protecting against data loss has not advanced in step with these trends. Yet such users are doing more and more important work on their PCs, and storing more and more precious, irreplaceable data. At the same time the quality of PC hardware, particularly consumer grade hard drives seems to be declining, increasing the risk of data loss.
Historically data loss was protected against by backing up user data files. Backing up system files and application was commonly avoided to save backup storage space and time. After a failure, a user typically re-installed the PC's operating system and applications from the original disks in addition to restoring lost data files. As Internet usage via the PC has grown, new variations of data loss have developed. Down-loaded applications, for example, are becoming increasingly common—but it is also common for such applications to no longer be available when needed for a system restore. It is also increasingly common for a user to spend many hours setting up and configuring a PC—but it is uncommon for typical backup products to preserve every aspect of the PCs configuration. Thus, after restoring files following a system failure, the user is forced to spend the time required, again, to re-configure the PC to restore it to its pre-failure condition.
In addition to the significant time complete system restoration may take, common storage devices such as disk drives are becoming increasingly large in terms of storage capacity. It is now common for a new PC to include a disk drive with 200 GBs or more of storage space. A typical small office or home may have several such PCs. The amount of time and storage space required to create backups of these PCs using conventional mechanisms is often prohibitive. The amount of time required to restore from such backups may also be significant. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present application relates generally to the field of seating systems comprising one or more structures for supporting a vehicle occupant. More specifically, the present application relates to a seating system suitable for use within an emergency response-type vehicles (e.g., ambulance, fire-fighting vehicle, anti-terrorist vehicle, etc.).
Seating is provided within the body of an emergency response-type vehicle (e.g., ambulance, etc.) for one or more emergency workers or attendants (e.g., respondents, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), paramedics, firefighters, police officers, caregivers, etc.) who must administer aid or otherwise attend to patients being transported. During transit, patients are generally supported on a fixed cot or stretcher supported within the vehicle and the attendant often needs to access different parts of a patient's body. Conventional seating is relatively fixed within the vehicle thereby requiring the attendant to leave the seat to move around the vehicle in order to attend to the patient. Once out of the seat, the attendant may have difficulty maintaining his or her balance when the vehicle has to change speeds or turn quickly. However, if the attendant remains seated, the area accessible to the attendant is limited to the area proximate to the seat.
Accordingly, there is a need for a seating system having an attendant support structure that is moveable (e.g., repositionable, reconfigurable, adjustable, adaptable, etc.) within a vehicle to allow an attendant to access different areas of the vehicle while remaining seated and/or restrained in a seat. | {
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} |
Federal aviation safety regulations require aircraft to provide evacuation and other safety provisions for passengers. These include evacuation slide, life rafts, life vests, and other safety devices. For example, inflatable escape slides and life rafts are generally built from an assembly of inflatable tubular structures that form airbeams that are sealed to one another. A balance between strength and weight must be reached during the design process. The material must be appropriately flame resistant, have low friction to allow passenger sliding, have sufficient strength to withstand high inflation forces, resist tearing and abrasion, but also be light enough so as to not unduly add to aircraft weight.
Evacuation slides, rafts, life vests, or other emergency flotation devices are inflatables typically formed from woven base substrates. A woven base substrate is typically coated and/or laminated in order to give it the desired air holding characteristics. As background, woven fabric constructions are characterized by two sets of yarns: warp and weft yarns. Warp yarns are raised and lowered to make “sheds,” and weft yarns are passed through these sheds, perpendicular to the warp yarns (and may be referred to as fill or pick yarns). The woven substrates give strength and rigidity for inflatable tubular structures.
However, such a woven architecture introduces a “crimp effect” or undulations in the yarns as they pass alternately over and under one another during the weaving process. Yarn “crimp” is the waviness of warp yarns and weft yarn interlacing together to produce the fabric construction. It is affected by yarn count, fabric structure, and weaving tensions related to the strength of the textile fabric. If a load is applied on a woven fabric and the yarns are not crimped, the full load will be faced in tension at complete strength. However, if the yarns are bent or crimped, the initial load will be consumed in straightening the bent yarns, and then take upload. The use of woven construction can thus lead to “low strength materials.” The crimp effect can also influence fiber volume fraction, which eventually leads to compromised mechanical performance of this fabric. Specific features that may be compromised are tensile and compressive properties.
When woven fabrics are used for inflatable structures, and particularly when used to create inflatable tubular structures that are cylindrical in shape, the inflatable structure experiences load in three directions. First, there is a circumferential stress or hoop stress, which is a normal stress in the tangential direction. Second, there is an axial stress, a normal stress parallel to the axis of cylindrical symmetry. Third, there is a radial stress, a stress in directions coplanar with, but perpendicular to, the symmetry axis. Thin sections of inflatable fabric will generally have negligible radial stress. However, the hoop stress is generally two times the axial/longitudinal stress. The practical effect of this is that an inflatable tube, such as an evacuation slide or life raft tube, experiences two times more stress in the hoop direction compared to the length direction. Examples of these two stresses and how they are experienced along a tubular structure is illustrated by FIG. 3. However, current woven substrates used for inflatable tubular structures are constructed with yarns having the same or similar strength in both the hoop and the axial/longitudinal direction. This can add to unnecessary and undesirable weight to the overall structure.
Another challenge that can be presented by the use of woven substrates occurs during coating of the substrates. Empty voids 10 in between the yarns 12 can create high and low points that pose challenges during the coating process. This is generally referred to as the peak-valley effect, and is illustrated by FIG. 1. In order to make these fabrics “air holding” or having “gas barrier” properties, multiple layers of coatings 14 are put on top of one another until the desirable thicknesses achieved. A final top coating 16 may be applied for rendering air holding features. These multiple layers of coatings 14 are undesirable, as it increases weight and cost of such fabrics. Improvements to fabrics used for inflatables are thus desirable.
Nonwoven fabric is a material made from fibers that are bonded together by chemical, mechanical, heat or solvent treatment. The term is generally used in the textile manufacturing industry to refer to fabric-like materials that are neither woven nor knitted. The use of nonwoven materials has generally been limited to the medical industry (for surgical gowns and drapes), the filter industry (for various types of filtration, including coffee and tea bags, vacuum bags, and so forth), the geotextile industry (for foundation stabilizers, erosion control materials, sand and landfill liners), as other miscellaneous industries (such as for carpet backing, for diapers or feminine hygiene products, cleaning wipes, for marine sails, for parachutes, for backpacks or as batting in quilts or comforters). Nonwoven materials have not, however, been used in connection with inflatable life-saving devices as described herein. Use of nonwoven materials for these uses presents unique challenges that the present inventors have solved. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for transmitting signals in a communication system, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for transmitting signals using a power amplifier in a communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a Radio Frequency (RF) power amplifier used in the current communication system is classified into a Single-Carrier Power Amplifier (SCPA) and a Multi-Carrier Power Amplifier (MCPA).
Referring to FIGS. 1A and 1B, a configuration of a general communication system using an SCPA will be described herein.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are diagrams schematically illustrating a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with SCPA in a general communication system. Specifically, FIG. 1A is a diagram schematically illustrating a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with an SCPA using a single Frequency Assignment (FA) in a general communication system, and FIG. 1B is a diagram schematically illustrating a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with SCPAs using multiple FAs in a general communication system.
Referring to FIG. 1A, the signal transmission apparatus includes a Single FA input signal Generation Block (SGB) 101, an SCPA 103, a Front End Block (FEB) 105, and an Antenna (ANT) 107.
Referring to FIG. 1B, the signal transmission apparatus includes a plurality of SGBs 111a to 111n, a plurality of SCPAs 113a to 113n, a Channel Combiner (CC) 115, an FEB 117, and an antenna 119.
As illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B, when the signal transmission apparatus transmits an RF power signal using an SCPA, it amplifies a single FA in the manner of FIG. 1A. When the signal transmission apparatus with SCPAs uses multiple FAs, it combines FAs amplified independently by the SCPAs using a channel combiner before transmission in the manner of FIG. 1B.
Specifically, shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, the signal transmission apparatus with SCPA includes as many SCPAs as the number of FAs in use. Thus, when the number of FAs used in an initial system application is small, the signal transmission apparatus with SCPA can be advantageous over the signal transmission apparatus with MCPA in terms of cost competitiveness. The SCPA is optimized for amplifying a single FA. The general communication system, due to its limited number of antennas, should combine outputs of the SCPAs using a channel combiner for channel combination, if the number of FAs in operation increases. However, the channel combiner used at outputs of the SCPAs has a very high insertion loss, and can hardly combine adjacent FAs.
Therefore, when the signal transmission apparatus with SCPA transmits a multi-FA signal for which it should use a channel combiner, the SCPAs transmit the output which is higher than that of the MCPA by an insertion loss of the channel combiner, in order to allow the antenna to transmit the same output power. That is, an increase in the number of the FAs used in the signal transmission apparatus with SCPA causes an increase in the number of the SCPAs. In terms of the same antenna output, the SCPAs, compared with the MCPA, increase in system power consumption due to the insertion loss of the channel combiner, requiring a higher system cooling capability and thus increasing the system operating cost.
Next, with reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B, a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with MCPA in a general communication system will be described herein.
FIGS. 2A and 2B are diagrams schematically illustrating a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with MCPA in a general communication system. Specifically, FIG. 2A is a diagram illustrating a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with MCPA using a single FA in a general communication system, and FIG. 2B is a diagram illustrating a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with MCPA using multiple FAs in a general communication system.
Referring to FIG. 2A, the signal transmission apparatus includes an SGB 201, an MCPA 203, an FEB 205, and an antenna 207. Referring to FIG. 2B, the signal transmission apparatus includes a Multi-FA input signal Generation Block (MGB) 211, an MCPA 213, an FEB 215, and an antenna 217.
As illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B, in a communication system, a transmission signal input to an MCPA from a particular transceiver is a multi-FA combined signal, and the MCPA amplifies the input multi-FA signal.
Specifically, in the signal transmission apparatus with MCPA shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, the MCPA, although it can amplify a single FA, is optimized for amplifying a combined multi-FA signal. In the communication system with limited number of antennas, as the MCPA does not use a channel combiner even though the number of FAs in operation increases, the MCPA, compared with the SCPAs, decreases in power consumption in terms of the same antenna output. Therefore, the MCPA requires a lower cooling capacity, thereby increasing competitiveness in the system implementation cost and the system operating cost.
Generally, however, the MCPA is higher than the SCPA in price per unit, and in a system with less number of FAs in operation, the MCPA uses only its partial capacity inefficiently, thereby increasing the initial system installation cost. In addition, when the system operates with less number of FAs so that it can use the SCPAs without channel combiner, the use of the MCPA is disadvantageous over the use of the SCPAs in terms of the efficiency.
As described above, FIGS. 1A and 1B and FIGS. 2A and 2B show preferred types and structures of RF power amplifiers used in the current communication system. In particular, FIGS. 1A and 1B show a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with SCPA, and FIGS. 2A and 2B show a structure of a signal transmission apparatus with MCPA.
The voice-oriented service of the existing communication system has overcome an inferiority of channels depending on channel coding. However, as a demand for the high-quality multimedia service in the communication system increases, there is a demand for a communication service capable of greatly increasing the communication capacity and improving the call quality by efficiently using the limited spectrum. As a scheme for realizing the demanded communication service, a Smart Antenna scheme and a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) scheme have been provided and are now under active study.
The communication technology using the Smart Antenna or MIMO scheme necessarily requires a structure that uses a plurality of transmission antennas, so it needs a plurality of RF power amplifiers. In addition, as the transmission bandwidth increases for high-speed data transmission, there is a need for an RF power amplifier for amplifying a broadband signal.
However, when a signal transmission apparatus with Smart Antenna or MIMO scheme is implemented with the existing SCPAs, the signal transmission apparatus uses a plurality of transmission antennas, thus it needs as many SCPAs as the product of the number of FAs and the number of antennas. Therefore, competitiveness of the system considerably decreases in terms of cost, structure and size. In addition, even when the signal transmission apparatus with Smart Antenna or MIMO scheme is implemented with MCPA, the signal transmission apparatus should use a plurality of transmission antennas, so it needs as many MCPAs as the number of antennas, decreasing competitiveness of the system in terms of the cost, structure and size.
