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(a) Field of the Invention This invention relates to electrical cables, and more particularly, to coaxial electrical cables, for use where space is limited or where a thin flat cable cross section is preferred and where the cable is likely to be exposed to mechanical loads, either tensile or compressive. Typically, coaxial cables embodying this invention are envisioned for use under floor carpeting in areas where furniture is to be placed or where human or equipment traffic is anticipated. (b) Background Art Modern concepts in building construction have spurred a search for sturdy under-carpet cabling of all types. In response to the development of a format for safely installing electrical power wiring between floors and carpets, national electrical codes have been revised to permit electrical conductors to be located under carpets. However, until the advent of this invention, the particular requirements of the wiring needed to interconnect a significant class of office equipment had not been met with regard to under-carpet deployment. Modern office operations are increasingly reliant for the performance of their accounting, library, and word processing functions upon the information handling and storage capacities of large central computers. To maximize the flexibility and potential of such costly machinery, multiple access is afforded to these computers through a system of peripheral individual terminals, each interconnected to the main computer by electrical cables. The preservation of the integrity of the information passing as electrical impulses upon such cables is a crucial requisite for the successful operation of such an extended system. This high fidelity transmission has been achieved in the past by making the interconnecting cables sufficiently sturdy to preserve their uniform impedance characteristics and by providing the conductor with coaxial shielding from external electromagnetic interference. When an attempt is made, in conformity with current construction trends, to lay such cables under carpets, several difficulties arise. First, coaxial cables are generally of sufficient size that they will not permit a carpet covering them to lie flat. When previously produced in a small size, these cables, though fitting inconspicuously between carpet and floor, have been vulnerable to damage from mechanical stress applied to them due to bends in routing or to the ordinary use of the floor area that they serve. Loads set upon or traffic traveling over these thin cables tend to compress their cross section, while the twisting and bending required by their routing and subsequent movement of their ends or the floor covering produce tensile forces that also endanger their structural integrity. Two types of resulting structural damage are common. First, deformation of either the dielectric surrounding the conductor core or of the coaxial shield enclosing the dielectric can change the electrical impedance characteristics in the area so affected. Such local distortions, even if temporary, can alter electrical signals then passing through the cable. Surprisingly, temporary deformation, as for instance, due to traffic on the carpet over the signal carrier, may be more troublesome in a computer system than is permanent damage to a cable. The irregularity of the loss of fidelity that occurs in a coaxial cable being subjected to intermittent temporary deformations may alert users that the system is unreliable without permitting a conclusive determination of the cause of the problem. A second form of damage which mechanical loading can cause in under-carpet coaxial cables is the separation of either the coaxial shield or the conductive signal-carrying core. This will result in no transmission if the broken portions do not again contact each other. However, it is common that the broken parts do reengage one another, establishing erratic transmission, the cause of which is difficult to locate. It is one object of the present invention to produce a flat coaxial cable thin enough to be installed beneath a carpet under current and proposed national electrical wiring codes. A second object is to afford to such a cable sufficient flexibility within its transverse plane as to permit its easy routing and to insure that any such routing does not alter the electrical characteristics of the conductor. A final objective of the present invention is to protect miniaturized conductors beneath carpets from damage due to compressive loads upon the installed cable.

