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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to exercise systems, and more specifically it relates to a portable exercise system designed to adapt a conventional wheelchair for use as a stationary exerciser, facilitating exercise of arms and upper body without requiring any modifications to the wheelchair.
2. Description of Related Art
People are confined to wheelchairs for various health reasons, such as paralysis or strokes. Hospitals and healthcare centers provide the necessary rehabilitation for these people to return home as physically independent as possible. Maintaining this independence requires maintaining upper body strength to push the wheelchair. Most people return to a home with limited space to push the wheelchair for exercise and limited funds to be able to join a gym with exercise facilities comparable those at the hospitals and healthcare centers.
Home exercise systems for building and maintaining upper body strength for pushing a wheelchair, by pushing the wheelchair, has been limited for years to treadmill exercise systems. These systems allow the user to target the necessary muscles needed to push the wheelchair, but several problems exist for the user with these systems. (1) They are expensive. This limits the availability of the system to those with money or good health insurance. (2) They require a lot of floor space. Floor space needed for these systems includes the size of the system and the floor space needed for the user to mount the system. (3) They are heavy. This makes it difficult for someone in a wheelchair to move, making them stationary systems. (4) They apply equal tension resistance to both arms at the same time. This makes these exercise systems difficult to use when one arm is weaker than the other, as is the case in many stroke patients.
There exists a need in the art for a system that allows a person confined to a wheelchair to achieve an upper body workout, and which addresses the above stated problems found in the art. Such a system must: (1) be simple in design and construction so that the system can be relatively inexpensively manufactured, (2) be relatively small and of a lightweight material so the system can be stored easily by the user in a small space and not require a permanent floor space, and (3) have a means to apply the amount of tension resistance to the arms individually in the event that one of the arms is weaker than the other.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an exercise system that satisfies the three aforesaid needs of an exercise system to eliminate the four problems cited previously pertaining to the conventional wheelchair exercise treadmill. | {
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Orthodontic brackets have long been used for applying corrective forces to teeth. Typically an orthodontic bracket comprises a tooth bonding surface and a slot for receiving an archwire which transmits corrective forces from the archwire to the tooth. Generally, orthodontic brackets of the prior art are made of a metal so as to provide sufficient strength for the transmission of these forces to the teeth. An individual undergoing orthodontic treatment generally has a considerable number of these brackets applied to his or her teeth. Individuals generally consider these orthodontic brackets as being extremely unsightly in appearance.
It is long considered desirable by manufacturers of orthodontic brackets to provide a bracket which is less sightly in appearance. One solution suggested was the use of clear plastic materials, however, these materials have been found to have insufficient strength for transmitting the appropriate forces to the teeth. In order to avoid this problem metal supports or inserts have been suggested for use with plastic. However, this then suffers from the same unsightly problem that total metal brackets present, however, maybe now to a certain lesser degree.
There has also been suggested use of single crystalline alumina material for an orthodontic bracket as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,218 to Jones et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,598 to DeLuca et al. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,218 there is described an alpha alumina orthodontic bracket which is made by a seed crystal which is pulled from molten alumina by a die having a cross-sectional configuration substantially identical to that of the orthodontic bracket. After the crystal is drawn it forms a rod which is cut into a plurality of individual brackets by known cutting/grinding techniques. A problem with this type of method is that it is relatively expensive and is limited to the configurations that ray be applied to the top surface of the bracket. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the grinding and cutting technique used to form the final configuration results in sharp edges which may cause damage to the tissue and introduce stresses in the product which may later cause failure of the bracket
Another problem associated with orthodontic brackets made of single crystalline material, also recognized by the '218 reference, is the ability of the material to adhere to the surface of a tooth. The '598 reference to De Luca et al. discloses two ways whereby adhesion is improved between the bracket and tooth. In one method a small undercut is provided at each side edge of the bonding base. A problem with this method is that it requires a grinding operation which can introduce serious surface flaws to the very brittle crystalline material.
In the second method a siliceous layer is applied to the bracket and then a silicone coupling agent is applied to the bracket which has an affinity for the siliceous material A problem associated with this method is that great care is required in placing of the siliceous layer on the bracket and applying the cement. Any contaminations on any of the surfaces could substantially reduce the adhesion of the cement to the siliceous layer. Additionally, the shelf life of the coupling agent can have an adverse affect on the adhesive bond formed.
Applicants' have developed an improved orthodontic bracket and method of making same which minimizes or eliminates the problems of the prior art. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for intraoral diagnostic studies. More particularly, the invention relates to apparatus for accurately positioning an image receptor, such as an X-ray film, in a patient's mouth in predetermined relation to an energy beam, such as an X-ray beam, to thereby enable the generation of diagnostically-useful images of portions of the patient's alveolar ridge and/or teeth. The apparatus of our invention allows precise re-positioning of the image receptor so that a series of images of predetermined target areas can be produced at successive times.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Intraoral X-ray diagnosis involves positioning an X-ray film within a patient's oral cavity next to the inner surface of the target, i.e., the teeth or alveolar bone being studied, then exposing the film to an X-ray beam generated outside the oral cavity and passing through the target. Historically, the film has been mounted in a holder which includes a bite block portion extending from the film in the direction of the external X-ray tube; the patient bites down on the bite block with the teeth comprising the target and thereby holds the film in position next to the target.
It is known that in normal dental X-ray practice, precise positioning of the X-ray film with respect to a suitably collimated X-ray beam can minimize the amount of radiation to which the patient is exposed.
A recent diagnostic technique for monitoring progressive or recurring alveolar bone loss is known as digital subtraction radiography (DSR). In this technique, the area of study is X-rayed at at least two different times. Digital computer procedures are then used to reveal any changes occurring in the target area between the initial and follow-up exposures. It is well known that reproducible positioning of the film, both with respect to the X-ray beam and especially with respect to the target area, is critical to the effective use of DSR.
In attempting to meet the need for reproducible film positioning, both for DSR and for other intraoral procedures, and to minimize the patient's exposure to radiation, prior workers have developed a number of devices which have succeeded in varying degrees. Some examples of such devices can be found in the following listed U.S. patents:
______________________________________ Film holders: 1,719,106 4,251,732 4,295,050 Film holders plus 3,745,344 connections to 4,554,676 X-ray unit: 4,598,416 4,707,847 ______________________________________
The features of the devices disclosed by the above-listed patents can be summarized as follows:
1. Virtually all of them include a bite block which extends from the film in the direction of the X-ray source--i.e., which is gripped by the patient's maxilla and mandible at or immediately adjacent to the area of study.
2. In all but one, the bite block and film holder form a unitary structure. In the one exception, U.S. Pat. No. 4,707,847, the bite block includes a sleeve which fits and is slidable along a ridge on the film holder running parallel to the film surface; however, the ridge has no locating stops for the bite block, which means that the block cannot be firmly fixed in position with respect to the film.
3. Several (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,676) provide for slidable adjustment of the film in the vertical direction--i.e., perpendicular to the bite block, and one (U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,732) includes several different film holding slots at different points on a unitary bite block-film holder member.
4. Of the four which include structures connecting the film holder to the X-ray unit, three (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,745,344; 4,554,676; 4,598,416) also include means to collimate the X-ray beam to limit exposure of the patient to radiation. In none of the four does the connecting structure appear to be very rigid, which means that accidental patient movements could cause deflection of the support member and thereby move the film out of precise alignment with the X-ray beam.
5. Bite registration material is commonly used on the bite block, whereby an impression of the patient's teeth made at the initial exposure provides a means of more accurately locating the film in subsequent exposures.
Although the positioning devices of the prior art have been generally successful in facilitating sequential diagnostic studies of a patient's alveolar ridge and/or teeth supported thereby, several shortcomings have existed. First, many of the prior art devices are difficult and/or complicated to set up and adjust. Second, position adjustability of the bite block with respect to the film is generally not possible, or if possible, is subject to slippage. Third, having the bite block gripped between the patient's jaws in the immediate vicinity of the target area can mean loss of film position reproducibility in the event of rapid or severe deterioration of the teeth or bone in the target area. | {
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The present invention relates to telephone enclosures, and more particularly to a telephone enclosure which provides wheelchair access for the handicapped while maintaining efficiency of space.
Enclosures containing public telephones, commonly referred to as telephone booths, have long been available in public places and in business establishments for use by patrons of these establishments and by the general public. The booths are often outside in prominent locations. In general, the telephone booths are provided by the business. However, the booth usually bears only the logo of the telephone company providing the telephone service. As a result, the telephone user does not associate the telephone booth and the service it provides with the business. The appearance of two separate business on the premises, the telephone company and the business owner's, tend to detract from the business premises. Hence, it would be advantageous to provide a telephone booth that appears to be an integral part of the business establishment.
Unfortunately, the market for telephone booths for any given business establishment or chain of establishments is too small to allow custom booths to be manufactured for each business. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a telephone booth which could be economically customized to reflect a particular business establishment.
Efficient use of space is of primary importance both in public places and in business establishments. Hence, the emphasis in telephone booth design has traditionally been the fulfillment of the specified function while encompassing a minimum amount of floor space. Typical telephone booth installations consist of a number of telephones, housed side by side in small booths or lesser enclosures. The number of telephones is selected to accommodate the anticipated peak load. At other times, most of the telephones are unused. Hence, it would be advantageous to provide a telephone booth which serves other functions when it is not in use. In this regard, the use of the booth as a vehicle for advertising the products of the business establishment would be particularly useful.
Prior art telephone enclosures are also deficient in that they are not accessible to handicapped persons confined to wheelchairs. These prior art telephone booths normally have accordion doors which, when completely open, provide an access port that is only 30" wide. This is insufficient for a wheelchair to enter. To make matters even worse, these accordion doors normally slide in a slotted track mounted at the top and at the foot of the door opening, making it difficult or impossible for a wheelchair to pass over the door sill.
Even if a wheelchair could pass through the door, the telephones are normally placed too high to allow a handicapped person seated in a wheelchair to reach the coin slots or to dial the phone. Furthermore, telephone booths usually have a rack of telephone directories mounted beneath the counter below the telephone. A wheelchair occupant is typically obstructed by the placement of this rack from moving the wheelchair close enough to the telephone to gain access to the phone.
One prior art solution to the problem of handicapped access has been to construct special telephone booths. The booths in question are wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and have telephone instruments which are lower to the ground. Unfortunately, these booths require significantly more floor space per telephone. As pointed out above, floor space is at a premium in most establishments.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved telephone enclosure.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a telephone booth that can be mass-produced and then be customized to provide an appearance that associates it with a given business enterprise.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a telephone booth that may be used for advertising the products of the business establishment in which it is placed.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a telephone enclosure which permits access to persons confined to wheelchairs.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a wheelchair-accessible telephone enclosure which maintains efficient utilization of floor space.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings. | {
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The increasing use of wireless telephones andpersonal computers has led to a corresponding demand for advanced telecommunication services that were once thought to only be meant for use in specialized applications. In the 1980's, wireless voice communication became widely available through the cellular telephone network. Such services were at first typically considered to be the exclusive province of the business person because of expected high subscriber costs. The same was also true for access to remotely distributed computer networks, whereby until very recently, only business people and large institutions could afford the necessary computers and wireline access equipment.
As a result of the widespread availability of both technologies, the general population now increasingly wishes to not only have access to networks such as the Internet and private intranets, but also to access such networks in a wireless fashion as well. This is particularly of concern for the users of portable computers, laptop computers, hand-held personal digital assistants (PDAs) and the like who would prefer to access such networks without being tethered to a telephone line.
There still is no widely available satisfactory approach for providing low cost, high speed access to the Internet, private intranets, and other networks using the existing wireless infrastructure. This situation is most likely an artifact of several unfortunate circumstances. For one, the typical manner of providing high speed data service in the business environment over the wireline network is not readily adaptable to the voice grade service available in most homes or offices. Such standard high speed data services also do not lend themselves well to efficient transmission over standard cellular wireless handsets.
Furthermore, the existing cellular network was originally designed to deliver voice services. As a result, the emphasis in present day digital wireless communication schemes lies with voice, although certain schemes such as CDMA do provide some measure of asymmetrical behavior for the accommodation of data transmission. For example, the data rate on an IS-95 forward traffic channel can be adjusted in increments from 1.2 kilobits per second (kbps) up to 9.6 kbps for so-called Rate Set 1, and in increments from 1.8 kbps up to 14.4 kbps for Rate Set 2. On the reverse link traffic channel, however, the data rate is fixed at 4.8 kbps.
The design of such existing systems therefore typically provides a radio channel which can accommodate maximum data rates only in the range of 14.4 kilobits per second (kbps) at best in the forward direction. Such a low data rate channel does not lend itself directly to transmitting data at rates of 28 or even 56.6 kbps that are now commonly available using inexpensive wire line modems, not to mention even higher rates such as the 128 kbps which are available with Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) type equipment. Data rates at these levels are rapidly becoming the minimum acceptable rates for activities such as browsing web pages. Other types of data networks using higher speed building blocks such as Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) service are just now coming into use in the United States. However, their costs have only been recently reduced to the point where they are attractive to the residential customer.
Although such networks were known at the time that cellular systems were originally deployed, for the most part, there is no provision for providing higher speed ISDN- or xDSL-grade data services over cellular network topologies. Unfortunately, in wireless environments, access to channels by multiple subscribers is expensive and there is competition for them. Whether the multiple access is provided by the traditional Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) using analog modulation on a group of radio carriers, or by newer digital modulation schemes the permit sharing of a radio carrier using Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) or Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), the nature of the radio spectrum is that it is a medium that is expected to be shared. This is quite dissimilar to the traditional environment for data transmission, in which the wireline medium is relatively inexpensive to obtain, and is therefore not typically intended to be shared.
Other considerations are the characteristics of the data itself. For example, consider that access to web pages in general is burst-oriented, with asymmetrical data rate transmission requirements. In particular, the user of a remote client computer first specifies the address of a web page to a browser program. The browser program then sends this web page address data, which is typically 100 bytes or less in length, over the network to a server computer. The server computer then responds with the content of the requested web page, which may include anywhere from 10 kilobytes to several megabytes of text, image, audio, or even video data. The user then may spend at least several seconds or even several minutes reading the content of the page before requesting that another page be downloaded. Therefore, the required forward channel data rates, that is, from the base station to the subscriber, are typically many times greater than the required reverse channel data rates.
In an office environment, the nature of most employees' computer work habits is typically to check a few web pages and then to do something else for extended period of time, such as accessing locally stored data or to even stop using the computer altogether. Therefore, even though such users may expect to remain connected to the Internet or private intranet continuously during an entire day, the actual overall nature of the need to support a required data transfer activity to and from a particular subscriber unit is actually quite sporadic.
Furthermore, prior art wireless communication systems provide a continuous bandwidth to individual subscribers. That is, in such networks, during a communication session the bandwidth available at all times is constant and has been designed, as noted above, primarily for voice grade use. | {
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The present invention relates to high electron mobility transistors (hereinafter, HEMTs) of gallium arsenide (GaAs) elements for high-speed data communication with low noise. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of fabricating resist patterns in order to form a gamma gate for HEMTs and a method of forming a gamma gate using such resist patterns and a structure thereof.
A gamma gate is applied to HEMTs with a purpose of the reduction of gate resistance and element noise.
In related arts, it has been already known a method of forming two-layer or three-layer resist structure and a method of forming a gate based on the sensitivity difference between the resist layers. As shown in FIG. 1G, such gate formed according to the related art has a head wider than a footprint. According to the shape of the gate, it is called a xcex93-gate or xcex93-gate. The technique of forming such related art gate applies electron-beam lithography in order to satisfy a fine design-rule.
Now, referring to FIGS. 1A to 1G, a method of forming a related art xcex93-gate will be described. First, a PMMA resist 3 having a thickness of 0.15-0.2 xcexcm is coated on a GaAs wafer 4 (FIG. 1A). A P(MMA/MAA) resist 2, which has more greater sensitivity than the PMMA resist 3 and which has a thickness of 0.6 xcexcm is coated on the coated PMMA resist 3 (FIG. 1B). Using a dose converting method, the coated resists 2 and 3 are exposed to electron beams 1 by means of an electron beam lithography process (FIG. 1C). Then, electron beams are transmitted to the inside of the two resists 2 and 3 (FIG. 1D). A pattern for forming a xcex93-gate is formed by developing the resists 2 and 3 (FIG. 1E). A gate metal film 20 is deposited on a resultant structure (FIG. 1F). Then, the resists 2 and 3 are removed to thereby form a gamma gate having a head 21 and a footprint 22 (FIG. 1G).
However, since the method of the related art uses the electron-beam lithography, there are such problems as, for example, the reduction of productivity and requirements of high-priced equipment.
Thus, a method of forming the gamma gate without using the electron-beam lithography has been keenly required.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a method of fabricating a gamma gate of HEMT capable of obviating the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of forming a resist pattern for forming a gamma gate having a fine gate footprint of about 0.1 xcexcm and a gate head of a certain size regardless of any kinds of exposing sources or equipments. Particularly, the present invention can provide a gamma gate having a fine resolution of 0.1 xcexcm or the equivalent, which cannot be achieved by conventional photolithography using contact or proximity type exposing source of I-line or G-line and a stepper.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of fabricating a gamma gate which is capable of remarkably reducing an element noise of HEMT.
To achieve these and other advantages, a method of fabricating a gamma gate according to the present invention comprises the steps of depositing a first resist layer on a GaAs substrate; forming a first resist pattern on the GaAs substrate by exposing, developing and baking the first resist layer, sequentially; depositing a second resist layer on the first resist pattern and the first resist layer; forming a second resist pattern so that a marginal portion of the second resist pattern overlaps the first resist pattern, by exposing, developing and baking the second resist layer, sequentially; etching the GaAs substrate using the first and second resist layers as a mask to form a recess on the GaAs substrate; depositing a metal layer on the resultant structure; and removing the first and second resist layers to form the gamma gate with a head and a footprint, wherein the footprint of the gamma gate is formed in the marginal portion of the second resist pattern overlapping the first resist pattern and the width of the overlapped portion defines the size of the footprint of the gamma gate, and wherein the head of the gamma gate is formed on the first resist layer in a residual portion of the second resist pattern other than the overlapped portion.
Preferably, the baking process during the step of forming the first resist pattern is conducted with application of ultraviolet rays at a temperature of above 120xc2x0 C.
More preferably, the developing process during the step of forming the second resist pattern is conducted at a negative slope of 89xc2x0 or less.
In another aspect of the present invention, a method of fabricating a gamma gate comprises the steps of depositing a first insulation layer on a GaAs substrate; depositing a first resist layer on the first insulation layer; forming a first resist pattern on the first insulation layer by exposing, developing and baking the first resist layer, sequentially; etching the first insulation layer using the first resist pattern as a mask and removing the first resist layer to form an insulation layer pattern; depositing a second resist layer on the insulation layer pattern and the first insulation layer; forming a second resist pattern by exposing, developing and baking the second resist layer, sequentially, so that a marginal portion of the second resist pattern overlaps the insulation layer pattern; etching the GaAs substrate using the first insulation layer and the second resist layer as a mask to form a recess on the GaAs substrate; depositing a metal layer on the resultant structure; removing the second resist pattern to form the gamma gate with a head and a footprint; and depositing a second insulation layer on the resultant structure so that the second insulation layer surrounds the gamma gate, wherein the footprint of the gamma gate is formed in the marginal portion of the second resist pattern overlapping the insulation layer pattern and the width of the overlapped portion defines the size of the footprint of the gamma gate, and wherein the head of the gamma gate is formed on the first insulation layer in a residual portion of the second resist pattern other than the overlapped portion.
Preferably, the baking process during the step of forming the first resist pattern is conducted with application of ultraviolet rays at a temperature of above 120xc2x0 C.
More preferably, the developing process during the step of forming the second resist pattern is conducted at a negative slope of 89xc2x0 or less.
Additionally, a structure of a gamma gate is characterized in that an insulation layer surrounds surrounding the gamma gate; the gamma gate has the lower part and the fore; and a portion of the insulation layer located on the lower part of the head of the gamma gate is different from a portion of the insulation layer surrounding the head of the gamma gate in thickness. | {
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The present invention relates to a technology for rescuing such a storage region in any one of a plurality of nonvolatile memories that encounters a fault occurring time-wise in a nonvolatile storage system that has these memories, for example, to such a technology that is effectively applicable to such a memory card as an Advanced Technology attachment (ATA) memory card mounted with a flash memory.
An electrically rewritable nonvolatile memory such as a flash memory stores information based on a threshold voltage, which varies with an amount of electrons or positive holes injected into the floating gate of the memory cells. The properties of such a threshold voltage of the memory cells will deteriorate time-wise as the number of times of rewriting the memory contents increases. Such a deterioration in the properties results in a write-in error being detected in verification. To solve this problem, there has conventionally been provided a rescue technology for replacing a storage region in which a write-in error occurred with another storage region.
For example, in an ATA memory card used as a file memory, the storage regions of each of nonvolatile memories are divided into such functional sections as a data block regions section, a data-block alternate regions section for rescue, etc. so that each of these functional sections is defined as an aggregate of data blocks given in units of one sector and a corresponding management region. Each of the data blocks is assigned an inherent physical address in each of the memories. If a write-in error occurs in any of these data block regions, a flag indicating the error is set to this region, to set the physical address of such a data block region in said data block alternate regions section that is to substitute for said faulty data block region. Write-in data related to the write-in error is written into a data block of that alternate address. Then, if access is made to the address of said faulty data block, this data block is recognized to be faulty based on the error flag set in its corresponding management region so that access may be made instead to such a data block in the data block alternate regions section that is specified by the alternate address.
The Inventor, however, recognized a problem that in a case where a faulty data block is to be replaced with another only within the corresponding one of a plurality of nonvolatile memories and there is a deviation in fault occurrence ratio among them, if so many write-in errors occur in any one of these memories that cannot be accommodated by the rescue capacity of the data block alternate data block regions section in this memory, the entire relevant memory card must be treated as being faulty.
Concerning this, there have been disclosed such a conventional technology of having a preliminary nonvolatile memory for a backup purpose that is disclosed in JP-A-3-25798 and such a method for processing data necessary to replace a faulty nonvolatile memory that is disclosed in JP-A-9-200636.
The conventional technologies, however, are based on a premise that a faulty nonvolatile memory is to be replaced or a redundant (spare) nonvolatile memory and so are yet to fully utilize the storage regions of each of nonvolatile memories without replacing a faulty one of them.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a nonvolatile storage system that can improve redressing efficiency for a write-in error occurring as time passes by without replacing a faulty one of nonvolatile memories or using a spare nonvolatile memory in the system.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a nonvolatile storage system that can avoid an overall failure thereof without replacing a faulty one of nonvolatile memories or using a spare nonvolatile memory in the system even if a faulty data block cannot be replaced within any one of these memories.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a nonvolatile storage system that can utilize the storage regions of each nonvolatile memory without waste when replacing a faulty data block.
The typical contents of the present invention in this application are outlined as follows.
(1) Inter-chip alternate: A nonvolatile storage system according to the present invention comprises a plurality of nonvolatile memories capable of read-out, erasure, and write-in operations and a control unit for controlling the operations of these nonvolatile memories in response to an external request. When having detected a write-in error on an operation-subject one of said plurality of nonvolatile memories, said control unit can set inter-chip alternate information about a fact that a storage region related to the write-in error has been replaced by a storage region in another one of said plurality of nonvolatile memories to the nonvolatile memory related to this error and also, when having received inter-chip alternate information from the current operation-subject nonvolatile memory, can switch the operation-subject memory from it to such another nonvolatile memory that is indicated by the chip alternate information. In the present specification, a write-in error refers to a state where when a write-in voltage is applied to a nonvolatile memory (programming) to then verify it, a predetermined threshold voltage cannot be obtained or a state where when the write-in subject is replaced already, confirmation of whether a alternate destination address can be obtained before start of said programming and programming verification finds that it is impossible.
It is thus possible, in inter-chip alternate, to redress a write-in error which occurred at one nonvolatile memory by using a storage region of another nonvolatile memory. This makes it possible, if a faulty data block cannot be replaced with another within one of a plurality of nonvolatile memories, to avoid an overall system error without replacing the faulty nonvolatile memory or using a preliminary nonvolatile memory.
If a write-in error occurred in a nonvolatile memory in which the number of the remaining storage regions capable of new placement has decreased to a predetermined number or less, preferably inter-chip alternate is allowed to that memory. It is thus possible to enable inter-chip alternate so as to eliminate waste of the data blocks as much as possible. That is, by starting inter-chip alternate before such a nonvolatile memory appears that is exhausted to such an extent that intra-chip alternate is no longer possible, the remaining regions capable of new alternate hardly have a large deviation among themselves, thus making it possible to minimize the number of processing cycles required for inter-chip alternate and intra-chip alternate. This is because, if there is a large deviation in the number of the regions capable of new alternate among nonvolatile memories, the number of such nonvolatile memories of these that can be adopted as a alternate destination is decreased, to increase the number of times of making retrieval retrials for looking for such a nonvolatile memory that can be adopted as an inter-chip alternate destination.
To enable inter-chip alternate so as to eliminate waste in the data blocks, inter-chip alternate can be allowed for a write-in error which occurred in a nonvolatile memory in which the number of the storage regions that can be adopted as a alternate destination has been decreased to a predetermined number of less.
A write-in error that occurred in such a nonvolatile memory that is capable of alternate can be accommodated by intra-chip alternate. For example, if a write-in error occurred in a nonvolatile memory which has the storage regions capable of alternate as many as a predetermined number or more, said control unit sets intra-chip alternate information indicating that a storage region related to the write-in error has been replaced with another storage region to such a nonvolatile memory that has the storage region related to this error and also makes it possible to obtain the intra-chip alternate information from an operation-subject nonvolatile memory to then change the operation subject from it to such a storage region that is indicated by this intra-chip alternate information.
It is thus possible to improve the rescue efficiency for write-in errors occurring time-wise without replacing a faulty nonvolatile memory or using a preliminary nonvolatile memory, thus utilizing the storage regions of each of the nonvolatile memories without waste in alternate of faulty data blocks.
Note here that of course a storage region used for said inter-chip or intra-chip alternate is different from a redundant storage region used for defect rescue in a device process.
As a candidate for a alternate destination nonvolatile memory used in inter-chip alternate, such a nonvolatile memory can be adopted that has the remaining storage regions that can be adopted as a alternate destination as many as a number larger than a predetermined number. If there is none of said candidates that can be adopted, another candidate can be adopted that has the storage regions that can be adopted as a alternate destination as many as the predetermined number or less. If a write-in error occurred in a storage region, preferably the operation of writing such data that is related to the write-in error into such a region that substitutes for this storage region related to the write-in error does not compete with an operation of writing other data, which can be made possible when the writing operation is best performed to the nonvolatile memory where this write-in error occurred.
(2) Interleaved writing: In a case where in the above-mentioned nonvolatile storage system said control unit can control interleaved writing for responding to a data write-in request from an external device to thereby sequentially write write-in data in units of a predetermined data quantity into a plurality of nonvolatile memories as shifting the operation timing, when having detected a write-in error during an interleaved writing operation, as another nonvolatile memory that substitutes for a storage region related to the write-in error, it excludes such a series of nonvolatile memories including a nonvolatile memory where said write-in error occurred that are made a subject for interleaved writing.
By doing so, the operation of writing data related to a write-in error into a alternate region can be prevented from competing with an interleaving operation of writing sub-divided other data. At least, such competition can be eliminated easily at a high probability.
From another detailed aspect on interleaved writing, when having detected a write-in error during the interleaved writing operation, as another nonvolatile memory that substitutes for a storage region related to the write-in error, said control unit may select the first candidate from among such nonvolatile memories that are each distant in interleaving order from the preceding and following ones by a predetermined number of two or more.
If said first candidate cannot be selected, said control unit may select such a second candidate that can be adopted as a alternate destination from among such nonvolatile memories of those outside a range in which said first candidate is selected that follow said first candidate in interleaving order.
If said second candidate cannot be selected, said control unit adopts as a third candidate for a alternate destination a nonvolatile where a write-in error occurred.
If said third candidate cannot be selected, said control unit selects such a fourth candidate that can be adopted as a alternate destination from among such nonvolatile memories of those outside the range in which said first candidate is selected that precede said first candidate in interleaving order.
(3) Parallel writing: When parallel writing is used in place of interleaved writing, said control unit can control parallel wiring for responding to a data write-in request from an external device to thereby write write-in data in units of predetermined data quantity to a plurality of nonvolatile memories concurrently, so that when having detected a write-in error during parallel writing, it selects the first candidate for another nonvolatile memory that substitutes for a storage region related to said write-in error, from a range excluding the parallel-writing subject nonvolatile memories including the nonvolatile memory where said write-in error occurred.
(4) The following will describe a nonvolatile memory related to the present invention from a further aspect. A nonvolatile storage system comprises a control unit and a plurality of nonvolatile memories. Said control unit receives data and address information from an external device to then control the storing of the data received from said external device into said plurality of nonvolatile memories, the reading out of the data thus stored in said nonvolatile memories, and the erasing of the data stored in said nonvolatile memories, while said nonvolatile memories each respond to an operation instruction from the control unit to thereby perform a write-in operation of storing data supplied from said control unit, a read-out operation of reading the stored data and supplying it to the control unit, and an erasure operation of erasing the stored data. The control unit then sub-divides the data received from the external device into data portions of a predetermined size and performs an interleaving operation of supplying the first nonvolatile memory with the first one of thus sub-divided data portions together with a write-in operation instruction and supplying the second nonvolatile memory with the second data portion together with a write-in operation instruction while data is being written to the first nonvolatile memory, thus sequentially supplying all of these sub-divided data portions to the plurality of nonvolatile memories. If a write-in error occurred while predetermined data is being written to any one of the plurality of nonvolatile memories, when having detected the write-in error, the control unit controls data storage in supplying said predetermined data together with a write-in operation instruction to the nonvolatile memory engaged in the write-in operation and also to other nonvolatile memories except those to which sub-divided data portions are to be written after the occurrence of the write-in error.
The nonvolatile memories each have a plurality of memory cells, a plurality of word lines, and a plurality of bit lines. Said plurality of memory cells are positioned at the respective intersections between the corresponding word lines and bit lines. The memory cells connected to the respective word lines are classified into, for example, a first group and a second group so that the memory cells of the first group may be used for storing the data supplied from the control unit and the memory cells of the second group may be used for storing predetermined information. The predetermined information contains such information that indicates whether a write-in error occurred when the predetermined data was being stored into any memory cell connected to the relevant word line during the write-in operation and such information that indicates a nonvolatile memory that stored the predetermined data when the write-in error occurred.
The predetermined size of the sub-divided data portions is, for example, such that they can be stored in any of the memory cells of the first group. The write-in, read-out, and erasure operations are performed for each of said word lines, for example.
The memory cells each store data therein based on a threshold voltage that corresponds, for example, to the data to be stored, while the write-in operation comprises a first operation of changing a threshold voltage for each memory cell to a threshold voltage that corresponds to data to be stored and a second operation of confirming whether the threshold voltage for each memory cell has been changed to the corresponding threshold voltage and repeats the first and second operations. In this operation, the write-in error is detected when it is detected that after the first and second operations are repeated a predetermined number of times, the threshold voltage of at least one memory cell has not been changed to the corresponding threshold voltage.
When the write-in error is detected in the write-in operation, the nonvolatile memory posts the occurrence of the write-in error to the control unit, which in turn gives a write-in operation instruction to the other nonvolatile memories after writing data to the relevant nonvolatile memory where the write-in error occurred by specifying a word line different from that involved in writing when the write-in error occurred.
If rescued by redundant means at the stage of a device process, said nonvolatile memory notifies said control unit of the occurrence of a write-in error after writing data through the redundant means by specifying a word line different from that involved in writing when said write-in error occurred.
The above-mentioned and other objects and the novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the description of the present specification and the accompanying drawings. | {
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Containers made of corrugated paperboard are widely used to ship goods from a point of manufacture or other location to a point of sale. When transporting finished products from the point of manufacture or other location to the point of sale, or to an intermediate storage facility, it is often desirable to enclose a quantity of products or smaller retail packages within a larger, more durable shipping container. Not only does this preserve the products in their desired, saleable condition, but it minimizes the number of individual items to be handled and generally provides more uniformly shaped items for stacking and handling. Typical shipping containers comprise rectangular boxes with four sidewalls and top and bottom flaps glued closed over the top and bottom of the box. While such containers have proven effective in protecting the finished products during transport and storage, they are generally inappropriate for retail display, and retailers typically remove the individual product items from the container and place them individually on store shelving.
Although removal of individual product items from the shipping container and placing them individually on store shelving is suitable in some cases, the practice of displaying goods in shipping containers has become more popular with the advent of large warehouse style stores and supermarkets where the containers are stacked on top of one another on the retail floor.
In attempting to adapt a conventional shipping container for display of the product items held therein, a retailer might use a cutting implement to cut away a section of the shipping container to form an opening for display of and access to the product items. However, the use of cutting implements to open cases can damage the products and can weaken the container to the point that it cannot be safely stacked with other containers.
In an effort to provide a container more suitable for displaying products in a retail setting, containers have been developed which are convertible to an open display configuration upon reaching the point of sale. Containers of this variety include those of a generally tray-like configuration with a removable cover. Although representing an improvement over conventional corrugated shipping containers, these containers still offer somewhat limited product access, particularly when such containers are in the midst of a stack of containers extending above and below.
Another type of display container has one or more removable sections or display panels typically defined by perforated tear lines. Such containers are generally formed from a one-piece blank suitably cut, scored, and perforated to enable subsequent folding of the blank into the final closed container. After receiving the packaged goods, the retailer removes the display panel from the container to provide access to the goods even when the container is stacked. However, a line or lines of perforations can weaken the box in its shipping configuration and reduce its protection performance, and/or it leaves too jagged an edge and reduces the visual appeal of the container when the display panel is removed at the point of sale.
Another important consideration with the design of a shipping container convertible to a display container is the compatibility of the container with existing automated manufacturing and packaging equipment. Containers are typically made on automated production lines. Any suitable container design should be compatible with such production equipment. Further, the packagers typically use automated packaging lines which assemble the container from a flat knocked down state and load the container with goods prior to the container being closed. Any design of a shipping container convertible to a display container should be compatible with automated packaging equipment.
A further important consideration is economy of manufacture. Regular slotted carton (“RSC”) and half slotted carton (“HSC”) boxes have been known in the art of shipping containers for many years. The RSC and HSC boxes are highly economical shipping containers due to the fact that there is very little manufacturing waste. Further, due to their rectangular shape they are well suited to shipping goods via cargo container, truck, train, or any other means of transport in which efficient use of space is a priority. As a result, RSC and HSC boxes are widely used for shipping and storing many different types of goods.
The RSC and HSC boxes are each formed from a single rectangular blank, typically of corrugated paperboard and have four rectangular sidewall panels. The RSC box has flaps on both the top and bottom edges of the sidewalls, and the HSC box has flaps only on the bottom edges of the sidewalls. The HSC box typically is used with a separate lid or cover, or is inserted into another box that forms a closure for the open top. In order to erect these boxes from a rectangular blank, four crush folds are made parallel to the depth of the box to define the four sidewall panels, and further crush folds are made parallel to the length and width of the box to define upper and lower flaps in the case of a RSC box, or to form lower flaps in the case of a HSC box. Either style of box is articulated by folding along the crush folds so that the sidewall panels are disposed at right angles to one another and the flap panels are folded inwardly to close the top and bottom of the box (RSC) or the bottom of the box (HSC), with the flaps associated with the shorter sides of the box being folded inwardly first, followed by the flaps associated with the longer sides. The flaps are then secured in closed position by any suitable means, such as tape, adhesive, staples, etc. The bottom side of either style box typically is closed first, the desired goods are then inserted into the box, and the top side is then closed. However, the box may instead be articulated around the goods themselves and the top and bottom closed thereafter.
One significant disadvantage of the RSC and HSC boxes, however, is the fact that such boxes are not well suited for use as display containers in a retail environment. This is due to the fact that the goods within opened RSC and HSC boxes are not visible, other than from the top, unless a portion of one or more sidewall panels is first separated from the box by means of cutting or tearing. Not only does this require additional effort on the part of the retailer, it also tends to result in an unattractive display container having rough, uneven edges, which can be unsightly in the retail environment.
As a result, goods shipped in an RSC or HSC box typically are removed from the box upon arrival at the vending location and placed on shelves or into other containers for display, with the box then simply being discarded. This results in both a significant expenditure of time on the part of the retailer in transferring the goods from the shipping boxes to the display environment, as well as added expense in the form of shelving or display bins for such goods.