In most communication systems, the RF power amplifiers occupy 30% or more of the system space, 50% or more of the system power consumption, and 35% or more of the system cost, so they are very important in terms of system competitiveness. Therefore, there is a need for a scheme of designing a system using a power amplifier capable of solving the problems of the existing system. | {
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This invention relates to a high head pump-turbine having a unitary runner made up of a rigid combination of a circular plate shaped crown (upper plate), a band (lower plate), and a plurality of runner vanes which are arranged to form a circular vane cascade between the crown and band, wherein the flow path height at the outermost periphery between the crown and band is much smaller than the outermost diameter of the runner, and the runner is formed in a flattened state.
FIG. 11 of the accompanying drawings shows a general construction of a conventional high head pump-turbine. A runner 2 is secured to the lower end of a main shaft 1 which is directly connected to a generator/motor (not shown). About the runner 2 are disposed a plurality of guide vanes 3 arranged to form a stationary circular vane cascade as shown in FIG. 12. As shown in FIGS. 13 and 14, the runner 2 is formed as an integral structure including a rigid combination of a circular disc shaped crown 2a, a band 2b and a plurality of runner vanes 2c arranged as a moving circular vane cascade. The upper portion of runner 2 is covered by an upper cover 4, while the lower portion of runner 2 is covered by a lower cover 5, and a runner chamber 6 is defined between the upper and lower covers 4 and 5 for accommodating the runner 2.
When the pump-turbine is used as a turbine, high pressure water is admitted into a spiral casing 7 provided to encompass the runner 2 via stay vane 8, and guide vanes 3 to flow into the runner chamber 6. The water flows uniformly from the outside around the outer periphery of runner vanes 2c, and then flows radially inwardly through peripheral inlet paths defined between these runner vanes 2c, thereby rotating the runner 2. Thereafter, the water is discharged to the outside from the lower end of the main shaft 1 through a draft tube 9.
In a high head pump-turbine installed in a high head pumped storage power station usually having an operating head of more than 400 m, for the purpose of operating the pump-turbine at a high speed and with a small quantity of water flow as a result of high head, the runner 2 is required to have a flat characteristic construction such that the height B of the outermost flow passage between the crown 2a and band 2b is less than 0.1 times outermost peripheral diameter D.sub.O of the runner, and that the number Z.sub.R of the runner vanes 2c constituting a moving vane cascade is selected to be in a range of 6 to 8, and that the number Z.sub.G of guide vanes 3 constituting a stationary vane cascade is selected to be in a range of 12 to 32, so that Z.sub.G is larger than Z.sub.R.
During the operation of such a high head pump/turbine, as above described, the high pressure water flowing into the runner chamber 6 through guide vanes 3 constantly collides with the runner vanes 2c so that the leading edges of the runner vanes 2c in the moving vane cascade of the rotating runner 2 regularly and repeatedly pass by the trailing edge portions of the guide vanes 3 and between the vanes 3 in the stationary vane cascade. As a consequence, the runner is subjected to a regularly varying hydraulic exciting force caused by hydraulic interference between the moving vane cascade and the stationary vane cascade (see FIG. 15). Consequently, in the runner 2, due to the hydraulic exciting force mentioned above, the crown 2a and the band 2b are subjected to a disc vibration having nodes at rigid joints between the crown 2a and the band 2b and the runner vanes 26. Especially, a runner of a flat and disc type of a high head pump-turbine having a height B of the outermost peripheral flow path between the crown and band which is less than 0.1 times the outermost diameter D.sub.o, is subjected to an extremely severe vibration giving rise to a large vibration stress.
The frequency f.sub.H of the hydraulic exciting force acting on the runner 2, when it is rotated at a rated speed, is expressed by a relation Z.sub.G .multidot.N.sub.o /60 (Hz) (where N.sub.o represents the rotational speed (r.p.m.)) because the runner vanes 2c are subjected to Z.sub.G times hydraulic interference corresponding to the number of the guide vanes 3 in the stationary vane cascade during one revolution. In the case where the natural vibration frequency f.sub.N of the runner 2 is close to the frequency fx of the hydraulic excitation, the vibration stress becomes larger due to a resonance phenomenon. Even when such resonance state can be avoided under a condition in which vibration response of the runner 2 with respect to the hydraulic exciting force is large, the vibration stress nevertheless becomes large, thereby hastening runner fatigue which ultimately results in fatigue destruction of the runner 2.
For decreasing the runner vibration stress, a method of avoiding the resonance phenomenon by adjusting the natural vibration frequency f.sub.N of the runner to a level remote from the hydraulic excitation frequency f.sub.H is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Specification No. 173568/1984. However, this method is not always adequate for the actual state of the runner vibration, and can not attain its objective.
More particularly, in the prior art investigation, the manner in which the hydraulic exciting force acts on the runner and by what mechanism the vibration takes place has not been made clear. For this reason, the fundamental primary factor influencing the runner vibration and the magnitude of the vibration stress have not been correctly understood. Furthermore, it has not been made clear as to in what case the vibration stress increases and countermeasures to prevent this problem have not been developed.
We have clarified the mechanism of the runner vibration and the fundamental primary factor influencing the runner vibration and the magnitude of the vibration stress as disclosed in our technical paper presented in the JSME symposium on fluid engineering No. 900-54, entitled "Vibration Behavior of Runners of High Head Pump-Turbines (first report)", page 40-51 on Aug. 29 and 30, 1990, in Tokyo.
A summary of the technical paper is as follows:
(1) In the past, the runner vibration was considered on the assumption that the runner has the construction of a simple disc. In this paper, however we have considered that the runner consists of a disc shaped crown as a horizontal member, a disc shaped band as another horizontal member and the runner vanes as vertical members arranged to form a circular vane cascade between the two horizontal members, and that the runner is replaced by an annular Rahmen (skeleton structure) formed by a rigid combination of the horizontal and vertical members. This construction is dynamically close to the real state of the runner and thus we have studied the runner vibration.
(2) The rotating runner is subjected to a periodically varying hydraulic exciting force having an amplitude F.sub.VO on each runner vane due to the hydraulic interference (see FIG. 16) between the runner vanes 2c and the guide vanes. Denoting the center angle of the vane array spacing of the runner vane cascade by .theta..sub.R =[2.pi./Z.sub.R) and denoting an integer n[=Z-mZ.sub.R ] having a minimum absolute value of a relative difference obtained by subtracting a positive integer multiple m.multidot.Z.sub.R of Z.sub.R from Z.sub.G, the phase lag of hydraulic exciting forces acting upon adjoining two runner vanes is expressed by an equation .theta..sub.R .multidot.n[=(2.pi./Z.sub.R) (Z.sub.G -mZ.sub.R)] which is expressed by combined functions of Z.sub.G and Z.sub.R.
(3) Due to the effect of the hydraulic exciting forces acting on each of the runner vanes, a dynamic exciting bending moment which varies with the same period as the hydraulic exciting forces is applied to joints of the runner vane to the crown and band. This dynamic exciting bending moment is the product obtained by multiplying by a moment coefficient C.sub.MO the maximum producible exciting moment m.sub.o which is the runner fixed end moment arising because when the rigidity of the crown and band is extremely high, only the runner vane side assumes all of the bending deformation that should be shared by the crown, the band, and the runner vanes. Thus, the exciting bending moment of the joint parts on the joint parts on the runner vane side become M.sub.o (=C.sub.MO m.sub.o), and the exciting bending moment of the joint parts on the crown and band side becomes M.sub.o/2.
The moment coefficient C.sub.MO, that is the moment amplitude ratio (M.sub.o /m.sub.o) in which m.sub.o is taken as a reference can be given by the following theoretical equations by using a trigonometrical function cos(.sub..sub.R n) of the phase leg .theta..sub.R n of the hydraulic exciting force and a function of a rigidity ratio K.sub.R of the crown and band by taking runner vanes as a reference. EQU C.sub.MO =2K.sub.R {1+4(3K.sub.R +1).sup.2 -4(3K.sub.R +1) cos(.theta..sub.R n}.sup.1/2 /(2K.sub.R +1).multidot.(6K.sub.R +1)(1)
Denoting the thickness ratio of the crown and band to the runner vanes by t/tv and the sectional secondary moment ratio by I/I.sub.v, the rigidity ratio K.sub.R of the crown and band to the runner vanes can be calculated by the following equation. ##EQU1##
These equations show that C.sub.MO increases when the thicknesses of the crown and band are increased to increase K.sub.R and that when K.sub.R is made to be extremely large, C.sub.MO becomes 1 and M.sub.o becomes the maximum value of mo.
(4) Due to the action of the dynamic moment at the joints, the crown and band between the runner vanes accompany a disc vibration with displacement in the direction of the axis of the runner rotation wherein the joints of the crown and band to the runner vanes act as a node. Then, at each joint, vibration stress proportional to the exciting bending moment is generated.
(5) Where the damping ratio .parallel. of the vibration (c/2(mk).sup.1/2, where c represents a viscosity damping coefficient, m represents mass and k a spring constant) is made to be constant,, the magnitude of the vibration stress amplitude .DELTA..sigma. varies in direct proportion to a moment coefficient C.sub.MO (=M.sub.o /m.sub.o) representing the magnitude of the dynamic bending moment M.sub.o. The basic influencing factors on C.sub.MO are a phase lag .theta..sub.R n between the hydraulic excitations acting on adjoining two runner vanes and the rigidity ratio K.sub.R of the crown and band to the runner vanes. By decreasing K.sub.R and by keeping the phase lag .theta..sub.R n to be adequate, C.sub.MO can be decreased. Then the vibration stress .DELTA..sigma. can be decreased in direct proportion to C.sub.MO.
(6) Where the effect of the damping ratio of the vibration is taken into consideration, as the rigidity ratio K.sub.R decreases from a large value caused by the decrease of K.sub.R due to a decrease of the thicknesses of the crown and band, the damping ratio .xi. tends to increase due to the attenuation of the spring constant so that the vibration stress amplitude .DELTA..sigma. decreases to a small value less than a decreased level in direct proportional to the decrease of C.sub.MO. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the production of supported catalysts, more specifically to the method for making supported catalysts containing nanometer sized particles comprised of different metals dispersed throughout the catalyst support material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many industrial products such as fuels, lubricants, polymers, fibers, drugs, and other chemicals would not be manufacturable without the use of catalysts. Catalysts are also essential for the reduction of pollutants, particularly air pollutants created during the production of energy and by automobiles. The majority of industrial catalysts are composed of a high surface area support material upon which chemically active metal nanoparticles (i.e., nanometer sized metal particles) are dispersed. The support materials are generally inert, ceramic type materials having surface areas on the order of hundreds of square meters/gram. This high specific surface area usually requires a complex internal pore system. The metal nanoparticles are deposited on the support and dispersed throughout this internal pore system, and are generally between 1 and 100 nanometers in size.
Processes for making supported catalysts go back many years. One such process for making platinum catalysts, for example, involves the contacting of a support material such as alumina with a metal salt solution such as chloroplatinate acid. The salt solution “impregnates” or fills the pores of the support during this process. Following the impregnation, the support containing the salt solution would be air dried, causing the metal salt to precipitate within the pores. The support containing the crystallized metal salt would then be exposed to a hydrogen or carbon monoxide gas environment, reducing the solid metal salt to metal particles. The currently used methods for producing supported catalysts, including impregnation methods, are further discussed below.
Yoo et al., in an article entitled “Propene Hydrogenation Over Truncated Octahedral Pt Nanoparticles Supported on Alumina,” Journal of Catalysis, Vol. 214, pp. 1-7 (2003), disclose a process for loading colloidal platinum (Pt) nanoparticles (synthesized by a 1:5 concentration ratio of K2PtCl4 to polyacrylate capping polymer) into an alumina support via impregnation.