The present invention relates generally to a stand or support device for deterring crawling insects such as ants from infesting another object, such as a pet food bowl, food storage reservoir, planter, or the like, and more particularly to a stand having a leg comprising a repellant to deter ants from ascending the legs. Insect infestations are a common problem to many households and restaurants. Once insects such as ants infiltrate a space it can be most difficult to get rid of the ants once and for all, particularly where food is stored. For restaurants, food is typically stored in the same place making it easy for insects to return. In domestic locations, food is also normally stored in pantry that ants can enter and bring back food for its queen. Other sources of food include pet bowls that are placed on the ground, sometimes outside or in the kitchen area, which attracts ants and bring the ants to other sources of food. Plants, particularly those with sweet flowers, can attract ants that then spread to neighboring areas. Numerous attempts have been made to help prevent ants from infesting food storage containers and, in particular, pet food dishes. One such approach is shown in the Anderson patent. U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,531. This device provides a container resting on a frame, which has support legs. Each of the support legs has a moat cup. A fluid is placed in the moat cup and provides a barrier to the passage of crawling insects. The filling of the moat cups would be a tedious step and in the event the frame is knocked over, the cups would become empty and require refilling. Another approach is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,148,626 to Haake, Sr. This device is an insect barrier. It utilizes a spongy member disposed under a protective cover or under a peripheral ring surrounding a dish. This device requires a specially made dish to support a center post or the peripheral ring. The Byer patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,749 shows a dish supported off a floor by a plurality of pillars. Each pillar has a down-sloping hemispherical shaped collar, which is said to prevent the passage of ants. U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,506 to Sanders utilizes an annular moat containing a sticky substance for trapping insects. The Walker patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,952 shows an animal feeder, which utilizes a moat with a liquid or a cartridge or pad containing an insect repellent. Once again, a specially formed dish is required. The Frank patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,065,428 shows a pet dish with an insect barrier. The barrier is a recess near the bottom of the dish and includes a surrounding strip containing an insecticide. Once again, a specially formed dish is required. The present inventor developed a unique solution to the shortcomings of the above-identified offerings, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,901, the contents of which are fully incorporated herein by reference. Entitled Ant Repellant Stand, the apparatus comprised a stand for affixing to and supporting a container or structure that enclosed substances that attract ants. The stand had an inverted cup with a base having an upwardly facing attachment surface that could be used to couple the stand to the associated container, and a downwardly depending peripheral side wall forming a cavity. A support post is affixed to the base and extends downwardly past the lower edge of the side wall. An ant repellant ring or treated fibrous material is supported within the cavity above the lower edge of the peripheral side wall. The ants climb up the support post, but are deterred by the repellant ring or fibrous material and thus they are repelled or exposed to the insecticide. The present inventor has developed some additional improvements to the ant repellant stand that are incorporated into the present invention. The present invention is a pet food bowl stand, or mounting device, that can repel the insurgence of ants or crawling insects on low lying open containers, bowls, or trays. The stand or mounting device has an inverted cup structure and includes a peg that quickly snaps into the base of the bowl at a fitted hole, and the cup itself has a hole that receives the mating peg of a leg member. The inner surface of the cup, or the peg (or both), is coated with an ant repellant, forcing an insect to have to traverse the peg and cup across the repellant in order to climb up the bowl. The modular system with plug-in pegs allows for easy replacement and quick installation, so the stands can be exchanged when they lose their effectiveness if any, and further allows handling of the stands via the outer surface of the cup. The modular system allows the stand to be removed completely so that the container/bowl/tray can be cleaned such as in a dishwasher.

This invention relates generally to the installation of electrical connectors on printed circuit boards and, more particularly, to delivery of connectors to a location where they can be picked upby a robot and installed on a printed circuit board. Semiautomatic systems which dispense different connectors and indicate to an assembler where each is to be placed on a circuit board have been disclosed by Kurek et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,166 and by Knuth et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,615. With such systems, the assembler must handle each connector, place it at the correct location and install it. The different connectors are supplied in tubes, each of which must be replaced when empty. Thus, the dispensers disclosed by Kurek et al. and Knuth et al. cannot be used in any fully automated system for dispensing and installing electrical connectors.