A further disadvantage of the RSC and HSC boxes is they are not well-adapted for displaying high-impact graphics thereon. As a result, when such containers are used to store and display goods in a retail environment, for example in warehouse stores where shipping containers are often placed directly on the sales floor, there is little potential of providing high-impact sales copy or advertising on such containers.
Accordingly, there is need for a shipping container that can utilize a HSC box design with a cover that can accommodate high end graphics, that has a removable display panel that enables the container to be easily converted to a display container at the point of sale without requiring the use of cutting implements to form an access and display opening, that may be stacked with other containers without obscuring the display opening, that leaves a clean edge for enhanced visual appeal when the display panel is removed, that can be manufactured and filled using existing manufacturing and packaging equipment with minimal changes to the equipment, that is capable of receiving high end graphics, and that has a protective outer panel overlying the removable display panel during shipping to protect graphics and strengthen lines of weakness that permit easy removal of the display panel. | {
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Biochemical Aspects of Insect Venom Allergens
Insect sting allergy to bees and vespids is of common occurrence. The vespids include hornets, yellowjackets and wasps (Golden, et al., 1989, Am. Med. Assoc. 262:240). Susceptible people can be sensitized on exposure to minute amounts of venom proteins; as little as 2-10 .mu.g of protein is injected into the skin on a single sting by a vespid (Hoffman and Jacobson, 1984, Ann. Allergy. 52:276).
There are many species of hornets (genus Dolichovespula), yellowjackets (genus Vespula) and wasp (genus Polistes) in North America (Akre, et at., 1980, "Yellowjackets of America North of Mexico," Agriculture Handbook No. 552, U.S. Department of Agriculture). The vespids have similar venom compositions (King, et al., 1978, Biochemistry 17:5165; King, et al., 1983, Mol. Immunol. 20:297; King, et al., 1984, Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 230:1; King, et al., 1985, J. Allergy and Clin. Immunol. 75:621; King, 1987, J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 79:113; Hoffman, 1985, J. Allergy and Clin. Immunol. 75:611). Their venom each contains three major venom allergens, phospholipase (37 kD), hyaluronidase (43 kD) and antigen 5 (23 kD) of as yet unknown biologic function.
In addition to the insect venom allergens described above, the complete amino acid sequence of several major allergens from different grass (Perez, et at., 1990, J. Biol. Chem. 265:16210; Ansari, et at., 1989, Biochemistry 26:8665; Silvanovich, et al., 1991, J. Biol. Chem. 266:1204), tree pollen (Breiteneder, 1989, EMBO J. 8: 1935; Valenta, et at., 1991, Science, 253:557), weed pollen (Rafnar, et al., 1991, J. Biol. Chem. 266:1229; Griffith, et al., 1991, Int. Arch. Allergy Appl. Immunol. 96:296), mites (Chua, et at., 1988, J. Exp. Med. 167:175), cat dander (Griffith, et al., 1992, Gene. 113:263), and mold (Aruda, et al., 1990, J. Exp. Meal. 172:1529; Han, et al., 1991, J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 87:327) have been reported in the past few years. These major allergens are proteins of 10-40 kD and they have widely different biological functions. Nearly all allergens of known sequences have a varying extent of sequence similarity with other proteins in our environment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Technical Field
The present invention relates to a thermoelectric conversion material, a thermoelectric conversion element, a thermoelectric conversion module, a thermoelectric generator, a thermoelectric conversion system, and a method of manufacturing a thermoelectric conversion material.
Related Art
An improvement in thermoelectric conversion performance is required for a thermoelectric conversion material. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-26400 describes a thermoelectric conversion material that uses a rare-earth element and a transition metal material. | {
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The first generation of a skateboard is to mount wheels directly on a board so that skater may stand on top of the board and to skate on a flat and smooth surface. This design was attracted by skaters for a period of time. But later skaters were seeking for a skateboard which is capable of performing more figure skates, and therefore, a skateboard having three boards mounted on a pair of elongated rods were invented and manufactured. However, this skateboard has a larger size that requires larger space to store and also inconvenient in carrying. | {
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A walking cane is a device that provides stability and balance to a user when walking, standing, or sitting. Previous canes include features and accessories that conveniently provide additional functions to users, including the ability to reach and grasp distant objects.
Reaching and grasping objects on the ground, the floor, or high shelves is an important daily function for people. Unfortunately, due to injuries, surgeries, heights, disabilities, age, or other infirmities, a person may not have the strength, mobility, flexibility, stability, or balance needed to reach items to extend and grab items located on lower or higher surfaces.
Previous canes contain accessories intended to assist a person to grasp items out of his or her reach. These canes contain attached grabbers with a gripping mechanism, usually in the form of a claw, pincer, tab, or suction cup, to grab a desired item. A user must operate a separate mechanism to actuate the attached grabbers.
Additional, other previous canes are grabber hand tools roughly configured into the shape of a cane.
Problems arise with these previous canes. The addition of a grabber tool or designing grabber tools into a cane configuration both affect the strength, integrity, and usability of the devices as a walking cane for stability and balance.
The present invention avoids the need to separately carry a cane and a hand grabber tool. It also avoids elaborate accessories or configurations that affect the stability of the walking cane, while maintaining a strong grabbing mechanism. | {
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There are two generally known operator activated mechanisms for remotely controlling the operation of a latchable motor vehicle panel such as a trunk lid. On such mechanism, referred to herein as a release mechanism, permits remote release of the latch for moving the panel to a fully open position. The other mechanism, referred to herein as a pulldown mechanism, permits remote closing and sealing of the panel. The closing function involves bringing the panel to a partially closed position to mechanically couple a panel mounted latch bolt with a vertically extended striker, while the sealing function involves bringing the panel to a fully closed position by vertical retraction of the striker. The pulldown mechanism may be implemented with a reversible motor and the release mechanism may be implemented with either a solenoid or a motor.
The pulldown mechanism referred to herein may be of the type set forth in the co-pending patent application Ser. No. 143,780, filed Jan. 14, 1988, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In that mechanism, a pulldown sequence is initiated by operator activation of a passenger compartment or trunk mounted panel closing switch. Successful closure of the panel is indicated when the motor current exceeds a first threshold, whereafter the motor is reversed to retract the striker and seal the panel. Completion of the sealing portion of the pulldown sequence is indicated when the motor current exceeds a second threshold, whereupon the motor is deenergized, terminating the sequence.
The release mechanism referred to herein may be of the type installed in vehicles manufactured by General Motors Corporation, and described, for example, in the Service Manual for the 1989 Cadillac Seville. In that mechanism, operator activation of a passenger compartment mounted panel opening switch energizes a solenoid coil of the mechanism to release the latch bolt, freeing a spring or other device to open the panel. | {
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There are a number of utilities commonly provided to domestic and commercial sites. Such utilities can include gas, electricity and water. Metering can be used at each site in order to determine the amount of the utility being consumer by the site. While individual electricity and gas meters are reasonably common for many sites, individual water meters are not as common. The leakage or escape of gas from the supply system or appliances within a site is detectable owing to the smell. Electricity is not a fluid and therefore does not in principle leak or escape.
Much water leakage is not easy to discover or detect as much of the water supply system is buried underground. Some leakage or escape of water is obviously detectable including leaks where the effect of the leak is visible above ground and/or where it affects a customer's supply. These leaks are commonly referred to as ‘Reported’ leaks. Other hidden leaks, commonly referred to as ‘Unreported’ leaks can be detected using acoustic techniques. However, ‘Reported’ and ‘Unreported’ ‘known’ leaks from water supply systems may account for possibly less than half of the water lost from a water supply system. The remainder, commonly referred to as ‘Background’ leakage is not obvious and is not detectable using currently available techniques.
Some of the leakage may simply be leaks from the water supply system which do not give rise to any visible effect or which are too small to be reliably detected by acoustic techniques. Some flow of water that the water utility considers to be leakage using current analytical and measurement techniques, may in fact be due to flows into storage cisterns and tanks which is subsequently used or consumed. Even if a leak could in principle be discovered using an acoustic technique, this may not be practicable or economic in reality owing to the size of the water supply system and the need to carry out an exhaustive search. Also, fresh leaks may occur at any time.
Hence, it would be beneficial to be able more easily to identify likely locations where water is being lost or wasted by methods other than acoustics. | {
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(i) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of, and system for, storing heat. Primarily, it is directed to the storage of heat produced by off-peak electrical power. It is adaptable, however to store heat produced by other means.
(ii) Description of the Prior Art
Various methods and systems have been proposed for the storage of heat and consequently heat storage of itself is not new. It has been suggested that gravel, rocks, concrete, soapstone, and even blocks of steel and the like be heated to a high temperature and that the heat content of the material be thereafter used while the temperature of the heat absorbing means goes down. Such devices of the prior art, however, are limited in their applicability by the fact that the only heat stored is sensible heat, which is a function of the specific heat of the material used. Since the specific heat of available materials is low, usually in the neighbourhood of 0.2 B.T.U. per pound, the heat storage capacity of such material between, for example 200.degree. and 500.degree. F., is only 60 B.T.U. per pound. This renders such heat storing means impractical for space heating purposes because of the large bulk necessary to provide storage for large amounts of heat and because of the need to minimize heat loss from the heat storage means by insulation.
More practical heat storage systems have been devised in which heat of solution or heat of fusion, or a combination of both, are utilized. In such system, a crystalline material having a large amount of water of crystallization may be used, the material being so applied and selected that, upon being heated, the solid material melts or dissolves in its own water of crystallization, with the resulting storage of relatively large quantities of heat in the form of latent heat of fusion and solution. The heat so stored can be recovered by permitting the material to recrystallize.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,450,983 issued Oct. 12, 1948 to C. M. Osterheld provided an off-peak heat storage system using electric heaters which resided in the use of an automatic thermostatic control system to energize the electric heater in conjunction with an additional input as to whether it was night or day. An electric heater was provided for heating a heat storage mass. A light-sensitive cell was provided which was subject to daylight and to darkness. A plurality of thermostats were provided in a close heat-receiving relation to the heat storage mass and were adapted to move to closed position at different temperature values of the heat storage. A plurality of time delay relays were provided which were electrically connected in series electric circuit with certain of the thermostats, each relay being a normally open thermally-actuable member and a heating coil therefor. A switch which was controlled by the light-sensitive cell was provided for energizing the heating cells of time-delay relays after fall of darkness to cause closure of the thermally-actuable member after a predetermined period of time, and energizaion of such heater.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,677,243 issued May 4, 1954 to M. Telkes purported to provide an apparatus for storing heat, utilizing the principle of the heat of fusion, and a process for releasing the heat thus stored. According to that patentee, a limited portion of the heat storage composition was either maintained at, or was occasionally subjected to, a temperature substantially lower than the melting point of the composition, and specifically below the temperature of metastable supersaturation of the composition. By this means seeding nuclei were maintained or formed in a limited portion of the mass of heat storage material, and when the same had been undercooled below its melting point in an effort to extract heat therefrom, crystal formation based upon such nuclei spread rapidly throughout the mass, thus allegedly releasing large quantities of latent heat.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,856,506 issued Oct. 14, 1958 to M. Telkes purported to provide a method of storing and releasing heat utilizing a heat storage material and a method of heating a substance which included transferring stored heat thereto from such a material. The patentee provided a system, including apparatus and method, for storing heat at a relatively high temperature by utilizing as the heat storage medium, a crystalline solid which is dimorphic, that is to say, which changes from one crystalline form to another on the application of heat, which has a transition temperature between 300.degree. and 550.degree. F., and which has a relatively high heat of transition. The material suggested was anhydrous sodium sulfate, either by itself or modified by the addition of other salts, which could be converted by heating from the rhombic crystal form to a hexagonal form.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,917 issued May 14, 1968 to R. F. Rice provided a heat storing system including a unit in which heat may be stored at widely-varying temperatures, a heat exchanger, a chamber for heating fluid or other heater, a conduit leading from the storage unit to the exchanger through which fluid may be circulated to transfer heat from the unit to the exchanger, a second conduit leading from the exchanger to the heater for transferring heat from the exchanger to the heat, regulating means in the first conduit for varying the rate of heat transfer from the unit to the exchanger, and thermostatic means in the second conduit for controlling the regulating means. The regulating means suggested was a circulator and flow modifier. The fluid may be either gas or liquid, the circulator may comprise a blower, pump or fan, and the flow modifier may comprise a by-pass or throttle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,927 issued Nov. 2, 1976 to G. O. Erb provided a storage heater for heating a gaseous heat extraction medium which is formed of a container of heat resistant material, preferably metal. At least one guide duct, in the form of a tube for carrying the gaseous heat extraction medium, extended through the container which held a heat storage medium in the form of a pourable bulk of particulate solid material. The thermal storage medium comprised a bulk in which the product of specific heat of the solid material and the bulk density of the mass was a specified amount.
In spite of these patents, there is still a need for a system having a high heat storage capacity, one in which there is substantially no heat loss from the system when heating is not required, one which does not require added exchangers in direct connection to the heat storage unit, and one which requires a fairly low charging temperature.
One system for the utilization of solar energy for cooling is described in an article by D. I. Tchernev entitled "Solar Energy Application of Natural Zeolites" U.S. N.T.I.S. pp Rep. 1977 pp 266055, GRI 1977 77(14)156. The author describes a system using natural chabozite on clinoptilolite as the solid absorber and water vapour as the working fluid in a zeolite system to provide domestic hot water and space heating. One such system combines a condensor and an evaporator into a single unit that is cooled by an external water loop. During the day, water vapour desorbed from the solar-heated zeolite is condensed in this unit and the liquid water is stored in the condenser in a condensate storage tank until evening. The heat of condenstion may be used for providing domestic hot water and for space heating. Whenever there is a demand for heat, hot water can be circulated through a coil located in air ducts of a corced air system, and the heated air is distributed throughout the building. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a power supplying device, in particular, to a backup power supplying device having programmable current-balancing control.
2. Description of Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1A, FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram illustrating a conventional backup power supplying device. The backup power supplying device 1 includes more than two power modules. Taking FIG. 1A as an example of two power modules, a first power muddle 11 and a second power module 12 jointly share the output power to a load, so that when any one of the power modules is interrupted abnormally, the other power module which can operate normally may keep providing power to the load to meet the demand for uninterruptible power supply.
The backup power supplying device described as above could be in a current-balancing control state. The demand for the input power of the power supply terminal when the two power modules supply power concurrently is higher than that when only one power module is at work. Therefore, there two applications are derived. In the first application, one power module (e.g., the second power module 12) stays in a sleep mode in order to reduce power consumption. When another power module (e.g., the first power module 11) is broken, the power module staying in the sleep mode (e.g., the second power module 12) can be started to output power to the load. In the second application, the input terminal of one power module (e.g., the second power module 12) is changed to connect to a battery, in order to avoid the load failing to continue operating when the mains AC is interrupted. It is worth mentioning that when an abnormality occurs on the first power module 11, the first power module 11 can transmit an error signal PR to the second power module 12 so that the second power module 12 can be switched to a power supply mode accordingly. The two above-mentioned applications both are making the power source enter the sleep mode when the power module is in an off state. When an abnormality occurs on the power module which supplies power originally or the input power of the power module is interrupted, a problem of interruption instantaneously and restart on the output voltage will occur. At this time, it will cause the power interruption and restart on the system (or load), causing the system administrator must reset the system settings, resulting in the system operating cost increases. The following description of FIG. 1B is a clear example.
Referring to both FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, FIG. 1B is an output voltage waveform diagram of a backup power supplying device 1 shown in FIG. 1A when an output voltage interruption occurs. The input voltage of the backup power supplying device 1 can be mains (AC), DC, or any type of input voltage. The present disclosure is not limited to the type of the input voltage and the voltage value. When an interruption occurs on a first input voltage of the first power module 11 and the voltage level is reduced to zero volts as shown in FIG. 1B, a first output voltage of the first power module 11 then drops to zero volts. The second power module 12 can receive the error signal PR from the first power module 11 to generate a second output voltage to supply power. It is worth mentioning that the second input voltage of the second power module 12 is always maintained without interruption. There will be a time for system interruption and restart on the voltage change, which is obtained from the total output terminal of the first power module 11 and the second power module 12 connected in parallel. | {
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The present invention relates generally to embedding content into digital images and, more particularly, to dynamic image content overlaying.
With the rise in popularity of digital video recording devices (DVRs), subscription-based television programming, and different media viewing options, sponsors (advertisers) are looking for alternatives to conventional television advertising blocks. One option for sponsors is embedded advertising, wherein a product or logo associated with the sponsor is used in the making of a video (e.g., television show). There have been some attempts to make embedded advertising more versatile by digitally embedding advertising content into a video during post-production. However, problems exist with respect to inserting customized advertising content on three dimensional advertising objects or display objects in motion within a video. Digital billboards and projected advertising are other options utilized by advertisers; however, these methods do not address the idea of allowing dynamic and customized advertising on wearable clothing or objects in motion.
In the world of sports, athletes often exhibit branding pertaining to their sponsors. This is especially evident in automobile racing, bicycle motocross (BMX) racing, professional skiing events, golf and tennis. This branding is typically affixed to the bikes, racecars, uniforms, hats, gloves, shoes, or other articles where a spectator's attention, and especially a video camera, may be trained. Excepting broadly recognized brands, such branding often has very narrow recognition and impact, especially widely in broadcast events. Also, the real estate for displaying such branding is quite limited. Some venues use computerized display billboards to address the real estate issue, but this “one message for all” still limits the issue of resonance with a particular audience. Moreover, it many cases it may be undesirable to constrain advertising to a physical billboard. | {
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The present invention generally relates to a detecting apparatus for detecting presence or absence of an item to be transported, and more particularly, to a detecting arrangement for detecting, for example, a copy paper wound around a photosensitive member in an electrophotographic copying apparatus. The detecting arrangement is adapted to optically effect the detection through employment of a sensor including light emitting and light receiving elements for detecting the item to be transported without contacting said item.
Generally, as a means for detecting presence or absence of items to be transported, there has conventionally been employed for a wide application, an arrangement which utilizes microswitches and the like. In such an arrangement, an actuating arm for controlling on or off of electric contacts in normally disposed on a transport passage of the item to be transported so as to detect the item when the actuating arm is moved based on the movement of said item. If the item to be transported is of a heavy item, the transportation thereof is seldom obstructed by the actuator arm disposed in the transport passage, and thus, an accurate detection may be expected.
However, if the item to be transported is of a very light weight item, for example, a piece of paper in the form of a sheet, there have been cases where the feeding thereof is obstructed by the actuating arm provided on the transport passage, thus resulting in paper jamming or the like. In the case where the paper sheet is rather thin, and is not sufficiently resilient, there is a stronger tendency for the jamming to take place. Accordingly, countermeasures have been taken, for example, by changing the shape of the actuating arm in various ways so as not to obstruct transportation of paper sheets by the actuating arm.
Meanwhile, there has been available a detecting arrangement which detects an item to be transported without any contact therewith. For the detecting arrangement of this type, an optical detecting means has been proposed for actual application, in which a light emitting element and a light receiving element are disposed, for example, with respect to a transport passage as a border line, so that light from the light emitting element is received by the light receiving element. There is also proposed an arrangement in which light emitting and light receiving elements are provided at the same face side for receiving light reflected from the item to be transported. In other words, detection of the item to be transported is effected through utilization of the fact that light is not received by the light receiving element when the light from the light emitting element is intercepted by said item to be transported. By the above arrangement, paper jamming and the like related to the detection may be advantageously prevented without any obstruction by the transportation of the item itself or regardless of the fact that the item to be transported is heavy or light in weight.
In the above case, a circuit arrangement, for example, as shown in FIG. 1 has conventionally been employed in general as a circuit for producing signals especially in the case of detecting presence or absence of paper sheets in a copying apparatus or the like.
In the circuit of FIG. 1, light from a light emitting element LED1 is arranged to be received by a light receiving element PT1 disposed through a transport passage. The light emitting element LED1 has its one end connected to a power source +Vcc through a resistor R1, and the other end thereof connected to a ground. Meanwhile, the light receiving element PT1 has the collector connected to the power source +Vcc, and the emitter to the ground through a resistor R2. While light is received by the light receiving element PT1, said element PT1 is conducted, and a voltage Vo at a point A of the emitter terminal becomes generally close to the power source voltage +Vcc, with the voltage Vo being further supplied to a (-) terminal of a comparator IC1 through a resistor R3. To a (+) terminal of the comparator IC1, there is applied a fixed voltage Vth ##EQU1## which serves as a reference voltage at a point B where the power source voltage +Vcc is divided by resistors R4 and R5. Accordingly, in the absence of any paper sheet between the light emitting element LED1 and the light receiving element PT1, the fixed voltage Vth becomes lower than the voltage at the point A, and therefore, the output of the comparator IC1 assumes "Low" state. Thus, when a paper sheet is transported between the light emitting element LED1 and the light receiving element PT1, said element PT1 is turned off, with the voltage Vo at the point A generally reaching the ground potential, and the output of the comparator IC1 is inverted from "Low" state to "High" state. Accordingly, presence or absence of the paper sheet is detected by the state of output of the comparator IC1, and the above signal is, for example, fed to a control section (not shown).
However, in the conventional circuit of FIG. 1 as described so far, when a comparison between the reference voltage Vth and the light detecting signal based on the light receiving element PT1 is to be effected, there have been cases where malfunctions take place due to increase of dark current in the light receiving element PT1 by heat, lowering of light emitting and light receiving amounts by the adhesion of paper scraps, dust and dirt, etc. onto the corresponding elements, and reduction of S/N ratio owing to deterioration with age and the like.
More specifically, for example, of the dark current for the light receiving element PT1 is increased by heat, even when light is intercepted by a paper sheet disposed between the both elements LED1 and PT1, the voltage Vo at the point A is raised by the dark current so as to be higher than the fixed voltage Vth, and the output of the comparator IC1 remains "Low" without being inverted to "High", thus resulting in an erroneous detection. Meanwhile, by the lowering of the light emitting and light receiving amounts due to adhesion of paper scraps, dust and dirt, etc. onto the light emitting element LED1 and light receiving element PT1 or adhesion of a developing material (particularly, toner) onto said elements in the case of an electrophotographic copying apparatus and the like, when the sensor output voltage Vo at the point A is reduced to be lower than the fixed voltage Vth, the output of the comparator IC1 becomes "High" to produce a signal indicating presence of a paper sheet, even if no paper sheet is transported, thus also resulting in an erroneous detection.
Moreover, in the known circuit of FIG. 1, it has been required to effect a fine sensitivity adjustment, since the detection for a presence or absence of the paper sheet is effected by setting the fixed reference voltage Vth. More specifically, owing to the fact that the characteristics of the light emitting element LED1 and the light receiving element PT1 tend to be largely scattered or deviated, variable resistors are employed for the resistors R1 to R5 in FIG. 1 so as to finely adjust the scattering in the characteristics of said light emitting and light receiving elements for effecting a proper detection.
Although the conventional circuit of FIG. 1 has been mainly described with reference to the arrangement in which the light emitting and light receiving elements are separately disposed via the transport passage to effect the detection through the item to be transported, the arrangement is not limited to the above, but the same circuit construction may be applied to the system in which the light emitting and light receiving elements are provided at the same face side for receiving the light reflected from the item to be transported.
The detection of paper sheets, etc. to be transported has been effected in the manner as described so far, but the paper sheet detection is not limited to be effected at the transport passage alone, but may also be effected, for example, with respect to a paper sheet undesirably wound onto a photosensitive member, i.e. a photoreceptor in the form of, for example, a drum or belt, etc. More specifically, in an electrophotographic copying apparatus and the like, a paper sheet is caused to closely adhere onto the photosensitive surface, for example, of a photoreceptor drum for transfer of a toner image formed on said photosensitive surface, onto the paper sheet. Therefore, after completion of the transfer, the paper sheet is separated from the photoreceptor drum so as to be further fed to a fixing section at a subsequent stage, but there are cases where the paper sheet undesirably remains closely adhering to the photosensitive surface of the photoreceptor drum without being separated therefrom, and is thus transported up to the portion of a cleaning device. If the paper sheet should be transported to the cleaning device as described above, the cleaning device itself or the photosensitive surface of the photoreceptor drum may be damaged in some cases, and therefore, it is necessary to detect the paper sheet wound onto the photoreceptor drum particularly before it reaches the cleaning device so as to stop the feeding of the photoreceptor drum. For the detecting means as referred to above, the mechanical switch detecting arrangement by the microswitches and the optical detecting means including the non-contacting light emitting and light receiving elements as described earlier are disposed to confront the photoreceptor drum.
In the mechanical detecting switch arrangement, either the actuating arm of the switch is directly detected by the photoreceptor drum or the paper sheet closely adhering to the photoreceptor drum is separated by a projecting item such as a sharp claw so as to move the actuating arm of the switch by the separated paper sheet. Therefore, if the photoreceptor drum has a soft surface of OPC (Organic Photoconductor) or PET (Polyethylene-terephthalate), there is a great possibility that the surface is undesirably damaged by the actuating arm or projecting item referred to above. Moreover, there has also been such an inconvenience that the copied images are soiled by the developing material particularly toner, etc. adhering to the actuating arm, and further, adhering to the photosensitive surface from the soiled actuating arm.
Concerning the above, when the sensor as described earlier with reference to FIG. 1 is employed, the drawbacks referred to above may be eliminated. However, the sensor arrangement also has the disadvantage that erroneous detection may result due to insufficient light emitting and light receiving amounts, when the light emitting and light receiving elements are soiled by the developing material, etc. Moreover, due to the disposition around the photosensitive member, there is a tendency that the light receiving element PT1 is particularly heated, with a consequent increase of the dark current, thus giving rise to frequent erroneous detections. For the prevention of such an inconvenience, it is necessary to increase S/N ratio of the sensor output for improvement, but there is a limitation to the increase of S/N ratio.
Furthermore, when the photosensitive member is in an endless configuration, the difference in the output signals between the photosensitive member and paper sheet may be detected, but if the photosensitive member has end portions, grippers, etc. provided at the forward end portions of the photosensitive member to hold said member on a drum or the like are output in the form of the same detection signal as for the paper sheet, thereby also giving rise to a faulty detection. | {
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The present invention relates to the optical projection upon relatively large viewing screens of the image on the face of a television receiver CRT. More specifically, the invention relates to novel apparatus for supporting and positioning a television set and associated elements for projecting the TV images for display in widescreen format.
Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in television picture display systems intended basically for home use wherein the image is presented on a viewing screen having a diagonal measurement of, say, 40 to 80 inches. Although in the earliest days of television images were projected from the face of a small, bright picture tube through an appropriate optical system to a remote screen, as typefied, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,093,288 and 2,172,775, the early trend in the industry was toward development of picture tubes large enough to be acceptable for direct viewing rather than improvements in projection systems. However, it appears that there is now consumer demand for systems wherein the image on the face of a now standard size (e.g., 13 to 19 inch diagonal) picture tube may be projected to a much larger, remote viewing screen.
Among the various types of systems previously proposed for such purpose are those wherein the image is projected directly through a lens to a remote, rear-projection or backlight screen, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,814,509; in other systems the image is reflected from mirrors and projected upon a screen mounted in the same cabinet or console with the picture tube, such as the units of U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,943,282, 3,944,734 and 4,058,837; in a third type the image is projected through a lens directly to the viewing surface of a remote, reflective screen, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,800,085; there are also combinations of such systems, as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,021,105. Each of the better known commercial forms of these systems require that the picture tube, which may be part of a conventional television set, be more or less permanently mounted upon or attached to the projection apparatus, or vice versa. In systems which are expressly directed to providing either projection of the CRT image on a large format screen or direct viewing thereof, typefied by aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,800,085 and various commercial forms of such apparatus, an optical system including a suitable projection lens and a means defining a protected light path between the CRT face and lens is physically attached to the TV set for projection and detached therefrom for direct view. This sometimes requires physical alteration of the TV cabinet and, in any case, requires manual manipulation of screws, straps or other such retaining means each time the optical system is attached to and detached from the TV set.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide apparatus suitable for projecting a large scale image of the picture tube face of a conventional TV set wherein the set may merely be placed upon a base support for such projection and lifted off the base for direct viewing, without physical attachment of the TV set and projection apparatus.
A further object is to provide a simple and inexpensive, yet highly reliable and durable means providing both a protected light path between the face of a TV picture tube and a projection lens, and a support for the lens allowing focusing movement thereof without physical attachment to the support.
Another object is to provide apparatus for projecting an image from the picture tube of a conventional TV set to a remote, large scale viewing screen which is easily adjustable to accommodate various size sets, to selectively change the vertical angle of the projection axis, and to effect focusing movement of the lens system.
A still further object is to provide a structure which may conveniently be formed from a single sheet of vacuum-formed plastic and serves both as an enclosed light path in an optical projection system and as a support for a lens barrel, allowing manual focusing movement of the lens system without physical attachment to the support.
In a more general sense, the object of the invention is to provide novel and improved apparatus for projecting a large scale image of a conventional TV picture which is both low in cost and superior in performance.
Other objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter. | {
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1. Field
The invention relates to a joint prosthesis with a head cap articulated in the manner of a ball joint via a collar piece on a base piece for anchoring in the bone.
2. Background Information
From EP-A-0 663 193 a hip joint socket is known which is held by a holding ring in a supporting shell on an anchoring plate fixed on the bone. In order to prevent any rotation of the hip joint socket in the supporting shell, penetration elements are provided in the supporting shell. If the hip joint socket is now pressed into the supporting shell by a setting instrument with the application of force, the penetration elements penetrate the relatively soft plastic material of the hip joint socket. The holding ring is then brought into the correct position to hold the hip joint socket in the supporting shell.
From WO 99/34756 a shoulder prosthesis is known wherein a collar piece is articulated in a hemispherical recess in the shaft piece, the collar piece being pivotable therein in the manner of a ball joint. The collar piece has a hemispherical articulation surface and a conical surface which is eccentric in relation to an axis through the ball center of said articulation surface, said conical surface being intended for the fitting of a joint cap. The collar piece has a bore which is open from the cap side and which has a hemispherical base. A screw with a spherical head introduced into the bore and adapted to be screwed into the shaft piece through an opening in the base of the bore, co-operates with the base. The spherical surfaces of the hemispherical recess in the shaft piece, of the articulation surface on the shaft piece, of the base of the bore and of the screwhead must have the same center point. In addition, each pair of co-operating hollow and solid spherical surfaces must be made very accurately and have the same radius. Minimal deviations from the ideal measurements have the effect that the collar piece cannot be connected sufficiently firmly to the shaft piece in order to reliably prevent unintentional pivoting of the collar piece relatively to the shaft piece during the use of the joint.
From EP-A-0 712 617 a humeral head prosthesis is known wherein an articulation ball connected to a head cap via a shank is articulated on a shaft piece in a cavity with a hollow spherical base. To fix the articulation ball in the cavity, one or more grub screws are provided which can be screwed through the shaft piece against the articulation ball. In one exemplified embodiment, the articulation ball, which is of cut-open C-shape, is pressed together by the grub screw in order to clamp therein the shank which fits in a central bore in the articulation ball. In another exemplified embodiment, a grub screw is provided which can be screwed along the shank axis through the articulation ball and against the cavity base. With this screw the articulation ball is pressed against the opening of the cavity, which opening in this exemplified embodiment has a smaller radius than the spherical radius of the cavity and the articulation ball. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to methods and systems of creating customized ringtones of the type used with mobile phones to alert a recipient of incoming calls.
2. Background Art
Mobile phones have become a platform for personal expression—with colorful covers and individual ring-tones, they've become a fashion statement as well. As a result, a new market has emerged to fill the need for individualized ring-tones. For a few dollars, phone owners can “download” ring-tones of favorite songs from a variety of providers. This has created a large, growing market to supply these ringtones.
With the emergence of handsets that can play “polyphonic” ringtones or, better yet, “realistic” ringtones, there is an untapped market opportunity for the complete customization of ringtones. While customers can order their favorite music as a ringtone, even a technically savvy person would have a difficult time doing any of the following: Creating polyphonic ringtones of specific phrases of music Creating ringtones of a less-widely known piece of music Modifying the sound characteristics of a phrase of music (e.g., changing the echo, reverb, speed, octave, creating robotic effects, filtering out the voice, reproducing only the percussion, etc.) Recording their own ringtone | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention is generally related to the area of data storage devices. Particularly, the present invention is related to techniques for building up a flash-based solid state disk (SSD) with individual flash memory cards.
2. The Background of Related Art
A traditional hard disk device, sometimes also referred to as Hard Disk Drive (HDDs) has been around for many years. It records data by magnetizing a magnetic material in a pattern that represents the data. Data is read out by detecting the magnetization of the material. A typical HDD design includes a spindle which holds one or more flat circular disks called platters, onto which the data is recorded. The platters are made from a non-magnetic material, usually glass or aluminum, and are coated with a thin layer of magnetic material. Despite these fine mechanical moving parts, the hard disks are almost every where that requires a large storage capacity and read/write speed.
Flash memory is non-volatile, which means that it does not need power to maintain the information stored in the flash memory chip. In addition, flash memory offers fast read access times and better kinetic shock resistance than the hard disks. However, the high price of the flash memory in the past has prevented it from making significant inroads into large storage devices.
With the prices of flash memory continuing to decline dramatically over the recent years while the capacities continue to increase, flash-based data storage device, also referred to as Solid-state drive (or SSD) has gained tremendous attention recently, due to the fact that they will provide relatively high storage capacities, as well as a very high degree of reliability and shock-resistance, especially for mobile or portable applications.
The capacity of the flash memory increases almost every month with the new technologies in place. A flash SSD designed upon the current available flash memories would soon become obsolete when flash memories with much higher capacity become available. For example, the current popular flash memories come in capacity of 1 GByte and 2 Gbyte. A typical SSD would employ 4 or 8 of these memories, resulting in 4 Gbytes to 16 Gbyte in storage capacity. When the flash memories are increased to the capacity of 16 GByte or 32 Gbyte, an SSD could be easily built with a capacity of 16 Gbytes to 256 Gbytes, without much difficulty.
In the past, computer users have kept changing their hard disks for the sake of storage capacity. With more and more media files captured, the users soon notice that their current hard disks are nearly full and start to look for hard disks with larger capacity. Because of the superior features in flash SSD, computer users may already start to adopt the flash SSD despite relatively small capacity of current flash SSD. When the flash memories with large capacity come to reality, flash SSD of large capacity will become available. Solutions of not changing a disk but still increasing the storage capacity will be certainly welcome Likewise, techniques of minimizing the costs of building up flash SSD are very much needed. | {
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This invention relates to a device for use in removal of foreign objects from a tract of the human body such as the gastrointestinal tract.
It is often the case that foreign objects will enter the human body through regions such as the gastrointestinal tract, for example, by swallowing. Typically, when it is desired to remove a foreign object through the tract of the human body, often damage is caused by removal of the object. Up to now no device has been designed for use, for example, with an endoscope or other like device for removing such objects.
One prior art device which at first glance appears similar in structure, but fails to provide the necessary function is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,190. This patent discloses a heart stimulation eletrode with a conical positioning parachute. The structure of the parachute responds to the blood flowing in a vein to draw the electrode into the heart. When the electrode is withdrawn from the heart the parachute inverts allowing for withdrawal of the electrode without damage to the vein tissue. However, this patent fails to disclose a device for permitting withdrawal of a foreign body from the human cavity and instead, the functioning of the parachute is merely for the purpose of preventing damage caused by the parachute itself. There is no means provided for covering the electrode upon withdrawal through the vein.
Also related is the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 724,913 which relates to a syringe nozzle suitable for irrigating, for example, the rectum. The syringe nozzle includes a bell-shaped member secured to the tip of the syringe with the bell-shaped member sealing against the which the syringe is being employed. This device merely provides a sealing function and the problems of removing a foreign object, with a device which inverts to provide a protective function, from the human cavity through a passage thereof is not addressed. | {
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Cloud computing refers to a practice in which a data owner uses remote storage and/or computing resources (e.g., data as a service (DaaS), storage as a service (STaaS)) to store, manage, and process data instead of local storage and/or computing resources. Outsourcing the storage, management, and/or processing of data in this manner may provide a convenient and cost effective solution for limited local storage and/or computing resources. But by storing data to a remote database, a data owner is also relinquishing control over the data to an untrusted cloud service provider and risking exposure of sensitive data to possible misuse. For instance, outsourced data is typically stored in a multi-tenant remote database and may thus comingle with data belonging to other data owners.
To prevent unauthorized access to data stored at the remote database, a data owner may choose to encrypt outsourced data beforehand. However, encrypting data can hinder legitimate attempts to operate on the data because encryption generally obliterates the order that is present in the data. Thus, common database operations that rely on order comparisons (e.g., range queries, sorting, ranking, and/or the like) cannot be performed on the ciphertext of the data. Accordingly, a data owner may be required to decrypt the data before the data owner is able to perform any order-based operation on the data. | {
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Embodiments described and claimed herein relate to monitoring to detect clogging in a gas filter, which is utilized in a gas conduit attached to a gas blower, the latter having a motor for producing a first gas flow. Example applications include filter monitoring for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Such systems are used for a variety of functions, from simple ventilation to heating, cooling, and humidity control.