Miyazaki et al., in an article entitled “Morphology Control of Platinum Nanoparticles and Their Catalytic Properties,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research, Vol. 5, pp. 69-80 (2003), disclose the preparation of Pt nanoparticles of varying morphology through the use of different capping polymers. Various shapes (such as square, triangular, and hexagonal) of Pt crystallites, as observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), were obtained. Supported catalysts were made by impregnation of previously formed Pt crystallites into an alumina support. Water was removed from the support by freeze drying, and the capping polymers were removed by calcinating in air at 500° C. for 8 hours.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,569,358 discloses a method of preparing a porous material incorporating ultrafine metal particles comprising the following steps: (1) preparing surface-protected ultrafine metal particles by reducing metal ions in the presence of molecules such as dodecanethiol molecules; (2) immersing a wet gel in a solution of the ultrafine metal particles, thus forming an ultrafine metal particle/wet gel composite in which the ultrafine metal particles are incorporated in the wet gel; and (3) drying the ultrafine metal particle/wet gel composite to form a porous body.
The process disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,569,358 utilizes protecting agents or capping polymers. However, removal of protecting agents or capping polymers can be an issue for sensitive catalytic processes, as their destruction may leave contaminating residues that are undesirable. These residues may reduce activity of the catalyst by occupying active sites necessary for subsequent reactions. The residues may also leave behind trace quantities of poisons that will eventually kill the catalyst over time. Removal of organic capping agents and polymers usually require oxidation (or burning), but the heat required for such oxidation may produce unwanted sintering due to the high temperatures. Sintering will increase the metal particle size and reduce the active surface area of the catalyst. Furthermore, the use of capping agents can hinder the introduction of the metal crystallites into small pores of the support.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,686,308 discloses a supported catalyst comprising catalyst metal nanoparticles having an average particle size of typically 2.0 nm or less, which are supported on support materials at a loading of 30% or more. It teaches the use of platinum, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, molybdenum, tungsten, iron, nickel or tin, as catalyst metals, and the use of carbon as the support material. The method of making a supported catalyst disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,686,308 comprises the steps of: (1) providing a solution of metal chlorides of one or more catalyst metals in a solvent system containing at least one polyalcohol, typically ethylene glycol containing less than 2% water; (2) forming a colloidal suspension of unprotected catalyst metal nanoparticles by raising the pH of the solution, typically to a pH of 10 or higher, and heating the solution, typically to 125° C. or higher; (3) adding support particles to the colloidal suspension; and (4) depositing the unprotected catalyst metal nanoparticles on the support particles by lowering the pH of the solution, typically to a pH of 6.5 or lower.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,603,038 discloses a method for producing a catalyst containing one or several metals from the group of metals comprising the sub-groups Ib and VIIIb of the periodic table on porous support materials, characterized by a first step, in which one or several precursors from the group of metal compounds from sub-groups Ib and VIIIb of the periodic table is or are applied to a porous support, and a second step in which the nanoporous support to which at least one precursor has been applied, is treated with at least one reduction agent to obtain the metal nanoparticles produced in situ in the pores of the support. In the first step, catalysts were prepared by impregnation of the support with a metal salt solution, followed by a drying step. Subsequent to drying, as part of the second step, the impregnated support materials were reduced by various techniques including re-impregnation with liquid reducing agents. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The proliferation of laptop computers has made it more important than ever to protect the data on a hard drive from theft. For example, if a laptop is stolen, the contents of the hard drive are extremely vulnerable, even if steps are taken to protect the data. Considering that many corporate and government employees routinely take their laptops home, the contents may contain extremely valuable and sensitive information, which an unauthorized user or a thief may be willing to go to significant lengths to extract.
One technique for protecting the data on a hard drive is a password-locked hard drive. In this case, a software routine allows access to the data only if the proper user code and password are entered. While this may provide some measure of protection, a moderately computer savvy thief can easily recover the contents of the hard drive that are stored without encryption. For example, the thief may read the contents of the hard drive by either physically removing the hard drive and attaching it to another host computer or by using specialized disk recovery equipment. In this fashion, the contents may be dumped sector by sector and read without the password.
Another technique to protect data on a hard drive is an operating system encrypting selected files to be stored to the hard drive. In this case, files are encrypted on a file-by-file basis. For example, the operating system may have an option that prompts the user to encrypt files. However, the user may decide to leave the encryption option off because it may be too time consuming or inconvenient. Moreover, when the user does turn on the encryption option, the user may choose not to encrypt some files that should be. Hence, much of the data is vulnerable and this option relies too heavily on user interaction.
Furthermore, it may be impossible to use the operating system encryption option for some types of files and/or applications. Examples of files for which this encryption may be unavailable are compressed files, memory mapped files, swap files, and garbage files. For example, the hard drive may receive a temporary file that is not encryptable by this method. Therefore, the operating system encryption option is unusable with certain types of files and data connected to certain applications.
Additionally, the operating system encryption option may consume substantial central processor unit (CPU) time (e.g., 25% of CPU utilization) during encryption and decryption. Thus, this method severely impacts system performance.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a way to protect data on a hard drive. It would also be advantageous to protect data on a hard drive via a method that is not vulnerable to theft by simply bypassing a password. It would also be advantageous to protect data on a hard drive via a method that does not require the user to painstakingly encrypt files on a file-by-file basis. It would also be advantageous to protect all types of files stored on a hard drive and data connected with any application. Furthermore, it would be advantageous to protect data on a hard drive without impacting system performance or relying too heavily on user interaction. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcast receiving apparatus configured to receive broadcast waves of digital and analog television broadcasting services or terrestrial and satellite broadcasting services, and also relates to a method for controlling a broadcast receiving apparatus. In particular, when a broadcast receiving apparatus includes plural tuners simultaneously receiving plural programs, the present invention can transmit the contents of an emergency warning broadcast to a viewer/listener and minimize an interruption by such a specific broadcast when a user is viewing or recording a television program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Television viewers can enjoy different types of broadcasting services, including analog terrestrial broadcasting, analog broadcasting satellite (BS) broadcasting, cable broadcasting, digital terrestrial broadcasting, digital BS broadcasting, and digital communication satellite (CS) broadcasting.
Recent television receivers, set-top boxes (STBs), and digital video recorders (DVRs) are configured to receive two or more types of broadcasting services. Thus, television viewers can use plural tuners for receiving different broadcast programs. For example, a user can record a CS broadcast program while viewing a digital terrestrial broadcast program. If a television receiver is equipped with two digital terrestrial broadcast tuners, a user can simultaneously record two different programs in the same time slot.
Since 1985, an emergency warning system (EWS) has been managed in Japan for the purpose of immediately informing the public of an occurrence of serious disaster or earthquake through television broadcasting or radio broadcasting. According to the emergency warning system, a broadcast station transmits an emergency warning broadcast signal and each receiver (e.g., television or radio) receives the emergency warning broadcast signal and performs a predetermined operation to let a viewer or listener recognize the occurrence of an emergency warning.
Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) and other commercial broadcasting companies employ such an emergency warning system. In particular, NHK can transmit an emergency warning broadcast signal using all available broadcasting media, including digital terrestrial broadcasting, analog terrestrial broadcasting, and digital BS broadcasting. Therefore, each viewer/listener can receive an emergency warning broadcast signal through any broadcast receiver in an on state.
However, if a broadcast receiver is in an off state or in a stand-by mode, the receiver can receive no emergency warning broadcast program. Therefore, important information contained in an emergency warning may not be transmitted to some users.
To solve the above-mentioned drawback, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-023591, a display device can be forcibly activated if in an off state to receive a control signal from a television broadcast receiving apparatus (tuner) and transmit the contents of an emergency broadcast, to a viewer/listener.
According to the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-023591, a television broadcast receiving apparatus is equipped with a power source section capable of supplying electric power to a display device in an off state when an emergency warning is raised.
Furthermore, the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-023591 includes processing for determining whether an installation location of the broadcast receiver is in a target area of the emergency broadcast with reference to installation location information of the broadcast receiver and region identification information involved in emergency information. If it is determined that the broadcast receiver is in the target area, electric power is supplied to the display device. If it is determined that the broadcast receiver is out of the target area, the emergency broadcast is not displayed on the display device.
If a broadcast receiver is equipped with a single tuner, the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-023591 can be directly applied to the broadcast receiver. However, as described above, recent television receivers, STBs, and DVRs are equipped with plural tuners.
A user will be confused if the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-023591 is applied to a broadcast receiving apparatus equipped with plural tuners. More specifically, an emergency warning broadcast can be received by each tuner. Each tuner independently operates to inform an occurrence of an emergency warning broadcast. Thus, in a situation that different television programs are displayed in a multi-screen display pattern on a display device, if a user simultaneously receives the same contents of an emergency warning broadcast through different (e.g., digital and analog, or terrestrial and BS) broadcast channels, the user may be unable to appropriately confirm and act in response to the emergency information.
In this respect, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-159779, a broadcast receiving apparatus can include plural reception systems each including a channel selection circuit (tuner) and a decoding circuit. One reception system can be used to continuously receive a reception signal for recording, while the other reception system can be used to select an emergency broadcast channel and display the contents of the emergency broadcast on a display device.
However, the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-159779 cannot be directly employed if plural channels can simultaneously receive the same emergency warning broadcast. If plural channels simultaneously receive the same emergency warning broadcast, user's viewing or recording a broadcast program may be undesirably interrupted.
In this case, a user cannot properly view or record a desired program. The techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-023591 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-159779 cannot overcome these drawbacks. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The manufacture of integrated circuits on semiconductors involves several steps. Such steps include growing a semiconductor material, slicing the semiconductor material into planar structures, and polishing the surface of the semiconductor. Once the semiconductor is polished, circuit elements may be formed by selectively introducing impurities, or dopant, into portions of the semiconductor. Impurities alter the electrical behavior of the semiconductor in predictable ways to create various circuit elements. One method of introducing impurities into the semiconductor is through ion implantation.
Ion implantation is a process in which impurities are implanted into the semiconductor substrate to form circuit elements within the semiconductor crystalline structure. In a typical ion implantation process, various parts of the substrate are masked with a pattern that is made of photoresist or another suitable material that substantially prevents the ions from penetrating. The portions of the silicon in which the mask is absent, i.e. where voids in the mask are present, absorb the ions during implantation. In this manner, impurities may be selective implanted within the substrate.
In general, the ion implantation process itself involves multiple steps. In particular, a mask must first be designed in accordance with the circuit layout. Thereafter, the silicon and mask are bombarded by ions. The mask is then removed in a suitable manner, many of which are known in the art.
Many integrated circuits employ different circuit components that require different concentrations of dopant. To form such different concentrations, the ion implantation step may be repeated for every different level of doping concentration required in the integrated circuit. For example, a first mask may mask all but the areas requiring a high level of doping concentration. Once the mask is applied to the surface, the ion implantation device then bombards the silicon and mask at the highest level. After implantation and removal of the first mask, a second mask is applied to the surface to mask all but the areas requiring a lower level of doping concentration. Ion implantation then takes place at the lower level.
While the above method can reliably implant dopant into a silicon substrate at multiple concentration levels, the manufacturing process is extended in substantial part by the repeated ion implantation operations. For example, if a particular integrated circuit requires four or five different dopant concentration levels, the repeated masking and implantation steps significantly lengthen the manufacturing process.
There is a need, therefore, with a method of implanting impurities into semiconductor substrates at multiple levels that has reduced processing time. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to interbody spinal fusion implants, and in particular to spinal fusion implants configured to restore and maintain two adjacent vertebrae of the spine in anatomical lordosis.
2. Description of the Related Art
Interbody spinal fusion refers to the method of achieving bony bridging between adjacent vertebrae through the disc space, the space between adjacent vertebrae normally occupied by a spinal disc. Numerous implants to facilitate such a fusion have been described by Cloward, Brantigan, and others, and are known to those skilled in the art. Generally, cylindrical implants offer the advantage of conforming to an easily prepared recipient bore spanning the disc space and penetrating into each of the adjacent vertebrae. Such a bore may be created by use of a drill. It is an anatomical fact that both the cervical spine and the lumbar spine are normally lordotic, that is convex forward. Such alignment is important to the proper functioning of the spine. Commonly, those conditions which require treatment of spinal fusion are associated with a loss of lordosis.