The invention relates to a method and a device for regulating a pressure difference between a wafer handling chamber and a process chamber of an epitaxy reactor. Epitaxy reactors are used to produce epitaxial layers on single-crystal materials, for example for producing an epitaxial coating on semiconductor wafers, particularly silicon wafers. A reaction medium, generally a reaction gas, reacts on a surface which is to be coated to deposit further material in single crystal form, which generally also forms gaseous byproducts. The epitaxy reactors which are used, substantially comprise a wafer handling chamber (WHC), a process chamber (PC) and a gas-supply system. The wafer handling chamber forms a connection between the process chamber and the environment, generally a clean room. The wafer handling chamber is continuously purged with inert gas, such as nitrogen, to keep it clean. The workpieces, or semiconductor wafers, which are to be epitaxially coated, are transferred from a clean room via a lock into the wafer handling chamber, where these workpieces may be temporarily stored. These workpieces are then generally transferred individually, via a robot arm, through a gate valve (GV) into the process chamber. Then, the gate valve is closed and the epitaxial coating process is performed. During the epitaxial coating process, various gases, including at least a carrier gas and a reaction gas, are supplied via a gas supply and passed in laminar flow at high temperatures over the semiconductor wafer. During this process, the reaction gas reacts on the wafer surface. Excess gas and gaseous byproducts are discharged via an exhaust and an off-gas scrubber. After the process has ended, the gate valve is opened again, and the wafer is transferred back into the wafer handling chamber and is replaced by an untreated wafer. A crucial factor regarding the quality of the epitaxially coated semiconductor wafers is the number of unwanted particles which settle on the wafers. To reduce the number of particles, it is crucial for there to be no gas turbulence or pressure surges which activate inactive particles lying, for example, at the bottom of the wafer handling chamber. If a wafer is being conveyed from the wafer handling chamber into the process chamber, the connection between the two chambers, through the gate valve, has to be opened. It is crucial for the two chambers to be at approximately the same pressure level before the gate valve is opened. Otherwise, a sudden pressure compensation may cause particles to be swirled up. However, the pressure in the wafer handling chamber must always be at a slightly higher level than the pressure in the process chamber, so that when the gate valve is opened there is a gentle flow in the direction of the process chamber. The pressure differential is provided to prevent substances such as gases or particles from being able to move from the gas outlet of the process chamber back into the process chamber, or from the process chamber into the wafer handling chamber. While the wafer handling chamber can be kept at a constant pressure without problems, the pressure conditions in the process chamber are subject to considerable changes over the course of time. These changes are caused by the off-gas pipe being occupied, or by changes in the state of the off-gas scrubber. The wafer handling chamber can now be kept at a constant pressure which is so high that this pressure is higher than the variable pressure in the process chamber. If there is a constant incoming flow of inert gas, the outgoing flow of inert gas from the wafer handling chamber can be regulated by a backpressure regulator so that the pressure in the wafer handling chamber remains constant. However, this so-called dynamic pressure regulation leads to a strong pressure surge, and therefore to turbulence when the gate valve is opened if the pressure in the process chamber is low at the time. A further drawback is the high inertia of the system, with the result that only slight pressure differences can be compensated for within a short time period. Regulation of the incoming flow of inert gas to the wafer handling chamber via the power of a delivery system also has the same drawbacks. To regulate the incoming flow, a compensation line is provided between the wafer handling chamber and the process chamber, which can be opened using a valve. The wafer handling chamber can then be set to a relatively high, constant pressure as described above, wherein this constant pressure is always higher than the fluctuating pressure of the process chamber. Before the gate valve is opened, the valve of the compensation line is opened, so that the pressure in the two chambers can be matched in a regulated manner. However, this results in a relatively higher pressure gas stream being formed in the compensation line, and this in turn generates turbulence, with the associated risk of particles being activated. Moreover, this pipeline and the valve have been designed to be very small, to limit the gas stream and thereby avoid turbulence, leading to a relatively high inertia. Furthermore, when the compensation line is open, back-flows from the process chamber into the wafer handling chamber are possible, which is, as stated above, preferably to