Generally, the purpose of a HVAC system is to move air for temperature and environmental comfort within a house, building, or factory (collectively referred to herein as building). The same purpose applies to automobiles and other structures in which healthy, comfortable air/gas quality is necessary or desired. In a HVAC system, a blower, having a motor for producing a first gas flow, moves air in the gaseous phase through one or more gas conduits (ducts) to different locations within a building before it exits the duct through a vent. After entering a duct through a HVAC system's air intake, air flows in response to a blower. Typical blowers have a motor that rotates a fan having a plurality of blades, in order to pull air through a duct in a direction that can be thought of as moving from upstream to downstream.
Many HVAC systems use filters to remove dust, dirt, contaminants, and other undesired particles that adversely affect air quality so they are not delivered past a certain location within the duct, and do not exit through a vent. Filters limit the progress of undesired particles through a duct, for example by physical restriction in which the small size of openings in a filter keeps particles from progressing through and past it, or by electrostatic attraction that hold particles to a filter.
As a filter collects undesired particles, it becomes discolored and dirty. Although a dirty filter does not substantially affect flow of air through a duct, over time, the accumulation of undesired particles produces clogging in a filter, which substantially decreases air flow in the building, and causes dust and dirt to accumulate inside the duct system and on the blower fan blades, all of which potentially reduces the quality of air in a building and adversely affects the performance of the HVAC system. Consequently, filters in systems such as HVAC systems, as well as automobiles, must be changed periodically.
Visual inspection is one way to determine when a filter should be changed, but it is time- and labor-intensive. Therefore, it is desirable in many situations to automatically sense whether a filter should be changed. This is often done by evaluating the condition of a filter as a function of measurable conditions that are related to air flowing through a duct. For example, one such air treatment system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,178,410, titled Clogging Detector for Air Filter, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. This patent discloses a filter clog detector, in which a first temperature sensor, which is coupled to a heater, and a second temperature sensor, which is unheated, are positioned in a duct. The heated sensor is kept at a temperature higher than the unheated sensor by a fixed number of degrees. If air flow velocity is greater, then more energy is dissipated away from the heated sensor. Accordingly, a measurement of the voltage required to maintain the temperature difference between the two sensors indicates the amount of air flowing through the duct where the sensors are located. Using techniques that are known to persons of ordinary skill in the art, including but not limited to those disclosed in the above-referenced patent, filter condition can be determined based on voltage readings, or similar properties having a relationship to air flow through a duct.
Other examples, regarding how filter condition is determined as a function of measurable properties or conditions within a duct, include differential pressure sensors, which respond to a pressure drop that occurs from the upstream side of a filter compared to the downstream side. Even if only to a slight degree, a new, or clean, filter restricts air flow through a duct. This restriction produces a corresponding pressure on the upstream side of the filter. Further, air passing through the filter also produces pressure on the downstream side. These pressures are measured using sensors and methods that are known to those having ordinary skill in the art. For a clean conventional filter, the differential pressure from the upstream side of the filter to the downstream side will usually be relatively small. However, as a filter becomes dirty and then clogged, the restriction on air that passes through the filter tends to decrease pressure on the upstream side. Further, because less air passes through a clogged filter, this tends to correspond to an increase in pressure on the downstream side.
Although various techniques have been disclosed for determining filter condition, as a function of measurable conditions within or related to a duct, other variables besides the extent of filter clogging may affect air flow in a duct, as indicated by measurable properties such as the voltage sensor as discussed above. For example, changes in blower speed may either increase or decrease the amount of air pulled into and through a duct. Multi-speed blowers differ from single-speed blowers and two-speed blowers, the latter of which use a two-speed motor, e.g., one speed for summer cooling and another speed for winter heating. Multi-speed blowers are capable of operating at any of a number of different speed settings. Many blowers require a period of time to stabilize and reach a consistent operating speed. For example, some blowers require approximately 60 seconds for this to occur.
Consequently, when determining when a filter should be changed, it is desirable to ascertain that readings of measurable conditions in a duct are actually indicative of a change in filter condition over time. In other words, it is desirable to prevent there from being an indication of clogging merely because of changes in blower speed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image taking apparatus employing a solid-state image-sensing device, and more particularly to a slim image taking apparatus, such as a digital still camera or digital video camera, provided with a zoom tens system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, as personal computers and the like become wide-spread, digital still cameras and digital video cameras (hereinafter collectively referred to as digital cameras), which permit easy capturing of image data into digital equipment, have been becoming increasingly popular among individual users. Such digital cameras are expected to continue to become more and more popular into the future as an image data input device.
In general, the im age quality of a digital camera depends on the number of pixels provided in a solid-state image-sensing device, such as CCD (charge-coupled device). Nowadays, digital cameras for general consumers boast of high resolution over one mega pixels, and are closing in on cameras using silver-halide film in image quality. Moreover, even in digital cameras for general consumers, the capability of varying the magnification with which images are taken (i.e., zooming capability) is desired; in particular, optical zooming is desired because it causes minimum image degradation. Furthermore, lately, digital cameras are required not only to offer high image quality but also to be compact, in particular slim so as to be easily portable.
In conventionally proposed zoom lens systems for digital cameras, the most common way to make a digital camera slim is to adopt a so-called collapsible lens barrel. Specifically, when the camera is not used, the lens barrel collapses so as to hold the lenses with minimum distances between them, and, when the camera is used, the lenses move out so as to make the camera ready to photograph. With this construction, it is possible, while maintaining satisfactory optical performance, to reduce the number of constituent lenses and thereby reduce the thickness of the lens barrel in its collapsed state (as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,498,647).
Another way to make a digital camera slim, i.e., other than by using a collapsible lens barrel, is to arrange a zoom lens system with its lens optical axis parallel to, of all the external faces of the camera body that is, for example, substantially box-shaped, that which has the greatest area. Moreover, as a zoom lens system that offers a large angle of view at the wide-angle end but that nevertheless is compact, there is conventionally known a zoom lens system composed of, from the object side, a first lens unit having a negative optical power, a second lens unit having a positive optical power, and a third lens unit having a positive optical power wherein the first lens unit is kept stationary during zooming (as exemplified by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-137164). By arranging a zoom lens system like this with its lens optical axis parallel to, of all the external faces of the substantially box-shaped camera body, that which has the greatest area, it is possible to realize a slim digital camera.
For a slim digital camera to be usable, it is required to be slim but nevertheless have its most object-side lens arranged with its optical axis perpendicular to, of all the external faces of the substantially box-shaped camera body, that which has the greatest area. One way to realize this is to bend the optical axis by using a prism in the first lens unit (as exemplified by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-248318).
However, with a construction adopting a collapsible lens barrel, like the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,498,687 mentioned above, even though it is possible to achieve slimming-down to a certain degree, there is a limit to reducing the thickness of the lens barrel in its collapsed state. Specifically, the thickness of the lens barrel cannot be reduced to less than the total of the thickness of the lenses themselves, that of the image-sensing device, and that of the optical filter and other components required by the image-sensing device. This makes it impossible to achieve satisfactory slimming-down.
Arranging a zoom lens system, like the one disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-137164 mentioned above, with its lens optical axis parallel to, of all the external faces of the substantially box-shaped camera body, that which has the greatest area makes the external shape of the camera elongate, and thus makes the camera extremely difficult to use. Usability may be improved by rotatably fitting the lens barrel so that, when the camera is used, the lens barrel is rotated so as to make the lens optical axis perpendicular to, of all the external faces of the substantially box-shaped camera body, that which has the greatest area. This, however, additionally requires a mechanism for rotating the lens barrel, and thus eventually increases the thickness of the camera. Moreover, extra operations are required to rotate the lens barrel when at the start and end of photographing.
With a so-called positive-led zoom construction, like the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-248318, in which the first lens unit has a positive optical power, it is difficult to achieve zooming with a small number of zooming components, and in fact there are provided as many as four zooming components. This makes the structure of the lens barrel complicated, and thus makes the lens barrel large as a whole including its drive components. This makes the camera as a whole wide, and makes satisfactory slimming-down impossible. | {
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The use of RFID tags are quickly gaining popularity for use in the monitoring and tracking of an item. RFID technology allows a user to remotely store and retrieve data in connection with an item utilizing a small, unobtrusive tag. As an RFID tag operates in the radio frequency (RF) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, an electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling can occur between an RFID tag affixed to an item and an RFID tag reader. This coupling is advantageous, as it precludes the need for a direct contact or line of sight connection between the tag and the reader.
Addition of supplemental power to RFID tags, e.g., from a battery, has greatly increased the range in which reliable communication with the tag is possible. This has in turn made new applications possible.
One concern with self-powered electronic devices is the life of the battery. Battery-powered devices draw very little power when inactive or turned off, but draw orders of magnitude more power when active. If the electronic device has been activated many times, the battery will be used up more quickly than for a device activated less. Because certain electronic devices are active more often than others, depending upon the duty cycle of use and/or may simply draw more power than other devices, it is hard to estimate the battery life of a given electronic device. In a situation where there are many electronic devices, the current method is to replace all batteries when the battery on one of the electronic devices dies, as it is likely others will die soon as well. However, it is quite possible that many of the batteries may still have a reasonable useful operating life remaining. Thus it would be desirable to provide an indication of the condition of a battery of an individual electronic device. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In recent years, encapsulating semiconductor devices with an epoxy resin composition is mainly conducted due to an excellent balance among productivity, cost, reliability, and the like. Along with miniaturization of semiconductor devices, epoxy resin compositions for encapsulating the semiconductor devices are required to have lower viscosity, higher strength, and lower water absorption than ever before. For this reason, a recent tendency of epoxy resin compositions is to use a resin with lower viscosity and a larger amount of inorganic fillers. From the viewpoint of reducing environmental stress, a lead-free solder with a higher melting point is widely used for mounting semiconductor devices. A problem of this type of solder is the requirement for a mounting temperature that is about 20° C. higher than that required for conventional solders, which results in unduly impaired reliability of semiconductor devices after mounting. For these reasons, promoting reliability of semiconductor devices by improving epoxy resin compositions is urgently desired. Since improvement of adhesiveness of a resin with materials forming semiconductor devices, along with improvement of the strength and reduction of water absorptivity of cured epoxy resin compositions, is an important factor for improving reliability of semiconductor devices, a technique of increasing adhesion and high filler loading has been employed.
On the other hand, with regard to the manufacturing system for semiconductor devices, since the number of packages fabricated in one shot has increased and the shot time for fabricating semiconductor devices has been reduced to decrease the production cost, an epoxy resin composition that can be quickly cured and easily released from a mold is desired.
Although a number of researches have been undertaken to satisfy these requirements and their results have been reported in a number of publications, the methods developed heretofore solve only one or two problems among the many outstanding problems. A process that can satisfy all of these requirements and can be applicable on an across-the-board basis has not yet been developed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-220511 discloses a method for increasing adhesiveness of an epoxy resin composition, which comprises an epoxy resin, a phenol curing agent, a curing accelerator, and an inorganic filler, with construction materials of semiconductor devices by adding an adhesion promoter such as a coupling agent. Since the addition of an adhesion promoter impairs releasability, the productivity of the resulting resin composition is not satisfactory. In the case of a technique of adding a curing accelerator with an objective of reducing the molding cycle, the resin composition has impaired flowability, making it difficult to increase the amount of inorganic filler. The resulting resin composition has only unsatisfactory reliability. If a large amount of releasing agent is added to improve mold releasability, not only adhesiveness of the lead frame for mounting the semiconductor device with the cured product of the epoxy resin composition is impaired, but also a considerable amount of the releasing agent oozes from the mold surface and stains the surfaces of the mold and semiconductor packages.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-80695 discloses an epoxy resin composition for encapsulating semiconductors, in which glycerol tri-fatty acid ester produced by a dehydration condensation reaction of glycerol and a saturated fatty acid with a carbon atom content of 24-36 is added to an epoxy resin composition comprising an epoxy resin, a phenol curing agent, a curing accelerator, and an inorganic filler to promote mold releasability. The epoxy resin composition for encapsulating semiconductors not only exhibits excellent mold releasability, but also can reduce stains on the surfaces of the mold and semiconductor packages. However, the effect of reducing stains on the surfaces of the mold and semiconductor packages of the epoxy resin composition is still insufficient.
In view of this situation, development of a technique ensuring high productivity and high reliability of semiconductor devices is strongly desired. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In recent years, with the advance of high-speed, large-capacity optical fiber communication systems, high-speed optical modulators using optical waveguide devices, which are typified by external modulators (optical modulators based on the external modulation system), are being put to practical use and widely used in the art.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional optical modulator. The optical modulator 10 shown in FIG. 1 has coplanar waveguide (CPW) modulation electrodes for modulating light guided through an optical waveguide. Specifically, the optical modulator 10 comprises a substrate 1 in the form of an X-cut plate of lithium niobate, Mach-Zehnder optical waveguides 2 formed directly beneath a principal surface IA of the substrate 1 by titanium diffusion, a buffer layer 3 of silicon oxide formed on the principal surface IA, and a central electrode 4 and ground electrodes 5-1, 5-2 formed on the buffer layer 3.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of another conventional optical modulator. The optical modulator 20 shown in FIG. 2 has coplanar waveguide (CPW) modulation electrodes for modulating light guided through an optical waveguide. Specifically, the optical modulator 20 comprises a substrate 11 in the form of an Z-cut plate of lithium niobate, Mach-Zehnder optical waveguides 12 formed directly beneath a principal surface 11A of the substrate 11 by titanium diffusion, a buffer layer 13 of silicon oxide formed on the principal surface 11A, and a central electrode 14 and ground electrodes 15-1, 15-2 formed on the buffer layer 13.
In the optical modulators 10, 20 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the buffer layers 3, 13 are provided for the purpose of increasing speed matching between the light guided through the optical waveguides 2, 12 and a microwave applied to the modulating electrodes.
However, in the optical modulators 10, 20 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the buffer layers 3, 13 included in the substrates 1, 11 are responsible for a DC drift that is produced. Furthermore, since modulation signals are applied from the modulation electrodes through the buffer layers 3, 13 to the light guided through the optical waveguides 2, 12, a substantial modulation signal voltage applied to the light is reduced. For effectively energizing the optical modulators 10, 20, it is necessary to apply a relatively high voltage to the modulation electrodes, despite the demand for reduced drive voltages.
In the optical modulator 20 shown in FIG. 2, since the optical waveguides 12 are positioned asymmetrically with respect to the central electrode 14, the chirp increases, failing to make long-distance transmission.
The present invention provides a method of manufacturing an optical modulator having a novel arrangement which achieves speed matching without a buffer layer and which is free from the above problems. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to a sound data processing device and method for processing sound data on the basis of performance operation etc., as well as a program for causing a computer to function as such a sound data processing device.
Heretofore, there has been known a technique for combining a plurality of accompaniment sound waveforms extracted from a plurality of different accompaniment sound sources and reproducing the thus-combined accompaniment sound waveforms. For example, Japanese Patent No. 2550825 (hereinafter referred to as “patent literature 1”) discloses a technique which allows a user to execute an automatic accompaniment, based on an ensemble of accompaniment patterns of a plurality of performance parts, by searching for accompaniment patterns (sound generation patterns) of each of the plurality of performance parts by inputting a text, such as a letter string and logical operator and then combining searched-out accompaniment patterns (sound generation patterns) of the individual performance parts. Further, Japanese Patent No. 3480433 (hereinafter referred to as “patent literature 2”) discloses a technique which, in a multi-track digital recording/reproduction apparatus, allows a particular number of recording tracks to be freely set and allows reproduction to be performed via a maximum number of usable reproducing tracks in accordance with the setting of the particular number of recording tracks.
However, with the search method disclosed in patent literature 1, where the user searches for accompaniment patterns by inputting a text, the user cannot input a rhythm or melody pattern intuitively and sensorily. If, in searching through accompaniment sound sources, the user is allowed to intuitively input a rhythm or melody pattern to be made an object of search, the search method would be able to provide more operability to the user. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a carrier board, and more particularly to a semiconductor package substrate.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to meet ever-increasing demands for advanced electronic products with multi-functions, a ball grid array (BGA) type packaging technique is frequently employed and becomes very popular as such packaging technique is capable of providing a sufficient amount of input/out (I/O) connections for connecting high-density electronic components and electronic circuits.
Along with continuous improvements in semiconductor packaging technology, the amount and the density of I/O connections are drastically increased in a BGA package. In view of this, an increasing amount of finger pads corresponding to the amount of I/O connections must be formed on a substrate to act as external electrical connecting terminals of a semiconductor chip, so as to allow the semiconductor chip to be electrically connected external circuits through the finger pads by means of wire bonding.
A known layout of finger pads on a substrate, which is similar to what has been disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,465,891 and 6,531,762, has a plurality of finger pads disposed around the periphery of a semiconductor chip at equal intervals, wherein a plurality of bonding wires are employed to respectively electrically connect bonding pads of the semiconductor chip to the finger pads of the substrate, so as to form external electrical connections of the chip.
The amount of I/O connections may be increased to improve electrical functionality of the semiconductor package, wherein the amount of the bonding pad of the chip and the finger pads of the substrate may be increased accordingly. However, in order to achieve such arrangement, pitches between the finger pads have to be reduced to a certain level. Moreover, the finger pads shall be disposed in position near the chip to shorten the length of the bonding wires, in order to improve electrical functionality and reduce production cost.
Referring to FIG. 1, a prior-art layout of finger pads on a substrate, which can shorten the length of bonding wires, is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,898,213. In the prior art, a plurality of finger pads 111 and its adjacent finger pads 112 are staggered around the periphery of a chip 12, wherein, hereinafter, the foregoing finger pads that are closer to the center of the chip 12 are referred as the first finger pads 111 and the ones that are further from the center of the chip 12 are referred as the second finger pads 112. Moreover, a plurality of bonding wires 13 are employed for electrically connecting bonding pads 122 on the chip 12 to the finger pads 111, 112 on the substrate. As the first finger pads 111 and the second finger pads 112 are disposed in a staggered pattern, the pitch distance Q between the finger pads 111, 112 is thus reduced, thereby reducing the length and the wire bonding distance of the bonding wires.
The foregoing technique may reduce the patch distance between the first finger pads 111 and the second finger pads 112. In practical implementation, a bonder is employed for connecting the chip 12 to the first finger pads 111 and then to the second finger pads 112 via bonding wires 13. However, because the size, shape and location of the second finger pads 112 are very close to that of lead traces of the first finger pads 111, the bonder can hardly distinguish the second finger pads 112 from the lead traces of the first finger pads 111, thereby frequently, mistakenly recognizing lead traces formed at the rear portions of the first finger pads 111 as the second finger pads 112 and erroneously bonding the bonding wires to the lead traces of the first finger pads 111 rather than the second finger pads 112 (such incorrect bonding is shown in FIG. 1 by a dotted line). Moreover, such wire bonding error may lead to short circuit and even jeopardize the entire semiconductor package.
Furthermore, referring to FIG. 2, another known layout of finger pads on a substrate is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,303, which is capable of reducing the length of bonding wires. In such prior-art layout, a plurality of finger pads 21 are disposed in rows, wherein the finger pads 21 are trapezium-shaped or reverse trapezium-shaped, with one longer side thereof parallel to an one shorter side thereof. Moreover, the longer side of one of the finger pads 21 may be closer to the chip 22, whereas the longer side of the one of the adjacent finger pads 21 may have the longer side further from the chip 22. In addition, a plurality of bonding wires 23 are employed for electrically connecting bonding pads 222 on the chip 22 to the finger pads 21 on the substrate.
Similarly, due to the trapezium-shaped finger pads, although the wire bonding distance is reduced in aforesaid technique, when bonding wire is bonded to short side of a finger pad close to the chip, the bonding wire is easy to sag down and contact adjacent finger pad, thus resulting in electrical short circuit, as indicated by a label S in FIG. 2. Particularly for bonding wires disposed at farther outer side of the substrate, the longer and the higher the bonding wires, the easier the bonding wires sag down and contact adjacent finger pads. Hence, the reliability of the process is adversely affected.
Therefore, there is a need to prevent wire bonding error and electrical short circuit problem caused by faulty contact of bonding wire with adjacent finger pad while reducing the wire bonding distance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network in which a plurality of electronic apparatuses are connected by a bus, such as a high-speed serial bus conforming to IEEE1394 (hereinafter referred to as an IEEE1394 bus) and communications are performed among the electronic apparatuses. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for solving the problem of incompatibility of transmission data formats, which may occur between a transmission-side apparatus and a receiving-side apparatus when data is transmitted.
2. Description of the Related Art
A network has been conceived in which electronic apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as apparatuses), such as digital video cassette recorders, digital still cameras, personal computers, and printers, are connected through an IEEE1394 bus, and communications are performed among these apparatuses.
In a network in which a plurality of such apparatuses are connected by an IEEE1394 bus (hereinafter referred to as an IEEE1394 network), transmission of data and control signals is performed by time division multiplexing at a predetermined communication cycle. As communication configurations in one communication cycle, there are isochronous (hereinafter referred to as Iso) communication in which video data, audio data, and the like are transmitted in real time, and asynchronous (hereinafter referred to as Async) communication in which a control signal, such as an operation control command and a connection control command of an apparatus, is transmitted at non-fixed intervals as required.
When a print data supply apparatus on an IEEE1394 network transmits print data to a printer apparatus and instructs printing, it is necessary for the print data supply apparatus to provide and transmit data conforming to a data format which can be received and printed by a printer apparatus.
The print data supply apparatus must change the format of print data to be transmitted depending upon the printer apparatus of a print data transmission destination. In a case where a plurality of print data supply apparatuses are connected on the network, all of these apparatuses need to have a print data format conversion function, with the result that the same function is present at a plurality of places on the network and the resources are wasted.
Also, when the print data supply apparatus cannot transmit data conforming to a data format which can be received and printed by the printer apparatus, the problem that the printer apparatus cannot print specified data occurs.
An object of the present invention, which has been achieved in view of such situations, is to provide an apparatus and method for converting the format of data to be transmitted into an appropriate form and transmitting the data to a receiving apparatus in a case where a data transmission apparatus and the data receiving apparatus are connected on an IEEE1394 network and the data receiving apparatus is not designed to support the data format which can be output by the data transmission apparatus.
According to a first aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to an electronic apparatus on a communication network comprising a bus and a plurality of electronic apparatuses connected to the bus, the electronic apparatus comprising: means for checking functions implemented by at least a first electronic apparatus and a second electronic apparatus on the network; first determination means for determining whether a data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus can be received by the second electronic apparatus on the basis of the functions implemented by the first electronic apparatus and the second electronic apparatus; and control means for performing control so that data is transmitted from the first electronic apparatus to the second electronic apparatus when it is determined by the first determination means that the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus can be received by the second electronic apparatus.
According to a second aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to an electronic apparatus further comprising: holding means for holding information of a convertible data format; second determination means for determining whether a data format which can be transmitted the first electronic apparatus can be converted into a format which can be received by the second electronic apparatus on the basis of the information of the data format; and data format conversion means for converting the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus into a format which can be received by the second electronic apparatus when the first determination means determines that the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus can be received by the second electronic apparatus and the second determination means determines that the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus can be received by the second electronic apparatus.
According to a third aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to an electronic apparatus further comprising: acquisition means for acquiring information of a convertible data format in another electronic apparatus from among the plurality of electronic apparatuses; third determination means for determining whether the other electronic apparatus can convert the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus into a format which can be received by the second electronic apparatus on the basis of the information of the convertible data format in the other electronic apparatus; and control means for controlling the other electronic apparatus so as to convert the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus into a format which can be received by the second electronic apparatus when the first determination means determines that the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus cannot be received by the second electronic apparatus, the second determination means determines that the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus cannot be converted into a format which can be received by the second electronic apparatus, and the third determination means determines that the data format which can be transmitted by the first electronic apparatus can be converted into a format which can be received by the second electronic apparatus.
According to a fourth aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to an electronic apparatus on a communication network comprising a bus and a plurality of electronic apparatuses connected to the bus, the electronic apparatus comprising: holding means for holding information of a convertible data format; first input means for inputting control data from another electronic apparatus from among the plurality of electronic apparatuses; second input means for inputting data transmitted over the bus from the first electronic apparatus; data format conversion means for converting the data from a first data format into a second data format on the basis of the control data; and data output means for outputting the data which has been converted into the second data format.
According to a fifth aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to a data communication method on a communication network comprising a bus and a plurality of electronic apparatuses connected to the bus, the data communication method comprising: a step for acquiring information of a data format which can be transmitted by a source apparatus which provides data from among the plurality of apparatuses; a step for acquiring information of a data format which can be received by a destination apparatus which receives data from among the plurality of electronic apparatuses; and a step for determining whether the data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus can be received by the destination apparatus on the basis of the information of the transmittable data format and information of the receivable data format.
According to a sixth aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to a data communication method further comprising: a control step for performing control so that data is transmitted from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus when the data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus can be received by the destination apparatus.
According to a seventh aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to a data communication method further comprising: a step for referencing information of a convertible data format when the data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus cannot be received by the destination apparatus; a step for determining whether the data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus can be converted into a data format which can be received by the destination apparatus on the basis of the information of the transmittable data format and the information of the convertible data format; and a step for performing control so that when it is determined in the determination step that the data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus can be received by the destination apparatus, the data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus is converted into a format which can be received by the destination apparatus.
According to an eighth aspect, the present invention which achieves this object relates to a data communication method on a communication network comprising a bus and a plurality of electronic apparatuses connected to the bus, the data communication method comprising: a step for inputting control data from another electronic apparatus from among the plurality of electronic apparatuses; a data input step for inputting data transmitted over the bus from a first electronic apparatus; a data format conversion step for converting the data from a first data format into a second data format on the basis of the control data; and a data output step for outputting the data which has been converted into the second data format over the bus.
In the present invention, at a predetermined point in time, an apparatus for transmitting data on the network is defined as a source apparatus, and an apparatus for receiving and processing data is defined as a destination apparatus. Further, an apparatus for instructing and controlling an apparatus connected on the network so as to transmit data is defined as a controller, and a data format conversion function is implemented in the controller.
The transmission of data from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus is instructed by the controller. The source apparatus has, as apparatus information, a list of data formats which can be transmitted, and the destination apparatus has, as apparatus information, a list of data formats which can be received and processed.
When instructing transmission of data from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus, the controller acquires information of a data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus and information of a data format which can be received by the destination apparatus, determines, from the information, a data format suitable for the transmission, and instructs the source apparatus to transmit data in the specified format to a destination.
When an appropriate format cannot be found, the controller determines a data format which can be transmitted by the source apparatus and a data format which can be received by the destination apparatus by referring also to data format information which can be converted by the controller itself, and instructs the source apparatus to transmit data in that data format to the controller. The controller receiving the data converts the data format into a format which can be received by the destination apparatus and transmits the data to the destination apparatus.
The above and further objects, aspects and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in connection with the accompanying drawings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Geostationary satellite systems have already demonstrated the ability to perform many communication, meteorological, and scientific missions when launched by expendable launch vehicles. The NASA Space Transportation System (STS), the Space Shuttle, offers the opportunity for a significant improvement in the performance and cost of satellites designed to take advantage of its capabilities. It therefore can make current applications more profitable and new uses economically attractive.
All satellite systems require launch vehicles, and all current launch vehicles are expended after delivering their spacecraft payload into orbit. The NASA Space Shuttle by contrast, introduces a new concept of being recoverable and reusable. Tests have proved that the Space Shuttle can be piloted like an airplane after re-entering the atmosphere from space.
All geostationary satellites so far have been launched by Thor Delta, Atlas Agena, Atlas Centaur, or Titan IIIC launch vehicles. Now, however, the spacecraft designer has the choice of six launch vehicles: Thor Delta (2914, 3914, 3910 PAM), N-Rocket, Atlas Centaur, Ariane, Titan IIIC, and the Space Transportation System. The N-Rocket is being developed by Japan's NASDA (National Space Development Agency) and the Ariane by Europe's ESA (European Space Agency). The United States plans to phase out the Thor Delta, Atlas Centaur, and Titan IIIC as the STS becomes operational in 1980. The returnable and reusable Space Shuttle offers the challenge and opportunity to geostationary spacecraft designers to make the best use of it.
The Space Shuttle will orbit Earth at a nominal 160 n.mi. with an orbit inclination of 28.6 deg when launched due east from Florida. A geostationary satellite must orbit at approximately 19,300 nautical miles north of the equator. The STS therefore needs an upper stage to launch geostationary satellites. The upper stage requirements are optimally satisfied by two propulsion impulses. At the time of an equatorial crossing, the first impulse imparts a velocity increment of approximately 8000 fps at the perigee of elliptical transfer orbit. At an appropriate apogee of the transfer orbit the second impulse imparts a velocity increment of 6000 fps, both circularizing the orbit and removing the inclination.
The central challenge in using the STS for the launch of geostationary satellites lies in finding the combination of upper stage and satellite geometry and functions that minimizes overall mission cost.
Upper-Stage Alternatives: The first upper-stage concepts considered for the STS completely separated orbit-injection functions from subsequent orbit-control requirements. These bulky and expensive "stand alone" upper stages obscure the basic economic advantages of the STS.
It soon became apparent that the STS could take advantage of the geostationary orbit-injection scheme pioneered by Syncom III in an historic Delta launch in 1964. This early capability was achieved by incorporating the apogee-boost motor within the satellite, thus permitting separation from the Delta at perigee injection. The perigee boost itself was provided primarily by the Delta's unguided, spinning upper stage. Since the apogee boost does not parallel the perigee boost, it was necessary to reorient the spacecraft spin axis before apogee-motor firing. This was done by the control and attitude sensing system required for Syncom's operational mission. The use of the satellite's telemetry and command system and communication repeaters to determine the transfer-orbit parameters via ground tracking permitted the selection of an apogee-motor firing time and attitude that minimized the effects of transfer-orbit injection errors. The subsequent launch of some 50 geostationary satellites by the Delta and Atlas Centaur boosters brought refinements but no basic changes to this technique.
NASA adopted the Spinning Solid Upper Stage (SSUS) as its preferred method of launching via the STS geostationary spacecraft previously designed for expendable launch vehicles. These upper stages are now known as SSUS-D for Delta and SSUS-A for Atlas Centaur replacements. The USAF has elected to retain the independent upper stage concept used in the Titan IIIC for its STS launches of spacecraft to high-energy orbits. It will use a pair of guided and controlled solid-propellant rocket stages known as the IUS (for Interim Upper Stage).
The STS/SSUS does offer a lower launch cost than the expendable launch vehicles for organizations unwilling or unable to depend exclusively on Space Shuttle operational availability. The accommodation of transition spacecraft in the Space Shuttle, while retaining their ability to be launched on expendable launch vehicles, has proven to be achievable. In the case of new spacecraft, the dual capability can readily be incorporated in the initial design.
Even for transition spacecraft, the STS reducer launch costs significantly. The STS economics clearly support the desirability of incorporating dual capability into transition spacecraft, permitting Space Shuttle launch while maintaining expendable-launch-vehicle backup.
The transition spacecraft, attractive as they are, do not represent optimum designs for the Space Shuttle, for two reasons. First the restriction on diameter imposed by the expendable launch vehicles makes them longer than otherwise necessary. The SSUS-D and SSUS-A configurations, for example, require a quarter, and a half, respectively, of the Space Shuttle payload bay volume, but use a much smaller fraction of the available weight. The dual compatibility thus levies a penalty of higher than necessary launch cost of the Space shuttle. As another disadvantage, such dual-launch spacecraft do not have as much space for mounting antennas, cameras, and scientific instruments as would one designed only for Shuttle launch.
Heretofore, spacecraft designed for launch from the space shuttle employ a cradle which provides its own stiffness. As a consequence, the currently designed cradles are extremely large and heavy. Furthermore, present cradles are not usable for large diameter spacecraft, since inadequate space is available due to the large size of the cradle. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recoil starter for an internal combustion engine, and in particular, to a recoil starter having buffering/power-accumulating means interposed between a driving member and a driven member.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional recoil starter which is designed to be mounted on an internal combustion engine is generally provided with a driving member having a rope reel around which a recoil rope is wound, and a driven (idler) member comprising a centrifugal ratchet mechanism. In order to start the internal combustion engine, the recoil rope (recoil handle) is pulled to revolve the rope reel. The resulting revolution of the rope reel is then transmitted, via the driven member, to the crankshaft of the internal combustion engine to thereby start the engine.
The present inventors have heretofore proposed a modification of the aforementioned recoil starter in Japanese Patent Application No. H11-238642. In the modified recoil starter, a spiral spring mechanism is interposed as buffering/power accumulating means between the driving member and the driven member. Since the spiral spring mechanism is interposed between the driving member and the driven member, a load from the engine side may be buffered while the recoil rope is pulled during the first-half of the driving process, namely, until the piston of the internal combustion engine reaches the top dead center thereof. Moreover, the pulling force of the recoil rope is simultaneously accumulated in the spiral spring mechanism. During the second-half of the driving process, the pulling force accumulated in the spiral spring mechanism during the first-half of the driving process is combined with the pulling force effected in the second-half of the driving process to thereby generate a resulting force, which is utilized for starting the internal combustion engine.
As a result, it is possible to minimize a fluctuation in the pulling force of the rope so as to smooth the rope-pulling operation, thus enabling even a person having a weak physical strength to easily start the engine.
However, this type of conventional recoil starter requires unidirectional rotating means having a one-way clutch, in order to prevent the spiral spring mechanism from reversely rotating together with the rope reel. In other words, in order to enable the spiral spring mechanism (of the spiral spring case) to rotate only in the driving direction (the direction of rewinding the spiral spring) when the recoil rope is rewound, unidirectional rotating means, with a one-way clutch, is interposed between the inner peripheral portion (the cylindrical boss portion) of the spiral spring case and a fastening shaft which is fixed to a starter case.
Since the one-way clutch is interposed between the inner peripheral portion of the spiral spring and the fastening shaft, the diameter of the one-way clutch is inevitably required to be relatively small. Hence, it is difficult to make the one-way clutch sustain a large magnitude of torque. Furthermore, the components of a recoil starter of this type are required to be mechanically strong, rigid and precise, thus making the recoil starter inevitably larger in weight and more expensive.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for a recoil starter which can overcome the aforementioned disadvantages associated with the conventional recoil starter with unidirectional rotating means having a one-way clutch.
An object of the present invention is to provide a recoil starter having an improved unidirectional rotating means which is capable of sustaining larger magnitudes of torque thereby making it possible to utilize parts of lower mechanical strength and precision, to lighten the weight thereof, to reduce the manufacturing cost thereof, and to simplify the working and assembling thereof.
These and other objects of the invention, which will become apparent with reference to the disclosure herein, are accomplished by the recoil starter according to the present invention, which comprises a driving member, a driven (idler) member, and buffering/power-accumulating means interposed between the driving member and the driven member. The buffering/power accumulating means includes a housing disposed in the proximity of the driving member, an actuating pulley disposed in the proximity of the driven member, a buffering/power accumulating member interposed between the housing and the actuating pulley, and unidirectional rotating means disposed on the outer peripheral side of the housing for unidirectionally rotating the housing. The buffering/power-accumulating means is adapted, during a driving process of the driving member, to buffer a load from an engine side and to accumulate a force supplied by the driving of the driving member while alleviating impact to the driven member, and the driven member is arranged to be actuated by the accumulated power.
In a preferred embodiment, the unidirectional rotating means includes a one-way clutch. The one-way clutch preferably includes one or more claw members swingably supported by one of the fixing portion of a starter case and the housing, one or more urging members for urging the one or more claw members toward the other of the starter case and the housing, and one or more engaging portions provided on the other of the starter case and the housing, wherein at least one of the claw members is adapted to be engaged with at least one of the engaging portions, thereby preventing the housing from being rotated in the direction opposite to the driving direction.
Preferably, the one-way clutch includes two claw members which are mounted on the starter case so as to be disposed around the rotational axis of the housing and equally spaced from each other at an angle of 180 degrees. The one-way clutch in the preferred embodiment also includes three engaging portions which are provided in the housing and spaced from each other at an angle of 120 degrees.
Alternatively, the one-way clutch may include two claw members mounted on the starter case so as to be disposed around the rotational axis of the housing and spaced apart at angle of 180 degrees, with four engaging portions which are provided in the housing and equally spaced apart from each other at an angle of 90 degrees.