Therefore, there exists a need for spinal fusion implants that permit for the restoration of anatomical lordosis. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
When a skier encounters certain types of weather conditions, a build-up of ice or snow can accumulate on the lenses of the skier's goggles. This ice or snow must be removed prior to the skier initiating a run down the ski slope to ensure that the skier's vision is unimpaired, thereby enabling the skier to safely navigate the trail.
In the past, skiers have cleaned ice from their goggle lenses by rubbing or wiping the outer surface of the lenses with a bare or gloved finger or by scraping the lens surfaces with a small plastic handheld ice scraper consisting of a handle for holding and a straight edge for scraping. The first method is unsatisfactory because complete removal of the ice or snow on the lens surface is difficult to achieve. The second method is unsatisfactory in that a tiny plastic ice scraper must be stored in a pocket and then taken out when needed. Such an instrument is difficult to retrieve from a pocket and also is easily lost or misplaced.
In addition, it is known to remove snow from ski boots using a bootscraper attached to a ski pole. By attaching the scraper to the pole, the inconvenience of storing and retrieving a hand scraper is avoided. Such boot scrapers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,000,909, 4,129,312, 4,145,062, 4,221,393, 4,573,710 and 4,718,138. However, such scrapers are specifically designed for scraping snow off of ski boots and are wholly unsuitable for use as a scraper for scraping ice and snow off the goggle lenses. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Overrunning bi-directional clutches are known, see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,409,001; 7,004,875; and 7,037,200. Such clutches are mounted between two coaxial shafts and are used to transfer power between the two shafts. The clutch is fixed to a first shaft and selectively engages with the second shaft so as to transfer power between the two shafts. Typically, the first shaft is the power input shaft and typically, the first shaft is also the inner shaft of the two shafts. The output shaft or second shaft can be a geared wheel.
Overrunning bi-directional clutches comprise a fixed race, a slipper race, cylindrical rollers which are housed between the two races and an actuator. The fixed race and the slipper race are coaxial cylindrical rings with opposing faces. Each of the opposing faces has concave bearing surfaces which define pockets. Each pocket houses a roller.
The slipper race has an axial groove or slit that extends both radially and axially through the race. The slit allows the slipper race to move radially under force and the memory inherent in the material from which the slipper race is made allows the race to return to a rest position once the force is withdrawn. The fixed race is mounted onto the first shaft while the slipper race is spaced in close proximity to the second shafts such that when the slipper race moves radially, it the second race, thereby transferring power between the two shafts. Once the force is removed from the slipper race, it returns to its rest position and no longer engages the second shaft. The rest position is generally referred to as the “freewheeling mode” or the first mode of operation of a clutch, while the engaged position when the slipper race engages the second shaft is referred to as the “blocked mode” or second mode of operation for the clutch.
The actuator is used to maintain the clutch in the freewheeling mode and to move the clutch to the blocked mode. Typically, the actuator is a radial mounted moveable pin which is fixed to the fixed race and retractable from the slipper race. When the actuator engages both races the two races are coupled and the clutch is in the freewheeling mode. In the freewheeling mode, the opposing concave bearing surfaces are aligned with each other and the rollers rest in the bottom of each of the opposing concave surfaces. When the actuator pin is withdrawn from the slipper race, the two races move relative to one another and the rollers move out of the bottom of the opposing concave surfaces and rise up along diagonally opposing surfaces of the pocket so as to force the slipper race to move radially and to engage the second shaft.
One of the problems with overrunning bi-directional clutches is that once the actuator is moved to transfer the clutch from the freewheeling mode to the blocked mode, the clutch reacts very quickly and the overall time period is on the order of 10 to 25 milliseconds. For shafts traveling at high speeds, this shift can cause large noises, clunking and heat because the second shaft is essentially at rest and must be brought up to the speed of the first shaft instantaneously. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Mobile computing devices have been developed to increase the functionality that is made available to users in a mobile setting. For example, a user may interact with a mobile phone, tablet computer, or other mobile computing device to check email, surf the web, compose texts, interact with applications, and so on.
Because mobile computing devices are configured to be mobile, however, the devices may be utilized in a wide variety of settings. Accordingly, devices were developed to help protect the mobile computing devices from their environment as well as support interaction with the device in these settings. However, conventional techniques to install and remove the devices from the computing device could be difficult to utilize and may limit some user interactions. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a static semiconductor memory device, more particularly to a static semiconductor memory device prevented from outputting erroneous data due to noise when reading the address signals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a dynamic semiconductor memory device, an external address signal for reading out data is latched by the change of a clock signal. Since the address signal has been latched in the memory device, the reading operation will not be disturbed by subsequent noise.
A static semiconductor memory device, however, usually does not use a clock signal to latch an external address signal. Accordingly, in prior art static semiconductor memory devices, if an external address signal is disturbed by noise, the disturbed address signal is directly introduced into the internal circuit. Further, since the reading operation is effected at a high speed, completely erroneous data from the address may be read out from the memory device. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to integrated circuits and more particularly to transistors having straps connecting transistor devices to storage devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vertical transistors are known in the art of semiconductor manufacturing for reducing the overall size of the transistor device and, therefore, for allowing an increase in the scaling of such devices. However, conventional vertical transistors have substantial problems associated with the formation of the strap (e.g., the conductive connection between the storage device and the gate/drain of the transistor).
The invention overcomes these problems by forming a self-aligned bullied strap within a partially vertical transistor, as specified below.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a structure and method for manufacturing an integrated circuit device including forming a storage device in a substrate, lithographically forming a gate opening in the substrate over the storage device, forming first spacers in the gate opening, forming a strap opening in the substrate using the first spacers to align the strap opening, forming second spacers in the strap opening, forming an isolation opening in the substrate using the second spacers to align the isolation opening, filling the isolation opening with an isolation material, removing the first spacers and a portion of the second spacers to form a step in the gate opening (wherein the second spacers comprise at least one conductive strap electrically connected to the storage device) forming a first diffusion region in the substrate adjacent the conductive strap, forming a gate insulator layer over the substrate and the step, forming a gate conductor over a portion of the gate insulator layer above the step, forming a second diffusion region in the substrate adjacent the gate conductor and forming a contact over the diffusion region and isolated from the gate conductor, wherein a voltage in the gate conductor forms a conductive region in the substrate adjacent the step and the conductive region electrically connects the strap and the contact.
Further, the forming of the isolation opening in the substrate and the filling of the isolation opening with an isolation material includes forming a first portion of an active area isolation region. The method also includes forming active area stripes to form a second portion of the active area isolation region.
The forming of the storage device includes forming a deep trench capacitor and the strap bisects a plane of the deep trench capacitor. Further, the gate opening is wider than the strap opening and the strap opening is wider than the isolation opening. The integrated circuit device is a partially vertical transistor and the strap also is a source region and the contact is a drain region.
The invention also comprises a method of manufacturing an integrated circuit chip that includes forming an opening having at least one step in a substrate, forming a first conductor in the opening below the step, forming a first diffusion region in the substrate adjacent the first conductor, forming a gate conductor over the step, forming a second conductor over the substrate adjacent the gate conductor and forming a second diffusion region in the substrate adjacent the second conductor. The forming of the opening further includes lithographically forming a gate opening in the substrate, forming first spacers in the gate opening, forming a strap opening in the substrate using the first spacers to align the strap opening, forming second spacers in the strap opening and forming an isolation opening in the substrate using the second spacers to align the isolation opening. The isolation opening is filled with an isolation material and the forming of the isolation opening in the substrate and the filling of the isolation opening with an isolation material includes forming a first portion of an active area isolation region, the method further includes forming active area stripes to form a second portion of the active area isolation region. The first spacers and a portion of the second spacers are removed to form the step in the opening and the second spacers are the first conductor. Further, the gate opening is wider than the strap opening and the strap opening is wider than the isolation opening. A voltage in the gate conductor forms a conductive region in the substrate adjacent the step and the conductive region electrically connects the first conductor and the-second conductor. The opening is formed over a deep trench capacitor and the first conductor bisects a plane of the deep trench capacitor. The integrated circuit device is a partially vertical transistor and the first conductor is a source region and the second conductor is a drain region.
An integrated circuit chip according to the invention includes a substrate, an opening in the substrate, the opening having at least one step, a first conductor in the opening below the step, a first diffusion region in the substrate adjacent the first conductor, a gate conductor over the step, a second conductor over the substrate adjacent the gate conductor and a second diffusion region in the substrate adjacent the second conductor.
The integrated circuit chip opening includes a lithographically formed gate opening, a strap opening aligned with the gate opening using first spacers and an isolation opening aligned with the strap opening using second spacers. The integrated circuit chip also includes an isolation material filling the isolation opening and the isolation material includes a first portion of an active area isolation region and the integrated circuit chip further includes active area stripes forming a second portion of the active area isolation region.
The first spacers and a portion of the second spacers are removed to form the step in the opening and the second spacers include the first conductor. The gate opening is wider than the strap opening and the strap opening is wider than the isolation opening. A voltage in the gate conductor forms a conductive region in the substrate adjacent the step and the conductive region electrically connects the first conductor and the second conductor. The opening is formed over a deep trench capacitor and the first conductor bisects a plane of the deep trench capacitor. The first conductor includes a source region and the second conductor includes a drain region and the integrated circuit chip includes a partially vertical transistor.
By reducing the amount of lithographic processing, the invention avoids problems commonly associated with lithographic processes, including size reduction problems and alignment inaccuracies. Further, with the invention by forming the step in such a self-aligned manner, the spacing between the diffusion regions and the vertical transistor portion is very precise. This allows the device to be made smaller (which makes the device less expensive and faster), reduces the number of defects which results in an overall superior product when compared to conventional structures.
In addition, the invention forms the straps to bisect a plane of the storage devices which allows a more reliable connections between the storage device and the strap. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to information technology and, more particularly, to a search engine that utilizes the results of knowledge correlation to identify network and/or Internet resources significant to any given user question, subject, or topic of a digital information object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Search engines are widely acknowledged to be part of the Information Retrieval (IR) domain of knowledge. IR methods are directed to locating resources (typically documents) that are relevant to a question called a query. That query can take forms ranging from a single search term to a complex sentence composed in a natural language such as English. The collection of potential resources that are searched is called a corpus (body), and different techniques have been developed to search each type of corpus. For example, techniques used to search the set of articles contained in a digitized encyclopedia differ from the techniques used by a web search engine. Regardless of the techniques utilized, the core issue in IR is relevance—that is, the relevance of the documents retrieved to the original query. Formal metrics are applied to compare the effectiveness of the various IR methods. Common IR effectiveness metrics include precision, which is the proportion of relevant documents retrieved to all retrieved documents; recall, which is the proportion of relevant documents retrieved to all relevant documents in the corpus; and fall-out, which is the proportion of irrelevant documents retrieved to all irrelevant documents in the corpus. Post retrieval, documents deemed relevant are (in most IR systems) assigned a relevance rank, again using a variety of techniques, and results are returned. Although most commonly the query is submitted by—and the results returned to—a human being called a user, the user can be another software process.
Text retrieval is a type of IR that is typically concerned with locating relevant documents which are composed of text, and document retrieval is concerned with locating specific fragments of text documents, particularly those documents composed of unstructured (or “free”) text.
The related knowledge domain of data retrieval differs from IR in that data retrieval is concerned with rapid, accurate retrieval of specific data items, such as records from a SQL database.
Information extraction (IE) is another type of IR which is has the purpose of automatic extraction of information from unstructured (usually text) documents into data structures such as a template of name/value pairs. From such templates, the information can subsequently correctly update or be inserted into a relational database.