be avoided. A further known possible solution consists in applying an additional pressure to the wafer handling chamber via a regulated inert gas purge shortly before the gate valve is opened, to prevent a gas stream from flowing from the process chamber into the wafer handling chamber. In this way, the wafer handling chamber can be kept at a low pressure throughout the majority of the time required for a process. This method, unlike the dynamic-pressure regulation, offers the possibility of discharging inert gas through an outlet valve, with the result that particles can escape from the wafer handling chamber without obstacle. However, this method also leads to considerable pressure fluctuations during the opening and closing of the gate valve. Therefore, it is impossible to prevent particles from being activated. One object of the invention is to provide a system that ensures that when the gate valve is opened, gas does not flow back out of the off-gas system of the wafer handling chamber and gas does not flow out of the process chamber into the wafer handling chamber even with pressure fluctuations in the process chamber. Another object is to avoid a high pressure difference—even if only temporary—between the two chambers, which leads to considerable turbulence and therefore, to particles being activated when the gate valve is opened. Another object is to provide a system having a low inertia wherein the two chambers are completely separated with the gate valve closed. The object is achieved by providing a method for regulating the pressure in an epitaxy reactor, which has a wafer handling chamber, a process chamber and a gate valve connecting the two chambers. The wafer handling chamber is continuously purged with inert gas, wherein the pressure difference between the wafer handling chamber and the process chamber is measured, and the resulting measurement signal is used in a control circuit to regulate the pressure in the wafer handling chamber. The pressure in the wafer handling chamber is reduced if the pressure difference is above a predetermined value. The pressure in the wafer handling chamber is increased if the pressure difference is below a predetermined value. With this method, the pre determined pressure difference, which is defined as the pressure in the wafer handling chamber—pressure of the process chamber which is between 5 and 500 Pa. The method according to the invention makes it possible to maintain a constant pressure difference between the wafer handling chamber and the process chamber. Since the pressure difference is always kept constant by means of the regulation, even when the pressure in the process chamber fluctuates, it is possible to forego with a high excess pressure in the wafer handling chamber. Therefore, the set value for the pressure difference can be fixed between 5 and 500 Pa, but preferably between 10 and 100 Pa, according to the invention, depending on the pressure conditions prevailing in the process chamber. This defined, low pressure difference ensures a gentle stream of gas from the wafer handling chamber toward the process chamber when the gate valve is opened, whereas flows in the opposite direction are avoided. Since the pressure difference is very low, when the gate valve is opened, the gas turbulence with the associated risk of particles being activated, is minimized. Under these conditions, it is possible to dispense with a compensation line between the two chambers. The chambers always remain separated when the gate valve is closed. The pressure-difference stabilization according to the invention can be achieved over a relatively wide pressure range. The object of the invention is also achieved by providing a device for regulating the pressure in an epitaxy reactor which has a wafer handling chamber, a process chamber, a gate valve connecting the two chambers and in each case, one gas feed line and one gas discharge line for each of the two chambers. This device has at least one pressure-measuring appliance for measuring the pressure difference between the chambers and a control unit or circuit for regulating the pressure in the wafer handling chamber.

1. Field of Invention This invention relates to vehicle tires and especially to polypropylene foam tire cores and a method whereby such tire cores are molded from polypropylene foam beads under steam pressure and are inserted in a pneumatic tire casing. 2. Prior Art Conventional pneumatic vehicle tires consist of an outer casing which is given the desired load-bearing capacity and elasticity by means of air pumped into the casing or into an inner tube fitted within the casing. Unfortunately, such pneumatic tires are subject to explosive decompression, when punctured, which may create serious hazards for the occupants of the vehicle or of nearby vehicles, especially if the puncture occurs while the vehicle is travelling at high speed or on a crowded road, such as a freeway. Numerous attempts have been made heretofore to overcome these disadvantages by filling the tire casing with other materials. A search in the United States Patent Office has revealed the following: ______________________________________ PATENT NO. INVENTOR ISSUED ______________________________________ 1,415,140 Beckman 1922 1,470,048 