The buffering/power-accumulating means preferably includes a spiral spring mechanism comprising a spiral spring as a buffering/power-accumulating member, and a spiral spring case functioning as the aforementioned housing.
The driving member preferably includes a rope reel having a recoil rope wound therearound, with recoiling urging means for reversely revolving the rope reel so as to rewind the recoil rope, and with a recoil ratchet mechanism for transmitting the torque of the rope reel to the housing.
The driven member preferably includes an interlocking pulley having a power transmission mechanism, through which the driven member is interlockingly coupled with the driving member.
The power transmission mechanism is preferably constituted by a centrifugal ratchet mechanism.
Preferably, the spiral spring comprises an outer circumferential wound portion where a predetermined number of turns of the outer portion of the spiral spring are closely contacted with each other under a freely released condition of the spiral spring, and an inner circumferential wound portion which is constituted by at least one turn of the inner portion of the spiral spring, wherein a clearance is provided between the outer circumferential wound portion and the inner circumferential wound portion. In a more preferred embodiment, the outer circumferential wound portion is constituted by a third turn and the following turns successive to the third turn, and the inner circumferential wound portion is constituted by a first turn and at least a portion of the second turn which is closely contacted with the first turn.
According to the preferable embodiments of recoil starter of the present invention as described above, the unidirectional rotating means e.g., a one-way clutch for unidirectionally rotating the housing, is disposed on the outer peripheral side of the housing, thus allowing the diameter of the aforementioned unidirectional rotating means to be increased. Consequently, in contrast to the conventional recoil starter where the unidirectional rotating means are interposed between the inner peripheral portion of the spiral spring and the fastening shaft, it becomes possible according to this improvement to make the one-way clutch mechanism sustain a torque of large magnitude. Additionally, it is no longer necessary that the component parts have high mechanical strength, rigidity or precision. As a result, the manufacturing cost of the recoil starter can be reduced while, at the same time, its reliability can be improved and its weight reduced.
In accordance with the invention, the objects as described above have been met, and the need in the art for a recoil starter that is light and has a compact configuration, and which has enhanced reliability, has been satisfied. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In motor vehicle washing equipment, the vehicle is moved relative to the washing assembly, wherein either the vehicle is pulled through the washing assembly by means of a conveyor belt or a portal assembly which carries the washing brush is moved with respect to the stationary vehicle. In such arrangements, the horizontal washing brush, whose axis is arranged transversely with respect to the direction of relative movement must be lifted from its lowest position, in which it washes the front of the vehicle at the level of the bumpers, up to the level of the roof, and then is lowered again when washing the rear of the vehicle. In order to raise and lower the washing brush, the apparatus has a control motor which acts by way of a transmission means and drive rollers on a conveyor cable, chain or the like which is connected to the carriages of the washing brush. A control means which is dependent on the deflection movement of the washing brush is provided for controlling the control motor.
Swiss Pat. No. 443 940 discloses apparatus of the above-indicated kind. In this known portal-type washing apparatus, the horizontal washing brush is mounted in a frame which is supported on respective sides in respective carriages which are pivotal about an axis extending transversely with respect to the direction of movement of the portal assembly. The frame has switching cam members which co-operate with a limit switch disposed on the carriage. As long as the horizontal washing brush is not in contact with the vehicle, the two pivot arms which form a part of the frame hand vertically downwardly. As soon as the vehicle bears against the brush, the frame is pivoted about its horizontal pivot axis and the cam members actuate the limit switch. The limit switch switches on the control motor and causes the washing brush to be lifted, together with the frame. Instead of the switching cam members, it is also possible to use a plurality of switches which can be actuated by permanent magnets. A disadvantage with these known arrangements is that a relatively stable frame comprising two pivot arms and a transverse yoke member must always be provided, with the frame being supported at both sides in a respective carriage for pivotal movement about a horizontal axis. The frame must be of a stable construction because it must carry the weight of the horizontal washing brush and also carry the forces acting thereon.
The invention is based on the problem of providing apparatus for controlling the movements of a roller-like horizontal rotary washing brush in vehicle washing equipment of the above-indicated kind, wherein the means supporting the brush are of a substantially simpler construction. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process for improving the properties of metal oxide superconductors said process comprising depositing an alkali metal onto the surface.
2. References
Bednorz and Muller, Z. Phys. B64, 189 (1986), disclose a superconducting phase in the La-Ba-Cu-O system with a superconducting transition temperature of about 35 K. This disclosure was subsequently confirmed by a number of investigators [see, for example, Rao and Ganguly, Current Science, 56, 47 (1987), Chu et al., Science 235, 567 (1987), Chu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 405 (1987), Cava et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 408 (1987), Bednorz et al., Europhys. Lett. 3, 379 (1987)]. The superconducting phase has been identified as the composition La.sub.1-x (Ba,Sr,Ca).sub.x CuO.sub.4-y with the tetragonal K.sub.2 NiF.sub.4 -type structure and with x typically about 0.15 and y indicating oxygen vacancies.
Wu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 908 (1987), disclose a superconducting phase in the Y-Ba-Cu-O system with a superconducting transition temperature of about 90 K. Cava et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 1676 (1987), have identified this superconducting Y-Ba-Cu-O phase to be orthorhombic, distorted, oxygen-deficient perovskite YBa.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.9-.delta. where .delta. is about 2.1 and present the powder x-ray diffraction pattern and lattice parameters.
C. Michel et al., Z. Phys. B-Condensed Matter 68, 421 (1987), disclose a novel family of superconducting oxides in the Bi-Sr-Cu-O system with composition close to Bi.sub.2 Sr.sub.2 Cu.sub.2 O.sub.7+.delta.. A pure phase was isolated for the composition Bi.sub.2 Sr.sub.2 Cu.sub.2 O.sub.7+.delta.. The X-ray diffraction pattern for this material exhibits some similarity with that of perovskite and the electron diffraction pattern shows the perovskite subcell with the orthorhombic cell parameters of a=5.32 A (0.532 nm), b=26.6 A (2.66 nm) and c=48.8 A (4.88 nm). The material made from ultrapure oxides has a superconducting transition with a midpoint of 22 K as determined from resistivity measurements and zero resistance below 14 K. The material made from commercial grade oxides has a superconducting transition with a midpoint of 7 K.
H. Maeda et al., Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 27, L209 (1988), disclose a superconducting oxide in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system with the composition near BiSrCaCu.sub.2 Ox and a superconducting transition temperature of about 105 K.
The commonly assigned application, "Superconducting Metal Oxide Compositions and Process For Making Them", Ser. No. 153,107, filed Feb. 8, 1988, a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 152,186, filed Feb. 4, 1988, now abandoned, disclose superconducting compositions having the nominal formula Bi.sub.a Sr.sub.b Ca.sub.c Cu.sub.3 O.sub.x wherein a is from about 1 to about 3, b is from about 3/8 to about 4, c is from about 3/16 to about 2 and x=(1.5 a+b+c+y) where y is from about 2 to about 5, with the proviso that b+c is from about 3/2 to about 5, said compositions having superconducting transition temperatures of about 70 K or higher. It also discloses the superconducting metal oxide phase having the formula Bi.sub.2 Sr.sub.3-z Ca.sub.z Cu.sub.2 O.sub.8+w wherein z is from about 0.1 to about 0.9, preferably 0.4 to 0.8 and w is greater than zero but less than about 1. M. A. Subramanian et al., Science 239, 1015 (1988) also disclose the Bi.sub.2 Sr.sub.3-z Ca.sub.z Cu.sub.2 O.sub.8+w superconductor.
Z. Z. Sheng et al., Nature 332, 55 (1988) disclose superconductivity in the Tl-Ba-Cu-O system in samples which have nominal compositions Tl.sub.2 Ba.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.8+x and TlBaCu.sub.3 O.sub.5.5+x. Both samples are reported to have onset temperatures above 90 K and zero resistance at 81 K. The samples were prepared by mixing and grinding appropriate amounts of BaCO.sub.3 and CuO with an agate mortar and pestle. This mixture was heated in air at 925.degree. C. for more than 24 hours with several intermediate grindings to obtain a uniform black oxide Ba-Cu oxide powder which was mixed with an appropriate amount of Tl.sub.2 O.sub.3, completely ground and pressed into a pellet with a diameter of 7 mm and a thickness of 1-2 mm. The pellet was then put into a tube furnace which had been heated to 880.degree.-910.degree. C. and was heated for 2-5 minutes in flowing oxygen. As soon as it had slightly melted, the sample was taken from the furnace and quenched in air to room temperature. It was noted by visual inspection that Tl.sub.2 O.sub.3 had partially volatilized as black smoke, part had become a light yellow liquid, and part had reacted with Ba-Cu oxide forming a black, partially melted, porous material.
Z. Z. Sheng et al., Nature 332, 138 (1988) disclose superconductivity in the Tl-Ca-Ba-Cu-O system in samples which have nominal compositions Tl.sub.2 Ca.sub.2 BaCu.sub.3 O.sub.9+x with onset of superconductivity at 120 K.
R. M. Hazen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1657 (1988), disclose two superconducting phases in the Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O system, Tl.sub.2 Ba.sub.2 Ca.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.10 and Tl.sub.2 Ba.sub.2 CaCu.sub.2 O.sub.8, both with onset of superconductivity near 120 K. C. C. Torardi et al., Science 240, 631 (1988) disclose the preparation of Tl.sub.2 Ba.sub.2 Ca.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.10 with an onset of superconductivity of 125 K.
S. S. P. Parkin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 750 (1988), disclose the structure TlBa.sub.2 Ca.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.9.+-.y with transition temperatures up to 110 K.
M. Hervieu et al., J. Solid State Chem. 5, 212 (1988), disclose the oxide TlBa.sub.2 Ca.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.8-y.
C. C. Torardi et al., Phys. Rev. B 38, 225 (1988), disclose the oxide Tl.sub.2 Ba.sub.2 CuO.sub.6 with an onset of superconductivity at about 90 K.
The commonly assigned application, "Superconducting Metal Oxide Compositions and Processes For Manufacture and Use", Ser. No. 236,088, filed Aug. 24, 1988, a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 230,631, filed Aug. 10, 1988, now abandoned, disclose superconducting compositions having the nominal formula Tl.sub.e Pb.sub.a Ca.sub.b Sr.sub.c Cu.sub.d O.sub.x wherein a is from about 1/10 to about 3/2, b is from about 1 to about 4, c is from about 1 to about 3, d is from about 1 to about 5, e is from about 3/10 to about 1 and x=(a+b+c+d+ e+y) where y is from about 1/2 to about 3. These compositions have an onset of superconductivity of at least 70 K.
J. M. Liang et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 53, 15 (1988) disclose a composition TlBa.sub.2 Ca.sub.3 Cu.sub.4 O.sub.x with an onset of superconductivity at 155 K and a zero resistance at 123 K. CaCO.sub.3, BaCO.sub.3 and CuO powders were ground together and calcined for 15 hours with intermediate grindings. The Ba-Ca-Cu-O powders were mixed with Tl.sub.2 O.sub.3 to yield a mixture with nominal composition TlBaCa.sub.3 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.x. This mixture was ground, pressed and sintered for 15 minutes in flowing O.sub.2. Composition ratios of the Tl:Ca:Ba:Cu in the superconductor vary from 1:2:2:3 to 1:2:3:4. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Carry slings have been used as shooting aids going back at least as far as the turn of the 20th century. Wrapping the support (non-firing) arm with the carry sling aids in steadying the muzzle and reducing shooter fatigue for greater accuracy. The most effective methods involve placing a loop attached to the carry sling high under the shooter's arm. Unfortunately, due to the small size of most loops, installing and uninstalling the carry sling from the shooter's arm is slow and difficult. The length of time necessary for installation prevents its use in some hunting and sporting scenarios. Further, in life-threatening scenarios, the support arm being tightly squeezed into the carry sling can be hazardous for the user if the firearm needs to be discarded or slung quickly.
During competitions in England in the early 20th century, competitive rifle shooters would remove their carry sling attachment from the rear of the rifle and attach it to the middle of the firearm. The result was a large loop connected to the firearm's front and mid sections that allowed for more accurate shooting. Additionally, due to the size of the loop, the competitor could quickly install it on their arm for shooting and remove it in an instant. Once firing was completed, the aft sling attachment would be returned to the rear of the rife for convenient carry.
The limitations of the prior art are addressed by providing a rifle sling for use with a shooting adapter for a firearm. The rifle sling comprises a first portion having a forward end including a first attachment facility configured for attachment to a forward portion of a rifle, and a second portion having a rear end including a second attachment facility configured for attachment to a rear portion of a rifle. Further, a connector is configured to removable connect the first and second portion, the connector includes three parallel bars collectively defining two elongated slots. One of the slots has a lateral opening at a slots end, the opening is configured to removably retain a strap and to permit removal and insertion of an intermediate portion of the strap. | {
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Ion exchange membranes are used as solid electrolytes in electrochemical energy conversion devices such as fuel cells, electrolysers, in separation processes, sensors, etc. Perfluorinated ion exchange membranes are state of the art proton exchange membranes (PEM) used as electrolytes for fuel cells. Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) technologies are efficient energy conversion devices where the PEM used as the electrolyte play a central role serving as both electrolyte and gas separator. In order to produce electricity efficiently, the polymer electrolyte membrane of a PEMFC must be robust, highly proton conductive, and gas impermeable. Such membranes are generally prepared by solution or dispersion casting of the acid form of the ionomer or by melt-extrusion of a precursor polymer containing sulfonyl halide protective groups that has to be hydrolyzed and acid-exchanged after melt-processing.
There is still a continuing need to reduce cost and the level of manufacturing processes complexity while improving durability and reliability of PEM. To date, solution-cast perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) ionomer membranes (e.g. Nafion™) and solution-cast PFSA membranes reinforced with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) support (e.g. Gore®) have been the most widely used membranes for PEMFCs. However, these materials are costly and still need to meet the requirements for high volume commercial markets. The mechanical and chemical durability of proton exchange membranes is also essential for building robust and long-lasting PEM fuel cells for automotive and stationary applications.
Melt processes represent the best technologies for mass production of homogeneous thin polymer films at low cost. Besides eluding the serious safety and environmental concerns related to the mass production of membranes by solution-casting, melt processes provide a mechanical reinforcement through chain orientations following extrusion-stretching. This structural reinforcement at a molecular level provides extruded PEM with the mechanical durability required for building robust and long-lasting PEM fuel cells. Extruded membranes have already proven to have a much higher mechanical and chemical durability in a fuel cell than solution-cast membranes (Lai 2009). In situ humidity cycling experiments, designed to assess the mechanical durability in PEM, have demonstrated that the stresses induced in the membrane upon cycling between wet and dry conditions can lead to crack formation, which leads to gas crossover and ultimately failure of the fuel cell.
Extruded PEMs are generally processed from non-ionomeric (non-conducting) polymers that have to go through a post-functionalization reaction (e.g. post-sulfonation) to introduce ionic functionalities or from precursors where the ionic groups are protected (e.g. PFSAs in the sulfonyl fluoride form). These non-functional analogs are then chemically converted into their functional counterparts (e.g. their acid form). In both cases, several chemical treatments have to be conducted during the manufacturing process prior to catalytic layers integration, which adds complexity to an otherwise simple process. It is highly desirable to directly extrude the functional polymers in their active form. Unfortunately, the strong ionic associations in ionomers act generally as physical cross-links, increasing by several orders of magnitude both melt-viscosities and relaxation times, resulting in ionomeric materials that are very difficult to melt-process. The strength of the ionic interactions in ionomers, and hence their physical and mechanical properties, depends on the acidity of the pendent anion. Polymers modified with the stronger acid, such as sulfonic acid (pKa about 1), exhibit more dramatic changes in thermal, viscoelastic, and rheological properties than those modified with the weaker carboxylic acid (pKa about 4-5). However, most ionomers may be melt-processed in very low shear rate operations such as compression-molding, which reveals that these ionic associations are not permanent cross-links and can be reversibly disrupted under suitable conditions.
It is known in the art (Sanchez 2009 for example) that plasticizers like imidazole, N-alkylimidazole and N-vinylimidazole can be used as processing aids for melt processing of polysulfone polymers. However, these processing aids are particular to polysulfone-like polymers and are not transferable to the melt-processing of PFSA ionomers.
It is further known (Sen 2008) that 1H-1,2,4-triazole can be used to improve anhydrous proton conduction of Nafion™ membranes, but the triazole is introduced into these membranes by solution impregnation techniques, not melt-processing techniques. There is no suggestion that the triazole can be used as a plasticizer in a melt-processing process. The resulting poor dispersion of the triazole in the film detracts from the mechanical properties of the membrane.
There remains a need for PFSA-based ion exchange membranes with improved properties. | {
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The present invention relates to heat treatment apparatus used in heating processing and the like for semiconductor wafers and other objects to be treated.
FIG. 6 shows one portion of a generally used type of heat treatment apparatus used in the manufacture of semiconductors, for CVD processing and for oxidation by heat treatment of semiconductors. This heat treatment apparatus is provided with a process tube 4 which is the processing chamber which implements a required processing such as heating or the like to wafers 2 which are the object to be processed. To the lower side of this process tube 4 is provided a load lock chamber 8 via a manifold 6 which is configured from stainless steel or the like. The manifold 6 is a cavity portion for connecting the process tube 4 and the load lock chamber 8, and the load lock chamber 8 is a blocking chamber for blocking the outside air from the wafers 2 either prior to or after treatment thereof by the process tube 4.
The process tube 4 is formed of a heat-resistant material such as silica glass or the like which does not exert an influence with respect to the objects being processed, and is a cylindrical shape with one end closed, and is disposed immediately above the upper portion of the load lock chamber 8. In this manner, the treating furnace with the process tube 4 immediately above it is called a vertical type furnace. Around this process tube 4 is a heater 10 for performing heating or some other necessary process with respect to the wafers 2. This heater 10 performs electrical heating control and so is connected to a heating control apparatus. The treatment temperature of the process tube 4 is set to 500.degree.-1000.degree. C. for the CVD process, or to 800.degree.-1000.degree. C. for oxidation treatment or diffusion treatment.
To the manifold 6 which is disposed to the side of the lower end of this process tube 4 is provided a gas introduction tube 12 for the introduction of a treatment gas G.sub.1 corresponding to the treatment, into the process tube 4, and this gas introduction tube 12 is connected via a control valve or the like to a gas source (not shown). For example, SiH4 is used as the treatment gas for CVD treatment when a polysilicon film is to be formed, and NH.sub.4, SiH.sub.2 Cl.sub.2 is used as the treatment gas when a silicon nitride film is to be formed, and these gases are introduced into the process tube 4 via the gas introduction tube 12, and N.sub.2 gas or the like is introduced into the process tube 4 as the purge gas.
The inside of this process tube 4 is provided with a cylindrical partition wall formed of a heat resistant material such as silica glass or the like. After the treatment gas which has been introduced from the gas introduction tube 12 moves from the side of the manifold 6 and from the bottom to the top of the process tube 4, it moves to the outer side of the partition wall 14 and again returns to the manifold 6. More specifically, the manifold 6 of the outer surface portion of the partition wall 14 is connected to an exhaust pipe 16 which is the exhaust portion for the exhaust of the air in the initial status, or the treatment gas G.sub.1 which has been recirculated, and this exhaust pipe 16 is connected to a vacuum apparatus such as a vacuum pump or the like (not shown). The air and the treatment gas G.sub.1 which has been introduced are forcedly exhausted from the process tube 4 through the vacuum apparatus.
In addition, the wafers 2 which are the object of treatment are carried into the process tube 4 by a wafer boat 18 from the load lock chamber 8 via the conveyor chamber 8a. In addition, to the opening portion 19 on the side of the load lock chamber 8 of the manifold 6 is provided a shutter 20 as an interrupt means between the load lock chamber 8 and the process tube 4. This shutter 20 swivels along with unloading and closes the opening portion 19 of the manifold 6 when there wafer boat 18 is unloaded from the process tube 4.
Furthermore, the load lock chamber 8 is provided with a boat elevator 22 as the raising and lowering mechanism for raising and lowering the wafer boat 18 and for loading and unloading the wafers 2 to and from the process tube 4. To the upper surface of this boat elevator 22 is provided a heat retention cylinder 24 for supporting the wafer boat 18 and forming a region of uniform temperature. When the wafer boat 18 is unloaded, this heat retention cylinder 24 seals the open surface of the manifold 6 and so forms a cap 26, while the arm portion 22a of the boat elevator 22 has a flat plate 26a comprised of stainless steel, and between this flat plate 26a and the cap 26 is a coil spring 26b arranged at three places for example. More specifically, when the objects for treatment are being loaded into the process tube 4, the shutter 20 swivels and opens, the boat elevator 22 rises, and the manifold 6 is sealed by the cap 26 of the heat retention cylinder 24 and the process tube 4 is blocked off from the load lock chamber 8.
In addition, the wall surface portion of this load lock chamber 8 is provided with a gate 28 through which is performed the carrying in of the wafers 2 from the conveyor chamber 8a prior to treatment and the carrying out of the wafers 2 from the load lock chamber 8 after treatment, and this gate 28 is provided with a gate valve for blocking the load lock chamber 8 and the conveyor chamber 8a. The wall surface portion of the load lock chamber 8 is provided with a gas introduction pipe 30 and an exhaust pipe 32, and the gas introduction pipe 30 is connected to a gas source for an inert gas which is the purge gas G.sub.2 or the like. More specifically, the purge gas G.sub.2 is supplied from the gas introduction pipe 30 to inside the load lock chamber 8, and a vacuum is made inside the load lock chamber 8 via the exhaust pipe 32, and either the creation of a vacuum or the exhaust of the supplied gas G.sub.2 are performed via the gas introduction pipe 30.
In such a conventional heat treatment apparatus, the boat elevator 22 is provided as the means for opening and closing the opening portion 19 of the manifold 6, and for the carrying in and out of the process tube 4, of the wafers 2 which are the object of treatment. Then, this boat elevator 22 is provided with a drive mechanism 34 which is configured by a ball screw or the like, for performing up and down motion. This boat elevator 22 has the wafer boat 18 and several tens of wafers 2 placed on it, and is supported by the cap 26 which seals the opening portion 19 of the manifold 6 but when the opening portion 19 of the manifold 6 is sealed, it is necessary for this cap 26 to be in gentle contact with the opening portion 19 of the manifold 6. There are cases when the manifold 6 is formed of stainless steel but when it is formed of silica glass or the like, there is the danger of it breaking should an impact be applied to the side of the manifold when the opening portion 19 is sealed. Furthermore, when there is such an impact force, the wafers 2 on the wafer boat 18 are moved and this generates particles which adhere to the wafers 2 and cause an adverse influence with respect to the film formation treatment. In addition, from the necessity of maintaining airtightness on the side of the manifold 6, it is necessary that the cap 26 and the opening portion 19 of the manifold 6 be sealed with a constant degree of adhesion.
In addition, even if the degree of verticality of the process tube 4 and the manifold 6 is set with a high precision, it is difficult to establish a degree of verticality for the wafer boat 18 which is mounted on the heat retention cylinder 24, and a degree of horizontality for the wafer boat 18. Furthermore, in the status where both the horizontality of the cap 26 and the verticality of the wafer boat 18 are not both established, closing the cap 26 to the manifold 6 means that the wafer boat 18 will be housed in the process tube 4 in an inclined status when the cap 26 is closed to the manifold 6. If film formation treatment is implemented to the wafers 2 when there is a status such as this, then there will be an eccentric recirculation density of the treatment gas with respect to the wafers 2 of the wafer boat 18 and there will be a loss of thermal uniformity because of the changes in the distance to the heater 10. This will result in non-uniform treatment with respect to the wafers 2, and there will be a higher incidence of faults.
Not only this, as shown in FIG. 7, a conventional horizontal type furnace has a lower end base portion of a diagonally moving member 170 pivoted by a horizontal shaft 180 to the moving unit 120 and this diagonally moving member 170 is provided horizontal to a cylindrical unit 190 which has one closed end. Moreover, a base portion of a cantilever 800 is supported to the inner surface of this cylindrical unit 190 by support members 200a, 200b and by a spring 210. Then, the outer periphery of the cylindrical unit 190 engages with a furnace opening door 700, and is supported by a spring 220, and a bellows 140 links the diagonally moving member 170 and the furnace opening door 700. A spring 130 which presses the door 700 to the furnace opening is inserted between the diagonally moving member 170 and the furnace opening door 700 (for example, see Utility Model Publication No. 24926-1989).
However, this type can only be applied to horizontal type furnaces and cannot be applied to vertical furnaces, and in addition, there is no heat retention for the wafer boat, there are no rotating portions, and there is also no implementation of heat insulation. | {
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The present invention relates generally to improvements in cameras and it relates particularly to an improved compact camera self-containing a plurality of objective lenses which are selectively alternatively transferred between displaced and operative positions and a view finder whose field is varied in accordance with the power of the operatively positioned objective lens.
With a camera of the type, in which the power of magnification of the picture-taking or objective lens system is varied by selectively moving two or more objective lenses built or self-retained in the camera into or out of the picture-taking or photographing optical path, it has been necessary to change the picture-taking field or range indicated within the associated view finder in conformity with the selected magnification of the picture-taking lens system.
Mechanisms proposed for changing the picture-taking range indicated within the finder may be classified into two types in which:
(1) The size of a view frame within the finder is changed, while maintaining the magnification of the image in the finder constant, thereby indicating the picture-taking field of the operative picture-taking lens system; and
(2) The magnification of the image in the finder is varied while maintaining the size of the view frame in a finder constant.
According to the first mechanism, the size of the view limiting frame consisting of an Albada finder system alone may be varied, without varying the magnification of the image in the finder, and hence the construction may be simplified. However, in case a picture-taking lens system is changed from a standard lens to a telephoto lens, the size of the view frame of the finder is reduced, and in addition, the finder image is reduced in size, because an object in general is located at a great distance, with the result that detailed observation of the object becomes difficult.
In contrast thereto, the second mechanism is devoid of the aforesaid shortcoming and provides advantages over the first mechanism. However, a complicated structure is required for varying the magnification of the image in the finder, with the resulting increase in the size of the finder as well as in the manufacturing cost.
Moreover, a mechanism has been proposed in which a zoom lens system is employed as a finder optical system for varying the magnification of the image in the field of view of the finder, providing the basic optical system as shown in FIG. 1 of the drawing herein. More particularly, the finder optical system proposed includes an inverse Galilean finder system consisting of a concave objective lens 1 and a convex movable lens 2, a concave lens 3 for use in an Albada finder, and an eye-piece 4, so that the magnification of the image in the finder may be varied by moving the convex movable lens 2 along the system optical axis in the direction of arrows e. In addition, as is well known, the size of the view limiting frame is so arranged as to be maintained constant by means of an optical image frame 4a formed on the object side of eye piece 4, and mirror surface 3a which is formed on the image side of concave Albada lens 3 and shown by a thick line.
In general, important fundamental problems in the finder system are whether or not an optimum magnification is achieved for an image, and how far the image of an object is viewed, when observed in the finder, i.e., a dioptric power problem.
However, with the finder lens system as shown in FIG. 1, when the image magnification of the finder remains substantially unchanged, i.e., in a range lower than 1.5, variation in magnification will not lead to a marked variation in dioptric power, thus providing desired practicability in actual application. However, when the finder magnification is increased to over 1.5, in response to a variation in the magnification of the picture-taking lens, then the variation in the dioptric power will exceed 1 diopter, so that in case the magnification exceeds 2, then the view in the finder becomes hard to recognize, and in addition, marked distortion of the field results, thus failing to provide the desired practicability for a short-sighted photographer who suffers from an insufficient adjusting capability of the eyes.
This may be attributed to the fact that part of the lenses constituting the finder optical system is moved only along the optical axis of a finder, so that compensation for aberration cannot be positively achieved. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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A clinical trial is an extremely complicated undertaking. The process normally involves multiple iterations of each stage in the planning, design, execution, and analysis cycle for pharmaceutical development because negative data about the safety or efficacy of the pharmaceutical product will require reformulation, which will then necessitate subsequent small scale trials before larger trials may be attempted.
Before beginning a clinical trial, a significant amount of time and effort is spent in designing the trial. Due to the effort and expense of conducting the trial, it is critical that the trial be designed to be as effective and efficient as possible. This involves gathering and analyzing a large amount of information. Prior art systems attempted to deal with this problem by maintaining information regarding the design of a trial in a multiplicity of documents, such as spreadsheets and word processing documents. However, this approach had problems. For example, if information was captured in one source and needed to be transferred to another source, this had to be done manually. This led to wasted effort, expense, and increased opportunities for errors. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power generator, a timepiece and electronic device having the power generator and a cogging torque adjustment method for the power generator, the power generator being adapted for supplying power in an electronic clock etc. More specifically, it relates to a technique for optimizing a cogging torque (non-excitation torque/detent torque of a step motor) of a power generator.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 1, an electronic clock with a crystal oscillator as a time standard has a power supply 10 having a small-size power generator 20 and a secondary power supply 30. The power supply 10 actuates a step motor etc. of a processor 14. As shown in FIG. 2, the small-size power generator 20 is provided with a rotor 21 to be rotated by a transmitted rotary drive force, a stator 22 sandwiching the rotor 21 and a power-generating coil 23 wound around a magnetic core constituting a magnetic circuit together with the stator 22 and the rotor 21. The rotor 21 has a power-generating gear train 60 for speeding up and transmitting a rotation of an oscillating weight 25.
In order for the rotor 21 to remain at a desired position when no load is applied, outer notches 221 and 222 for the magnetic saturation portion on a periphery of the rotor 21 are formed on the stator 22 as shown in FIG. 14. The rotor 21 is a permanent magnet having N and S magnetic poles. When the rotor 21 remains at a certain angular position and the rotation of the oscillating weight 25 is transmitted through the power-generating gear train 60, the magnetic poles N and S are rotated to generate electromotive force to the power-generating coil 23. Since a cogging torque is applied to the rotor 21, the rotor 21 is biased to remain at a predetermined angular position (rotor stop position without applying load—referred to “no-load rotor stop position” hereinafter.).
Accordingly, in order to rotate rotor 21 the oscillating weight 25 has to be capable of transmitting greater torque to the rotor 21 than the cogging torque.
However, the size and thickness of respective components of an electronic clock have been reduced to minimize its overall thickness. Thus, the size and weight of the oscillating weight 25 of the small-size power generator 20 are necessarily reduced. Accordingly, with the conventional small-size power generator 20, when the size and weight of the oscillating weight 25 are reduced while the magnitude of the cogging torque applied to the rotor 21 does not change, rotation of the oscillating weight 25 can be hampered, thus rendering it incapable of charging the secondary power supply 30.
In another type of power generator, the rotor of the power generator is rotated by a mechanical energy source such as a power spring. However, when the size of the power spring etc. is reduced, the rotation of the rotor can be hampered, thus causing the same problem in charging the secondary power supply.
Accordingly, it has been desired that the magnitude of cogging torque is made as small as possible so as to facilitate rotation of the rotor even when the size of the oscillating weight 25 and the power spring etc. is reduced. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Fingerprint sensors that measure the fingerprint pattern using electric field sensing methods and capacitive sensing methods have become well established. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,940,526 and 5,963,679 are examples of this type of fingerprint sensor, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. These systems measure the fingerprint pattern by generating an electric field between the finger and the sensor array, and measuring the spatial fluctuations in field strength at the sensor array caused by the shape of the fingerprint ridge and valley pattern.
In some recent applications, it may be desirable to capture images of fingerprint patterns from fingers that are farther away from the sensor array than is typical with today's technologies. Unfortunately, as the finger gets farther away from the sensor array, for example when a relatively thick dielectric lies between the sensor array and the finger, the relatively thick dielectric between the sensor array and the finger may cause variations in the electric field between the finger and the sensor array. These variations may cause image data generated by the finger sensor to be representative of a blurred image. | {
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Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. H05-191312 discloses a conventional radio-frequency receiver. As shown in FIG. 7, conventional radio-frequency receiver 201 contains radio-frequency receiving circuits 202a and 202b that are identical in construction. Radio-frequency circuit 202a (202b) contains input terminal 204a (204b) that receives digital broadcasting signals from antenna 203a (203b), output terminal 205a (205b) that carries output signals and PLL-control terminal 206a (206b) that carries PLL-control signals. Radio-frequency receiving circuits 202a and 202b are accommodated in a same housing.
Besides, radio-frequency receiving circuit 202a (202b) contains mixer 207a (207b) and oscillation circuit 209a (209b). Mixer 207a (207b) receives a signal from input terminal 204a (204b) and sends it to output terminal 205a (205b). Mixer 207a (207b) also receives an oscillation signal from oscillation circuit 209a (209b) via selective switching section 208a (208b).
Such structured radio-frequency receiver 201 is usually battery-operated, for example, at a low voltage of 3V. It is therefore difficult to supply high tuning voltage to variable capacitance diodes that constitute oscillation circuits 209a and 209b in terms of decreasing power consumption and noise.
To address the problem, each of oscillation circuits 209a and 209b contains four connected units of an oscillator and a tuning circuit: three units for selectively receiving all channels (hereinafter abbreviated to ch) in the UHF (ultra high frequency) band; and one unit for receiving 7-ch in the VHF (very high frequency) band.
That is, conventional radio-frequency receiver 201, since having two radio-frequency receiving circuits 202a and 202b, needs eight units of the oscillator and the tuning circuit in total.
The tuning circuit is formed of a capacitor and an inductor connected in parallel; the inductor has a large footprint in the circuit. This has been an obstacle to reduction in size of an integrated circuit; accordingly, an obstacle to reduction in size of a radio-frequency receiver. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Availability of up-to-date information is more important today than ever before and this will continue to be true for the foreseeable future. People want to be well informed, so much so that they travel with cellular phones, beepers, and even portable hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite receivers.
GPS capable devices generally have a GPS receiver for receiving satellite signals from the GPS satellite network that allow for determination of the device's position. Such devices allow for precisely locating the device in terms of latitude and longitude using the GPS receiver. Some devices have map data stored in memory and a display for showing the device position with reference to the map data. Other devices have no underlying map data base for reference. Rather, they show only the geographic coordinates of the device's location. These coordinates may be referred to as waypoints. Most GPS receiver devices can store many waypoints. Some GPS receiver devices can plot and display a trail of waypoints and store this trail for future retrieval. Sophisticated devices may compute the device's heading, speed, and other information based on comparisons with previous GPS determined positions.
GPS receiver devices with map display capability may store the map information on computer diskettes, CD-ROM's, or other computer memory storage devices. The device location may then be displayed on a display terminal with reference to a map stored in the computer memory storage device. The available quantity of map data, however, can overwhelm the memory capability of easily portable computer devices. This problem is exacerbated when additional information is included and linked with the map data. In addition, information is more valuable when it is up to date and available at the time of consumption, and such devices do not incorporate a means for updating the stored information. By way of example, a CD ROM could never maintain an up-to-date list of every 5-star restaurant.
Some GPS receiver devices have the ability to communicate over a telecommunications network. These devices do not provide for automatic or semi-automatic dynamic exchange of on-line position dependent or related information. In addition, these devices cannot communicate with third parties in the absence of a uniform data format standard. For example, a cellular-phone-based system comprising GPS location information working in conjunction with proprietary Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) telephone equipment is known. The device provides personal and medical information on an emergency basis to the proper authorities. Such a device does not allow third parties to communicate, tag, interrogate, limit, designate, modify or share this information amongst themselves for any other use.
To that end, the ability to receive digital data structures with GPS encoding, and storing this information for eventual use or broadcast to third parties, would be valuable. Today, the U.S. and several other countries have independent publishers busily GPS mapping everything down to the most minute detail. Most of these data bases are available on CD ROM storage. The problem is that no one data base can contain enough information to fulfill the unique requests of every particular and picky consumer. The costs associated with providing and maintaining such a large data base would be overwhelming and over-burdening. Additionally, most consumers do not like reading or compiling vast data bases. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to a method for molding bonded plastics material, in particular expanded or foamable plastics material in combination with rigid plastics material, such as expanded polystyrene with rigid sheet polystyrene.
For molding these materials, which requires the application of steam to sinter the expanded foamable plastics material, with its simultaneous adhesion to the rigid material, it is already known from Italian patent No. 1,185,507 to use a mold consisting of two half-mold which together define a molding cavity for housing the two materials, one of which, namely the more rigid sheet material, is firstly preformed in contact with only the lower half-mold, the other material then being molding onto the first by sintering in the closed mold.
In this method, the rigid sheet plastics material is retained at its end edges and then firefly hot-deformed by moving the relative half-mould beyond the plane of the sheet material, after which the material is made to adhere exactly to the half-mold by creating a vacuum between the half-mold and the material. The upper half-mold is then lowered and the expanded foamable plastics material is molded within the resultant cavity, steam being applied in pulses alternating with the application of vacuum, to enable the expanded material to sinter onto the more rigid material.