Search engines that have been described in the literature or released as software products use a number of forms of input, ranging from individual keywords, to phrases, sentences, paragraphs, concepts and data objects. Although the meanings of keyword, sentence, and paragraph conform to the common understanding of the terms, the meanings of phrase, concept, and data object varies by implementation. Sometimes, the word phrase is defined using its traditional meaning in grammar. In this use, types of phrases include Prepositional Phrases (PP), Noun Phrases (NP), Verb Phrases (VP), Adjective Phrases, and Adverbial Phrases. For other implementations, the word phrase may be defined as any proper name (for example “New York City”). Most definitions require that a phrase contain multiple words, although at least one definition permits even a single word to be considered a phrase. Some search engine implementations utilize a lexicon (a pre-canned list) of phrases. The WordNet Lexical Database is a common source of phrases.
When used in conjunction with search engines, the word concept generally refers to one of two constructs. The first construct is concept as a cluster of related words, similar to a thesaurus, associated with a keyword. In a number of implementations, this cluster is made available to a user—via a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for correction and customization. The user can tailor the cluster of words until the resulting concept is most representative of the user's understanding and intent. The second construct is concept as a localized semantic net of related words around a keyword. Here, a local or public ontology and taxonomy is consulted to create a semantic net around the keyword. Some implementations of concept include images and other non-text elements.
Topics in general practice need to be identified or “detected” from a applying a specific set of operations against a body of text. Different methodologies for identification and/or detection of topics have been described in the literature. Use of a topic as input to a search engine therefore usually means that a body of text is input, and a required topic identification or topic detection function is invoked. Depending upon the format and length of the resulting topic, an appropriate relevancy function can then be invoked by the search engine.
Data objects as input to a search engine can take forms including a varying length set of free form sentences, to full-length text documents, to meta-data documents such as XML documents. The Object Oriented (OO) paradigm dictates that OO systems accept objects as inputs. Some software function is almost always required to process the input object so that the subsequent relevance function of the search engine can proceed.
Ranked result sets have been the key to marketplace success for search engines. The current dominance of the Google search engine (a product of Google, Inc.) is due to far more to the PageRank system used in Google that lets (essentially) the popularity of a given document dictate result rank. Popularity in the Google example applies to the number of links and to the preferences of Google users who input any given search term or phrase. These rankings permit Google to optimize searches by returning only those documents with ranks above a certain threshold (called k). Other methods used by web search engines to rank results include “Hubs & Authorities” which counts links into and out of a given web page or document, Markov chains, and random walks. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a linear motor, and in particular to a control mechanism of a linear motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, linear motors are more and more often used in various fields. For example, in a machine tool, linear motors are becoming increasingly popular for increasing feed rate in order to shorten machining time and for removing backlash and bending error due to a ball screw in order to improve machining precision. FIG. 3 shows an example structure of a portion of a machine tool which uses a linear motor. A bed 10 in FIG. 3 is a fixed portion of the tool and a stator 1 of a linear motor is fixed on the bed 10. A table 11 is mounted on the bed 10 via a linear guide or the like which is not shown, and is movable along the horizontal direction of FIG. 3. A slider 2 of the linear motor is fixed at a lower portion of the table 11 so that thrust is generated between the slider 2 and the stator 1, and the table 11 is driven. Normally, in a machining center, a machining object (or “workpiece”) is placed on an upper surface of the table 11, and the movement position of the machining object is controlled according to a machining program or the like to machine the machining object into a predetermined shape using a tool, which is not shown.
In these machine tools which use linear motors, because the feed rate is high, a braking distance during emergency stopping of the feed in the case of control abnormality, for example, tends to be long. Because of this, when an abnormality occurs during high speed movement at a portion near a stroke end of the feed mechanism, there are cases in which accidents occur such that the movable portion collides with the fixed portion of the tool, and the tool structure is damaged.
In order to prevent such accidents, machine tools of related art which use liner motors are typically designed to weaken the impact due to the collision by providing a shock absorber 12 at a stroke end, as shown in FIG. 3. Examples of the shock absorbers 12 include a shock absorber using a fluid resistance of a hydraulic fluid sealed inside the shock absorber, and a shock absorber which uses elastic deformation of a resin material such as rubber.
There is another general method as shown in FIG. 4 in which a limit switch 13 is provided at the stroke end and the limit switch is mechanically activated when the movable portion moves over an effective movable range. When the limit switch is activated, a contact 14 blocks a current to be supplied to a driving winding using a circuit, and at the same time, a contact 15 short-circuits the driving winding so that a dynamic brake is activated and the slider 2 is braked and stopped. The contacts 14 and 15 are formed using relays and magnet conductors, and are controlled to be opened and closed by a coil 16 which is connected in series to the limit switch 13. An inverter 17 supplies a current to a driving winding which is built into the slider 2.
In addition, there also is a typical method in which a braking mechanism using friction is provided along with the linear motor. By activating the braking mechanism with a limit switch as described above, it is possible to automatically brake and stop the movable portion when the movable portion moves over the effective movable range.
These methods and devices in the related art are described in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 9-151048 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 8-251904.
When a shock absorber is used in a machine tool which uses a linear motor in order to prevent collision of the movable portion of the tool with the fixed portion, a large shock absorber having a sufficient braking capability must be used, and thus the size of the tool structure becomes large. In addition, there also is a problem in an increase in the cost if the shock absorber itself.
In a method as shown in FIG. 4 in which the driving winding is short-circuited to activate a dynamic brake, the operation delay time of the relay or the like which is a part of the contact 15 may be problematic. Specifically, the braking force is not generated until the contact 15 is switched ON, and thus the movable portion continues to move by inertia. In addition, there are also problems with the reliability of the operation of the contacts 14 and 15. When the conductive portions of the contacts are worn due to long-term usage, sufficient braking force cannot be achieved.
Moreover, in a structure using a braking mechanism using friction, the friction of the braking mechanism may be problematic. That is, when a contact surface of the brake is worn because of long-term usage, sufficient braking force cannot be achieved.
An object of the present invention is to realize, as a structure for preventing collision of a movable portion with a stroke end in a linear motor due to control abnormality or the like, a braking function having a simple structure, low cost, and a high reliability in which a wearing portion such as a relay contact and brake pad is eliminated. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a damper for absorbing an impact, and more particular to a damper suitable for use in a vehicle seat having a headrest for supporting the head of a seated person by moving forward when, at the time of such as a collision of a vehicle, the seated person moves backward due to inertia upon receiving an impact from the rear, as well as a vehicle seat equipped with the damper.
2. Description of the Related Art Patent Document 1: JP-A-10-181403 Patent Document 2: JP-A-10-119619 Patent Document 3: JP-A-11-268566 Patent Document 4: JP-A-2003-81044 Patent Document 5: JP-A-2003-176844 Patent Document 6: JP-A-2005-225334 Patent Document 7: JP-A-2006-82772 Patent Document 8: JP-A-2006-88875
In vehicles, vehicle seats have been proposed in which a headrest is adapted to move forward to restrict the head of a seated person at the time of such as a collision.
Shock absorbing dampers which are used in such vehicle seats are required to be such that, in the collision at the time of low speed, the impact caused by the collision is absorbed softly in order to support the head so as not to impart the impact, whereas, in the collision at the time of high speed, the impact is absorbed with stiffness corresponding to the magnitude of the impact at the time of the collision so as to absorb the impact due to the collision by becoming stiff in order to support the head reliably. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Installation of plumbing can be both laborious and expensive. This is especially true when the plumbing is installed after the walls and other elements of the room have been finished. In that case, to install the appropriate plumbing, drywall will need to be removed, the appropriate plumbing installed, drywall replaced and the drywall textured/painted to match existing drywall. Additionally, flooring may need to be removed to install drains for the newly installed plumbing.
Many homeowners, nevertheless, continue to incur this expense when they want to add additional plumbing to their home. For example, many homeowners would like to add a sink in a laundry room, outdoors or other locations. Many homeowners endure the time and cost to have the plumbing that they desire installed.
Nevertheless, in many instances there is already an available water supply that exists near where the homeowner desires additional plumbing fixtures. For example, laundry rooms include both cold and hot water supplies that are hooked to the washing machine. The inconvenience, however, of unhooking the washing machine to hook up the sink when the sink is needed is something that most homeowners are willing to endure.
Additionally, many of these same locations include existing drainage. For example, a washing machine pumps waste water into a drain located either in the floor or inside a nearby wall. However, this drainage is often difficult for a sink to naturally drain to or even access. For example, the drain may be located directly behind or underneath the washing machine. Therefore, an ordinary sink cannot use gravity to drain as most sinks do.
In addition, if the homeowner decides to install the plumbing, it is difficult or impossible to later move. For example, swapping the location of a sink and a washing machine in a laundry room would mean that the plumbing fixtures and possibly even the drains would need to be removed.
Finally, even if the homeowner does incur the expense to install water supplies and drainage, the plumbing becomes part of the home. That is, the homeowner can incur significant expense for a plumbing fixture that a short time later they are unable to take advantage of due to a move or other circumstances.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a sink that can be installed using existing plumbing including water supplies and drains that are already installed. Additionally, there is a need in the art for a sink that can be easily moved. In addition, there is a need in the art for a sink that can be removed and taken with the homeowner if the homeowner moves. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Cellular communication systems continue to grow in popularity and have become an integral part of both personal and business communications. Cellular telephones allow users to place and receive phone calls most anywhere they travel. Moreover, as cellular telephone technology is increased, so too has the functionality of cellular devices. For example, many cellular devices now incorporate Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) features such as calendars, address books, task lists, calculators, memo and writing programs, etc. These multi-function devices usually allow users to wirelessly send and receive electronic mail (email) messages and access the internet via a cellular network and/or a wireless local area network (WLAN), for example.
As the functionality of cellular communications devices continues to increase, so too does demand for smaller devices that are easier and more convenient for users to carry. As any circuit boards and electronic components thereon are reduced in size and placed closer together, including antenna and other RF components, including power amplifiers and antenna switches, various electronic components can pick up conductive energy and create interference within the system. For example, some components could pick up conducted energy directly from a power amplifier or from the radiated energy emitted by an antenna. This unwanted reception of conducted/near field radiated energy from power amplifiers and antennae is particularly problematic in a packet burst transmission as part of a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) system, including the 450 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz frequency bands.
Some mobile wireless communications devices have an RF metal shield also termed a “can” that forms a compartment on a circuit board and receives RF circuitry therein, for example, the power amplifier and antenna switch, typically a diplexer antenna switch also termed a transmit/receiver antenna switch. One or more RF shields as metallic “cans” can form radio frequency isolation compartments that may include a transceiver chip set in one “can” and the power amplifier and antenna switch in another “can” to aid RF filtering between the RF power amplifier and the antenna switch. Some signal coupling through the RF shield as created from voltage standing waves of single or multiple harmonics, thus bypassing various components such as filters that are formed to prevent such coupling. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Conventionally, an input clock signal is provided to a phase lock loop (“PLL”) for locking to such input clock signal to provide an output clock signal. However, as data rates have increased, such as a gigabit per second or more for example for serial links, phase noise associated with the input clock signal is more of a problem.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and useful to address phase noise in a clock signal. More particularly, it would be both desirable and useful to address phase noise in a clock signal for serial links having at least a gigabit-per-second bit rate. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus to be connected to a telephone line.
2. Related Background Art
A prior art communication apparatus such as a facsimile device is configured as shown in FIG. 3.
In FIG. 3, numeral 1' denotes a communication apparatus, numeral 2 denotes a daughter telephone set, numeral 3 denotes a parallel telephone set, numeral 4 denotes a current detection circuit, numeral 5 denotes a communication unit for data modulation and demodulation, and numeral 16 denotes a control unit.
When the telephone set 2 connected to the communication apparatus 1' is off-hooked, a line current flows into the current detection circuit 4 and the control unit 16 detects that the telephone set 2 has captured the telephone line 9.
However, in the prior art apparatus, even if the telephone set 3 which is directly connected to the telephone line is off-hooked, no current flows into the current detection circuit 4 of the communication apparatus 1'. Accordingly, the control unit 16 cannot detect that the telephone line has been captured by the telephone set 3.