Barker 1923 1,488,998 Marshall 1924 2,166,511 Witzenmann 1939 3,022,810 Lambe 1962 3,866,652 Ahmad 1975 4,033,395 Berg et al 1977 4,058,152 Beck et al 1977 4,094,353 Ford 1978 4,125,660 White et al 1978 4,698,191 Endo et al 1987 4,720,509 Nakamura et al 1988 4,777,000 Hideki et al 1988 Brit. 288,040 Senitha 1928 ______________________________________ The Beckman patent proposed the use of a "liner" between the inner tube and the tier casing consisting of a leather or fabric bag filled with hollow rubber balls, while the patents to Marshall and Witzenmann proposed filling part of the inner tube with sponge rubber and inflating the rest. Barker suggested filling a tire with a rubber foam containing closed sells in a matrix of rubber-like material; with the density of the outer portions being high, while the density of the inner portions was relatively low. Senitha suggested a similar idea. Unfortunately, none of these concepts has been found to be commercially successful. Solid tires and tires filled with polyurethane foam have also been known. Thus, Lambe suggested filling a pneumatic tire partly, or entirely, with intrinsically compressed polyurethane or polyester foam produced directly within the tire at the desired pressure. Ford proposed a puncture-proof tire using a mixture of polyoxypropylene, polyether, polyol and diphenylmethane disocyanate injected into a tire casing to form a solid polyurethane tire filling material. Berq et all suggested an extruded tire with the inner space filled with a foam plastic made by injecting a plastic material, such as polyurethane, into the tire for foaming to fill the space. White et al suggested a zero pressure device composed of either microcellular or homogeneous polyurethane made by reacting an organic polyisocyanate, a polyol, a polyol ester and a polyether polyol to produce a device having an average density of 60-65 pounds per cubic foot, as a wheel assembly, and 30-42 pounds per cubic foot as a tire. Ahmad proposed a resilient tire and wheel assembly in which the cavity of a pneumatic tire is filled with a solid, resilient elastomeric polyurethane mixed with hollow glass or ceramic spheres. However, polyurethane foam filled tires have been found to have low resiliency and poor hysteresis, which limits their usefulness. Moreover, since the polyurethane material is foamed within the tire under pressure, the manufacture of such tires is very complicated and the distribution of the foam within the tire is usually not uniform. Furthermore, polyurethane foam is susceptible to damage by oil and gasoline and the reactive materials and gas which are formed during foaming are quite toxic. Also, because low density polyurethane foam created under pressure within the tire relies on the tire casing for containment of pressure exerted by gas in the cells, such foam adds little, if any, internal support to the tire. Beck et al proposed tubeless tires filled with polyolefin foam, in which the foam used was closed-cell 4-5 mm. foamed particles of a partially crystalline olefin polymer. The foam particles were inserted into the tire through a sealable opening in the rim of the wheel after first being "pre-shrunk" in sub-atmospheric pressure. The particles subsequently expanded against one another to fill the tire. When such a tire is punctured, the particles expand further to seal up the puncture. Although an improvement over polyurethane foam filled tires, tires filled with small particles of polyolefin foam also have many disadvantages. First, the polyolefin foam particle filled tires rely on the tire casing for containment of the foam particles and, therefore, add no internal support to the tire, other than that of the inflated particles pressing against each other and against the tire casing. Furthermore, while a small puncture may be partly sealed by the expanding foam particles, a larger puncture may permit escape of the particles and subsequent deflation of the tire. Moreover, since the separate polyolefin particles offer no cohesive internal structure to the tire casing, they offer no protection against rupture following large punctures. In addition, although deflation is delayed, following small punctures, it eventually does occur due to diffusion of air and loss of pressure within the inflated foam particles. In addition, containment of the particles, when the tire is removed for repair or replacement, is next to impossible due to the electrostatic surface properties of polyolefin foam. Moreover, polyolefin foam particles are not biodegradable and create severe environmental hazards, since the small white particles are often mistaken for food by birds and other animals and have been shown to be extremely lethal to many species. Finally, movement of the particles against one another and against the tire casing, during use, develops internal frictional heat which cannot be avoided. This requires extremely complicated methods of conducting and dissipating heat buildup through the tire casing, which is obviously harmful to the longevity and safety of the tire casing. These disadvantages do not apply to foam tire cores molded of fused polypropylene foam beads. Polypropylene foam beads are structural units consisting of ovoid particles of microcellular, closed cell