This known method and apparatus have the advantage of requiring only a single mold consisting of two half-molds movable relative to each other, with resultant constructional advantages. However, a vacuum application stage for preforming is still required, as otherwise it would not be possible to make the more rigid material adhere perfectly to the shape of the preforming half-mold, there being no corresponding counter-mold in that the one provided has a shape which corresponds instead to the part to be molded in expanded material. Vacuum application alone is not always able to produce the required shape, especially in the case of the more complex molds shapes, as in such cases it is difficult to cause the material to adhere to the mold at every point. To overcome this difficulty, preforming has to be effected in a mold separate from the main mold, however this complicates the apparatus because of the larger number of components and the consequent more complicated handling of these and of the material. A further drawback of the known method and apparatus is that those portions of the material which are peripherally clamped undergo inevitable alteration during molding and have mostly to be discarded as the cannot be recycled, this representing a substantial material wastage and posing disposal problems. | {
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Recliner chair actions in which a seat and/or back are variously mounted for independent or interrelated mobility are numerous, but generally suffer from deficient performance, complexity and cost. The Applicant's past proposals to address and resolve these issues for such actions include WO2007/023301 n which seat occupancy and back recline forces or loads are counterposed and in a later design explored a multiple slide arranged for co-operative interlink and optimised motion; Challenges include mechanism simplicity and reduced component count for ease of manufacture, without compromising action subtlety, and set in a compact format. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an outer-loop control device in a CDMA mobile communications system and a method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a CDMA mobile communications system has been spotlighted as a next-generation communications system.
In a CDMA mobile communications system, a plurality of channels share one frequency band. In this case, each channel is identified by a spreading code attached to it. Therefore, an interference noise power varies depending on the number of simultaneous user.
Generally, the longer a propagation distance is, the larger the power attenuation of a radio wave is. The instantaneous power value of a receiving signal also changes due to multi-path fading and the like. Therefore, it is difficult to stably maintain the communications quality of a mobile station connected to a base station at a desired level.
In order to follow such a large change in the number of interfering users and instantaneous value changes due to multi-path fading, a closed loop transmission power control (TPC), for controlling an SIR in such a way that an SIR (signal to interference ratio) on a receiving side may approach a reference SIR, is exercised by measuring a signal-to-interference power ratio (SIR) on the receiving side and comparing the measurement value with the reference SIR.
However, an SIR needed to obtain a desired quality (block error rate) varies with the change of travel speed in communications or the change of a propagation environment during travel. A block error is observed in order to compensate for this change. If the observed value is higher than a desired BLER (target block error rate), the reference SIR is increased. If the observation value is lower than a desired BLER, the reference SIR is decreased. Flexibly controlling a reference SIR in this way is called outer-loop control.
For the outer-loop control method described above, the following methods have been used. (1) Technical Report of IEICE, RCS98-18, pp. 51-57 (2) The 1999 General Conference of The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, B-5-145 (3) The 2000 General Conference of The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, B-5-72, etc.
In the description below, the following symbols are used.
T: Block error observation time period
BLER: Target block error rate
Sinc: Unit increment in the case where a reference SIR is increased at the time of a reference SIR update
Sdec: Unit decrement in the case where a reference SIR is decreased at the time of a reference SIR update
In method (1), a reference SIR is increased/decreased depending on the number of block errors occurring in a predetermined observation time period.
In method (2), it is detected whether there is an error in each block. If there is an error, the reference SIR is increased. If there is no error, the reference SIR is decreased.
In method (3), if there is an error in an observation time period T calculated by T (block error observation time period)=round (ln 2/BLER), the reference SIR is increased. If there is no error, the reference SIR is decreased. The word “round” means to count fractions of 5 and over as a unit and to disregard the rest.
Table 1 shows the comparison result of these methods.
TABLE 1Features of Prior Arts[1][2][3]observationconstant1constanttime periodT = round (lnof block2/BLER)error rateReferenceWhen anFor each blocktime ofSIR updateobservationerrortimingtime periodoccurrencecomes to anwhenendobservationtime periodendsUpdate stepVariesIncrement ≠increment =dependingdecrementdecrementon theBLER ×number ofSinc =errors(1 − BLER) ×occurringSdecin anobservationtimeperiod.
In method (1), a reference SIR update interval is fixed and is long. Both the update interval and the increment/decrement of the reference SIR are empirically determined. No theoretical ground is shown.
In method (2), the size of Sdec is sometimes too small compared with Sinc. For example, if a target block error rate, the increment Sinc of a reference SIR are 0.01 and 1 (dB), respectively, the decrement Sdec of the reference SIR becomes approximately 0.01 (dB) and is too small. If the value must be implemented by hardware and if both SIR measurement accuracy and a reference SIR control step are taken into consideration, it is not practical to finely control the reference SIR in this way.
In method (3), if a BLER is given, an observation time period T is uniquely determined. If there is an error, the reference SIR can be immediately updated. However, if there is no error, the set observation time period cannot be updated. Therefore, if a BLER is low, au update interval becomes fairly long. | {
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As well known to motorists, a flooded engine at the very least creates an inconvenience, often incurs a cost of road aid, and sometimes exposes the car and its passengers to unnecessary safety risks. This is in addition to the unnecessary degredation to the life and operation of the engine in the form of fouled spark plugs, cylinder walls washed of their lubricants, and accelerated engine wear due to breakdown of the lubricants themselves. It is therefore highly desirable to enhance engine starting operation while at the same time decreasing the risk of engine flooding.
Conventional spark-ignited internal combustion engines are cranked at about 30 RPM during starting which is markedly lower than the 600 RPM idling speeds when started. Therefore, less air is inhaled during starting resulting in poor fuel atomization, increased wetting of the walls of the intake manifolding by the raw fuel, and generally more marginal ignition conditions. Moreover, such effects become more pronounced with decreasing starting temperatures.
Conventionally, to compensate for these conditions, the air fuel mixture is enriched during cranking as a function of decreasing temperature and battery supply voltages. In the case of one conventional fuel injected eight cylinder engine, it has been found that, in order to start the engine within two seconds of cranking, the widths of the injected fuel pulses have to be extended from normal operating values of about 10 milliseconds to starting values of about 35 milliseconds when starting at -20.degree. F.
As the widths of the start pulses increase so does the risk of flooding the engine. To minimize this risk, the starting pulses are calibrated to be leaner than optimum at each temperature, resulting in longer cranking times, greater expenditure of battery power, etc. To the extent that such longer cranking might consume all the effective cranking power, the engine might not start where it otherwise might have started. It is therefore desirable to start the engine using the richest mixture possible in the shortest cranking time.
The risk of flooding thus increases with decreasing temperature not only because of the required wide variation in the quantity of fuel required over the service range of temperatures but also because of the comparatively tight tolerance on the quantity of fuel required at each temperature. Moreover, since these quantities are based on assumed cranking speeds, the risk of flooding is further increased by factors affecting cranking speeds, such factors including variations in available battery voltages due to aging and temperature. It is therefore desirable to start an internal combustion engine using the richest fuel mixture possible without flooding the engine.
Compared to conventionally-carburetted internal combustion engines, those that are fuel injected experience an inherently lower risk of inadvertently flooding during starting. Such fuel injection systems include those disclosed in my commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 3,734,068 and RE No. 29,060, the disclosures of which are hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference. As disclosed therein, the widths of the fuel pulses are closely tailored to general engine operating conditions, and, in particular, to cold start conditions. Moreover, even though very low battery voltages are still experienced when starting in cold weather, the effect of the resulting low supply voltages on the injector drive circuits may be reduced by using injector drive circuits of the type that use more of the available supply voltage to activate the injectors. Such injector drive circuits may be of the type that do not use the external resister conventionally connected series with each injector to protect it from an inadvertent short circuit. This type of circuit includes those disclosed in my commonly-assigned co-pending U.S. Pat. application No. 370,140 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,678 representing a continuation and division respectively of my now abandoned patent application No. 130,349 filed Apr. 1, 1971, the disclosures of each such case being hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference.
Finally, the risk of flooding may be further reduced by using fuel injectors effecting a finer and more uniform atomization. Such fuel injectors may be of the type disclosed in the commonly-assigned patent to Kiwior 4,030,668 and Kiwior et al 4,057,190, the disclosures of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference.
However, even with such improved fuel injection systems, injector drive circuits, and fuel injectors, the electrical parameters of each system component may nevertheless shift with aging and temperature. Such shifts in electrical parameters could shift the widths of the computed start pulses outside their tolerances. As a result, injectors could stay open for the entire period available for fuel injection rather than just for the start pulse portion of such period that would have been computed if the parameters had not shifted and/or the battery supply dropped more than expected. To avoid the consequences of flooding, it is therefore desirable to detect an indication of incipient flooding in the form of the quantity of fuel injected during starting and then to use this information to either inhibit or otherwise attenuate further fuel injection.
As an example of one type of the latter circuit, the patents to Moulds et al No. 3,628,510 and Barr 3,616,784 both disclose a cranking enrichment circuit that adds constant-width enrichment pulses at a frequency varying inversely with engine temperature to conventionally computed variable width pulses generated in synchronization with engine rotation. Such variable-frequency constant-width enrichment pulses are added from the commencement of cranking when the charging of a capacitor is also commenced to when the capacitor voltage exceeds a predetermined reference. While the intervening time is an indication of the quantity fuel injected during each cranking interval, this time is at best only an approximation of the actual quantity of fuel injected. The approximation is based on the assumptions that there are no changes with temperature, age, etc. from the calibrated values of the frequency or widths of the basic fuel pulses to which the enrichment pulses are added, or even the basic cranking speeds. In other words, any unmatched shift in the values of these or other system parameters from their calibrated values increases the difference between the quantity of fuel actually injected during starting and the quantity that might be inferred from the time elapsed from beginning of cranking to when the capacitor voltage exceeds a reference threshold. Therefore, unless the Moulds/Barr reference threshold is set to include a sufficient margin of leanness from an incipient flood condition, the cranking enrichment circuits might not predict and prevent flooding in situations where flooding might otherwise occur. And even if the threshold were set with a sufficient margin of leanness, the resulting longer cranking times incurred might deplete the battery faster in the very cold start temperatures where flooding is most probable. In that case, the engine might not start, not because it has flooded, but because the remaining battery power is insufficient to adequately crank the engine.
It is therefore desirable to provide an anti-flood circuit utilizing a more direct indication of the quantity of fuel actually injected during cranking than the elapsed time from the beginning of cranking. | {
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The technology of the disclosure generally relates to managing optical sources in distributed communication systems and more particularly to managing laser diodes.
Wireless communication is rapidly growing, with ever-increasing demands for high-speed mobile data communication. As an example, so-called “wireless fidelity” or “WiFi” systems and wireless local area networks (WLANs) are being deployed in many different types of areas (e.g., coffee shops, airports, libraries, etc.). Distributed communication systems (one type of which is a distributed antenna system) communicate with wireless devices called “clients,” which must reside within the wireless range or “cell coverage area” to communicate with an access point device.
One approach to deploying a distributed antenna system (DAS) involves the use of radio frequency (RF) antenna coverage areas, also referred to as “antenna coverage areas.” Antenna coverage areas typically have a radius in the range from a few meters up to twenty meters. Combining a number of access point devices creates an array of antenna coverage areas. Because the antenna coverage areas each cover small areas, there are typically only a few users (clients) per antenna coverage area. This arrangement allows for minimizing the amount of RF bandwidth shared among the wireless system users.
One type of DAS distributes RF communication signals over optical fibers. A DAS can include head end equipment (HEE) optically coupled to remote units (RUs) or remote antenna units (RAUs) having an antenna to provide antenna coverage areas. The RUs have RF transceivers coupled to one or more antennas to wirelessly transmit RF communication signals. The antennas in the RUs also receive RF signals from clients in the antenna coverage area which are sent over optical fiber to the HEE.
Optical signals are placed onto the optical fibers by laser diodes such as the QF9550CM1 Quantum Cascade Laser sold by THORLABS of Newton, N.J. The optical power of the laser diode is proportional to the electrical current that drives the laser diode. System designers expect the power received at the RUs to fall within a certain band, for example, 14 dBm to 17 dBm. To maintain the received power within the desired range, the overall gain of the system is estimated during system setup by injecting a known signal at the transmitter and measuring the signal at the receiver. The measured value is returned to the transmitter and an estimate of the overall gain is stored. Based on the overall gain of the system, the power level needed at the laser diode may be calculated. While such calibration provides a good first order estimate of the overall gain of the system, environmental factors may cause variations for which the calibration does not compensate. Accordingly, there remains a need to improve the model of the system and provide the appropriate gain.
No admission is made that any reference cited herein constitutes prior art. Applicant expressly reserves the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of any cited documents. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for an a method of positioning and holding a photosensitive material to be used in a reproduction apparatus and particularly to an apparatus for and a method of positioning and holding a photosensitive material or the like having a sheet form to be placed on a photographing portion shaped like a table (referred to hereinafter as a photographing table) of a process camera.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that such a conventional process camera as shown in FIG. 1 has been used in graphic arts.
This vertical-type process camera comprises: a photographing table 2 provided in an upper portion of a frame body 1 and having a transparent plate 12; a lens mount 4 with a lens 5, provided under the photographing table 2 and movable vertically by means of bellows 3; an original table 7 having a pair of light sources 6, provided under the lens mount 4 in a vertically movable manner; and a transparent pressure plate 8 placed on the original table 7 for fixedly holding an original between the table 7 and the pressure plate 8. Thus, an image of the original held between the original table 7 and the pressure plate 8 is focused on a transparent plate 12 of the photographing table 2 through the lens 5 with a desired magnification and a photosensitive material 10 placed on the transparent plate 12 with its photosensitive surface directed downward is exposed so that the image is printed on the material 10.
The photographing table 2 comprises means 19 for positioning and holding the photosensitive material as shown in FIG. 2, as is well-known in the prior art.
More specifically, the positioning and holding means 19 comprises: a positioning mark sheet 21 having corner marks 22 for positioning along an optical axis of the camera the photosensitive material 10 placed on the transparent plate 12 of the photographing table 2; a light intercepting device 23 for spreading a light intercepting overlay sheet 25 over the mark sheet 21 under which the photosensitive material 10 is placed; and evacuation means 16 for evacuating the air between the transparent plate 12 and the overlay sheet 25 placed thereon through an evacuation channel 13 provided in peripheral portions of the transparent plate 12. The photosensitive material 10 is positioned between the transparent plate 12 and the mark sheet 21 by setting the corners of the photosensitive material 10 to the corner marks 22 while inserting the photosensitive material 10 therebetween. A sheet roller 26 of the light intercepting device 23 is rotated toward a front side directed to an operator, so as to spread the overlay sheet 25 on the photographing table 2. Then, the evacuation means 16 is operated to remove air trapped between the overlay sheet 25 and the transparent plate 12 of the table 2, whereby the photosensitive material 10 is retained in a desired position. The mark sheet 21 is, for example, of a flexible sheet member having one surface translucent for enabling the operator to check an image focused on the transparent plate 12. A rear end portion of the overlay sheet 25, opposite to the front side, is fixed on a rear edge portion of the table 2 by means of a presser plate 46 and fixing screws 47. A rear end portion of the mark sheet 21 may be fixed by means of an adhesive tape or the like as required.
It is to be noted, however, that the above mentioned positioning mark sheet 21 can be used only when the operator is allowed to visually check a positional relation between the corner marks 22 and the photosensitive material 10. In other words, the above mentioned mark sheet 21 can be used only in the case of a photosensitive material permitted to be used under safety light, but cannot be used in the case of a photosensitive material permitted to be used only in utter darkness, such as a panchromatic film.
Accordingly, in the latter case, a positioning method called a register pin system, for example, is used conventionally. In the register pin system, a pin bar 28 having register pins 29 is fixed in a desired position on the transparent plate 12 by using an adhesive tape or the like, as shown by broken lines in FIG. 2, and pin holes corresponding to the register pins 29 are provided in the photosensitive material 10, so that the operator can manually position the photosensitive material with precision even in utter darkness by fitting the register pins 29 into the pin holes.
However, in the register pin system, it is necessary as a preparatory step to form pin holes in the photosensitive material after the pin bar 28 is fixed on the transparent plate 12 and it is also necessary to change the position of the pin bar 28 each time the size of a photosensitive material to be used is changed. In addition, it is necessary to completely remove the remaining material of the adhesive tape or the like torn off from the transparent plate 12 each time, thereby to avoid considerable decrease of picture quality. Thus, the register pin system requires troublesome preparation and aftertreatment, causing efficiency of work to be lowered. Furthermore, for such work in utter darkness, the mark sheet is unsuitable or rather a nuisance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to positron beams and employs a radiation modifying member.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although positrons were discovered almost fifty years ago, only recently has it become possible to use low-energy positrons as a research tool in any significant way. Partly responsible for this long hiatus has been the difficulty in obtaining sufficiently intense, well-characterized beams of positrons. If such beams could be produced they would be very useful, for instance, for solid state, surface, and plasma studies, for use in storage rings and the like in high-energy physics, and for possible devices.
Recent theoretical and experimental advances have made it possible to obtain well-characterized positron beams, which in this context essentially means quasimonoenergetic positrons. This is generally achieved by means of an efficient moderator. See for instance, A. P. Mills, Jr., Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 35, Sept. 1, 1979, pp. 427-429, where a single crystal copper moderator activated with about a 1/3 monolayer of sulfur is discussed. Briefly, positrons from a radioactive source (e.g., .sup.58 Co) or other appropriate source are caused to impinge on the activated (111) surface of a highly perfect copper single crystal. After thermalizing in the solid, some of the positrons diffuse back to the surface, where a sizable fraction of them is emitted from the solid, because the described surface has negative affinity for positrons. The emitted thermal positrons have a very small energy spread, of the order of a fraction of one eV. Typically, when a moderator of this kind is used, one obtains a slow positron flux of the order of 10.sup.-3 of the radioactive source positron activity. The area of the moderator which is emitting slow positrons is of necessity larger than the area of the radioactive source, which must have an area of several mm.sup.2 /Curie of activity to insure that the low-energy end of the positron spectrum is not self-absorbed by the source. This large spot size is a severe limitation on the achievable brightness of slow positron beams, i.e., moderated positron beams. I am using "brightness" here in its usual electron-optical sense, namely, "flux/sterad of angle subtended by the beam." Quantitatively, it is defined as follows: let the z-direction of a cartesian coordinate system be oriented along the beam direction. If N particles/unit time pass through a plane normal to z at z.sub.f, "brightness" or "luminosity" of the beam at z.sub.f is defined as ##EQU1## where .omega..sub.xy (z.sub.f) is the beam emittance, ##EQU2## with .OMEGA.(x,y) being the solid angle subtended by the particle trajectories through the point (x,y,z.sub.f), and the integral is over the plane z=z.sub.f. See for instance, P. Dahl, Introduction to Electron and Ion Optics, Academic Press, New York (1973), pp. 11-12.
Optimally achievable beam parameters can be determined from the characteristics of the beam as it is emitted from the moderator surface, since the quantity .theta.d.sqroot.E is conserved, as will be discussed in more detail below. Here .theta. is the angle of divergence of the beam, d the beam diameter, and E the beam energy. For instance, to study positron diffraction from surfaces, one typically needs .theta..about.1.degree., d.about.1 mm, and E.about.25 eV. If one starts with a moderated positron beam having E.about.0.25 eV, d.about.6 mm and .theta..about.60.degree., as occurs in a typical situation, then it is easy to see that, in order to achieve the required beam parameters, an aperture has to be employed that results in a roughly thousandfold reduction of flux.
No known method for improving the achievable brightness by means of electron optics and the like exists, since the limitation expressed in the conservation of .theta.d.sqroot.E is a fundamental one, derived from Liouville's theorem. As was indicated above, the unavailability of high-brightness, well-characterized positron beams has limited the application of positrons as research tools unitl now. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention concerns an improved printed circuit heating element. The heating element is useful for the sterile welding of first and second thermoplastic tubes together transversely of the axis of each tube.
This invention represents an improvement in the heating element disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,951. The heating element there disclosed was, in turn, an improvement over the heating element disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,779. The heating element of U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,951 comprises an outer layer which is a folded sheet of metal; a resistor disposed inside said folded sheet of metal; a layer of dielectric adhesive between the inner surfaces of said folded sheet of metal and said resistor thereby electrically insulating the resistor from the folded sheet and bonding the resulting structure together; said resistor having exposed terminals for reception of electrical current and the folded edge of said metal sheet being the melting edge of the heating element. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Pioneering work by Hisaw 1926 first suggested an important role for the peptide hormone relaxin in animals through its effect in dilating the pubic symphsis, thus facilitating the birth process. Relaxin is synthesised in the corpora lutea of ovaries during pregnancy, and is released into the blood stream prior to parturition. The availability of ovarian tissue has enabled the isolation and amino acid sequence determination of relaxin from the pig (James et al (1977), Nature, 267, 554-546), the rat (John et al (1981) Endocrinology, 108, 726-729), and the shark (Schwabe et al (1982) Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 380, 6-12).
Relaxin genes and the encoded relaxin polypeptides have been identified in many species including man, pig, rat, sheep and shark. In all these species only one relaxin gene has been characterised in mammals, with the exception of the human and higher primates where two separate genes have been described. The separate human genes were identified by the present applicant and designated H1 (Hudson et al (1983) Nature, 301, 628-631) and H2 (Hudson et al (1984) Embo. J., 3, 2333-2339).
The peptide encoded by the H2 gene is the major stored and circulating form in the human (Winslow et al (1992) Endrocrinology, 130, 2660-2668). H1 relaxin expression is restricted to the decidua, placenta and prostate (Hansell et al (1991) J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab., 72, 899-904), however, the H1 peptide has similar biological activity to that of H2 relaxin in a rat atrial bioassay (Tan et al (1998) Br. J. Pharmacol 123, 762-770).
The actions of relaxin include an ability to inhibit myometrial contractions, to stimulate remodelling of connective tissue and to induce softening of the tissues of the birth canal. Additionally, relaxin increases growth and differentiation of the mammary gland and nipple and induces the breakdown of collagen, one of the main components of connective tissue. Relaxin decreases collagen synthesis and increases the release of collagenases (Unemori et al (1990) J. Biol. Chem. 265, 10682-10685). These findings were recently confirmed by the establishment of the relaxin gene-knockout mouse (Zhao et al (1999) Endocrinology 140, 445-453), which exhibited a number of phenotypic properties associated with pregnancy. Female mice lacking a functionally active relaxin gene failed to relax and elongate the interpubic ligament of the pubic symphysis and could not suckle their pups, which in turn, died within 24 hours unless cross-fostered to relaxin wildtype or relaxin heterozygous foster mothers.
Evidence has accumulated to suggest that relaxin is more than a hormone of pregnancy and acts on cells and tissues other than those of the female reproductive system. Relaxin causes a widening of blood vessels (vasodilatation) in the kidney, mesocaecum, lung and peripheral vasculature, which leads to increased blood flow or perfusion rates in these tissues (Bani et al (1997) Gen. Pharmacol 28, 13-22). It also stimulates an increase in heart rate and coronary blood flow, and increases both glomerular filtration rate and renal plasma flow (Bani et al (1997) Gen. Pharmacol. 28, 13-22). The brain is another target tissue for relaxin where the peptide has been shown to bind to receptors (Osheroff et al (1991) Proc. Nal. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 88, 6413-6417; Tan et al (1999) Br. J. Pharmacol 127, 91-98) in the circumventricular organs to affect blood pressure and drinking (Parry et al (1990) J Neurodendocrinol 2, 53-58; Summerlee et al (1998) Endocrinology 139, 2322-2328; Sinnahay et al (1999) Endocrinology 140, 5082-5086).
Important clinical uses arise for relaxin in various diseases responding to vasodilation, such as coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, kidney disease associated with arteriosclerosis or other narrowing of kidney capillaries, or other capillaries narrowing in the body, such as in the eyes or in the peripheral digits, the mesocaecum, lung and peripheral vasculature.
The finding of two human relaxin genes, and encoded human relaxin peptide products nearly 20 years ago was of itself most surprising.
Even more surprisingly with the benefit of nearly 20 years of further research and development in relaxin biology internationally, the applicant has identified, isolated and characterised nucleic acid sequences encoding a third human relaxin gene (H3), the encoded H3 relaxin peptide and the constituent peptide chains thereof. The production of H3 relaxin and analogues thereof has been made possible, as have uses and therapeutic treatment methods. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computational systems and, more particularly, to architectural techniques for instruction set processors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Processor architects have long sought to implement instruction set architectures using techniques that need not directly support some instructions in hardware. Indeed, modern processors often provide facilities whereby at least some instructions, when presented in an instruction sequence, are not directly executed but are instead presented to processor logic as operations (or operation sequences) that correspond to instructions defined by an instruction set architecture (ISA). In some cases, such lower-level operations are referred to as microinstructions, μops, helper instructions or simply, microcode.
Indeed, microcoding techniques were commonly used in early IBM mainframe processors to provide a range of implementations of a given instruction set architecture in which functionality corresponding to certain instructions might be supported in lower-end implementations using microcode, whereas higher-end implementations might directly implement the corresponding instructions in hardware. Microprogramming techniques have also been commonly employed in an effort to maintain instruction set compatibility with legacy instruction sets while incorporating advances in computer architecture in the underlying hardware. Superscalar implementations of x86 (or IA-32) instruction set architectures are a prime example of this design technique. In some cases, few (if any) individual instructions (or operations) implemented by the underlying hardware may precisely correspond to actual instruction set instructions. Classic examples include those processor architectures that employ an underlying RISC-style core to implement a CISC-style instruction set. Many commercially-available processors, including those available from Sun Microsystems, Inc., Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, IBM, Motorola, etc. may employ techniques such as described above.
Unfortunately, while microcoding techniques allow a degree of decoupling between underlying hardware mechanisms and the functionality defined by an instruction set that (unlike the underlying hardware) tends to remain vital for multiple generations, many basics aspects of microcoding techniques have remained relatively unchanged for years. Typically, a fixed set of instruction set instructions (including, in some processors, the set of all instruction set instructions) is handled using a microcode store and sequencer. Typically, in those processor implementations in which less than all ISA instructions are microcoded, a given instruction is either directly supported or microcoded and typically either or both the underlying microcode and any mapping of instruction set instructions to microcode is (are) static.
As underlying hardware itself becomes increasingly complex and as concurrent and speculative execution techniques add to this complexity, additional flexibility may be desirable at the interface between instruction set and implementation. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to apparatuses and methods for processing scan data in the event of an electrostatic discharge (ESD) input.
2. Description of the Related Art
A high-voltage electrostatic discharge (ESD) may occur instantaneously in an image forming apparatus due to various factors. For example, an ESD may occur when a user operates an image forming apparatus or due to internal components of the image forming apparatus.
Image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, multifunctional printers (MFPs), and scanners, may malfunction due to the occurrence of an ESD, and image distortion may occur because such an ESD affects internal signals of an image forming apparatus. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to layout of the optical path in the image-capturing system, and more particularly to an optimum layout of the optical path in the image-capturing system and the method for forming the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, there are various digital products that have been developed within the industry, such as notebooks, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), and Consumption-Communication-Computers (3C). Usually, these digital products include or connect with a monitor to display an image, such as liquid crystal display (LCD) or liquid crystal panel. For the image processing apparatus, in addition, they can be classed as a motionless-image processing apparatus, such as digital camera, scanner, and a moving-image processing apparatus, such as digital video camera.
In the image-processing apparatus, the image-capturing system is the most important member, wherein the image-capturing system is one of the products concerning optical principle that comprises various components, such as image-capturing system, reflector, lens. Generally, the image-capturing system includes a charge-coupled device (CCD) that is sensitive to light, and it can transform photosensitivity of each pixel device into image datum and store them.
In light of the scanner, conventional image-capturing system captures the image by moving the signal image-capturing apparatus and reflection of mirrors. When the light is reflected from the image on the sensitive surface of the charge-coupled device (CCD), a semiangle (θ/2) can be generated. Generally, the sensitive surface of the charge-coupled device (CCD) is a straight surface, and it is not an arc surface. Therefore, the sensitive surface of the charge-coupled device(CCD )cannot receive the reflecting light when the semiangle (θ/2) becomes over large. In view of this, the semiangle (θ/2) has to be decreased so as to completely receive the reflecting light by the charge-coupled device (CCD), wherein one of the method for decreasing the semiangle (θ/2) is to increase the optical paths. Furthermore, the longer the length of the optical paths, the smaller the semiangle (θ/2). In the same way, the longer the length of the optical paths, the smaller the sensitive surface of the charge-coupled device (CCD), so that the whole volume also can be decreased. Therefore, the image-capturing system with the longer optical path reduces the cost for fabricating the image-capturing module and easy to make it.
Moreover, the image-capturing module, the reflectors and the lens are arranged in the peripheral region of conventional image-capturing system. Referring to FIG. 1, the image-capturing system 100 comprises a case 110 with a layout region 110A for optical path, and a module region 110B therein, wherein the mirrors 120A to 120C are set in the layout region 110A; and further, the lens 130 and the image-capturing module 140 are set in the module region 110B. In general, the layout region 110A for optical path is located on the peripheral region of the case 110, which is only the space for being applied to the layout of optical path, and the methods for layout of optical path are difference among the various sizes of the circular diameter (Ø) of the lens. Therefore, if the sizes of the image-capturing module 140 and the lens 130 are greater, they will occupy the major portion of space in the case 110 of the image-capturing system 100 that results in the limitation of length in layout for optical path.
In accordance with the above description, a new optimum layout of the optical path in the image-capturing system and the method for forming the same is therefore necessary to reduce the requirement for space of the image-capturing system, so as to decrease the fabricative cost and easy to make it; and further, this invention can strengthen and raise the scanning quality. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to notebook organizers and particularly relates to a notebook organizer which securable to the rings of the notebook and is provided with several compartments suitable for keeping small items that are of common use for businessmen an/or students, such as pencils, pens, postage stamps, business cards, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Users of notebooks often have a desire to organize and store items associated with the use of the notebook. Several devices have been previously patented which aid in this storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,495,687, entitled "BOX FOR LOOSE-LEAF HOLDERS" discloses a box for loose-leaf holders made, in part, by sheet material which comprises two telescopically associated sections that are hingedly connected so that the box can be opened and closed.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,677,376, entitled "POCKET FOR RING BINDERS" discloses a pocket for ring binders formed of flexible thermoplastic resin with special heat sealed reinforcements and a closure element, preferably a zipper.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,614,450, entitled "PORTABLE INDEX CARD HOLDER FOR NOTEBOOKS" discloses a portable index card holder for notebooks with a plurality of transparent sheets for containing the index cards, positioned in an overlapping array.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,273, entitled "ORGANIZATIONAL INSERT AND ALBUM" discloses an insert particularly suited for a student's school year. Each insert includes first and second sections joined along a common edge and movable from a folded condition essentially protecting the stored contents to an extended position which exposes information in certain display areas and allows removal of bulk stored information, such as report cards.
None of the aforementioned patents provides an efficient, space saving inexpensive means for containing, within the binder, several functional elements typically employed by users of such ringed binders. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Thermoplastic resins such as a polycarbonate resin (PC), polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a blend thereof and a mixture obtained by blending one or a plurality of the above resins with other resins bring about thermal decomposition (reduction in molecular weight) when they are heated and molten in various molding processes and lower in mechanical properties. The present invention relates to a resin additive which prevents thermal decomposition thereof and to a resin additive which prevents thermal decomposition and does not reduce the impact strength to a large extent.
Resin materials, particularly respective resins of PC, PBT and PET are heavily reduced in a molecular weight in melting by heating, so that the molecular weights have notably been reduced by heat given in various molding processes and shear stress exerted in kneading. Accordingly, it was difficult to recycle spools and runners produced in molding as well as recycling of the products.
According to researches made by the present inventors, the resins described above could be inhibited from lowering in a molecular weight in heating and melting by adding inorganic particles subjected to surface treatment with catechin to the resins, but there was the problem that the IZOT impact strengths were reduced.
Intensive researches of a resin additive of catechin continued by the present inventors have resulted in finding that thermo-plastic resins can be inhibited from lowering in a molecular weight in heating and melting by adding a resin additive obtained by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin to the above resins.
Further, the present inventors have found that thermo-plastic resins can be inhibited from lowering in a molecular weight in heating and melting and can be decreased in a reduction in an IZOT impact strength by adding to the above resins, a resin additive obtained by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin and further subjecting them to surface treatment with a coupling agent.
In addition thereto, the present inventors have found that thermoplastic resins can be inhibited from lowering in a molecular weight in heating and melting and can be prevented from lowering in an IZOT impact strength by adding to the above resins, a resin additive obtained by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin and further subjecting them to surface treatment with a phenone compound or saccharides, followed by further subjecting them to surface treatment with a coupling agent.
Accordingly, the first object of the present invention is to provide a resin additive which is obtained by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin and which can inhibit a resin from lowering in a molecular weight in heating and melting to prevent the resin from being deteriorated.
The second object of the present invention is to provide a resin additive which is obtained by allowing the surface of inorganic particles to be contacted with a catechin solution to treat them and further treating them with a coupling agent to thereby subject them to multilayer surface treatment and which not only can prevent a resin from lowering in a molecular weight in heating and melting but also can prevent the resin from lowering in an IZOT impact strength.
The third object of the present invention is to provide a resin additive which is obtained by allowing the surface of inorganic particles to be contacted with a catechin solution to treat them and further subjecting them to surface treatment with a phenone compound or saccharides, followed by further subjecting them to surface treatment with a coupling agent to thereby subject them to multilayer surface treatment and which attempts to thermally stabilize the resin by catechin and reduce the impact stress by the phenone compound or saccharides and strengthens the bond of the inorganic particles with the matrix resin to not only prevent the resin from being deteriorated in heating and melting but also prevent the resin from lowering in an IZOT impact strength.
The fourth object of the present invention is to provide a resin additive which not only provides a thermoplastic resin with heat stability in heating and melting the resin but also prevents the resin from lowering in an IZOT impact strength.
Further object of the present invention is to provide a resin additive which not only provides a thermoplastic polycarbonate resin, a thermoplastic polyester resin or a thermoplastic resin comprising these polycarbonate resin and polyester resin with heat stability in heating and melting the resin but also prevents the resin from lowering in an IZOT impact strength.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a resin additive which makes it possible to recycle the product.
Still another object of the present invention shall become more distinct from the following explanations.
It has been found that the preceding objects of the present invention can be achieved by:
1. a resin additive prepared by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin,
2. a resin additive prepared by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin and further subjecting them to surface treatment with a coupling agent,
3. a resin additive prepared by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin and then subjecting them to surface treatment with a phenone compound, followed by further subjecting them to surface treatment with a coupling agent, and
4. a resin additive prepared by subjecting inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin and then subjecting them to surface treatment with saccharides, followed by further subjecting them to surface treatment with a coupling agent.
The resin additive of the present invention shall be explained below in further details.
The inorganic particles used in the present invention shall not specifically be restricted and may be any inorganic particles as long as they can effectively be used for the objects of the present invention. Specific examples thereof include silica salts such as silica, anhydrous silica, silica gel, talc, clay, mica aluminum silicate and kaolinite, alumina and salts thereof such as aluminates. In addition thereto, inorganic substances staying in a glass state, that is, glass can also be used as an inorganic material in the present invention. Various materials such as oxide glass, particularly silicate glass, powder of glass fiber, glass beads, glass balloon and fly ash can be used. Further, carbon and powder of carbon fiber can also be used as an inorganic particle. Among them, silica powder is produced in nature and therefore is excellent in profitability, so that it is preferably used. The particle size and form of the inorganic particles used shall not specifically be restricted and are suitably selected and used according to the kind and the use purposes thereof.
Next, catechin used in the present invention is a polyhydric phenol compound which is a polyoxy derivative of 3-oxyflavane and contained widely in plants in the natural world. It is said that catechin includes heterogeneous types having various molecular structures, and all ones are natural compounds, so that a lot of catechins having different structures are present. Catechin used in the present invention shall not specifically be restricted and may be any one as long as it is catechin which can effectively be used for the objects of the present invention. Catechin is called astringent juice. At present, catechin is used medically as a carcinostatic substance and industrially as a color fixing agent and a mordant for nylon. Catechin is very soluble in water and lower alcohols and therefore can be used in the form of a solution having a high concentration.
Four kinds of typical catechins are shown by the following formulas (a) to (d), respectively. Further, catechins are compounds contained widely in plants in the natural world as described above, and therefore it is readily presumed that they have partially different chemical structures. In the present invention, such polyhydric phenols shall not be distinguished from catechin and can be used synonymously therewith.