Accordingly, if a communication is to be made by the communication apparatus 1' or the telephone set 2 is off-hooked for speech when the telephone set is off-hooked, the telephone line is captured and it interferes the communication by the telephone set 3.
Further, once the telephone set 3 receives a call, the communication apparatus 1' cannot be started up. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention disclosed herein relates to an apparatus and method for treating a substrate, and more particularly, to a rotatable spin head configured to support a substrate, for example, in a semiconductor process, and an apparatus for treating a substrate using the spin head.
Semiconductor processes include a process of etching or cleaning thin layers, foreign substances, and particles. Such an etching or cleaning process may be performed by placing a substrate such as a wafer on a spin head with a patterned side of the wafer facing upward or downward and supplying a treating liquid to the wafer while rotating the spin head at high speed. The spin head includes chuck pins to support the edge of the wafer for preventing the wafer from being detached from the spin head in a radial direction. The chuck pins can be moved between rest positions and supporting positions. When the chuck pins are in the rest positions, a space for loading and unloading a substrate on the spin head is formed. When a substrate loaded on the spin head is treated while rotating the spin head, the chuck pins are in supporting positions where the chuck pins make contact with the edge of the substrate and support the substrate. A space defined among the chuck pins in the rest positions is larger than a space defined among the chuck pins in the supporting positions.
In general, the chuck pins are moved together from the rest positions to the supporting positions by a single driving mechanism. However, the chuck pins may be non-uniform in size since machining tolerances are allowed in a manufacturing process. In this case, although all the chuck pins are moved together to the supporting positions, some of the chuck pins may not make contact with the edge of a substrate placed on the spin head. Thus, the substrate can be unstably supported, and the other chuck pins making contact with the edge of the substrate can be easily damaged due to concentration of stress.
In addition, if the spin head is rotated at high speed, since a strong centrifugal force is applied to the chuck pins in a direction from the supporting positions to the rest positions, a substrate loaded on the spin head may be unstably supported by the chuck pins.
Generally, the spin head includes an upper plate and a lower plate that are joint together using screws, and the chuck pins are installed on the lower plate with upper portions of the chuck pins being protruded upward through the upper plate. Since chemicals are used as treating liquids in a substrate treating process, the upper plate is generally formed of a corrosion resistant material such as polyvinylchloride. However, if chemicals are used at high temperatures, the upper plate formed of polyvinylchloride may be readily deformed by heat. When the upper plate expands due to thermal deformation, the lower plate coupled to the upper plate using screws may also expand. This alters positions of the chuck pins installed on the lower plate. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera module.
2. Background of the Related Art
A camera module mounted on a small-sized electronic product may be frequently subject to a shock while in use. The camera module may be minutely shaken by a user's hand shaking during photographing. In view of the above problems, there is recently being disclosed a camera module having hand-shaking prevention means.
For example, Korean Registration Patent No. 10-0741823 (registered on Jul. 16, 2007) discloses a method of installing a gyro sensor IC or an angular velocity sensor within a device on which a camera module is mounted, such as a mobile phone in order to correct a hand shaking phenomenon.
If an additional angular velocity sensor is provided as described above, an additional sensor must be provided in order to implement the hand-shaking prevention function. Accordingly, there are problems in that manufacture costs are increased and an additional space where a hand-shaking prevention device will be constructed and installed must be provided in addition to the camera module. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the use of natural product compounds isolated from plants, and synthetic chemical analogues thereof, for the prevention and treatment of beta-Amyloid protein-induced disease. More particularly, the invention relates to pharmaceutical compositions that protect neuronal cells from beta-Amyloid insult for use in preventing and treating beta-Amyloid protein-induced disease.
2. Description of Related Technology
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of progressive cognitive dysfunction. AD affects approximately four million Americans and causes more than 100,000 deaths each year, with a total annual cost approaching $70 billion. It is estimated that by the year 2020, 14 million Americans will be affected by the disease. Furthermore, AD has a profound effect on the millions of family members and other loved ones who provide most of the care for people having this disease. Unfortunately, the cure for AD has not been discovered.
The principal pathological characteristics of AD are senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT's). Senile plaques are extracellular deposits, principally composed of insoluble aggregates of beta-Amyloid protein (βA protein), that are infiltrated by reactive microglia and astrocytes. Plaques are diffusely distributed throughout the cerebral cortex of AD patients, and are the neuropathologic hallmark of the disease. These plaques or fibril deposits are believed to be responsible for the pathology of a number of neurodegenerative diseases including, but not limited to, Alzheimer's disease. NFT's are intraneuronal accumulations of paired helical filaments, composed mainly of an abnormal form of tau protein, a microtubule associated phosphoprotein which can promote microtubule formation. In the AD brain, the tau protein in NFT is hyperphosphorylated, a condition which has been suggested to contribute to the destabilization of the microtubule network, thereby impairing the axonal network, and eventually causing neuronal death. NFT's occur primarily in medial temporal lobe structures (hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and amygdala), and NFT density appears to correlate with dementia severity.
Senile plaques and NFT's appear to be involved in cerebral amyloid angiopathy, consequent neuronal loss, and cerebral atrophy leading to dementia. Although research findings suggest that both plaques and NFT's are involved in disrupting nerve cell functions, the mechanisms that lead to the pathology are not clearly understood.
β-Amyloid peptide has been suggested as one of the major causes of AD. βA peptide (25-35) was shown to exert direct toxic effects on neurons and to inhibit neurite growth in vitro in a dose dependent manner. See Meda et al., Nature 374, 647 (1995) and Larner, Neurosci. Res. Commun. 20, 147 (1997). Thus, therapeutic approaches that can modulate βA peptide toxicity have been hypothesized to represent important methods for controlling the onset of AD. It is envisioned that if neuronal cells can be protected from βA peptide/senile plaque-induced toxicity, the onset of AD may be delayed or prevented. Current pharmacological approaches related to AD preventive and neuroprotective interventions include nicotinic and muscarinic agonists, estrogen, calcium channel blockers, Zinc, sulfonated compounds, triaminopyridine nonopiate analgesic drugs, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and aspirin. Of particular interest to the present invention is the observation that an anti-βA protein antibody was shown to clear senile plaques and protect mutant PDAPP mice from the onset of AD. See St. George-Hyslop et al., Nature 400, 116 (1999).
The generation of reactive oxygen intermediates through oxidative stress caused by βA peptide has been suggested to be the major pathway of βA peptide-induced cytotoxicity. Senile plaques have been shown to exert a cytotoxic effect on neurons by stimulating microglia to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). The damaging effect of ROS can be prevented by the free radical scavenging enzyme superoxide dismutase.
Aging of synthetic βA peptide (1-42) for 7 to 14 days at 37° C. in modified Eagle's media was also demonstrated to cause neurotoxic free radical formation. However, aging βA peptide (1-42) in the presence of the media supplement B27, which contains antioxidants as well as other agents that provide protection against oxidative damage, has been shown to inhibit βA peptide-induced neurotoxicity. Nonetheless, while antioxidants such as propyl gallate, Trolox, Probucol, and Promethazine provide significant protection against oxidative insults, they do not protect against βA peptide insults. Furthermore, it has been shown that βA peptide-induced lipid peroxidation does not contribute directly to cell death.
When the neuroprotective effect of lazaroids (U74389G and U83836E), 21-aminosteroids with antioxidant activity, were tested on cortical cells grown with or without fetal calf serum, U74389G did not protect the cells from βA peptide (25-35) insult in either condition, while low concentrations (15 nM) of U83836E protected the cells exposed to βA peptide in the presence of fetal calf serum. See Lucca et al., Brain Res., 764, 293 (1997). These data suggest that the primary mechanism by which these compounds protect cells from βA peptide-induced toxicity may not involve antioxidative pathways.
In addition to βA peptide-induced ROS mediated neurotoxicity, βA peptide has been shown to cause neuronal cell death by stimulating microglial expression of tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα). The accumulation of βA peptide as neuritic plaques is known to be both trophic and toxic to hippocampal neurons, causing apoptosis or necrosis of the neurons in a dose dependent manner. βA peptide was demonstrated to induce these cellular effects by binding with a receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) that was previously known as a central cellular receptor for advanced glycation endproducts. RAGE was suggested to mediate the interaction of βA peptide with neurons and with microglia, resulting in oxidative stress mediated cytotoxicity. Blocking RAGE with anti-RAGE F(αβ′)2 prevented the appearance of TNFα messenger RNA and diminished TNFα antigen to levels seen in untreated cells. Thus, it is postulated that RAGE mediates microglial activation by βA peptide by producing cytotoxic cytokines that cause neuronal damage in AD patients. In addition, RAGE was also demonstrated to specifically bind with βA peptide and mediate βA peptide-induced oxidative stress.
Cell receptors that bind to βA peptide have been identified. The low-affinity neurotrophin receptor p75 (p75NTR) which belongs to the family of apoptotic receptors that generate cell-death signals on activation was found throughout the brains of AD patients. βA peptide was found to be a ligand for p75NTR, and to cause preferential apoptosis of neurons and normal neural crest-derived melanocytes that express p75NTR upon specifically binding to p75NTR.
Basal forebrain cholinergic neurons express the highest levels of p75NTR in the adult human brain and have been shown to be involved in AD. The expression of p75NTR by wild-type and mutant PC12 cells was shown to potentiate βA peptide-induced cell death. This interaction of βA peptide with p75NTR to mediate neuronal death in AD suggested a new target for therapeutic intervention.
Recently, ERAB which is overexpressed in neurons of the AD brain, was shown to bind with βA peptide to induce neuronal death in AD. Blocking ERAB with an antibody, anti-ERAB F(ab′)2, was found to reduce the βA peptide-induced cell death while ERAB overexpression increases βA peptide-induced cell death.
Nerve growth factor (NGF) is important for the survival and maintenance of central cholinergic neurons. Considerable evidence from animal studies suggests that NGF may be useful in reversing, halting, or at least slowing the progression of AD-related cholinergic basal forebrain atrophy. Administration of NGF was reported to attenuate degeneration of neurons and improve cognitive behavior in animals by stimulating central cholinergic neurons that are known to die during the development of AD. A clinical trial using intracranial infusion of NGF was reported to improve the patient's verbal episodic memory. Thus, attempting to counteract the degeneration of cholinergic neurons by NGF or compounds having neurotrophic properties may be a reasonable approach to treat AD. There are several different possible methods for stimulating NGF receptors, such as, NGF infusion, implantation of slow-release biodegradable pellets, using carrier-mediated transport across the blood-brain barrier, grafting NGF-producing cells, transferring genes directly to the brain, developing NGF receptor agonists, or controlling the endogenous NGF production.
In designing inhibitors of βA peptide toxicity, it was found that neither the alteration of the apparent secondary structure of βA peptide nor the prevention of βA peptide aggregation is required to abrogate the cytotoxicity of βA peptide. Nonetheless, inducing changes in aggregation kinetics and in higher order structural characteristics of βA peptide aggregates also proved to be effective in reducing βA peptide toxicity. See Soto et al., Neuroreport 7, 721 (1996). Synthetic inhibitors that interact with βA peptide were shown to completely block βA peptide toxicity against PC12 cells, demonstrating that complete disruption of amyloid fibril formation is not necessary for abrogation of toxicity. It was also demonstrated that dipolar compounds such as phloretin and exifone that decrease the effective negative charge of membranes can prevent the association of βA peptide with negatively charged lipid vesicles and thereby prevent βA peptide-induced cytotoxicity. See Hertel et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94, 9412 (1997). These results suggest that βA peptide toxicity can be mediated through a physicochemical interaction with cell membranes.
There is strong interest in discovering potentially valuable natural products from natural sources for drug development. One reasonable source of such natural products involves medicinal plants that have been used throughout history for treating illness. Thus, the isolation of potentially valuable natural products from plants that can protect neurons from βA peptide insult is of interest. Although there are extensive reports that describe the extraction, fractionation, and chemical elucidation of natural products, plants have attracted relatively little attention as potentially valuable resources for drug discovery in the area of AD research. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to isolate and identify the chemical constituents in plants responsible for the biological activity.