polypropylene foam completely surrounded by a skin of polypropylene film. In contrast, the polyolefin particles of Beck et al consist of uniform pieces of polyolefin foam, preferably polyethylene, with no structural surrounding skin. Polypropylene is the lightest of the major plastics, with a specific gravity of 0.90 to 0.91. Moreover, expanded polypropylene foam can be produced with densities ranging from 0.5 pounds per cubic foot (PCF) to 18 PCF. Expanded polypropylene foam articles of 3.75 PCF have a strength to weight ratio twice that of polyurethane and 14 times greater than steel. The high strength of polypropylene, relative to other plastics, is not fully understood. However, the branched molecular arrangement appears to provide stereometric structural cohesion between molecules and there is some evidence of intrahydrogen bonding. Unlike most plastics, polypropylene seems to behave, physically, as if it were a single molecular unit, resulting in great strength and particular resistance to stretching. For this reason, thin polypropylene films have found varying applications ranging from food packaging to high altitude balloons. It has also bee found that the expanded polypropylene foam products have outstanding shock absorbing properties. In fact, since 1985, expanded polypropylene foam has found commercial application in automobile bumper cores, reusable containers and cushion packaging. A technical field for molding polyolefin foam beads has been established, directed to steam chest molding of polypropylene foam beads, and is well known in the art. For example, Endo et al suggested a method of producing a polypropylene resin molded product from foamed polypropylene beads which comprised of introducing a pressurizing gas into foamed polypropylene foam beads having closed cells until the volume of the beads is reduced 50-99%, charging the beads in a mold cavity and introducing steam into the cavity to cause adhesion of the compressed foam beads. Polypropylene beads may also be molded without pre-treatment to build up internal pressure within the foam beads before molding. For example, Hideki teaches a method for production of an expansion-molded article of polypropylene resin which comprised filling pre-foamed polypropylene resin beads in a mold and then heating the beads to cause the beads to expand and fuse together to form the expansion molded article conforming to the mold. In 1988, Nakamura proposed a process for preparing a foamed article which comprised charging pre-expanded polypropylene beads, having two melt temperatures, into a mold which is able to be closed, but unable to be sealed, without a procedure for giving an internal pressure to the pre-expanded beads, and heating the pre-expanded beads with steam. Thus, it has been shown that products formed of expanded polypropylene foam are found to be strong, flexible, resistant to fatigue and chemical shock and are durable. Such qualities make this material ideally suited for forming molded tire cores. Nevertheless, none of the prior art patents have suggested this use and no method for molding such tire cores has been proposed heretofore. Thus, none of the prior art techniques have been entirely satisfactory.

This invention relates generally to the drainage of aqueous humor from an eye to relieve the elevated pressure characteristic of glaucoma. More specifically, the present invention relates to an implantable glaucoma shunt device and related method, which prevents or limits drainage of aqueous humor from the eye initially after implant to avoid damage to the eye, and additionally allows the rate of flow of aqueous humor from the device to be initiated or adjusted periodically after implantation. Aqueous humor is continuously produced by the ciliary body in the posterior chamber of the eye, and from there it flows through the pupil into the anterior chamber of the eye. In order to maintain relatively constant intraocular pressure, aqueous humor must be drained away continuously. It passes primarily through the trabecular meshwork of the anterior chamber and into the canal of Schlemm, before draining into the veins leaving the eye. Normal intraocular pressure is typically about 15.+-.4 mm Hg, but may rise to 21 mm Hg. Pressures within the eye that are substantially above this range are considered abnormally high. Chronically elevated intraocular pressure (resulting, for example, from a defect in intraocular drainage) can give rise to glaucoma. Glaucoma can cause irreversible damage to certain structures of the eye, including the optic nerve, and is a leading cause of blindness in the United States. There are many types and causes of glaucoma. Treatment of the disease depends on both the patient and the form of glaucoma. As a rule, the damage caused by glaucoma can not be reversed. The goal, therefore, of glaucoma treatment is to prevent further damage and to preserve existing vision. Glaucoma can often be controlled with medical therapy, typically through topical medications, such as pilocarpine, timolol maleate, betaxolol, or epinephrine, and also through systemic medications, including acetazolamide. Medical therapy either decreases the rate of production of aqueous humor, or increases its outflow from the anterior chamber. However, with