The treatment of the inorganic particles with catechin is carried out by adding the inorganic particles to a solution of catechin and stirring to allow catechin to be adsorbed thereon, followed by filtering and drying the treated inorganic particles. In this case, with respect to the use amount of catechin, the inorganic particles are preferably treated in a solution containing catechin of 0.5 to 6.0% by weight (wt %) based on the inorganic particles to be treated. If the amount of catechin is smaller than 0.5 wt %, a heat stability effect for the resin is not revealed. On the other hand, even if the amount is more than 6.0 wt %, the effect remains unchanged, and therefore it is meaningless to use more amount than that. A solvent used in the treatment with catechin includes water, lower alcohols, tetrahydrofuran, toluene, benzene, acetone, acetonitrile, various ketones and esters. Water and lower alcohols are preferably used. The concentration of the catechin solution used in the present invention shall not specifically be restricted as long as it is not more than the saturated concentration of catechin at a temperature in allowing catechin to be adsorbed on the surface of the inorganic particles, and any concentration can be used. The temperature in allowing catechin to be adsorbed on the inorganic particles shall not specifically be restricted, but it is usually a room temperature. Two or more kinds of catechin can be used. The catechin-treated inorganic particles (abbreviated as particles 1) thus obtained can be used as a resin additive as they are. Further, this is treated with a coupling agent or treated with a phenone compound or saccharides and then further treated with a coupling agent, whereby the resin additive of the present invention can be prepared.
Next, the phenone compound used in the present invention is benzophenone or a derivative thereof and is suitably benzophenone itself. It is a matter of course, however, that the phenone compound may be a derivative of benzophenone such as benzophenone-2-carboxylic acid and benzophenone-4,4-dicarboxylic acid. The phenone compound functions in the same way as that of the coupling agent, and therefore the same amount as that of the coupling agent may be used. The use range thereof is preferably 0.4 to 4.2 wt % based on the catechin-treated inorganic particles. If the amount of the phenone compound is too small, the effect is not revealed. On the other hand, if the amount is too much, it reduces the mechanical strength of the resin by functioning as a plasticizer. Accordingly, both are not preferred.
The treatment of the particles 1 with the phenone compound is carried out by a method in which the phenone compound corresponding to 0.4 to 4.2 wt % of the particles 1 is dissolved in an organic solvent such as toluene and xylene and the particles 1 are added thereto and sufficiently stirred, followed by filtering and drying the treated particles 1 to obtain the phenone compound-treated particles 1 (hereinafter abbreviated as particles 2). In this case, the phenone compound and the particles 1 may be added to the organic solvent in any order. The treating conditions with the phenone compound shall not specifically be restricted, and the treating temperature, the treating time and the kind and the amount of the solvent used are suitably selected according to the kinds and the amounts of the inorganic particles and the phenone compound. Two or more kinds of the phenone compound can be used. The particles 2 thus obtained are further subjected to subsequent treatment with the coupling agent.
The saccharides used in the present invention include monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides, and various saccharides can be used. In particular, glucose, fructose, maltose and sugar are suited. It is a matter of course that polysaccharides such as anthocyanin, anthocyanidin, saponin and derivatives thereof can be used as well. The saccharides function in the same way as that of the coupling agent, and therefore the same amount as that of the coupling agent may be used. The use range thereof is preferably 0.4 to 4.2 wt % based on the inorganic particles treated with catechin. If the amount of the saccharides is too small, the effect is not revealed. On the other hand, if the amount is too much, it reduces the mechanical strength of the resin by functioning as a plasticizer.
The treatment of the particles 1 with the saccharides is carried out by a method in which the saccharides corresponding to 0.4 to 4.2 wt % of the particles 1 to be treated is dissolved in a solvent such as water and the above particles 1 to be treated are added thereto and sufficiently stirred to allow the saccharides to be adsorbed thereon, followed by filtering and drying the treated particles 1 to obtain the saccharides-treated particles 1 (hereinafter abbreviated as particles 3). In this case, the saccharides and the particles 1 may added to the solvent in any order. The treating conditions with the saccharides shall not specifically be restricted, and the treating temperature, the treating time and the kind and the amount of the solvent used are suitably selected according to the kinds and the amounts of the inorganic particles and the saccharides. Two or more kinds of the saccharides can be used. The method for treating with the saccharides shall not be restricted thereto, and any method can be used. The particles 3 thus obtained are further subjected to subsequent treatment with a coupling agent.
Silane base coupling agents are preferably used as the coupling agent used in the present invention. Among them, compounds having a terminal group such as an epoxy group, a vinyl group or an amino group are preferably used. To be specific, these silane base coupling agents include, for example, vinyl triethoxysilane, xcex3-methacryloxypropyl trimethoxysilane, xcex3-glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane, xcex3-aminopropyl triethoxysilane and trifluoropropylmethyl dimethoxysilane. The particularly preferred silane base coupling agents include xcex3-methacryloxypropyl trimethoxysilane, xcex3-glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane and trifluoropropylmethyl dimethoxysilane. The silane base coupling agent is used in a proportion of 0.4 to 4.2 wt %, preferably 0.8 to 2.5 wt % based on the weight of the inorganic particles treated with catechin. If the surface-treated amount with the coupling agent is small, the effect is not revealed. On the other hand, if the amount is too much, the coupling agent functions as a plasticizer in the resin and reduces the mechanical properties of the resin. Accordingly, both are not preferred.
The treatment of the particles 1, 2 or 3 with the coupling agent can be carried out by various methods, and it can be carried out, for example, by a method in which the coupling agent corresponding to 0.4 to. 4.2 wt % of the particles 1 or the particles 1 used for producing the particles 2 or 3 is dissolved in water or an organic solvent such as toluene and xylene and the particles 1, 2 or 3 to be treated with the coupling agent are added thereto and sufficiently stirred to allow the coupling agent to be adsorbed thereon, followed by filtering and drying the treated particles 1, 2 or 3 to obtain the coupling agent-treated particles 1, 2 or 3 (the resin additive of the present invention). In this case, the coupling agent and the particles 1, 2 or 3 may added to the solvent in any order. The treating conditions with the coupling agent shall not specifically be restricted, and the treating temperature, the treating time and the kind and the amount of the solvent used are suitably selected according to the kinds and the amounts of the inorganic particles and the coupling agent. Two or more kinds of the coupling agents can be used in combination. In addition thereto, a method for treating with the coupling agent includes a method in which the coupling agent or a solution of the coupling agent is sprayed directly on the particles 1, 2 or 3. In this case, it is more effective to leave the particles 1, 2 or 3 subjected to spraying treatment for standing in a closed vessel at a room temperature to about 40xc2x0 C. for several days to about one month after spraying. Further, there can be used, a method in which the particles 1, 2 or 3, the coupling agent and a resin are molten and kneaded at the same time, but the present invention shall not be restricted to these methods, and any methods may be used. With respect to the treating order of the inorganic particles in producing the resin additive of the present invention, treatment with catechine is usually carried out at first, or treatment with the phenone compound or the saccharides is carried out, and treatment with the coupling agent is carried out at last. However, this treating order shall not be restricted thereto, and the treatment may be carried out in any order.
The resin to which the resin additive of the present invention is added shall not specifically be restricted, but polycarbonate resins and thermoplastic polyester resins, particularly polyethylene terephthalate and polybutylene terephthalate are suited. Further, blends thereof and blended resins of one or a combination of a plurality thereof and other resins, for example, PC/ABS, PBT/ABS, PC/PBT, PC/PET and PC/polystyrene are preferably used.
In general, the resin additive of the present invention is added to a resin in a proportion of 0.5 to 3.5 wt % based on the resin.
The inorganic particles subjected to surface treatment with catechin allow the molecules of catechin to stick strongly on the surfaces thereof. On the other hand, when the resin is thermally decomposed, radical molecules are produced, and if the radical molecules can be turned to stable molecules, the resin can be inhibited from being decomposed. Catechin has many hydroxyl groups, and these hydroxyl groups trap radicals produced by decomposition of the resin. However, it is considered that a lot of the hydroxyl groups are present as well on the outside of catechin which sticks firmly on the surface of the inorganic particles, and as a result thereof, it is considered that the inorganic particles subjected only to surface treatment with catechin can inhibit the resin from being decomposed but do not have so much wettability to the matrix resin. This results in preventing the resin from combining firmly with the inorganic particles. Accordingly, the IZOT impact strength results in lowering from the intrinsic value of the resin to a large extent. It is expected that two matters of a stabilization of the resin and an inhibition of a reduction in the IZOT impact strength can be achieved at the same time by allowing the inorganic particles subjected only to surface treatment with catechin or the inorganic particles obtained by further subjecting them to surface treatment with the saccharides or the phenone compound to adhere firmly to the matrix resin with the coupling agent. On the other hand, it is considered that the phenone compound or the saccharides which is present between the catechin layer and the coupling agent layer functions as a so-called cushion which disperses a stress exerted on the resin, whereby an effect to prevent a larger reduction in the IZOT impact strength can be obtained. However, the present invention shall not be restricted by such reason.
The inorganic particles thus obtained subjected only to surface treatment with catechin or the inorganic particles obtained by further subjecting the inorganic particles subjected to surface treatment with catechin or the inorganic particles subjected to surface treatment with catechin and subsequently to surface treatment with the phenone compound or the saccharides to surface treatment with the coupling agent become, as described above, a resin additive which can inhibit a reduction in the molecular weight of the resin or can inhibit not only a reduction in the molecular weight but also a reduction in the IZOT impact strength.
As shown in the following examples and comparative examples, the resin additive of the present invention obtained by subjecting the inorganic particles only to surface treatment with catechin can inhibit a reduction in the molecular weight of the thermoplastic resin in heating and melting. Further, the resin additive obtained by further subjecting the inorganic particles subjected to surface treatment with catechin to surface treatment with the coupling agent, or the resin additive obtained by subjecting the inorganic particles to surface treatment with catechin, then to surface treatment with the phenone compound or the saccharides and subsequently to surface treatment with the coupling agent can inhibit as well the IZOT impact strength. Accordingly, the resin additive of the present invention has the effect that it can inhibit a reduction in the molecular weight of the thermoplastic resin such as PC, PBT, PET and blended resins thereof or not only can inhibit a reduction in the molecular weight in heating and melting but also can decrease a reduction in the IZOT impact strength. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a liquid containment device and more particularly to a method and apparatus for containment and/or controlling the flow of hazardous liquid spills.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Whenever leakage or other spilling of hazardous liquids such as acid or gasoline occurs, one of the major concerns is the containment and/or controlling the flow of the spilled liquid to minimize the production of the toxic and/or flammable vapors and prevent its flowing into undesirable previously uncontaminated areas. As is well known, as a spill of hazardous liquid spreads out, its surface area increases and the production of toxic and/or flammable vapors increases with the surface area. Therefore, containment of hazardous liquid spills should be rapidly accomplished to minimize spreading of the hazardous liquid and to provide efficient usage of the foam which is commonly used for preventing the production of dangerous fumes. Further, whenever a hazardous liquid, such as gasoline, is spilled in the streets, the spilled liquid must be kept from flowing into a storm drain system where the vapors can rapidly spread far beyond the control of the trained personnel whose job it is to control and clean-up the spill.
The fire departments of most municipalities have a team, or teams, of highly trained people, usually referred to as a hazardous material handling team or "haz-mat" for short, which is highly mobile for responding to calls concerning any emergency situation involving hazardous materials such as the above mentioned spillage of hazardous liquids. In that such teams are highly mobile, as are all fire fighting personnel and equipment, it is difficult if not impossible for them to transport traditional spill containment materials such as sand, with them. Therefore, it is a common practice for such teams to use whatever they can find in the vicinity of a hazardous liquid spill for making up sand bags or otherwise building dikes for containing and/or controlling the flow of the spilled hazardous liquid.
Such prior art spill containment and flow directing techniques are not without problems in that some spill sites lack a readily available supply of suitable materials and even if they do, collecting and readying such materials for use can be very labor intensive and slow. In extreme cases, fire hoses filled with water have been used as a dike. However, this is a last resort in that fire hoses are expensive and many hazardous liquids will ruin a hose due to chemical action, and a water filled hose is a very poor dike. Therefore, many hazardous liquid spills are not contained at all and when contained, are inadequate from desired safety and subsequent clean-up standpoints.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and useful method and apparatus for containment and/or controlling the flow of hazardous liquid spills which overcomes some of the problems and shortcomings of the prior art. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Steering gears for motor vehicle are known in various types. A widespread type comprises a housing stretched along in vehicle transverse direction, in which a rack is in engagement with a pinion of the steering axle and is laterally displaceable corresponding to the rotations of the steering wheel in order to transmit the steering wheel rotation to the front wheels, which are pivotably fastened about a substantially vertical axis on a chassis. In order to be able to exert the steering force on the wheels the housing of the steering gear has to be fastened to the chassis; on the other hand the fastening should not be completely rigid so that vibrations of the chassis are not transmitted to the steering wheel and the body. Usually, two or more feet, which stand away from the steering gear in vehicle longitudinal direction and accommodate an elastic bearing sleeve through which a bolt anchored to the chassis in a fixed manner, extends, usually serve for the fastening of the steering gear. In most cases, only two such feet are present which extend from the steering gear in vehicle longitudinal direction to the back. Feet and bolts must be strong design in order to be able to withstand the loads that occur in operation.
The lever or tilting moments to which the anchorage of the steering gear is exposed and the resulting movements of the steering gear could be substantially reduced with the help of at least one additional foot reaching out from the steering gear in forward direction. Accommodating such a foot however poses substantial difficulties since the space above and in front of the steering gear is occupied by engine block, shift transmission, exhaust, driveshaft or other installations of the engine compartment.
In view of the foregoing, at least one object is to create a motor vehicle that makes possible space-saving, structurally favorable connection of the steering gear to the chassis. In addition, other objects, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field
Example embodiments described herein relate to an image sensor and a method of manufacturing the same, and, for example, to an image sensor capable of reducing image lag and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, image sensors are semiconductor elements that convert an optical image into an electrical signal. Image sensors can be divided into CCDs (charge coupled devices) and CMOS image sensors.
A CCD is an element in which MOS capacitors may be packed closely and accumulate or transfer charge carriers. A CMOS image sensor may be made to have the same number of MOS transistors as pixels by a CMOS technique using a control circuit and a signal processing circuit as peripheral circuits and using a switching method of sequentially detecting output by using the MOS transistors.
A CMOS image sensor may be generally divided into an APS (active pixel sensor) region, a reset region, a source follower region, and/or a peripheral circuit region. A photodiode and/or a floating diffusion region may be located on both sides of a transfer gate electrode included in the APS region. The transfer gate electrode may transfer photocharge accumulated in the photodiode to the floating diffusion region.
When such an APS region is formed, n− ions may be implanted into a region of the transfer gate electrode adjacent to the photodiode at low concentration. Then, a PPD (pinned photodiode) may be formed on a surface of the photodiode so as to reduce dark current. At that time, a p− dopant may be implanted into the region of the transfer gate adjacent to the photodiode. Thus, the concentration of n− dopant implanted into the region of the transfer gate electrode adjacent to the photodiode may be lowered.
When the floating diffusion region is formed, an n+ dopant may be implanted into a region of the transfer gate electrode adjacent to the floating diffusion region in higher concentrations. Thus, the dopant may be implanted into regions of the transfer gate at varying concentrations.
These varying concentrations may cause Fermi level difference. As a result, the transfer gate may act as a barrier when photocharge generated in the photodiode are transferred to the floating diffusion region. Thus the photocharge may not be completely transferred from the photodiode to the floating diffusion region, resulting in image lag. | {
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1. Technical Field
This invention relates to delayed-locked loops.
2. Description of the Related Art
Skew reduction techniques using a phase-locked loop (PLL) or delay-locked loop (DLL) have become increasingly important as the required system bandwidth increases. Especially, the DLL has become more popular as a zero delay buffer because of its better stability and better jitter characteristics than the PLL. However, the conventional DLL does not offer a frequency range as wide as the PLL does because of its inherent limitation on the frequency range and the problem of false locking. PLLs and DLLs are typically used in synchronous systems wherein the integrated circuits in the system are synchronized to a common reference clock.
In the phase-locked loop, a voltage-controlled oscillator produces a local clock. The phases of the local clock and a reference clock are compared by a phase-frequency detector, with the resulting error signal used to drive the voltage-controlled oscillator via a loop filter. The feedback via the loop filter phase locks the local clock to the reference clock. Stability of the feedback loop, however, depends in part on the loop filter. The electronic characteristics of the loop filter, in turn, often depend significantly on manufacturing parameters. As a result, the same loop filter design may result in a stable feedback loop when manufactured with one process but an unstable loop when manufactured by another. It is difficult to produce a single loop filter design for use with all manufacturing processes, and the design of the loop filter typically must be optimized on a process by process basis.
The delay-locked loop generates a synchronized local clock by delaying the incoming reference clock by an integer number of periods. This approach avoids the stability problem inherent in the phase-locked loop approach. Delay-locked loops, however, have a disadvantage of narrow frequency range. The delay-locked loop adjusts the amount of additional delay in order to achieve the desired synchronization, but this adjustment is essentially a phase adjustment. The conventional delay-locked loop lacks any significant frequency adjustment, thus limiting the overall frequency range of conventional delay-locked loops. Furthermore, delay-locked loops may falsely lock on a frequency.
Accordingly, it is desirable to achieve a delay-locked loop that can operate over a wide frequency range and which can provide protection against false locking. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Ornamental pillows have found significant application in many decorating environments. These environments generally comprise rooms in a residence or office. These environments are stationary. However, formal decorating has also been provided in mobile environments. For example, the Lincoln Town Car, beginning in the 1980's, had models decorated by such designers as Bill Blass. In 2003, the Lincoln Town Car had a Cartier model. Lincoln division of Ford Motor Company has more recently introduced a series of cars with the name Designer Series. Other manufacturers have introduced designer option packages. The art of interior design has been expanded from within the home to the interior of vehicles such as automobiles.
Interior design commonly utilizes a number of accessories such as, for example, accent pillows. When used in stationary environments, accessories will stay where they are put. However, in mobile environments, accessories such as pillows may move from a position in which they are originally placed. In a car, a pillow may move when a car goes around the turn or hits a bump. In a smaller boat, e.g., 25 feet, a pillow may fall on to a floor from where it was placed, in response to choppy water conditions or when the boat is making a sharp turn. A fallen pillow may present a safety hazard when an unsuspecting passenger steps on it. The decorator pillow may also become filthy when dropped on a floor. Many materials are hard to clean. Decorator pillows specifically designed for use in mobile environments have not been provided. Weighted pillows exist. However, they have been provided for other purposes and are not suited to decorating in a mobile environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,453 discloses a seating device including a base portion and at least one top cushion movably positioned on the base portion. An insert of relatively heavier material than that of the cushion is placed in the lower portion of the cushion to maintain the latter in a selected position on the base while the seating device is in use. The top cushion may be an arm cushion, a back cushion or a head cushion. The insert in the lower portion of the top cushion may be of a loose, pourable granulate material such as sand. Additionally the top cushion may be held in a selected position by affixing a Velcro® fastener to the underside of the top cushion. The cushion must be part of an integrated chair or sofa. The cushion cannot have an independent or arbitrary shape or other design element. In embodiments in which Velcro is used, a fastener must be placed on a substrate surface as well as on the cushion. In many applications, a user wants to have the option of removing the cushion and not leave a fastener visible on the substrate. In these applications, the substrate must not have a fastener attached thereto.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,226,737 discloses a beach blanket having weighted corners. However, this comprises a substantially two-dimensional object that does not have an ornamental relationship with respect to a substrate surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,526 discloses a post-operative pillow including a weight and means to removably secure the weight to the pillow. The function of the weight is to assist in the application of pressure to a localized area of the patient's body. A pocket formed on an outer portion of the pillow receives a removably secured weight which is frictionally retained within the pocket. The pillow does not have a significant position to be maintained in the absence of a user. The weight is selected to be applied to a user. The weight is not related to positioning of the pillow.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,684,429 discloses an inflatable beach pillow provided with a water compartment that can be filled to anchor the pillow in place, and also has a sand pocket that can alternatively be filled with sand to serve as a weighting material. The sand pocket can slip over the back of a chair to allow the inflatable pillow to serve as a headrest. This pillow includes separate sections for weight and for cushioning. It does not serve as an ornamental pillow.
United States Patent Published Application 20020152553 discloses a support travel cushion that attaches to a bucket seat back of an automobile or other vehicle which primarily supports the users upper back or neck during travel. An attached strap is used to secure the cushion to the bucket seat. A pillow is provided in a car, but it is not decorative, and it must be secured to a seat.
These prior embodiments do not disclose a pillow that can be provided having a shape that is independent of its supporting substrate and which is adapted for maintaining a substantially fixed spatial relationship to the supporting substrate while not requiring the use of fastening means. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of electronics, and more specifically to a method and system for utilizing a switching power converter and determining an approximate zero crossing of an input voltage to the switching power converter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many electronic systems include circuits, such as switching power converters that interface with a dimmer. The interfacing circuits deliver power to a load in accordance with the dimming level set by the dimmer. For example, in a lighting system, dimmers provide an input signal to a lighting system. The input signal represents a dimming level that causes the lighting system to adjust power delivered to a lamp, and, thus, depending on the dimming level, increase or decrease the brightness of the lamp. Many different types of dimmers exist. In general, dimmers generate a digital or analog coded dimming signal that indicates a desired dimming level. For example, some analog based dimmers utilize a triode for alternating current (“triac”) device to modulate a phase angle of each cycle of an alternating current (“AC”) supply voltage. “Modulating the phase angle” of the supply voltage is also commonly referred to as “phase cutting” the supply voltage. Phase cutting the supply voltage reduces the average power supplied to a load, such as a lighting system, and thereby controls the energy provided to the load.
Once a triac-based dimmer begins conducting during a cycle of an alternating current (“AC”) supply voltage, to prevent the triac from disadvantageously, prematurely disconnecting during mid-cycle of the supply voltage, the switching power converter draws a minimum current referred to as a “hold current”. As long as an input current to the switching power converter is greater than or equal to the hold current, the triac-based dimmer should not prematurely disconnect. For a leading edge dimmer, a premature disconnect occurs when the dimmer begins conducting and stops conducting prior to reaching a zero crossing of the supply voltage. Premature disconnects can cause problems with the lighting system, such as flicker and instability.
FIG. 1 depicts a lighting system 100 that includes a leading edge, phase-cut dimmer 102. FIG. 2 depicts ideal, exemplary voltage graphs 200 associated with the lighting system 100. Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, the lighting system 100 receives an AC supply voltage VIN from voltage supply 104. The supply voltage VIN, indicated by voltage waveform 202, is, for example, a nominally 60 Hz/110 V line voltage in the United States of America or a nominally 50 Hz/220 V line voltage in Europe. A leading edge dimmer 102 phase cuts leading edges, such as leading edges 204 and 206, of each half cycle of supply voltage VIN. Since each half cycle of supply voltage VIN is 180 degrees of the supply voltage VIN, the leading edge dimmer 102 phase cuts the supply voltage VIN at an angle greater than 0 degrees and less than 180 degrees. Generally, the voltage phase cutting range of a leading edge dimmer 102 is 10 degrees to 170 degrees.
The input signal voltage VΦ—IN to the lighting system 100 represents a dimming level that causes the lighting system 100 to adjust power delivered to a lamp 122, and, thus, depending on the dimming level, increase or decrease the brightness of the lamp 122. The leading edge dimmer 102 can be any type of leading edge dimmer, such as a triac-based leading edge dimmer available from Lutron Electronics, Inc. of Coopersberg, Pa. (“Lutron”). A triac-based leading edge dimmer is described in the Background section of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/858,164, entitled Dimmer Output Emulation, filed on Aug. 17, 2010, and inventor John L. Melanson.
The phase cut dimmer 102 supplies the input voltage VΦ—IN as modified by the phase cut dimmer 102 to a full bridge diode rectifier 106. The full bridge rectifier 106 supplies an AC rectified voltage VΦR—IN to the switching power converter 108. Thus, since the input voltage VΦ—IN is derived from the input supply voltage VIN, the rectified input voltage VΦR—IN is also derived from the input supply voltage VIN. Capacitor 110 filters high frequency components from rectified voltage VΦR—IN. To control the operation of switching power converter 108, controller 111 generates a control signal CS0 to control conductivity of field effect transistor (FET) switch 112. The control signal CS0 is a pulse width modulated signal. Control signal CS0 waveform 114 represents an exemplary control signal CS0. Each pulse of control signal CS0 turns switch 112 ON (i.e. conducts), and the inductor current iL increases, as shown in the exemplary inductor current waveform 115, to charge inductor 116 during a charging phase TC. Diode 118 prevents current flow from link capacitor 120 into switch 112. When the pulse ends, the inductor 116 reverses voltage polarity (commonly referred to as “flyback”), and the inductor current iL decreases during the flyback phase TFB, as shown in inductor current waveform 115. The inductor current iL boosts the link voltage across the link capacitor 120 through diode 118.
The switching power converter 108 is a boost-type converter, and, thus, the link voltage VLINK is greater than the rectified input voltage VΦR—IN. Controller 111 senses the rectified input voltage VΦR—IN at node 124 and senses the link voltage VLINK at node 126. Controller 111 operates the switching power converter 108 to maintain an approximately constant link voltage VLINK for lamp 122, provide power factor correction, and correlate the output current iOUT with the phase cut angle of the rectified input voltage VΦR—IN. Lamp 132 includes one or more light emitting diodes.
It is desirable to improve interfacing with triac-based dimmers. | {
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Night vision goggles are often removably attached to a user's headgear via a headgear mount so that the night vision goggles can be stowed and/or carried easily when they are not being used. More specifically, a night vision goggle attachment portion may be attached to a socket assembly that can then be coupled to the headgear mount to attach the night vision goggles to the headgear. However, conventional headgear mounts may not provide for smooth and infinite fore/aft adjustment of the night vision goggles once they are attached to the headgear mount and therefore may force a user to locate the goggles at an eye relief distance that is not natural or comfortable. Moreover, different types of night vision goggles often include different night vision goggle attachment portions, thereby requiring a corresponding socket assembly in order to couple the night vision goggles to a headgear mount. Accordingly, there is a need for a headgear mount adapted to receive one of a variety of interchangeable socket assemblies, as well as a need for interchangeable socket assemblies compatible with the headgear mount. | {
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Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Cancer is often able to invade other tissues from its original location and spread to other parts of the body through blood and lymphatics. There are many types of cancer, which may be classified in pathology and clinical diagnosis into carcinoma, sarcoma, leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, and malignant tumors of the central nervous system.
Cancer treatment remains a challenging endeavor to both the patient and healthcare provider. Current treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, biotherapy, laser therapy, cryotherapy, thermotherapy, etc. Significant advancements have been made in recent decades in cancer prevention and treatment cancer survival rates are still low for many types of cancers. It is estimated that in the U.S. alone, there are over 1.5 million new cases of cancer and more than half million of cancer-related deaths in 2011. Thus, cancer remains a major health threat to the public.
In two published reports, a single component of high concentration sodium chloride was used in treatment of tumors. In one report, Siegle et al. reportedly used hypertonic saline to treat one patient who had multiple glomus tumors, a rare benign neoplasm arising from the glomus body under fingernails and tympanic membrane. (Siegle, et al. J. Dermatologic Surgery & Oncology 20:347-348; 1994.) A single component of 23.4% sodium chloride solution was used, which did not result in successful treatment of the patient. This patient received 4 sessions of intralumenal injection with 23.4% hypertonic saline in 6 months. In another report, Lin et al. used 36.5% hypertonic saline to treat liver tumor in rabbits and none of the tumors were successfully treated. (Lin, et al. Am. J. Roentgenology 184: 212-219; 2005.)
Therefore, an urgent need remains for novel and effective treatments for cancer. | {
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The reticular structures composed by fibrillated films are utilized for reinforcing composite materials having matrices consisting of hydraulic binders (such as e.g. concrete or calcium sulphate) or polymeric matrices (such as e.g. the elastomeric polymers or the unsaturated polymeric resins) and they can be used also as products for the reinforcement of road surfaces or as geotextile products for the reinforcement of grounds.
Such reticulated structures, obtained by means of fibrillation of polymeric films, are well known in the art. These structures are obtained by stretching, according to the extrusion direction, the polymeric films and by successively slitting the monostretched films by means of suitable cutting devices or other slitting means such as sandblasting, brushing, rubbing, etc., in order to cause the formation of a series of longitudinal, parallel, spaced slits, which, due to the subsequent expansion of the film, give rise to the net.
The retiform product thus obtained exhibits, however, the serious drawback of a quite different mechanical strength in the various directions. Actually, such structures exhibit a high mechanical strength in the stretch direction and a low and in any case unsatisfactory mechanical strength in the direction transversal to the stretch direction.
To avoid this drawback it was also suggested to superpose different retiform structures arranged at different angles to one another, or to superpose different retiform structures which have been stretched, fibrillated and splitted at different angles.
Furthermore it was proposed to zigzag-fold a retiform structure on one or more retiform containment structures. Even by increasing the number of zigzag-arranged layers, the resulting composite structure exhibits an unsatisfactory mechanical strength in the various directions due to the considerable discontinuity of the structure resulting from the layer-like arrangement of the retiform structure on the moving basic structure.
Moreover, the zigzag arrangement cannot give rise to structures having a high transversal strength with respect to the longitudinal strength, wherefore it is very limitative with regard to the appliances. | {
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A user device may register with a network (e.g., a cellular network) in order to place and/or receive telephone calls. The registration of the user device may be initiated by the network or by the user device. For example, the network may initiate registration of the user device when an incoming call is placed to the user device and when the user device is powered off or otherwise disconnected from the network. The network may register the user device in order to assign a call service control function (CSCF) server to the user device so that the CSCF server may process the incoming call (e.g., by forwarding the call to voicemail, application server, another user device, and/or to some other network). Alternatively, the user device may itself initiate the registration when the user device powers on a radio used to connect to the network and/or when a current registration for the user device expires.
When the user device registers with the network (e.g., after the network initiates the registration or after the user device itself initiates the registration), the particular CSCF server that may be assigned to the user device may be a CSCF server that was previously assigned to the user device when the user device was previously registered with the network. | {
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The present invention relates to a high pressure metal vapor discharge lamp, and more particularly to a high pressure sodium vapor discharge lamp with improved starting characteristics.
High pressure sodium vapor discharge lamps generally have a higher efficiency, i.e., a higher lumen output per watt, than high pressure mercury vapor discharge lamps, metal halide discharge lamps or the like. However, sodium vapor lamps require a specially designed ballast for starting and stable operation because a high starting voltage is needed. The expense of the special ballast hinders general use of high pressure sodium vapor discharge lamps.
A high pressure sodium vapor lamp has been developed which has in its outer jacket a discharge tube and a starting device comprising a heating filament and a thermally responsive switch. Such sodium vapor lamps can be started and stably operated with a ballast for a high pressure mercury vapor discharge lamp. In the starting operation, the thermally responsive switch is operated by the heating filament so that the switching voltage of the thermally responsive switch is converted into high voltage pulses by the induction of the choke coil of the ballast, and the high voltage pulses are impressed upon the electrodes of the discharge tube so that the lamp may be started. Accordingly, such a high pressure sodium vapor discharge lamp does not require any special external high voltage pulse generating device so that it can be used in place of a high pressure mercury vapor discharge lamp in lighting devices equipped with conventional mercury vapor lamp ballast while enjoying the advantage that an intensity of illumination may be attained which is twice as bright as that of a high pressure mercury vapor discharge lamp.
However, a high pressure sodium vapor discharge lamp having such a starting device in its outer jacket generates a pulse voltage as high as 4000 volts in the starting operation due to the action of the thermally responsive switch. When such high voltage pulses are generated, there is a possibility that a dielectric breakdown may occur between the choke coils of the ballast, between the socket and the screw base of the sodium vapor discharge lamp or between other points in the lamp circuit. This possibility is especially high in circuits of mercury vapor lamp lighting devices in which the insulation has deteriorated after years of use.
Particularly in a lamp circuit in which a ballast having a short circuit current of 0.9 to 1.7 amperes, such as a ballast for an 80 watt mercury vapor lamp, is used with 70 to 90 watt sodium vapor lamps, the high pressure sodium vapor discharge lamps have small size bases of the E26 or E27 type so that the possibility of dielectric breakdown occurring at the fitting between the base and the socket during a high voltage starting pulse is quite high. Hence, it is necessary to reduce the pulse voltage at the start. However, if the pulse voltage is reduced, the lamp cannot be started smoothly and the desired lamp operation cannot be attained. | {
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Rosuvastatin is generic name for (+)-7-[4-(4-fluorophenyl)-6-isopropyl-2-(N-methyl-N-methylsulfonylamino)pyrimidin-5-yl]-(3R,5S)-dihydroxy-(E)-heptenoic acid administered in the therapy as its calcium salt as commercial drug, and illustrated in Formula 1 hereinafter, which compound is an inhibitor of the enzyme 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMG CoA reductase), useful in the treatment of hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis. Rosuvastatin and the synthesis of rosuvastatin calcium was first disclosed in patent EP-B-521 471; in the last two steps of the whole synthesis provided by hydrolysis of methyl ester of rosuvastatin (methyl rosuvastatin) in polar solvent, e.g. ethanol, in the presence of a base, following by isolation of sodium salt of rosuvastatin (sodium rosuvastatinate) and converting said sodium salt of rosuvastatin with a water soluble calcium salt under aqueous conditions to calcium salt of rosuvastatin. The process for the preparation of the intermediates disclosed in EP-B-521 471 patent is incorporated herein by reference.
WO 2005/023778 discloses a process for the preparation of rosuvastatin calcium by conversion of C1 to C4 alkyl ester of rosuvastatin, preferably tert-butyl ester of rosuvastatin with a base, preferably sodium hydroxide, in the presence of a C1 to C4 alcohol, preferably ethanol, to a solution of rosuvastatin salt, e.g. its sodium salt and converted said salt into rosuvastatin calcium by adding a source of calcium to said solution.
A novel crystalline form of rosuvastatin calcium can be prepared by crystallization of amorphous form of rosuvastatin calcium from a mixture of: (i) water and acetonitrile in the ratio of 1:1 by volume; (ii) water and acetone in the ratio of 1:1 by volume; or water, methanol and tert-butyl methyl ether in the ratio of 1:1:1 by volume, what is described in WO 2000/042024.
WO 2005/040134 describes amorphous rosuvastatin calcium having a purity of more than 99% obtained from known crystalline rosuvastatin calcium. Said crystalline form may be prepared by crystallization of amorphous rosuvastatin calcium which process is known from the prior art.
It is well known that alkali metal salts of organic carboxylic acids are often hygroscopic what may cause problems at isolation. Indeed the isolation of sodium salt of rosuvastatin, which can be an intermediate in preparing rosuvastatin calcium salt, might be unrepeatable in yield and physical state what depends on the reaction conditions and evaporation of solvents, which is difficult to control. International publication WO 05/23778 tried to avoid said problems without isolating rosuvastatin sodium salt by extraction of impurities from its aqueous solution, but by using C1 to C4 alcohols as reaction medium a risk of conversion into specific impurities still existed. Namely, it is known that β-hydroxy acids in alcoholic alkali solution are submitted to dehydration what may lead after realkoxylation into special side products (see the reaction Scheme of FIG. 1, wherein R and R1 independently denotes C1 to C5 alkyl group), O-alkyl rosuvastatin, e.g. O-ethyl rosuvastatin.
From the results of stress stability test photographed on FIG. 2 it is obvious that rosuvastatin was submitted to specific degradation in ethanol as alcoholic medium. The specific impurity, designated as NN 2047.143 is O-ethyl ether derivative (see the reaction Scheme of FIG. 1 wherein R denotes ethyl (Et) group), was detected in 0.35% area by HPLC in comparison with acetone solution in which no such impurity was observed.
Therefore a need for an efficient process for preparing pure rosuvastatin calcium, without any significant amounts of side products, still exists. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to magnetic tape drives, and particularly to controlling slack tape developing during tape extraction and tape retraction operations.
2. Related Art and Other Considerations
In magnetic recording on tape using a magnetic tape drive, relative motion between a head unit (typically with both a write element and a read element) and the tape causes a plurality of tracks of information to be transduced with respect to the tape. The magnetic tape is typically housed in a cartridge which is loaded into the tape drive. The tape extends between a cartridge supply reel and a cartridge take-up reel. The tape drive typically has a supply reel motor for rotating the cartridge supply reel and a take-up reel motor for rotating the cartridge take-up reel.