Turmeric has been used as a curry spice and is used in traditional Indonesian medicine. Curcumin, a chemical constituent of turmeric, is an inhibitor of arachidonic acid metabolism and is a good anti-inflammatory agent. Curcumin is known to have antioxidative properties and has been shown to exhibit antitumor activity. Currently, curcumin is being evaluated as a chemopreventive agent by the National Cancer Institute.
G. biloba is a living fossil tree having undergone little evolutionary change over almost 200 million years. Extracts of the leaves have been used for 5,000 years in traditional Chinese medicine for various purposes. In 1994, a standardized dry extract of Ginkgo biloba leaves was approved by German health authorities for the treatment of primary degenerative dementia and vascular dementia. Currently, more than twenty four different brands of G. biloba extract are sold in the United States.
The use of complementary medications such as plant extracts in dementia therapy, varies according to different cultural traditions. In orthodox Western medicine, the pharmacological properties of traditional cognitive or memory enhancing plants have not been widely investigated in the context of current models of Alzheimer's disease. An exception is Ginkgo biloba L. in which the ginkgolides have been proposed to possess antioxidant, neuroprotective, and cholinergic activities relevant to Alzheimer's disease mechanisms. The leaves of G. biloba have been used as medicine for the treatment of peripheral or cerebral circulatory disorders, as well as for vascular and Alzheimer-type dementia. The therapeutic efficacy of G. biloba extracts in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease is reportedly similar to currently prescribed drugs such as tacrine or donepezil. See Maurer et al., J. Psychiatr. Res. 31, 645 (1997). In addition, the undesirable side effects of G. biloba are minimal. However, while there are more than two hundred articles published on the potential anti-AD effects of ginkgo products, the active constituents of the plant have not been isolated and identified.
Ginger is one of the world's favorite spices, and was probably discovered in the tropics of Southeast Asia. Ginger has benefited humankind as a wonder drug since the beginning of recorded history.
It has been hypothesized that natural products capable of protecting neuronal cells from βA peptide insult can be discovered from plants, and specifically from turmeric, ginkgo biloba, and ginger. Although no anti-AD natural product derived drug that modulates βA peptide effect has been identified, historically, plants have been used for medicinal purposes that include alleviating the symptoms of AD. Among the medicinal plants suggested for the treatment of AD, ginkgo biloba and Huperzia serrata have been most extensively investigated. Huperzine A., a naturally occurring cholinesterase inhibitor from a moss Huperzia serrata is one natural product under development as a therapeutic agent to treat AD patients. See Skolnick, JAMA 277, 776 (1997). Further, a number of synthetic acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are under development as therapeutic agents against AD. However, while the published data indicate that the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor approach may be good for alleviating some of the symptoms of AD, such as improving memory, this approach does not cure or prevent the onset of the disease. Consequently, there remains a need to identify, isolate, and synthetically prepare new and improved anti-AD drugs which can provide chemotherapeutic and chemopreventive methods for the treatment of AD. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Brake systems of automotive vehicles are becoming increasingly complex. Systems such as anti-lock control systems (ABS), traction control and vehicle stabilizing systems require individual brake management for individual wheels. These systems, when activated, often cause feedback pulsations through the brake pedal. These pulsations are highly annoying to the driver.
A remedy is provided by a mechanical decoupling of wheel brake actuation and brake pedal. The latter now only serves to detect the driver's intention to brake by means of suitable sensors. This intention is electrically transmitted to the brakes. Systems provided with such a decoupling have come to be known as "brake-by-wire systems". They have been described, e.g., in DE-Z "ATZ Automobiltechnische Zeitschrift 98 (1996) 6, pages 328-333 (translated as: GJAT German Journal of Automobile Technology), in U.S. Pat. No. 5,230,549, and in EP 0 467 112 B1. The lowest level of such a system of, typically, modular design is formed by four intelligent wheel brake modules. They perform wheel-individual adjustment of a required wheel brake torque. For the overall system, they are, in a manner of speaking, universal intelligent actuators. They consist of a microcontroller (slave) for control, a power booster and of the actual electromechanical wheel brake. This lowest level forms the wheel brake management.
The medium level is responsible for the brake management of the entire car, e.g., for a situation-specific distribution of the braking forces to the individual wheel brakes. The hardware of this medium level of the vehicle brake management consists of a central computing unit (master) which typically, for reasons of failure safety, is supervised by an additional system-supervising computing unit.
The top level of such a brake-by-wire system represents the interface with the driver. Typically, it consists of a conventional brake pedal reproduction with redundant sensor systems for detecting the driver's intention to brake and with additional elements of supervision which can indicate various error conditions of this so-called pedal module. This pedal module also takes care of pre-processing the sensor signals. This pedal module, also, may include a microcontroller of its own.
The individual levels are connected with each other in terms of data by means of defined logical interfaces and, typically, via a bus system adapted for real-time-based operation and preferably provided redundantly. Thus, these levels guarantee an optimum modularity of the system.
It is possible to substitute for the two bus systems (or rather for even just one bus system, only, if such is the case) by normal analog lines.
Power management or rather energy supply is a further central component of a modular-design brake system.
The brake-by-wire system is a functionally split-up safety-critical real-time system which must fulfill very high standards in terms of error detection and error handling.
The driver having no direct access to the brake, the brake system is required to maintain one emergency function in case of trouble. This is ensured by failure-active, functional redundancy in the known manner. Further, the systems are to include a high-performance online diagnosis in the known manner which, by all means, detects any errors cropping up so that an appropriate emergency function can be activated and the driver can be alerted.
These requirements have decisive effects on designing the energy supply, central brake control, and even the warning strategy of the electronic brake system.
Failure safety of the energy supply is ensured in the known manner (cf. the above-mentioned German journal) by introducing a tandem onboard network. If one partial system fails, there will be maintained a certain operability of the components supplied in the failed circuit.
It is necessary both to register any error appearing and to detect its source to ensure a safe operation of the vehicle brake management (regulatory and controlling functions). A known strategy is therefore the requirement of providing a supervisory device on this level by all means. The use of plausibility criteria and suitable, continuously performed check routines within the software are measures by means of which error conditions are localized and appropriate emergency functions are activated.
Thus, it is known from the quoted German journal to check the computing units (master and slaves) of the system by means of a supervisory computing unit. In doing so, all computing units are provided with the essential data (driver's intention to brake, vehicle speed, brake torques etc.), and by means of plausibility considerations it is possible to check the computations of the other computing units.
If there is a malfunction of the master or of the supervisory computing unit, the slaves are able to diagnosticate this and to switch over to an emergency function of the brake system without participation of the master.
Any malfunctions of a slave can be detected by the master and the supervisory computing unit. Then, the slave may be shut down, the emergency function of the remaining wheel brakes not being impaired.
Further, from DE 195 10 525 A1, measures have become known which improve the aforementioned electronic brake systems in view of any error conditions in the field of detecting the braking intention. There, error signals are reported to the wheel brake management via the vehicle brake management. Then, the wheel brake management initiates wheel-individual measures.
The aforementioned known measures, however, do not yet guarantee any comprehensive optimized safety concept.
Regarding a comprehensive safety concept in the corresponding error handling system, what is needed is to detect all errors of the electronic brake system and to consider their effects on the respective driving situations. Using the known concepts, this would imply to have to include a multitude of different conditions of the brake system in the safety considerations which would render the system very complex. However, the more complex the structure of a system is, the more prone it becomes to troubles or errors which then may lead to failures of components of the electronic brake system. Additionally, it will be difficult to perform a reconfiguration of the brake system after an error or trouble condition has developed.
Further, the known case does not feature a systematic strategy for handling conditions when there are multiple faults.
It is an object of this invention to implement the method referred to at the beginning or rather to expand the device so as to enable the number of the various conditions of the electronic brake system, the system finds itself in when error detection and handling take place, to be kept as small as possible and to have clearly defined conditions.
According to this invention, this task is solved by the steps of
determining and defining a small number of unambiguous technological operating conditions of the brake system with predefinition of certain, defined technological events which alone effect a transition from one operating condition to the next condition; PA1 of combining the technological operating conditions with condition-specific control/regulatory measures as well as with measures of warning to the driver of the vehicle; and of PA1 detecting errors in the brake system at the start of the vehicle by means of a pre-drive check and, on-line, during the operation of the vehicle; and of implementing error-condition-responsive error handling in accordance with the operating conditions. PA1 a small number of unambiguous technological operating conditions of the brake system is determined and defined with predefinition of defined technological events which alone effect a transition from one operating condition to the next condition; PA1 in that the computing unit combines the technological operating conditions condition-specifically with respectively control/regulatory and warning devices for the driver; and in that PA1 the error handling code includes a pre-drive check routine for detecting any errors in the brake system at the start of the vehicle and, on-line, during the operation of the vehicle, which implements error-condition-responsive error handling in accordance with the operating conditions. PA1 determining and defining a small number of unambiguous technological operating conditions of the respective module with predefinition of certain, defined technological events which alone effect a transition from one operating condition of the module to the next condition; PA1 combining the technological operating conditions of the module with condition-specific control/regulatory/reporting and warning measures, respectively; and PA1 detecting errors in the respective module at the start of the vehicle by means of a pre-drive check and, on-line, during the operation of the vehicle; and implementing error-condition-responsive error handling in accordance with the operating conditions of the module. PA1 a small number of unambiguous technological operating conditions of the respective module is determined and defined with predefinition of certain, defined technological events which alone effect a transition from one operating condition to the next condition; PA1 they combine the technological operating conditions condition-specifically with respectively control/regulatory and warning devices for the driver; and PA1 the error handling code includes a pre-drive check routine for detecting errors in the brake system at the start of the vehicle and, on-line, during the operation of the vehicle and implements error-condition-responsive error handling in accordance with the operating conditions.
Regarding the apparatus of the present invention, this task is solved by the following
The electronic modular-design brake system always is in an exactly defined condition when there appears any error or a plurality thereof, with the number of the various conditions being very small. Thus the system advantageously does not become too complex and therefore decisively less prone to errors or troubles which might lead to failures of system components. The factors which defined condition the system are fully known at all times. It is therefore easily possible to implement any reconfiguration of the brake system after an error appeared.
Preferably, even unused memory spaces of the computing units, RAMs, ROMs, etc. are set to a defined value in order to enable the operator to know even in this respect at any time which condition the system and its memory area, also, are in.
This invention further has the transition from one defined condition to the next defined condition take place only due to the occurrence of very certain defined events which likewise has a decisive effect on the failure safety of the system.
The inventive method with the defined conditions of the system and the defined transitions is usable for (preferably) electromechanical brake systems, yet just as well for electronically assisted brake systems in general.
Thus, this invention ensures error-condition-responsive error handling in a brake-by-wire system.
According to a further development of this invention, this method for error handling in an electronic modular-design brake system is implemented by the following steps:
Besides the central computing unit, the corresponding device includes modules in the form of autonomous subcomputing units with error handling codes. These autonomous subcomputing units are organized so that
Due to this further development of the invention, a self-diagnosis is carried out on the respective modules, (i.e., in a way, an error diagnosis within the modules themselves, which considerably relieves the central computing unit of the brake system). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Input devices including proximity sensor devices (also commonly called touchpads or touch sensor devices) are widely used in a variety of electronic systems. A proximity sensor device typically includes a sensing region, often demarked by a surface, in which the proximity sensor device determines the presence, location and/or motion of one or more input objects. Proximity sensor devices may be used to provide interfaces for the electronic system. For example, proximity sensor devices are often used as input devices for larger computing systems (such as opaque touchpads integrated in, or peripheral to, notebook or desktop computers). Proximity sensor devices are also often used in smaller computing systems (such as touch screens integrated in cellular phones).