many patients these procedures are not effective because the patients fail to follow the treatment prescribed, due to either negligence or the relatively high cost of the medication. Other potential problems with medical treatment include side effects and inadequate control of the intraocular pressure. If the maximum-tolerated dose of medication fails to control the intraocular pressure, then laser trabeculoplasty or filtering surgery to increase aqueous drainage is usually indicated. These procedures seek to increase the rate of outflow of aqueous humor. Other types of surgical procedures seek to reduce the formation of aqueous humor, by destroying the tissue where it is created. These procedures are typically indicated only after filtering surgery has failed. If such filtering surgery has failed to control the intraocular pressure, or if the patient has a poor prognosis for filtering surgery, implantation of a glaucoma shunt may be indicated. Glaucoma shunts typically drain aqueous humor from the anterior chamber of the eye to the fibrous capsule (bleb) which forms around a collecting device placed on the posterior portion of the globe of the eye, and the humor is then reabsorbed into the vascular system. The bleb is formed apparently due to an immune response against the shunt, which the host recognizes as a foreign body. Bleb formation is essential for a successful implant procedure and recovery by the patient. Glaucoma shunts typically consist of a silicone elastomer catheter which is inserted into the anterior chamber, and which connects to an episcleral plate or an encircling band. Episcleral plates are commonly made of silicone elastomer, polypropylene or acrylic materials. Glaucoma shunt implantation is subject to a number of complications. In the early post-implantation period, excessive drainage of aqueous humor from the anterior chamber can cause low intraocular pressure (hypotony), resulting in shallow anterior chamber depth. This can lead to choroidal detachment, hemorrhage or hypotony maculopathy. The hypotony is typically alleviated as the fibrous capsule forms around the posterior plate or encircling band. In the long-term, excess fibrous tissue can obstruct the flow of aqueous humor from the shunt through the bleb and into the vascular system. This causes an increase in the intraocular pressure and results in clinical failure of the device. The shunts known in the art typically have had some ligature or plug which was removable or biodegradable, to prevent flow of aqueous humor through the device for an initial period after implantation, allowing sufficient time for the bleb to form before drainage begins. Further, if the flow rate from the shunt is too low, insufficient amounts of aqueous humor may be drained from the eye. Such drainage may be insufficient to lower intraocular pressure to a degree which will prevent further damage from glaucoma. Prior art shunt devices had attempted to adjust the flow rate of aqueous humor from the device by varying the radius of the shunt tube. However, the rate of flow (f) of aqueous humor through a tube is proportional to the radius (r) of the shunt tube to the fourth power (f.varies.r.sup.4). Therefore, attempts to a adjust the flow rate by changing the radius of the shunt tube were not practical due to the inability to make precise adjustments. For example, changing the radius of the shunt tube from 2 mm to 3 mm resulted in an increase of flow rate from 16 to 81. Therefore, a shunt device that allows the flow rate of aqueous humor to be adjusted in a linear fashion, which would allow precise and accurate adjustments to be made in the flow rate of aqueous humor, would be desirable. In order to adequately relieve intraocular pressure, it is advantageous for an implant device to meet three requirements: (1) the device must be able to block most or all of the flow of aqueous humor through the device for the initial period after implantation until the bleb has formed about the device; (2) the device must be able to prevent collapse of the eye after the flow of aqueous humor through the device is increased to a level sufficient to relieve intraocular pressure; and (3) the device must allow aqueous humor to drain from the eye at a sufficient rate to successfully treat the glaucomatous condition. Prior art shunt devices to prevent excess flow of aqueous humor from the device utilized complicated systems of pressure sensitive slit valves, check valves or photosensitive polymers. Accordingly, there has been a need for a novel glaucoma shunt which, in the immediate post-implantation period, can provide resistance to flow to prevent hypotony and its complications until the fibrous capsule forms around the end of the shunt from which the aqueous humor drains, to prevent damage to the eye. Additionally, such a shunt should be capable of having its flow rate initiated or increased, and thereafter adjusted incrementally in a quick and easy fashion, after implantation by the physician. Further a glaucoma shunt is needed which accomplishes its desired function and is easy to manufacture and use, and which provides a desirable shunting function reliably over an extended period of time. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides other related advantages.