After the cartridge is loaded into the tape drive, the tape is extracted by mechanisms in the drive so that a segment of the tape is pulled from the cartridge and into a tape path that travels proximate the head unit. The extraction mechanisms take the form of tape guides which are mounted on trolleys. During the extraction operation, trolley motors move the trolleys along a predefined trolley path, so that the tape guides which surmount the trolleys displace the tape into the tape path as the trolleys travel along the trolley path. When the trolleys reach the full extent of travel along the trolley path, the tape is proximate the head unit. Thereafter the tape can be transported past the head unit, e.g., by activation of a capstan and/or the supply reel and take-up reel motors, depending upon the particular type of transport mechanisms employed. A capstanless tape drive, particularly a tape drive which utilizes helical scan recording, is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,694 for CAPSTANLESS HELICAL DRIVE SYSTEM to Robert J. Miles and James Zweighaft, which is incorporated herein by reference.
As the tape is transported past the head unit, information can be transduced to or from the tape by the tape drive in recording and reading operations, respectively. When the recording and/or reading operations are concluded, and before the cartridge can be unloaded from the drive, the tape must be retracted for return to the interior of the cartridge. Tape retraction is essentially the reverse of the tape extraction procedure described above.
There is a trend in the tape drive industry toward reduction in thickness and stiffness of magnetic tapes in order to meet the requirements for digital signal recording/reproducing. There is also a demand for greater speed of extracting and retracting of the tape. Both these demands greatly increase the risk of the tape being damaged during a load/unload operation.
A desirable feature in modern tape drives is an operation called "mid-tape load/unload". This operation allows the tape to be extracted without first rewinding back to the beginning of tape. The next time the tape is loaded, it will be ready to resume at the point where the previous read/write operation ended. Without mid-tape load/unload capability, the user or host must wait a significant amount of time for the tape to rewind back to the beginning of tape (BOT) before the tape can be ejected. The subsequent load would then involve searching out on tape to the location where the last operation was halted. This can be a time consuming task which significantly limits system performance.
Preventing tape damage during mid-tape load/unloads is critical since previously written data could be damaged to the point where it is no longer capable of being recovered. Tape damage during mid-tape load/unloads could also cause debris to be generated which can eventually clog the read/write heads on the scanner.
What is needed therefore, and an object of the present invention, is apparatus and method for controlling tape extraction and retraction operations in order reduce the likelihood of damaging tape. | {
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Sportfishermen involved in the never ending quest to more closely imitate the natural food of gamefish by imparting a lifelike jigging action to lures have previously attempted to develop underwater jigging devices.
Specifically, previously patented devices include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,203,356 and 4,903,428. These devices moved lures forward and backward at a speed relatively slower or faster than the boat speed, or the speed of a non "jigging" lure. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,509,287 and 4,798,021 also changed the speed and also the action of lures. As stated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,287, "it is not actually known why fish strike lures as they go through their various actions . . . ". These previously developed patented inventions do not apply the recently discovered instincts of fish that cause fish to strike imitation lures.
Being able to imitate feeding fish and their prey and therefore, trigger the instinct of fish to feed is to the anglers advantage.
The need exists for a device to accomplish the duplication of the feeding scene. Although previous attempts to instill life-like action into the feeding scene were headed in the right direction the task remained unaccomplished until the advent of the present invention.
Researchers and biologists have discovered that predatory fish stun their prey prior to feeding. Upon witnessing the fluttering and slowed motion of the prey they begin feeding. Instinct tells them that its the real thing. When one fish feeds, being creatures of schooling habits, they all begin feeding. The stunning of the prey satisfies the fishes instinct to expand the least effort for the most nutritional gain.
Game fish have a lateral line running along each side of their bodies. The present invention has lines that imitate this lateral line. Through this line they are able to produce a sonar like shock wave that will stun baitfish. The lateral line is now often called the strike line or the attack muscle. The present invention embodies these "fishlike" appearances better than anything presently existing. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a fill valve assembly, and more particularly, to a fill valve assembly, for use in association with a filler device, which is configurable into a clean-in-place mode of operation for cleaning predetermined components associated therein.
2. Background Art
Fill valve assemblies for use in association with filler devices have been known in the art for years and are the subject of numerous patents including: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,845,683; 5,740,844; 5,690,151; 5,533,552; 5,531,253; 5,450,882; 5,402,833; 4,848,381; 4,437,498; 4,219,054; 3,774,658; 3,568,734; 3,430,639; EP Pat. No. 568121 A1; and EP Pat. No. 554951 A1. While fill valve assemblies have become commercially available for use in association with filler devices, problems associated with cleaning internal components remain largely problematicxe2x80x94especially when the fill valve assembly is being used for filling a food product where cleanliness standards are relatively stringent.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a reliable fill valve assembly for use in association with filler devices which remedies the detriments and/or complications associated with conventional fill valve assemblies known in the art.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent in light of the present specification, claims, and drawings.
The present invention is directed to a fill valve assembly for use in association with a filler device comprising: (a) an outer housing; (b) a product dispensing member associated with the outer housing, wherein the product dispensing member includes a channel having a sealing member retained therein; (c) a displaceable piston positioned within at least a portion of the outer housing and the product dispensing member; and (d) means for controllably displacing the piston to a clean-in-place position, to in turn, expose the seal member retained within the channel of the product dispensing member for facilitating cleaning thereabout.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention fill valve assembly further comprises means for controllably displacing the piston to the clean-in-place position, an open position, and a closed position. In this embodiment, the clean-in-place piston displacing means may comprise a first aperture associated with a stop plunger, a second aperture and a third aperture associated with the outer housing, wherein the first and second apertures are exhausted to ambient and the third aperture is supplied with a pneumatic source.
In addition, the open piston displacing means may comprise a first aperture associated with a stop plunger, a second aperture and a third aperture associated with the outer housing, wherein the first aperture is exhausted to ambient, and the second and third apertures are supplied with a pneumatic source.
Moreover, the closed piston displacing means may comprise a first aperture associated with a stop plunger, a second aperture and a third aperture associated with the outer housing, wherein the first and second apertures are supplied with a pneumatic source and the third aperture is exhausted to ambient.
In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the piston may comprise a concave region near a lower end thereof, whereby the concave region forms an exposed volume around the seal member upon displacement of the piston to the clean-in-place position.
In yet another preferred embodiment of the invention, the clean-in-place piston displacing means may comprise the piston being displaced into a stop plunger, wherein the stop plunger is at least partially retracted away from the seal member retained within the channel of the product dispensing member.
The present invention is also directed to a fill valve assembly for use in association with a filler device comprising: (a) an outer housing, wherein the outer housing includes a channel having a sealing member retained therein; (b) a displaceable piston positioned within at least a portion of the outer housing; and (c) means for controllably displacing the piston to a clean-in-place position, to in turn, expose the seal member retained within the outer housing to facilitate cleaning thereabout.
The present invention is further directed to a fill valve assembly for use in association with a filler device comprising: (a) an outer housing; (b) a product dispensing member associated with the outer housing, wherein the product dispensing member includes a channel having a sealing member retained therein; (c) a displaceable piston positioned within at least a portion of the outer housing and the product dispensing member, wherein the piston comprises a concave region near a lower end thereof, whereby the concave region forms an exposed volume around the seal member retained within the product dispensing member upon displacement of the piston to the clean-in-place position.
In accordance with the present invention, the fill valve assembly may also comprise: (a) an outer housing, wherein the outer housing includes a channel having a sealing member retained therein; and (b) a displaceable piston positioned within at least a portion of the outer housing, wherein the piston is displaceable into a closed position, an open position, and a clean-in-place position, wherein the clean-in-place position exposes the seal member retained within the outer housing for facilitating cleaning thereabout.
The present invention further provides a method of using a fill valve assembly associated with a filler device comprising the steps of: (a) providing a fill valve assembly including: (1) an outer housing having second and third apertures; (2) a product dispensing member associated with the outer housing having a channel with a sealing member retained therein; (3) a displaceable piston positioned within at least a portion of the outer housing and the product dispensing member; and (4) a stop plunger having an aperture positioned within at least a portion of the outer housing; (b) configuring the piston into a closed position and precluding product from passing through the product dispensing chamber, (c) configuring the piston into an open position and dispensing a product through the product dispensing member; and (d) configuring the piston into a clean-in-place position and exposing the seal member retained within the channel of the product dispensing member; and (e) flushing the exposed seal member with matter to, in turn, substantially remove any undesirable contamination associated therewith. | {
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The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of peach tree which will hereinafter be denominated varietally as `Red Sun` and more particularly to a peach tree which produces freestone fruit which is mature for commercial harvesting and shipment approximately August 20 to August 25 in the San Joaquin Valley of central California, and which is further distinguished by clear, very crisp yellow flesh, and a full red skin coloration varying from shades of light red to dark red and which has noteworthy shipping and handling characteristics. | {
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The present invention relates to an improved astragal assembly for use with a pair of double doors, typically having one relatively inactive door and one active door mounted with their free edges adjacent one another. Other astragal assemblies, of a general nature, are shown for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,058,332; 4,052,819; 3,806,175; 3,649,060; and 3,487,581.
The provision of astragals for dothe subject of continuous development in the building industry. In the present invention, an improvement in the mechanism for securing the relatively inactive door has been made. The present invention further provides an astragal assembly having an enhanced aesthetic appearance.
It is an object of this invention to provide an astragal assembly having improved security strength.
It is another object of this invention to provide an astragal assembly having an improved aesthetic appearance.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an improved astragal assembly that provides the assembler with enhanced ease of installation and maintenance. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for converting color data into two-color data having black and other color.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a document often includes characters written in color, for example, to highlight a specific area of the document. One of methods of printing such a document is a two-color print method by which colors of characters included in a document are converted into two colors of black and a different color, for example, red. The two-color print method includes two types of print methods, i.e., a first two-color print method by which a chromatic color is converted into red and an achromatic color is converted into black, and a second two-color print method by which a color having a hue similar to that of red is converted into red and a chromatic color having a hue different from that of red and an achromatic color are converted into black.
It is assumed that an original includes a document image in black characters, red characters, and other color characters written in a different color. Such an original is, for example, a document containing records of a meeting. In the document, an assignment to be done by the next meeting is written in red characters and a topic of the meeting is written in blue characters. Thus, the color characters, i.e., the red characters and the blue characters, can be more noticeable than the black characters thereby highlighting the assignment and the topic, and because the color characters are written in the two colors of red and blue, two different meanings can be indicated by the red characters and the blue characters. Because of improvement in colorization in recent years, a document created by using color characters in a plurality of colors is often used. If such a document is output in two colors by employing the first two-color print method, red characters and color characters written in a different color (the blue characters in the above example) are output in red, and black characters are output in black. Because both the red characters and the blue characters are output in red, it is difficult to recognize the characters originally written in red and the characters originally written in blue on an output image. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H09-289592, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-224608, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-68127 propose technologies for solving the above problem. On the other hand, when the document is output in two colors by employing the second two-color print method, if the color of the color characters is not similar to red (for example, if the color characters are the blue characters), the red characters are output in red and the black characters and the color characters are output in black. Because both the black characters and the color characters are output in black, it is difficult to recognize the characters originally written in black and the characters originally written in the different color on an output image.
The color characters are used in the original because a specific area of a document needs to be highlighted. In the case of the first two-color print method, characters originally written in red are generally represented in darkest and brightest red (pure color) among color characters represented in red. As described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-224608, the red characters are represented in red with a thickly painted pattern. Thus, it is possible to maintain a highlighting effect generated by the red characters, whether it is intentional or not. On the other hand, in the case of the second two-color print method as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H09-289592, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-224608, or Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-68127, or a second two-color print method employed in a currently manufactured product, characters originally written in black are generally represented in darkest black, and it is difficult to maintain the highlighting effect generated by the blue characters. Although it has been considered sufficient to maintain the highlighting effect generated by at least the red characters upon a two-color output in black and red, the highlighting effect generated by the blue characters also needs to be maintained in view of the present situation where a document often includes color characters in a plurality of colors due to the improvement in the colorization. Although it is considered that, due to a request or a fixed concept of a user, the characters originally written in red and black need to be represented in red and black precisely as it is upon the two-color output in black and red, sometimes it is better to output the document in two colors such that the highlighting effect generated by the color characters can be maintained instead of representing the color characters precisely as it is. In the second two-color print method, according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H09-289592, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-224608, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-68127, although it is possible to represent the black characters such that the user can recognize the characters originally written in black and the characters originally written in a different color, it is difficult to maintain the highlighting effect generated by the characters originally written in the different color. | {
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The photonic band gap structures (PBG) are periodic structures that prohibit wave propagation for certain frequency bandwidths. For several years, research and studies have been conducted to use these structures in frequency ranges such as those used on microwave devices.
A method for realizing a structure of this type was proposed by the applicant, particularly in the French patent application no. 02 12656 of 11 Oct. 2002 and in the article entitled “Harmonic-less Annular Slot Antenna (ASA) using a novel PBG structure for slot-line printed device” IEEE AP-S 2003. These documents thus describe a method for realizing a PBG structure on a microwave device of the slot-line type realized on a metallized substrate, together with antennas of the annular slot type or Vivaldi type antennas using such structures to perform a filtering or a frequency adaptation of the said antenna.
As shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, such a microwave device comprises a substrate 1 of which one face 2 has been metallized. A slot line 3 is realized by engraving the metal layer.
As shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, the substrate 1 has a height h and is realized in a known dielectric material such as the materials known under the denomination “Ro4003” or “FR4”, the metal layer being realized preferably in copper or in any other conductive material.
In this case, the PBG structure is obtained by producing the patterns 4, namely patches, on the face of the substrate 1 opposite the face carrying the metal layer 2. The patterns or patches 4 are generally realized by engraving a metal layer and are found opposite the slot-line 3.
In a known manner, to obtain a photonic band gap structure, the patterns 4 repeat periodically and are spaced at a distance that gives the pattern repetition period. This distance sets the central frequency of the band gap when the patterns are identical. Hence, the distance is in the order of kλg/2 where λg is the guided wavelength in the slot-line 3 at the central frequency of the photonic band gap and k is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1.
The pattern 4 can be of any shape. However, the equivalent surface of the pattern determines the width and/or depth of the band gap.
To implement the filtering phenomenon of such a device, a device of the type of the one shown in FIG. 1A in which the substrate is constituted by the “Rogers Ro4003” with relative permittivity ∈r=3.38 and the metallizations are of copper of thickness 17.5 μm is simulated. In this case, the photonic band gap structure is composed of twelve metal discs 4 periodically spaced at a distance a=12.7 mm corresponding to the creation of a band gap centred at Fc(BI)=8.3 GHz, and the discs 4 have a radius r such that the ratio r/a=0.25.
As shown in FIG. 2, which gives the transmission S12 and reflection S11 coefficients according to the frequency, a band gap is obtained having a width of 900 MHz and centred on 8.25 GHz. In this case, the rejection of the central frequency 8.25 GHz is −17 dB. | {
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This invention relates to a differential for wheeled vehicles and more particularly relates to a limited slip differential of the automatic clutch controlled variable resistance type.
Conventional differentials normally depend on frictional drag inherently created therein or on attendant devices, such as pre-loaded clutch packs associated with the axle gears or positive lockup devices, to transfer drive torque to a non-slipping wheel during vehicle operation. The torque transfer capacity in such differentials is normally limited and often times proves insufficient to adequately propel the vehicle when its wheels encounter unbalanced traction conditions. Latter limited slip differentials have included means of transferring high torque to a non-slipping wheel during vehicle operation, but these devices have been complex and as a result prone to failure. Of general interest are U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,750,981; 2,894,416; 2,985,035; 3,077,835; 3,109,323; 3,158,042; 3,229,550; 3,237,483; and 3,724,289. | {
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In digital terrestrial television broadcasting that transmits digitized image and sound signals based on ground waves, a broadcast signal band is split into thirteen segments and used. By using one of these segments, broadcasting called one-segment broadcasting mainly for mobile units has been put into practice. The receiving function of the one-segment broadcasting is introduced into not only dedicated television receivers but also information devices such as personal computers and portable telephones.
In the one-segment broadcasting, other than images and sounds of ordinary TV programs supplied through the ground waves from broadcasting stations, data broadcasting that supplies information via a network such as the Internet is implemented as a supplementary service. In the data broadcasting, link information is included in the information which has been transmitted through the ground waves from the broadcasting stations. This link information indicates a content that may be accessed through the Internet and is in the data broadcasting server. A user device that functions as a television receiver on the user side acquires the link information from the received ground waves, obtains the content according to the link information from a data broadcasting server, and displays the content. The content provided by the data broadcasting server includes not only texts but also images and sounds. In the one-segment broadcasting, there may be performed on-demand information provision according to a user's operation, beyond constraints of programs provided based on broadcast waves.
In the data broadcasting, there is desired a service that makes use of the feature of on-demand information provision and thereby providing special contents only to specific users. Conventionally, in network distribution only by communications among computers connected via a network, and CS (Communications Satellite) broadcasting as well as cable television broadcasting, a service called VOD (Video On Demand) and providing, for example, pay contents to user devices that have completed a charging procedure has been obtained.
In the VOD through the network, an administrative server, which is different from a contents server transmitting the contents, receives credit card information from a personal computer (PC) on the content receiving side, and transmits license information for descrambling by electronic mail. When the contents server transmits a content protected by scrambling or the like to the PC that is the user device on the reproduction side, the PC descrambles the content by using the acquired license information and displays the content.
Further, as a system of protecting special contents, there is known, for example, a system that applies DRM (Digital Rights Management) to a content to be supplied from a server to a user device and thereby limits the reproduction of the content (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-342080). In this system, the user device transmits a digital signature to the server, and the server inserts the signature into a DRM message in the content.
Furthermore, in the CS broadcasting and the cable television broadcasting, when operation of selecting a pay content is performed by a user, this selection operation is accumulated in a built-in IC card as viewing data and the content is displayed. The viewing data accumulated in the IC card is made known to the distribution side by telephone line, for example.
In the CS broadcasting and the cable television broadcasting, users viewing the contents are limited and the IC card may be incorporated into every user device. However, in broadcasting, such as the one-segment broadcasting, in which users viewing the contents are not limited and PCs may be used as user devices, it is not realistic to newly incorporate IC cards and interfaces into all the user devices. Further, in the network distribution, a means of exchanging data with an administrative server by electronic mail and the like may be provided, making the configuration of the user device complicated. Furthermore, in the system using DRM, the DRM message is inserted into the content, and the content may be revised for every user device to change the signature in the DRM message. This makes the processing on the transmitting side complicated. | {
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Integration of systems is per se known. By way of example, the integration of an isomerization process with a disproportionation process around a common compressor is taught in U.S. Patent Publication 2010-0004493. In another example, the preparation of liquid hydrocarbons from a light hydrocarbonaceous feedstock is combined with a process for liquefying natural gas, involving the production of syngas (CO and H2), is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,618.
Aromatic hydrocarbons, particularly benzene, toluene, and xylenes (collectively, “BTX”) and also ethylbenzene, are important commodity chemicals in the petrochemical industry. Currently, aromatic hydrocarbons are most frequently produced from petroleum-based feedstocks by a variety of processes, including catalytic reforming and catalytic cracking. However, as the world supplies of petroleum feedstocks decrease, there is a growing need to find alternative sources of aromatic hydrocarbons.
One possible alternative source of aromatic hydrocarbons is methane. The present inventors have noted that possible sources of methane include natural gas and biogas. More natural gas is currently being discovered than oil. Likewise, production and collection of biogas, such as from landfill (e.g., “garbage dumps”) is increasing tremendously. However, there are numerous problems associated with transportation of large volumes of such gases. For instance, natural gas recovered along with oil (also known as “associated gas”), particularly at remote places, is generally flared and thus wasted. More efficient use of such gases is critical.
A large majority of the processes currently proposed for converting methane to liquid hydrocarbons involve initial oxidation of methane to synthesis gas, such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,618 referenced above.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,618 (EP 1306632), liquid hydrocarbons are produced from a light hydrocarbonaceous feedstock in combination with a process for liquefying natural gas, which liquefaction process comprises converting a light hydrocarbonaceous feedstock into synthesis gas, followed by catalytic conversion of the synthesis gas into liquid hydrocarbons. While this application claims efficiencies associated with integration of two processes (natural gas liquefaction and liquid hydrocarbon synthesis), it is still inherently inefficient for at least two reasons, one being the large pressure differential between the liquefaction effluent stream and the preferred operating pressure for the liquid hydrocarbon synthesis, and another being that production of synthesis gas as an intermediate step in the production of liquid hydrocarbons is capital and energy intensive. Accordingly, a more efficient integration of methane conversion technologies with gas liquefaction would be of value.
A number of other processes have been proposed for directly converting methane to higher hydrocarbons, such as catalytic oxidative coupling of methane to olefins followed by the catalytic conversion of the olefins to liquid hydrocarbons, including aromatic hydrocarbons. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,825. However, oxidative coupling methods suffer from the problem that they involve highly exothermic reactions (and thus are exposed to potentially hazardous methane combustion reactions) and they generate large quantities of environmentally sensitive carbon oxides.
Non-oxidative coupling has also been proposed in numerous patents, typically involving contacting methane with a catalyst comprising a metal supported on a zeolite, such as ZSM-5, at high temperature, such as 600° C. to 1000° C. See, for example, patents cited in the Background section of U.S. Patent Publication 2007/0260098.
Non-oxidative coupling methods include dehydroaromatization. As used herein, the term “dehydroaromatization” means processes comprising non-oxidative coupling reactions wherein methane is converted to aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benzene, toluene, and naphthalene (commonly referred to collectively as “BTN”), along with H2, using a supported metal catalyst. Syngas is not a significant intermediate. Such processes have also been referred to as dehydrocyclization, although the latter can also include (or be confused with) the production of cyclic paraffins. Such prior art dehydroaromatization processes are almost exclusively “once through” (no recycle) and do not address separation of the products.
For instance, in the aforementioned U.S. Patent Publication 2007/0260098, a process is described for converting methane to higher hydrocarbons including aromatic hydrocarbons, the process comprising contacting a feed containing methane with a catalyst useful for dehydroaromatization, conveniently molybdenum, tungsten and/or rhenium or a compound thereof on ZSM-5 or an aluminum oxide, under conditions effective to convert said methane to aromatic hydrocarbons and produce a first effluent stream comprising aromatic hydrocarbons and H2, wherein said first effluent stream comprises at least 5 wt % more aromatic rings than said feed; and reacting at least part of the H2 from said first effluent stream with an oxygen-containing species to produce a second effluent stream having a reduced H2 content compared with said first effluent stream.
Other references pertinent to dehydroaromatization include U.S. Patent Publications 2008/0047872; 2008/0058564; 2007/0249740; 2007/0129587 (now allowed); 2007/0282145; 2008/0021251; 2008/0051617; 2007/0249880; 2007/0260098; 2009/0030253; U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,589,246 and 7,659,437; WO 2009/097067, and WO 2007/123808.
In order for a methane conversion process to be adopted on a commercial scale, most of the gas used in the process needs to be converted to high value products, such as benzene, and/or moderate to high value co-products, such as H2. Without wishing to be bound by theory, based on thermodynamic considerations there is only a limited amount of the methane feed that can be converted to aromatic products, at reasonable (i.e., economically viable) operating conditions. Accordingly, the product stream contains large amounts of unreacted methane as well as H2 and aromatic species. Separation of BTN and light olefin byproducts can be accomplished by methods known per se, however, separation of byproduct H2 from CH4 is difficult, requiring expensive equipment and high energy use.
Recovery of relatively high purity H2 (low CH4 content) for uses such as catalyst regeneration and/or to make syngas for methanol or other product synthesis, and likewise recovery of relatively high purity CH4 (low H2 content) is also needed so that it can be recycled as feed to the reactor. In addition, reactor conversion of methane to aromatic hydrocarbons is depressed by the presence of H2 in the feed.
Accordingly, a more efficient process for separation of H2 and CH4 from each other is highly desired. Heretofore, cryogenic separation of H2 and CH4, although thought to be one of the more effective means of achieving the separation, was very expensive; requiring large capital expense for multiple refrigeration machines with various refrigerants (e.g., C3, C2, and C1) or very large mixed refrigerant systems. Also resultant liquid methane must be reheated back to reactor inlet temperature, which is on the order of 500° C. or higher.
Often rather than chemically converting methane to another material for transportation, it is cooled to low enough temperatures that it liquefies so that it can be transported in liquid form as LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas). With regard to gases taken at the well-head and/or biogases, extensive refrigeration is required to cool to liquefaction temperatures. The final step is pressure reduction to atmospheric pressure with auto-refrigeration and the production of a low pressure gas stream (“boil off gas” or LNG BOG). Depending on the temperature and pressure of the stream prior to the pressure reduction to atmospheric pressure with auto-refrigeration, more or less LNG BOG is produced. If there is an outlet for more LNG BOG then the cryogenic refrigeration operation will be more economically attractive, e.g., if more and/or higher use for LNG BOG can be found the temperature of the refrigeration system(s) can be raised. So, from an efficiency standpoint, when LNG BOG volume is set by the outlet (disposition) for this stream being, by way of example, fuel used by the LNG complex, this will essentially set the required temperature prior to flashing. LNG BOG must also be compressed up to approximately 350 psi for use in gas turbines to run the LNG complex. Furthermore, Jetty BOG is also produced when LNG tankers are filled and the vapor volume is displaced. LNG BOG and Jetty BOG will be referred to collectively herein as “BOG”, unless otherwise specifically noted. BOG tends to be enriched in inerts (predominately N2), and these inerts are practically non-condensables in the natural gas. A more efficient use of BOG is thus highly sought after.
LNG is produced in parts of the world where there are large reserves of natural gas but paradoxically little use for it. The natural gas is thus transported as LNG to locations where it can be used for heating, power generation or industrial use. However, LNG cannot be utilized in the liquid form and therefore it must be converted back to a gas at high pressure for distribution to consumers. To supply vaporized gas at pipeline pressure, a portion of the gas is burned to provide heat which is inefficient in that a portion of the gas is consumed. It would be beneficial if the gasification of LNG could be integrated with one or more other processes.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,019,184 teaches a process in which natural gas is non-oxidatively converted to aromatic liquid and is said to provide integration of the separation of wellhead fluids into associated gas and crude with blending of the aromatic liquid derived from the gas with the crude and/or integration of conversion of byproduct H2 to power with non-oxidative conversion of gas to aromatic liquid. Separation of unreacted methane and recycle of the same back to the reactor is taught.
WO 2010004300 teaches a process for treating offshore natural gas. The process comprises (i) liquefying and fractionating the natural gas to generate a liquefied natural gas stream and a higher hydrocarbon stream, (ii) vapourising at least a portion of said higher hydrocarbon stream, (iii) passing the vapourised higher hydrocarbon stream and steam over a steam reforming catalyst to generate a reformed gas mixture comprising methane, steam, carbon oxides and hydrogen, (iv) passing the reformed gas mixture over a methanation catalyst to generate a methane rich gas, and (v) combining the methane-rich gas with the natural gas prior to the liquefaction step. The process requires first separating the higher hydrocarbon from the methane; then reacting the higher hydrocarbon with steam to make CO and H2; then (with a second catalyst at a second set of reaction conditions) reacting the CO and H2 to produce methane and water.
The present inventors have surprisingly discovered that the process of taking well-head gases to the consumer may be integrated with the production of aromatic hydrocarbons by dehydroaromatization. | {
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The expected consumption and the shortage of the resources such as petroleum and coal etc., environment contaminant problem, cost and economic value as well as the society sustainable development all promote people to pay great attention to the new type energy and clean energy technology, and research them in great enthusiasm. The technology of wind-driven power generating system and its equipment manufacture have developed as a new industry branch, and the application is being increasing, however, regarding to the demand to energy and electric power and the percentage, the wind-driven power generating technology and its product and the total power generating quantity are still in the junior and passive situation, a great deal of installation of such wind-driven generator still rely on the government encouragement and preferential investment, the primary reason is that at present wind-driven generators and installations have many problems which restrict development, wind-driven generators and installations and natural requirements are to overcome many technical bottlenecks and make improvements.
At present the known wind-driven generators are most three-blade rotator direct reduction gear box and generator type, the utilization efficiency of the wind energy is low and the generating power is also low due to its structure and technology, again, it is installed on the high tower subjected to sunshine and rain, as a result the equipment trends to be damaged, and the maintenance difficult and cost high, its guide mechanism and brake device consume energy as well; in addition the wind-driven generator must be activated at the rotation beginning, therefore it can be envisaged that the activate moment must be large enough and the wind-driven generator can only rotate under sufficient wind speed, but it must rotate within a defined narrow wind speed range, otherwise wind-driven generator would damage, hence such type wind-driven generator has small effective power generating hours all the year round and is difficult to be large scaled, because the construction site must be selected at the region where the year wind energy resources are abundant, therefore the geographical and natural condition is substantial high, the site construction cost is high, these disadvantage factors make the investment reward rate very low and the investment callback period long, all these factors restrict and impede the development of wind-driven power generating system. | {
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The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Conventional thread taps use high volume flow of a liquid lubricant over the cutting edges of the tool. Some thread taps have an internal passage that provide this liquid lubricant to each cutting edge. Since the liquid lubricant is essentially an incompressible fluid, flow from the passage to each cutting edge remains substantially based on the pressure of the liquid supplied to the tool.
In contrast, minimum quantity lubrication (“MQL”) machining uses lubrication supplied to the cutting edges of a tool through a lean air-oil mist, rather than through the high volume liquid-based emulsion in conventional thread tapping. The ratio of air to oil in the air-oil mist is typically very high and the lubricant mist acts as a compressible fluid (unlike the incompressible liquid lubricant of conventional thread tapping). Taps designed for liquid lubricant flow through internal passages suffer from excessive air compression and backpressure when used with the air-oil mist of MQL machining. This can result in wasted lubricant and excess wear on the tap.
The present disclosure provides a thread tap having a more balanced lubrication flow for MQL thread tapping that overcomes the problems of typical thread taps when used for MQL tapping. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Computers have become highly integrated in the workforce, in the home, in mobile devices, and many other places. Computers can process massive amounts of information quickly and efficiently. Software applications designed to run on computer systems allow users to perform a wide variety of functions including business applications, schoolwork, entertainment and more. Software applications are often designed to perform specific tasks, such as word processor applications for drafting documents, or email programs for sending, receiving and organizing email.
Some software applications are designed for deployment and processing on the cloud. Such applications are often referred to as distributed applications. These distributed applications are configured to run on many different physical and/or virtual computer systems. As such, many different points of failure (both on the hardware side and on the software side) are introduced. | {
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This invention relates to illuminated real estate signs and to methods of marketing real estate.
For quite some time, real estate signs have played a significant role in transferring interests in real property, whether by sale or lease. In front of homes and businesses all over the country, real estate signs notify the public that a given piece of property is available for sale, lease, or possibly other arrangements as real property owner(s) may desire. A fair amount of interest in properties is sparked when people for one reason or another happen to pass by and see a real estate sign located on the property. Indeed, simply driving around neighborhoods looking for real estate signs is a common way that people learn that a particular property is available for sale or lease.
Several different types of real estate signs exist in the marketplace. The signs themselves are typically metallic and are supported by metal or wood structures that are usually affixed to the front lawn of the property, or other suitable locations that are visible to the public. The signs themselves are often thin, rectangular panels overlaid with text and graphics capable of withstanding the elements. However, wood, plastic, and cardboard signs of lesser durability may also be found which serve the same purpose of notifying the public that the property is available for sale or lease. The structures supporting real estate signs are typically one of two basic constructions. First, a wooden cross arm structure from which the sign is suspended is common. A second type of structure incorporates metallic poles attached to each side of the real estate sign.
A disadvantage of real estate signs is that they are often difficult to read, and sometimes difficult to see at all, after dark. While a portion of the market of potential buyers and/or lessors has ample opportunity to locate and read real estate signs in daylight hours, an increasing portion of the market does not. Also, even if a real estate sign is noticed in the darkness, the darkness makes it difficult to read key information (e.g. phone numbers and real estate company names) on the signs. These difficulties may cause a potential buyer or lessor to refrain from viewing properties at night altogether and certainly impedes the progress of those that do. Therefore, an appreciable portion of the interested market may not get the opportunity to view properties because they could not easily find them at night.
One type of real estate signs has spot lights or flood lights in a cross arm that shine down upon a suspended display panel. The display panel is overlaid with information regarding marketing information about the property. The lights are located in the cross arm, along with other components, such as a battery, an alarm, a radio transmitter, a thermal sensor and/or heating coils to help ensure that the sign remains in place and remains visible at night to convey information about the property to potentially interested parties. While this type of sign provides a partial solution to the problems associated with viewing real estate properties at night, it is not without disadvantages.
For instance, the lighted real estate signs of this type may blend in with a multitude of lights in a neighborhood so that it becomes easy to miss unless one is carefully looking for it. For instance, porch lights, yard lights, street lights, and light coming through windows may make the sign difficult to see and read from certain vantage points where the surrounding light field backlights the sign and camouflages it. Also, when lit, the sign is practically invisible when viewed from a side perspective. Because of the relative thinness of the display panel, the silhouette of the sign may be made out only when one stands at a sufficient angle relative to the front or back faces of a sign. In other words, even though the lights shine down upon the face of the sign at night, the sign may nonetheless be virtually invisible from the side. Thus, it is possible that one could drive by this type of sign at night and completely miss it if the sign is approached from certain angles and/or a distracted driver or passenger briefly glances at the property only from a perspective in which the sign cannot be seen. Finally, the harsh bright light of this type of sign is prone to glare, and may be unwelcomed by the neighbors. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a polarization beam splitter and a projection display apparatus in which the polarization beam splitter functions as a polarizer and an analyzer.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a technique of forming an image on a large screen, a method is well known in which an optical image corresponding to a video signal is formed on a light valve, the light valve is irradiated with light, and the optical image formed on the light valve is projected by a projection lens onto a screen while magnifying the image. Recently, a projection display apparatus in which a liquid crystal display is used as a light valve has attraction. For example, M. HIMURO proposes in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 61-13885 a method in which the pixel number of a liquid crystal display can be increased or a high resolution can be attained without reducing the pixel aperture factor, by using a reflection-type liquid crystal display.
FIG. 16 shows an outline of a projection display apparatus using the reflection-type liquid crystal display. Light 2 which is emitted from a light source 1 so as to be substantially parallel is directed to a polarization beam splitter 3. The polarization beam splitter 3 reflects S-polarized light 4, and allows P-polarized light 5 to pass therethrough. The reflected S-polarized light 4 enters a liquid crystal display 6 in which each pixel is provided with a reflective electrode for reflecting light. When no voltage is applied to a liquid crystal layer of the liquid crystal display 6, the liquid crystal layer does not substantially show birefringence. In contrast, when a voltage is applied to the liquid crystal layer, the liquid crystal layer shows birefringence. Therefore, when linearly polarized light which is polarized in a predetermined direction enters the liquid crystal layer to which a voltage is applied, elliptically polarized light is reflected from the liquid crystal display. In other words, a portion of the S-polarized light 4 is converted into P-polarized light by the liquid crystal display 6. The reflected light including the S and P-polarized light enters again the polarization beam splitter 3. The P-polarized light included in the light reflected from the liquid crystal display 6 passes through the polarization beam splitter 3 to enter a projection lens 7, and the S-polarized light is reflected by the beam splitter to proceed toward the light source 1. In this way, an optical image produced in the form of a change of birefringence on the liquid crystal display 6 is magnified and projected by the projection lens 7 onto a screen (not shown).
In a reflection-type liquid crystal display, switching elements can be arranged under pixel electrodes. Accordingly, the pixel pitch can be shortened without reducing the size of the switching elements, and a high density can be attained without reducing the pixel aperture factor. Therefore, a reflection-type liquid crystal display can produce a projection image which is brighter and has a higher resolution than that produced by a transmission-type liquid crystal display.
In the configuration of the projection display apparatus shown in FIG. 16, when the S-polarized light 4 entering the liquid crystal display 6 is reflected therefrom without being converted into P-polarized light, and again reflected by the polarization beam splitter 3 toward the light source 1, a black display is conducted. At this time, if a portion of the S-polarized light fails to be reflected by the polarization beam splitter 3 and passes therethrough to enter the projection lens 7, the contrast of a resulting projection image is greatly impaired. In order to obtain a high-contrast projection image, therefore, the polarization beam splitter 3 must be designed so as to have a very small transmittance of S-polarized light.
In contrast, the light converted into P-polarized light by the liquid crystal display 6 passes through the polarization beam splitter 3, and is then projected on the screen so as to conduct a white display. In order to obtain a highly bright projection display, therefore, the polarization beam splitter 3 is required to have a high performance of transmitting P-polarized light.