The proximity sensor device can be used to enable control of an associated electronic system. For example, proximity sensor devices are often used as input devices for larger computing systems, including: notebook computers and desktop computers. Proximity sensor devices are also often used in smaller systems, including: handheld systems such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), remote controls, and communication systems such as wireless telephones and text messaging systems. Increasingly, proximity sensor devices are used in media systems, such as CD, DVD, MP3, video or other media recorders or players. The proximity sensor device can be integral or peripheral to the computing system with which it interacts.
Presently known input devices also have the ability to detect applied force in addition to determining positional information for input objects interacting with a sensing region of the input device. However, in some force/touch input devices, the force sensing and touch sensing electrodes may interact during applied force. This cross coupling of the force receivers and touch receivers makes it difficult to accurately locate an input object (e.g., finger) where an input surface experiences deflection due to an applied input object. These factors limit the flexibility and usability of presently known force enabled input devices. A full transcapacitive image sensor is thus needed in which the touch image remains independent of the force image during deflection of the input surface. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for supporting the development, i.e., the estimation and the correction, of a sequence software to be used for controlling the operation of automated equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the conventional method used in developing a sequence software for controlling the operation of automated equipment, the sequence software is constructed based on the operation specification of the equipment, the sequence software is loaded in a sequencer, and the operation of the equipment is checked while the sequence software is debugged.
The conventional method requires the checking of the entire operation of the equipment in order to debug the software. Accordingly, although the sequence software is complete, the software cannot be debugged until the entire equipment is completed and it is difficult to conduct an abnormality test associated with conditions which may endanger the entire equipment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The function of A-B doors, also known as double interlocked doors, is that: the door B cannot be opened when the door A is open, and can be opened only when the door A is closed; conversely, the door A cannot be opened when the door B is open. In other words, the two doors each locks the other. A-B doors are usually used in the entrances and exits of important premises such as banks, prisons, and vaults. FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an application scenario of A-B doors, which includes a public area, a door A, a transit area, a door B, and a supervised area. A host of the system with A-B doors is connected to, respectively, an entrance access control and an exit switch button at the door A, an entrance access control and an exit switch button at the door B, and an electronic authorization conversion device between the A-B doors.
When a cardholder swipes a card at the entrance access control of the door A, the entrance access control reads the card number and sends it to the host. When the host determines that the card number has the authorization to pass through the door A, it sends an opening command to the entrance access control. After the person has entered the transit area, an electronic authorization conversion is performed, that is, the host controls the electronic authorization conversion device, so that the electronic authorization conversion device converts the authorization of the card to the door B, after which the cardholder can open the door B.
When the person returns from the supervised area to the public area, the door A and the door B can be opened by means of the two exit switch buttons.
In the prior art, after a person has passed the verification at the door A from the public area and undergone the electronic authorization conversion, the authorization of the person's card is converted to the door B. In other words, the person can pass the verification at the door B and enter the supervised area.
However, if the card of the person is lost or stolen in the supervised area, then the card may still have the authorization for the door B, which will pose a certain risk to the security of the A-B doors. For example, if an unauthorized person obtains a card authorized for the door B, then the unauthorized person can enter the transit area by hacking the authorization for the door A, and then pass the verification at the door B by using the obtained card and enter the supervised area. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for reducing the polygon effect that occurs during the course of the reversing of a chain, which can be used for a pedestrian conveyor, in particular an escalator or moving walkway.
2. Related Art
German Patent Document DE-A 199 58 709 describes a method and a device for reducing the polygon effect in the reversing area of pedestrian conveyors.
The polygon effect is caused by the polygonal rest of the chain on the chain wheel. With increasing rotation angle, the effective radius of the chain wheel varies, whereby the velocity of the chain oscillates between a maximum and a minimum value. When engaging the chain wheel, the chain rolls and the teeth of the chain wheel have different velocities, which cause impacts. The revolution effect is caused by the angular momentum which is transmitted from the chain wheel onto the chain links and thus onto the steps or pallets. After the chain has run out of the chain wheel, this angular momentum is temporarily maintained due to the inertia of the system, which leads to the so-called curling of the chain. The angular momentum is reduced by friction in the chain respectively by impacts between chain and guiding if a chain guiding element is provided. In contrast to the modifications that have been known so far and which have been exclusively provided in the mechanical field, DE-A 199 58 709 presents a concept, which contains an electrical solution, namely a modification of the drive.
German Patent document DE-A 100 20 787 describes an operational controlling apparatus of an escalator, comprising a frequency converter for converting a three-phase alternating mains current into an alternating current having a variable voltage and a variable frequency, in order to control the operational speed of the escalator; a gear and a chain wheel for driving a tread plate using a rotation force, which is generated by an induction motor, and a current detector for detecting a current, which flows within the induction motor, a controlling apparatus for an escalator comprising: a speed detector for detecting the rotation speed of the induction motor; a position detector for detecting the rotation position of the chain wheel; and a controlling device, which controls the frequency converter by means of an output signal of the speed detector and the position detector for obtaining a current, which compensates the vibrational angular momentum, wherein the above current is added to a current output by a speed controlling apparatus; wherein an actual current detection value of the induction motor is subtracted from the resulting current value; and wherein a pulse duration modulation signal is generated accordingly. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Rotating multifaceted mirrors produce a high speed scanning beam of light that can be modulated for many purposes in laser printers and electro-optical scanning systems. Such spinning mirrors rotate at high speeds and require optical accuracy to within seconds of arc to produce high quality results. This makes them very expensive to fabricate.
The invention involves a new construction for a multifaceted mirror that is less costly to make without any sacrifice in accuracy and reliability. It includes a method of making multifaceted mirrors, a fixture for assemblying the mirrors, and the construction of the mirrors themselves. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a multi-slit type spectrometer.
2. Description of Prior Art
A lot of attentions have been conventionally given to a non-destructive inspection by use of near infrared spectroscopic analysis. Particularly, there has been a strong demand for an on-line non-destructive inspection in manufacturing industrial products. However, a near infrared spectrometer which is presently in practical use requires a long time for the inspection since a diffraction means such as a diffraction grating is mechanically scanned. This spectrometer is unsuitable to carry out a continuous inspection over a long time since it has a mechanical drive device. In view of this, recently, a multi-slit spectroscopic method has been employed which is suitable to carry out the inspection within a short time has been employed. In order to eliminate the need for the drive device, also, spectrometers have been proposed which have an optical shutter including a multitude of electrically controllable slits.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,691 discloses a spectrometer employing a liquid crystal shutter as an optical shutter. In this spectrometer, an incident light is separated into respective wavelength components by diffraction means and a plurality of liquid crystal shutters are arrayed on an imaging plane of a spectrum. The respective wavelength components are modulated with different frequencies by turning on and off the respective liquid crystal shutters. The modulated rays are again concentrated to one beam, which is detected by a detector. An output signal of the detector is demodulated with the same frequencies as the modulation frequencies of the respective wavelength components, and the intensity of each wavelength component is detected.
Further, spectrometers have been proposed which employ an optical shutter array member formed of dichromic material (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,615,619, 4,799,795, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 5-6857). The dichromic material has a property of changing from a transparent state to a light reflecting state when the temperature rises. This property of the dichromic material is used to function as an optical shutter. The temperature of the dichromic material is controlled by turning on and off a current applied to this material.
However, the above liquid crystal shutter has a slow responsiveness because of the property of liquid crystal, and cannot be turned on and off at a high speed. It is also relatively difficult to turn on and off the optical shutter made of dichromic material at a high speed because there is a time delay between an actual temperature rise and the start of application of the current. In addition, it is not easy to control the temperature of the dichromic material. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
With the rapid development of an Internet service, network video traffic increases dramatically, and a server virtualization technology is more widely used in a data center to make full use of hardware resources. In this situation, usage of central processing unit (CPU) resources in transport control protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) network protocol stack processing is getting higher and higher, which may even become a bottleneck of an entire server system. To reduce a CPU load and further improve the performance of the entire server system, network adapter manufacturers launch network adapters with an offload function in succession to reduce the usage of CPU resources in TCP/IP protocol stack processing by offloading partial work (such as TCP/IP checksum calculation and TCP/user datagram protocol (UDP) packet segmentation) of which a TCP/IP protocol stack originally takes charge to a network adapter for processing.
Currently, offload functions provided by a network adapter generally include TCP/IP checksum calculation, TCP/UDP fragmented packet reassembly, TCP segmentation offload, and the like, and all these offload functions depend on whether the network adapter is capable of correctly parsing a packet to be processed. Generally, the network adapter can support processing of a standard data packet, for example, a standard IP packet and an IP packet with a virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier. However, in a server virtualization situation, a proprietary protocol tag (Tag) is generally encapsulated in a packet to isolate network traffic. For an IP packet that includes the proprietary protocol Tag, the network adapter cannot correctly parse such an IP packet, which results in various offload misoperations. As a result, a large number of packets are lost in a network, and network transmission performance is affected.
In the prior art, a customized network adapter is used to provide a network adapter offload function for a specific proprietary protocol. However, a solution of customizing the network adapter features a poor scalability, and a lot of CPU resources still need to be occupied to process an IP packet of an unknown protocol. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to a shock simulator and more particularly to a simulator for simulating the force pulse on a fired projectile.
Previously, the methods used for testing projectiles required impacting the projectile with a block of ductile metal such as lead or soft aluminum. The use of a soft deformable metal created the desired force pulse similar to that created by firing the projectile. The disadvantage in using this type of a simulator is that the metal is not resilient and, upon release of the force load, the metal does not resume its original dimensions. As a consequence, the block of ductile deformed metal must be replaced after every use of the simulator. Deformation of the metal block also results in a dissipation of energy thus detracting from the force pulse. The shock simulator of the present invention, in contrast to the prior methods, releases virtually all of the stored energy without deformation of metal and subsequent energy loss and thus can be reused after each simulation without replacement of parts. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video signal processing apparatus and a video signal processing method which are suitable for a scanning line interpolation circuit, etc. configured to convert scanning lines from a video signal of an interlaced mode to a video signal of a progressive mode.
2. Description of the Related Art
A plasma display apparatus, a liquid crystal display apparatus, etc. configure a matrix display apparatus in which pixels are placed in a matrix state corresponding to intersecting points of a plurality of scanning lines and data lines. In the matrix display apparatus, video information per pixel is sequentially displayed for every scanning line so that an image is displayed.
Some of such matrix display apparatuses have a display screen whose resolution is higher than the resolution of an input video signal. In such a case, a scanning line interpolation circuit may be adopted which improves the image quality by setting a interpolation line between scanning lines based on inputted video signals, and generating interpolation pixels on the interpolation line.
Some scanning line interpolation circuit may generate the interpolation pixel according to an average value of pixels of upper and under lines of the interpolation line. However, this interpolation method may generate such an image that a diagonal line looks as jagging, what we say, jaggy is conspicuous in some patterns.
Thus, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2003-230109 proposes a line scanning line interpolation circuit which averages highly-correlative diagonal direction pixel values to prevent the resolution degradation of diagonal edges. In this proposal, in the respective pixels of upper and under lines of the interpolation line, a pair of pixels are used for the interpolation, which is positioned at a point-symmetric point whose center is an interpolation pixel of the interpolation line. The correlation is detected for each of such pair of pixels, and a direction of a pair of pixels whose correlation is highest is decided to be a direction of a pixel (correlation direction) whose correlation is high with respect to the interpolation pixel. Next, the interpolation pixel is generated by using two pixels positioned in the correlation direction.
However, in a pattern part which is relatively slender, diagonal, and line-like, etc., the correlation direction may not be correctly specified. For example, it is assumed that a pair of pixels for specifying the correlation direction is positioned at background parts of both sides crossing over the line-like pattern. In such a case, if the brightness of the background parts is approximately the same, it may be considered that the correlation direction obtained for the interpolation pixel in the line-like pattern is specified as not a direction of the line but a direction of the pair of pixels positioned at the background. If so, the interpolation pixel in the line-like pattern is interpolated by using two pixels of the background, then breaks, unsharpness, jaggy may be induced in the line-like pattern. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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