Generally, as the polarization beam splitter 3, mainly used is a type which is proposed by S. M. MacNeille in U.S. Pat. No. 3,346,319 and in which two glass prisms are attached together to form a cube or a rectangular parallelepiped, and a multilayer optical thin film is formed at the interface of the two glass prisms. The multilayer optical thin film is structured by alternately stacking two kinds of thin layers having different refractive indices, and splits natural light into two polarized light components having polarizing planes which perpendicularly cross each other, by utilizing Brewster's angle and the interference effect of light. The material and film thickness of the multilayer film are selected so as to satisfy the Brewster's angle condition in which the transmittance of P-polarized light of a specific wavelength is 100%. When the Brewster's angle is indicated by .theta..sub.G, the refractive index of the glass prism by n.sub.G, the refractive index of low refractive index layers by n.sub.1, and the refractive index of high refractive index layers by n.sub.2, the Brewster's angle is expressed by the following expression: ##EQU2##
When the incident angle to the multilayer film face equals the Brewster's angle, the transmittance of S-polarized light can be reduced by increasing the number of layers of the multilayer film, while maintaining the transmittance of P-polarized light to be 100%.
However, the performance of a polarization beam splitter of this kind depends on the incident angle of light. When the incident angle is shifted from a reference incident angle, particularly, the transmittance of P-polarized light is greatly reduced.
Hereinafter, the reference incident angle of light indicates an angle designed so that the multi-layer film operates to effectively split the light incident on the film at the angle into two polarized light components. The incident angle of light indicates an angle at which main portion of the light is incident on the multilayer film. In other words, the incident angle is an angle between a beam axis of light and the plane of the multilayer film.
In the configuration of FIG. 16, light which is not perfectly parallel enters the polarization beam splitter 3 in most cases, and therefore the above-described incident angle dependence of the performance of the polarization beam splitter 3 causes the light efficiency to be extremely lowered.
As an example, spectral transmittance characteristics of a polarization beam splitter are shown in FIG. 17 which are obtained in the case where, in expression (1), the reference incident angle to the multilayer film face is 45.degree., the refractive index of the low refractive index layers is 1.46, the refractive index of the high refractive index layers is 2.30, and the refractive index of the prism is 1.74. The polarization beam splitter includes a multilayer film having an alternating structure consisting of 13 layers in which the first and thirteenth layers counted from the side of the coated face are low refractive index layers having an optical thickness of .lambda..sub.0 /8 (.lambda..sub.0 =730 nm, hereinafter .lambda..sub.0 indicates the main wavelength of design), and the other layers have an optical thickness of .lambda..sub.0 /4. It will be seen that there is a wavelength at which, when the incident angle of light is changed by .+-.5.degree. from the reference incident angle, the transmittance of P-polarized light is reduced by 50% or more at the maximum.
In order to prevent this problem from arising, the range of the incident angle of light can be reduced by making small the effective aperture of the optical system. When the effective aperture of the optical system is made small, however, the light efficiency is lowered, and therefore it is difficult to provide a projection image which is sufficiently bright. | {
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A known ignition interlock mechanism for a column-mounted shift control assembly is disclosed in Dzioba U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,605. This mechanism includes a latch plate pivotally mounted on an end of an arcuate shaped detent plate. The latch plate has a locking surface which is selectively positioned via the interaction of a key cylinder slot, a lock pin, a ramped plunger, and a cable to prevent removal of an operator lever positioning arm from the Park position prior to the key cylinder being unlocked. The latch plate also includes a positioning surface which, when engaged by the positioning arm upon its return to Park position, will pivot the latch plate to thereby move the plunger and permit the lock pin to leave the key cylinder slot and permit the key to be returned to its lock and remove position. | {
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This invention relates to delivering humidified gas mixtures to be breathed by a patient.
In conventional respirator systems a ventilator draws gases from one or more sources and delivers the gas mixture through inhalation and exhalation conduits to and from the patient in cyclic pulses of about 1 liter volume at a rate of about 6-10 pulses per minute. Conventionally the gas is conditioned, by heating or humidifying or by other treatment, before it is delivered to the patient's breathing passages. For example, a nebulizer may be positioned in the inhalation conduit for adding a medication to the gases. Commonly a humidifier, in which the gas mixture is directed over a reservoir of heated water for warming and adding moisture to the gas mixture, is positioned close to the ventilator and remote from the patient in the inhalation conduit. As the gas mixture flows in pulses from the humidifier, its temperature falls so that the temperature of the gas mixture as it leaves the heater is substantially higher than at the point of delivery to the patient. The extent of such a temperature drop varies according to, for example, the length of the hose carrying the gas to the patient, ambient temperatures, and air movement over the hoses.
Humidifiers in common use typically heat the water over which the air being humidified passes, to about 130.degree.-160.degree. F., and systems using such humidifiers commonly require costly and complex apparatus for feedback control to avoid exposing the patient to gases in excess of body temperature. Maintaining the temperature of the gas at the point of delivery to the patient within a range of safety and comfort requires monitoring, e.g., by placing electronic sensors near the patient, and controlling the humidifier thermostatically.
As the temperature of the gas mixture falls, moisture "rains out" of the gas mixture, condensing on the walls of the conduits. Complete obstruction of the inhalant conduit by condensate can result in drowning the patient. Condensate accumulation is generally greater in the expiratory conduit. A collection device is conventionally provided at a low point in the conduit to drain away and trap accumulating condensate. | {
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It is known to employ paperboard carriers which grip the top portions of cans so that the cans are suspended from a support panel. One such carrier design consists of a top panel spaced from a bottom support panel by short side panels, with the tops of the cans located in the space between the top and bottom panels. The cans are introduced to the carrier through apertures in the bottom panel and typically are held in place by support tabs which extend up from the bottom panel to engage the underside of the can chimes. Finger openings in the top panel enable the carrier to be lifted and carried.
A problem with such clip-type carriers is that despite the presence of a top panel and side panels, it is primarily the support tabs of the bottom panel which support the cans, which requires the paperboard used to form the carrier to be of substantial thickness or caliper. In addition, although the support tabs at least partially engage the upper side portions of the cans, they do not normally tightly grip the sides of the cans, leaving it primarily to the ends of the support tabs to actually support the weight of the cans.
It would be desirable to strengthen clip-type carriers to make the carriers better able to support heavy beverage cans. In the past this has been difficult to do without substantially increasing the cost of the carrier as a result of making the carrier from paperboard of greater caliper or adding an additional ply to the bottom panel. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a can clip carrier with increased ability to support heavy loads without increasing the cost of the carrier. | {
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The present invention relates generally to a direct-injection spark-ignition engine having an injector for injecting fuel directly into a combustion chamber, in which a stratified combustible mixture is produced around a spark plug using a tumble during operation by stratified charge combustion. More particularly, the invention pertains to a control device for controlling fuel injection and other factors of such a direct-injection spark-ignition engine as well as to a method of setting fuel injection timing of the same.
In one example of a conventionally known direct-injection spark-ignition engine provided with an injector for injecting fuel directly into a combustion chamber, the air-fuel ratio is increased to produce a lean mixture and the injector injects the fuel during every compression stroke such that the mixture is locally distributed around a spark plug to cause stratified charge combustion in a low-speed low-load operating range, thereby achieving an improvement in fuel economy.
An example of a conventional direct-injection spark-ignition engine is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-104550, in which an intake port is so constructed as to produce a tumble in a combustion chamber and an injector is provided for injecting fuel directly into the combustion chamber. In this construction, the injector injects the fuel in a direction against the tumble in a latter part of the compression stroke during stratified charge combustion so that a fuel spray from the injector hitting against the tumble is carried to an area around a spark plug.
In the direct-injection spark-ignition engine thus constructed, fuel injection time and ignition point during stratified charge combustion are controlled as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-205006, for example. Specifically, the fuel injection time is determined from a predefined xe2x80x9cmapxe2x80x9d according to target load and engine speed while the ignition point is calculated from basic ignition point determined from a predefined xe2x80x9cmapxe2x80x9d according to the target load and the engine speed and various correction values determined according to cooling water temperature and other parameters.
When the fuel injection time during the stratified charge combustion is controlled according to the target load and engine speed as stated above, an arrangement is made to ensure that the period of time from the ending point of fuel injection to the ignition point would not decrease. This is normally achieved by advancing the fuel injection time to increase the difference in crank angle between the fuel injection ending point and the ignition point.
A conventional direct-injection spark-ignition engine using the tumble like the one shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-104550 has a problem that it is difficult to maintain a good stratified charge combustion state over wide engine speed ranges from low-speed to high-speed ranges.
Basically, the higher the engine speed, the higher the velocity of intake air stream, so that a tumble produced by the intake air stream flowing through an intake port into a combustion chamber is intensified as the engine speed increases. Therefore, if penetration of the fuel spray from the injector is constant, the fuel spray tends to be brought to peripheral regions of the combustion chamber in higher speed ranges by tumble flow which becomes more forceful with an increase in the engine speed, even if the engine is designed to properly produce a stratified charge. One approach to the solution of this problem would be to increase the fuel spray penetration to a level corresponding to the intensity of the tumble flow with an increase in the engine speed by increasing the pressure of the fuel supplied to the injector, for example.
Even if the fuel spray penetration is balanced with the intensity of the tumble flow in accordance with the increase in the engine speed in this fashion, however, there arises another problem that the fuel tends to be dispersed in higher engine speed ranges as a result of an increase in hydraulic impact energy.
In the light of the aforementioned problems of the prior art, it is an object of the invention to provide a control device and a method of setting fuel injection timing for a direct-injection spark-ignition engine in which a stratified combustible mixture is produced using a tumble. It is a more specific object of the invention to provide a control device and a fuel injection timing setting method which make it possible to improve fuel economy of a direct-injection spark-ignition engine by causing the engine to make stratified charge combustion in a preferable fashion in stratified charge combustion regions over wide engine speed ranges from low-speed to high-speed ranges.
To achieve this object, a control device of the invention for a direct-injection spark-ignition engine having a tumble generator for creating a tumble in a combustion chamber and a fuel injector which injects fuel into the combustion chamber in a direction opposite to tumble flow such that a combustible mixture is produced around a spark plug at an ignition point in a stratified charge combustion region which is a low-speed low-load operating range of the engine comprises a penetration adjuster for regulating penetration of a fuel spray from the injector in such a manner that it is progressively intensified with an increase in engine speed in the stratified charge combustion region, and a fuel injection controller for controlling fuel injection timing of the injector according to engine operating conditions, wherein the fuel injection controller causes the injector to inject the fuel before the ignition point on compression stroke in the stratified charge combustion region and controls the injection timing such that the interval between a fuel injection ending point and the ignition point becomes shorter with an increase in the engine speed under the same engine load within the stratified charge combustion region.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a frame structure for a saddle-ridden-type vehicle such as a motorcycle, and more specifically, to a frame structure of an aluminum twin spar frame.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a related-art frame structure for a motorcycle, a front end portion of each tank rail is welded to a head frame having a head pipe. In the head frame disclosed in Patent Document 1, a rectangular-tube-shaped joint portion protrudes from a side surface of a head pipe, and a front end portion of a rectangular-tube-shaped tank rail is fitted with the joint portion in an overlap manner. The joint portion of the head frame and the front end portion of the tank rail are subjected to fillet welding over whole circumference thereof, to improve joint strength between the head frame and the tank rail.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. S62-034879A
In the motorcycle, however, a bending load is applied to the welded portion between the head frame and the tank rail due to push-up from a road surface or a brake force of a brake. In this instance, stress concentration is easily produced on an upper surface side of the welded portion between the head frame and the tank rail. Further, in the frame structure disclosed in Patent Document 1, since the joint portion of the head frame and the front end portion of the tank rail are formed in the rectangular-tube-shape, it is not possible to continuously weld them over a corner portion having a high curvature. For this reason, an end portion of a weld bead is formed at a corner portion of the upper surface side of the welded portion, and thus a load is likely to be applied to the welded portion. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a circular polarization antenna whose radiation pattern is in the shape of a body of revolution about an axis and has a radiation minimum in the direction of this axis.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Antennas of this type are usually implemented as a configuration of multirod conductors disposed in a tourniquet around the axis of the antenna, each rod being excited separately by a line from a distributor.
Such antennas are described, for example, by N.T. Lindeblad in Antennas and Transmission Lines at the Empire State Building Television Station, RCA Communications, Apr. 1941 (in which disclosure four dipoles are excited in phase separately, each by its own line), by M. S. Gatti and D. J. Nybakken in A Circularly Polarized Crossed Drooping Dipole Antenna, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium Digest, 7-11 May 1990, Vol. 1, pp. 254-257, and by C. C. Kilgus in Shaped-Conical Radiation Pattern Performance of the Backfire Quadriflar helix, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, May 1975 (in which disclosure four rods are excited by a power splitter and phase shifter system with respective phases of 0, 90, 180 and 270.degree.).
Antennas of this type are routinely used on satellites for telemetry and remote control links, for example, and on land and maritime mobiles, in particular for satellite communication and location systems.
Antennas of the aforementioned type can also be implemented in the form of slotted printed circuit antennas, but these require a complex matching circuit.
The principal drawbacks of these various prior art antennas are their complexity, their relative fragility and the high cost of the excitation system which is typically a four-channel system requiring the provision of power splitter, phase shifter and balancer devices.
One object of the present invention is to propose an antenna of the aforementioned type, that is to say a circular polarization antenna having a radiation pattern which is in the shape of a body of revolution about an axis with a radiation minimum on said axis (a more or less toroidal shape pattern, for example) but with a much simpler structure and a direct excitation system requiring no power splitter, phase shifter or balancer devices.
A subsidiary object of the present invention is to propose an antenna of this type in which the maximum radiation direction can be varied by a simple choice of parameters so that the same basic structure can without difficultly yield an entire family of antennas suited to the various applications envisaged. | {
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The present invention relates to a process for making in-situ Silicon Carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibers in an inorganic composite matrix.
The process of the present invention particularly relates to the use of wide variety of natural fibres such as jute, hem, sisal or any other natural fibre having cellulosic or hemicellulosic fibre as its backbone as raw materials for providing useful carbon for the formation of silicon carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibres in an inorganic composite matrix selected from Silicon Carbide-carbon and carbon matrix.
The main usage of the silicon carbide particulate, whiskers, fibre in Silicon Carbide-carbon or carbon composite matrix is in the field of engineering materials in any shape as may be deemed fit.
The present day method of making Silicon Carbide particulate, whisker and fibre reinforced composite in Silicon Carbide-carbon matrix or carbon matrix essentially consists of seeding graphite substrate with metal droplets such as Fe, Co, Cr and Mn as catalyst for the whisker formation. Methane and silicon monoxide supply C and Si respectivelyxe2x80x94the references for which may be made to xe2x80x9cSynthesis and Characterization of VLSxe2x80x94Derived Sic whiskersxe2x80x9d of P. D. Shaiek in Conf. Whisker and Fibre Toughened Ceramics, Oak Ridge T N (1988) and to xe2x80x9cReview of VLS Sic Whisker Growth Technologyxe2x80x9d by W. E. Holler and J. J. Kim in Ceram. Engg. Sci. Proc., vol. 12, pp979-991 (1991) or making fibre by melt extrusion and suspension spinning of compositions of ultrafine SiC powders and organic additives such as polyvinyl butyral respectively followed by sintering or making fibre by melt spinning polymers which can be rapidly cured in the solid state and polymerised to ceramic fibres with compositions which are stoichiometric silicon carbide or which are carbon-rich or silicon-rich silicon carbide the reference for which may be made to xe2x80x9cSilicon Carbide: from Acheson""s Invention to New Industrial Productsxe2x80x9d by W. D. G. Boecker in cfi/Ber. DKG74, (5), 1997. The fibres and whiskers produced by the above processes are mixed mechanically with the matrix material and are fabricated into different sizes and shapes followed by heat treatment at different temperatures for consolidations the references for which may be made to xe2x80x9cPressureless Sintering of Al2O3./SiC Materials: Effect of the xe2x80x9cReducing Atmospherexe2x80x9d by G. Urretavizcaya, J. M. Porto Lopez and A. L. Cavalieri, J. Eu. Ceram. Soc. 17 1555-63 (1997). In a process inorganic polymers that are ceramic precursors are spun into fibres by melt-spinning or solventxe2x80x94assisted dry spinning, stabilising the fibres to prevent remelting followed by thermally decomposing into fibres, the references for which may be made to German P.2,618150; French P.2,308,590; Japanese P.51 130325, 51 139929, 51 147623 (1976). In slurry spinning a dispersion of crystalline ceramic particulate in a carrier fluid is formed into a fibre, converted to fibre by thermal conversion by several heating stages that may include passing the fibre through a flame. The process generates particulate of not more than 1 um to control shrinkage the references for which may be made to E.I. du Pont de Nemovrs and Co. B. P. 1,264,973 (1972); U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,015 (1974); U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,904 (1988), Mitsul Minie Co. Ltd. Japanese P 217182. (1986); European P. 0,206,868xe2x80x94A2 (1988), U.S. Pat. No. 4,812 271 (1989).
The overall process has several drawbacks that may be listed below:
1. Number of steps involved in the overall process is higher.
2. Handling of whiskers and short fibres require special arrangements.
3. It is difficult to disperse whiskers and short fibres uniformly in the matrix.
4. Silicon Carbide whiskers particularly of aspect ratio less than 10 cause health hazard.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide a process for making in-situ silicon carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibres in an inorganic composite matrix selected from Silicon Carbide carbon and carbon matrix composite which obviates the drawbacks as detailed above.
Yet another object of the present invention is to utilise natural fibres of plant source.
Still another object of the present invention is to reduce the total number of unit processes in the overall operation.
Yet another object of the present invention is to form whiskers and fibres in-situ during processing to eliminate totally the possibility of health hazard.
Accordingly the present invention provides a process and composition useful for making in-situ silicon carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibres in an inorganic composite matrix selected from silicon carbide carbon and carbon composite matrix, wherein the said composition comprises:
In an embodiment of the present invention the inorganic composite matrix such as a silicon carbide-carbon composite matrix further comprises:
In yet another embodiment the inorganic composite matrix such as a carbon composite matrix further comprises:
In yet another embodiment the fibre used is a natural fibre selected from the group consisting of jute, sisal, hem and any other natural fibre having cellulosic or hemicellulosic constituent at its backbone.
In yet another embodiment the curing agent used is selected from hexamine, para toluenesulphonic acid and para formaldehyde most preferably hexamine.
In yet another embodiment the molecular weight of phenolic resin used is in the range of 450-700.
In still another embodiment the organic solvent used is selected from methanol, toluene and benzene.
In another embodiment, the present invention provides a process for making in-situ carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibres in an inorganic composite matrix, which comprises, dissolving 38 to 73.5 Wt % of phenolic resin in -an organic solvent to obtain a phenolic resing solution, adding 4.2-11.0 Wt % of a curing agent optionally adding 9.4-12 Wt % of silicon carbide powder to obtain a resinxe2x80x94mix followed by impregnating 1.66.5 wt % of natural fibre-with the said resin mix dried at 60xc2x0-70xc2x0 C. for a period in the range of 1-5 hrs. to obtain a dough in the form of a composite plate sheet, drying the said composite plate or sheet at a temperature in the range of 70xc2x0-90xc2x0 C. for a time period in the range of 1-2 hrs., drying the composite plate or sheet, heat treating the dried composite plate or sheet at a temperature in the range of 150xc2x0-200xc2x0 C. for a period in the range of 1-2.5 hrs., impregnating the resultant composite plate or sheet with 10.4-42 Wt % tetraethyl orthosilicate in vacuum, subjecting the impregnated composite plate/sheet to heat treatment in absence of air initially at a heating rate in the range of 2xc2x0-5xc2x0 C. per minute up to a temperature in the range of 200xc2x0-400xc2x0 C. followed by further heating at the rate of 10xc2x0-15xc2x0 C. per minute up to a temperature in the range of 1400xc2x0 C.-1850xc2x0 C., maintaining the final temperature for a period in the range of 0.5-2 hrs.
In yet another embodiment the natural fibre introduced in the body in desired alignment is selected from unidirectional, multidirectional, woven, and randomly oriented structure.
In yet another embodiment the matrix material used is of different particle dimension ranging from nano to micron size.
In still another embodiment the heat treatment is done in an inert atmosphere or in vacuum.
In another embodiment the composition is useful for making in situ silicon carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibres in an inorganic matrix selected from silicon carbide-carbon and carbon composite matrix.
The process of the present invention can be used to produce in-situ silicon carbide in the form of particulate, whiskers and fibres in an inorganic composite selected from Silicon Carbide-carbon and carbon composite matrix of various shapes and sizes required for application as engineering components. Natural fibres of plant origin contain all the ingredients of forming silicon carbide if sufficient amount of silicon is provided. Organo silicon compounds such as ethyl silicates give active silica on pyrolysis. This active silica inturn reacts with carbon formed from cellulosic materials like fibres of plant origin. Silicon carbide thus formed is in molecular dimension and with proper catalyst and seeding crystals, unidirectional grain growth occurs to form long fibres of small diameters or whiskers of different aspect ratios. Isolated silicon carbide grains may grow in the three dimensions resulting in particulate formation. If this complex set of network structures is allowed to grow in an inorganic composite matrix selected from Silicon Carbide carbon and carbon matrix the resulting microstructure consists of randomly orientated fibres and whiskers in a homogeneous matrix leading to enhanced fracture toughness imparting some machinability in otherwise non-machinable material. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Field
The present disclosure relates to a laser beam irradiation apparatus used to seal a substrate and a method of manufacturing an organic light-emitting display device by using the same.
Discussion of the Background
In the recent times, portable and thin flat panel display devices have increasingly been used for the displays of electronic devices. Among the flat panel display devices, electroluminescence display devices are a self-emitting type of display device having characteristics such as wide viewing angles, good contrast, and fast response times and thus attract much attention as those of the next generation display devices. Also, the organic light-emitting display devices, of which the emitting layer is formed of organic materials, are known for better luminance, driving voltage, and response time characteristics than the inorganic light-emitting display devices and can realize multicolor emission.
Generally, the organic light-emitting display devices have configurations that one or more organic layers are arranged, including an emitting layer between a pair of electrodes.
As far as the organic light-emitting display devices are concerned, when moisture or oxygen penetrates from the ambient environment to the inside of a device, the electrode materials are likely oxidized and peeled off, and for this reason, the service life of the organic light-emitting device is shortened, the emission efficiency is degraded, and the emission color is degenerated.
Therefore, in manufacturing an organic light-emitting display device, the sealing process that isolates the organic light-emitting device from the outside is generally performed in order to prevent the penetration of moisture. The conventional sealing methods include a method that laminates an organic thin film and an organic polymer, such as polyester (PET), on the second electrode of an organic light-emitting display device and a method that forms a moisture absorbent in an encapsulating substrate, charges nitrogen gas into the encapsulating substrate, and seals the edge of the encapsulating substrate with a sealant, such as epoxy.
However, because these methods have failed to prevent 100% of the degrading factors such as moisture and oxygen from penetrating from the outside, and these methods are also very complicated to implement, they could not be applied without modifications to organic light-emitting display devices that are very vulnerable to moisture. To solve such problems, a substrate-sealing method that enhances the adhesiveness between the organic light-emitting device substrate and the encapsulating substrate by using a sealant, such as frit, has been developed.
By using a structure in which the organic light-emitting display device is sealed with frit coated on a glass substrate, the space between the organic light-emitting device substrate and the encapsulating substrate is fully sealed, and thus the organic light-emitting display device can be protected more effectively.
In this method of sealing the substrate with a sealant such as frit, the frit is coated on the sealing part of the organic light-emitting display device, and a laser beam irradiation apparatus irradiates a laser beam on the sealing part of the organic light-emitting display device in motion to harden the frit, thereby sealing the substrate. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the control of power in an FM signal.
2. Prior Art
The lnternational Telecommunications Union (Radio) (ITU-R) has published Recommendation 412. Among other things, this requires that the maximum power in the, frequency modulated (FM) stereo multiplex signal (including the pilot tone) shall not exceed the power produced by a sinewave that FM-modulates the carrier to a frequency deviation of xc2x119 kHz. This power is measured by integrating the signal, over a 60-second period. The exact wording is as follows:
2.5.1 For the radio-frequency protection ratios given in FIG. 1 and Table 3, it is assumed that the maximum peak deviation of xc2x175 kHz is not exceeded. Moreover, it is assumed that the power of the complete multiplex signal (including pilot-tone and additional signals) integrated over any interval of 60 s is not higher than the power of a multiplex signal containing a single; sinusoidal tone which causes a peak deviation of xc2x119 kHz.
NOTExe2x80x94The power of a sinusoidal tone causing a peak deviation of xc2x119 kHz is equal to the power of the coloured noise modulation signal according to Recommendation ITU-R BS.641, i.e. a coloured noise signal causing a quasi-peak deviation of xc2x132 kHz.
FM broadcasters throughout the world commonly use audio processing to reduce the peak-to-average ratio of the audio, improving the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver and increasing perceived loudness for a given setting of a receiver""s volume control. An example of such a system is Optimod-FM Model 8200, manufactured by Orban, Inc.
Such systems usually combine a compressor, a high-frequency limiter, a peak limiter, and an overshoot-compensated filter. A stereo encoder (to create the standard xe2x80x9cpilot tonexe2x80x9d stereo baseband) may also be included in the system. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,243, and improvements thereon are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,249,042 and 4,412,100.
Measurements have shown that it is not unusual for such a system to produce average power exceeding the ITU-R recommendation by 6 dB or more when the system modulates the FM carrier xc2x175 kHz, which is the typical 100% peak modulation limit. Indeed, measurements have shown that a significant number of commercial recordings exceed the ITU-R power limit-without any further audio processing.
It is therefore clear that some means must be found to meet the specification when processing arbitrary program material. Previously, this was done with an open loop, by defining presets for the audio processor that produce extremely conservative processing. By then testing the processor with these presets and known xe2x80x9cdifficultxe2x80x9d program material, one could have reasonable confidence that the processor""s output would not exceed the limits specified by the recommendation.
A method and apparatus for controlling the integrated multiplex power in a frequency modulated in (FM) processor is described. A power determining circuit determines the power in an input signal by squaring the signal. The result of the squaring is coupled, to a combining circuit, which combines the squared, signal with a threshold control representing the square of the maximum allowed power. This combined signal is integrated and then sampled. The results of the sampling are again integrated, clamped and used to control a compressor. The output of the compressor, after passing through a peak limiter, provides an output signal. Consequently, feedback is provided to the compressor through the loop comprising the squaring circuit, threshold control, first integrator, sample-and-hold circuit, second integrator and clamping circuit. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to power conversion and more particularly to wireless power conversion and supporting communications thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
The concept of wireless power (i.e., powering a device without an electrical power cord) has been around for a while and has recently been commercialized. In addition, there are a couple of on-going standards discussions (WPC—wireless communication alliance and CEA—consumer electronics association) to standardize wireless power systems.
Current commercially available wireless power products include a transmit unit, a receive unit, and a bidirectional control channel. In these products, the primary method of energy transfer is inductive coupling, but some lower power applications may include solar energy transfer, thermo-electronic energy transfer, and/or capacitive energy transfer. To use these products, the receive unit is a separate unit that must be coupled to a device that is to be wirelessly powered. Thus, the device itself cannot be wirelessly powered without the receive unit coupled to it.
To develop these products, effort has been spent on inductive power transfer, closed loop systems, and multiple load support. In the area of inductive power transfer, effort has been spent on optimizing the tuning the transmit and receive circuits (each of which includes a single inductor) for resonance, efficiency, and/or thermal issues, detecting loads, turning off the inductive power transfer, coil alignment, magnetic alignment, lower phantom power, Class D, E power transmitters with load compensation, antenna design, and coil switching. In the area of multiple load support, effort has been spent on power sharing and tuning, control channel multi-access, and collision avoidance.
In the area of closed loop systems, effort has been spent on regulating the transmit power, the transmit resonance, alignment to maximize safety and/or power transfer using a particular control channel protocol (e.g., backscatter, IrDA, or Bluetooth). As such, as long as the receive unit and transmit unit are from the same vendor using the same communication protocol for the control channel, wireless power transfer can occur. While the above referenced standards organization are attempting to establish standards regarding the control channel protocol, currently, vendors are free to use whatever protocol they chose, making compatibility issues between different vendors' wireless power products. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to delay lines and more particularly to delay cells with improved gain and reduced duty cycle distortion for a wide range of delays.
2. Prior Art
A delay line includes several delay cells connected in series that generate a required delay. Delay lines constitute several electronic devices, for example Delay Locked Loops (DLLs), which have a wide variety of electronic applications such as clock and data recovery, frequency synthesis, and generation of clock pulses for sampling in high speed Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs). A delay cell constitutes a building block of the delay line. The number of delay cells that the delay line makes use of depends on the required delay. It is therefore desirable that the delay cell supports a wide range of delays.
In order to sufficiently support the wide variety of applications, the delay line needs to have a wide range of operating frequencies. However, operating the delay line at high frequencies usually results in a loss of ‘gain’ and ‘duty cycle distortion’ in an output of a current or voltage controlled delay cell. The term gain refers to a variation in a delay of the delay cell with respect to a control voltage that controls a current through the delay cell. Duty cycle distortion may occur because of mismatch between rising and falling edge delays of the delay cell.
Some existing delay cells provide a reasonable gain over a limited delay range. In the application of this delay line in a DLL, the frequency range of operation of the DLL gets limited. Further, delay lines with large number of delay cells have considerable duty cycle distortion, thereby limiting the maximum number of delay cells that can be connected in series. To reduce the duty cycle distortion, a duty cycle control loop is used for which additional circuitry is required. This enhances chip area and power dissipation.
Existing delay lines that have the wide range of delay control make use of a current-starved inverter in the delay cell. A current starved inverter includes a NMOS and a PMOS current source. The delay of the delay cell is controlled by providing different voltage bias signals to control the current through the NMOS and PMOS current sources. However, the delay cell suffers from poor gain due to charge sharing between a load capacitance at an output of the delay cell and junction capacitances of the delay cell. One technique to reduce the charge sharing is to make the load capacitance value sufficiently greater than the drain junction capacitances. However, this results in an increase in minimum delay, switching power consumption, and die area.
Further in delay lines using current starved inverters, duty cycle distortion occurs due to mismatch between NMOS and PMOS current sources or non-symmetrical inverter trip point. As a result of this mismatch, pulse width of an output clock at the end of the delay line that uses N delay cells can expand or shrink by ‘N(Tdr−Tdf)’, where Tdr is the rising edge delay and Tdf is the falling edge delay. In case this value becomes greater than half the time period of an input clock to the delay line, no clock output will be obtained at end of the delay line. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Many mobile devices are configured to utilize Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (UICCs) that enable the mobile devices to access services provided by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). In particular, each UICC includes at least a microprocessor and a read-only memory (ROM), where the ROM is configured to store an MNO profile that a mobile device can utilize to register and interact with an MNO. Typically, a UICC takes the form of a small removable card (commonly referred to as a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card) that is configured to be inserted into a UICC-receiving bay included in a mobile device. In more recent implementations, however, UICCs are being embedded directly into system boards of mobile devices. These embedded UICCs (eUICCs) can provide advantages over traditional SIM cards, e.g., an eUICC can store a number of MNO profiles—also referred to herein as “electronic Subscriber Identity Modules (eSIMs)”—and can eliminate the need to include UICC-receiving bays in mobile devices. Moreover, eSIMs can be remotely provisioned to mobile devices, which can substantially increase the overall flexibility when users purchase mobile devices, migrate their phone numbers to different MNOs, and the like.
Despite the various advantages provided by eUICCs and eSIMs, certain operating flexibility limitations have yet to be addressed. One limitation, for example, is that conventional approaches dictate that a given mobile device should be a member of only one trust circle, e.g., a trust circle associated with an MNO with which the mobile device is configured to interface. According to some approaches, an eUICC of a mobile device can be a member of the trust circle by storing one or more digital certificates associated with a Certificate Authority (CA) that serves as a root of the trust circle. Notably, as different MNOs/regions are associated with a wide variety of trust circles that are substantially distinct from one another, restriction of the eUICC of the mobile device to a single trust circle membership can be problematic with respect to the overall operating flexibility of the eUICC. For example, when a user seeks to install a new eSIM onto the eUICC—e.g., an eSIM for an MNO in a foreign country—and the eSIM/MNO are associated with a trust circle of which the eUICC is not a member, the user is unable to utilize the functionality that the eSIM could otherwise provide. Consequently, the overall operating flexibility of the mobile device remains limited, which can degrade the user's overall satisfaction. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a high performance serial bus. More particularly, the present invention relates to timeout message management in an IEEE 1394 bridge network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The IEEE 1394 is a high performance serial bus that has one of the most versatile interconnect technologies available. The IEEE 1394 high-speed serial bus is capable of transfer speeds of 100 Mb, 200 Mb, or even 400 Mb. These transfer speeds are available over twisted-pair wire, and the serial bus is hot-plugable. The IEEE 1394 can be used in many applications, including but not limited to, video streaming from a camcorder, controls for automobiles, and digital audio signals such as MIDI.
In addition, IEEE 1394 is an international standard for a low-cost digital interface that is used for integrating computing, communication, and entertainment into multimedia applications.
An important feature of IEEE 1394 is that it has flexible topology that supports daisy chaining and branching for communication throughout a particular network.
In an IEEE 1394 network, the serial bus architecture is defined in terms of nodes. A node is an independently resettable and identifiable addressable entity. Each node is a logical entity having a unique address, which includes an identification ROM and control registers. These control registers are a standardized set and can be reset independent of each other.
IEEE 1394 provides asynchronous transport that is a traditional memory-mapped loaded and stored interface. During an asynchronous transport, a data request is sent to a specific address, and the entity having that address returns an acknowledgement.
In an IEEE 1394 network, there can be up to 1,023 logical buses and up to 63 nodes on each bus. If both the asynchronous packet sender and receiver are on the same bus, transaction timeout values can be obtained according to IEEE draft standard 1394-1995. However, if a sender exists on a different bus as a receiver, the sender sends a TIMEOUT request message addressed to the bus where the receiver is connected in order to obtain remote_timeout_seconds, remote_timeout_cycles, max_remote_payload and hop_count values for a remote transaction between the two buses. The remote_timeout_seconds, the remote_timeout_cycles, the max_remote_payload and the hop_count values are referred to collectively as remote timeout values.
According to the draft standard for IEEE 1394.1 high performance serial bus bridges revision 1.00, each bridge on the path from a source bus to a destination bus shall intercept a TIMEOUT request message and update each field as follows: The TIMEOUT request message shall be forwarded by bridges on its route toward the destination bus. The last exit portal on the destination bus that intercepts the TIMEOUT request message also adds its local SPLIT_TIMEOUT value obtained according to IEEE 1394-1995 standard to the remote timeout field in the message and synthesizes a TIMEOUT response message that contains the result of the above calculation and sends it to the message sender.
According to IEEE1394.1 draft standard, when there is a node on a bus which sends a TIMEOUT request message to a destination bus, even if other nodes on the first source bus have already obtained the remote transaction timeout values for a remote transaction to the destination bus, a TIMEOUT request message shall be forwarded and processed by every bridge portal on the path from a source bus to the destination bus each and every time a TIMEOUT request message is initiated to the same destination bus.
Accordingly, the processing by each portal on the path between a source bus and a destination bus of subsequent TIMEOUT request messages from other nodes on the same source bus to the same destination bus is redundant, and wastes bandwidth resources.
As another node on the source bus has already obtained the remote transaction timeout values of the destination bus, a node, which needs the same remote transaction timeout values, should be able to obtain these values from the node on the same bus that has previously received them. The redundancy of the transaction proceeding again to the same bridge portals on the path causes congestion by permitting unnecessary transaction time for another node which sends the TIMEOUT request message has to wait for a corresponding response. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera-shake correction apparatus for detecting a camera-shake caused in a phototaking operation, and correcting the camera-shake.
2. Related Background Art
When a hand-held phototaking operation is performed, especially, when a lens having a large focusing length is used or a low shutter speed is used, a camera-shake easily occurs, and deteriorates image quality of a photograph.
In order to prevent this, an apparatus for correcting an image blur by moving some or all elements of a phototaking optical system in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis is known.
However, the above-mentioned camera-shake correction apparatus undesirably performs camera-shake correction against a photographer's will when a photographer intentionally shakes a camera like in a panning phototaking operation.
When an ON/OFF switch for selecting whether or not camera-shake correction is performed is provided to a camera so as to solve this problem, a photographer must perform a switching operation of a camera-shake correcting mode beside a series of phototaking operations from focus adjustment to shutter release, thus impairing operability. More specifically, a photographer must temporarily release a hand from a focus adjustment ring or a shutter release button, resulting in poor operability. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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