1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to a cart for portable oxygen tanks. In particular, the invention relates to a cart that can accommodate three different sizes of tanks. 2. The Prior Art Portable oxygen tanks are used by people who need supplemental oxygen, when they travel outside the home. The cart is generally equipped with wheels and can carry a supplemental oxygen tank and its corresponding equipment. The problem with existing oxygen tanks is that they are often expensive and difficult to maneuver, and can only accommodate one size of tank, when there are tanks of several different sizes on the market, namely size A, B and C.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention refers to a method for moving backwards a combination into an area that might be surrounded by obstacles. The combination to be moved backwards comprises a propelled vehicle, e.g. a tractor, and an implement, e.g. a non-propelled agricultural baler or loader wagon or a trailer. The area can be a parking lot. The implement is coupled with the propelled vehicle by means of a coupling assembly and can pivot with respect to the propelled vehicle around a vertical pivoting axis. The present invention further refers to an assembly for assisting the backward movement of such a combination. 2. Background of the Invention DE 102009039111 A1 discloses a method for moving a combination backwards. The combination (15) comprises a tractor truck (1) pulling a trailer (2). The trailer 2 can pivot with respect to the tractor 1 around a vertical pivoting axis, cf. FIG. 1. In one embodiment, the combination 15 is to be moved backwards into an area for parking the combination 15. The current pivoting angle (11) between the tractor 1 and the trailer 2 is measured. For measuring the pivoting angle, the orientation of the tractor and that of the trailer 2 are determined by using signals from several GPS receivers 5. One GPS receiver 5.1 is mounted on board of the tractor 1 and a further GPS receiver 5.2 is mounted on board of the trailer 2, cf. FIG. 3. A projecting and measuring system (4) is arranged on board of the trailer 2 and measures the environment of the trailer 2. A trajectory (13) of the combination 15 is calculated. For doing so, the measured pivoting angle 11 between tractor 1 and trailer 2, geometric data about the environment, dimensions of the trailer, and the position of the target point 12 are used. A vehicle navigation system (28) calculates the trajectory 13 which is used in a driver assistance system. In DE 10312548 B3 a propelled vehicle (1) with two distance sensors (3, 3′) mounted at the rear edge (2) of the vehicle is described. The vehicle 1 can pull an implement (5) coupled with the vehicle 1 by means of a coupling unit (6) and an electrical connection (7, 9). A detection sensor (4) can detect whether or not an implement 5 is coupled with the propelled vehicle 1. The distance sensors 3, 3′ can either operate for assisting the driver when driving the vehicle 1 backwards without an implement into a parking lot (Mode A) or can determine the articulation angle (Mode B) between the longitudinal axis of the vehicle 1 and that of the implement 5 actually coupled with the vehicle. When being operated in the mode B, the vehicle 1 pulls the implement 5 forwardly. The assistance mode is only activated when the vehicle 1 is driven backwards. The distance between the vehicle 1 and an obstacle (1) is determined. In the case that the vehicle 1 pulls an implement and drives into a curve, the two sensors 3, 3′ measure two different distance values.

FDDI or TPDDI type data transmission networks are used more and more frequently and are broadly defined in documents prepared by international standardization boards like ANSI (American National Standard Institute), under reference X3T9-5. These standards are also adopted by the I.S.O., Organization Internationale de Normalisation (International Standard Organization). They define a set of physical and electrical characteristics of the network. These transmission networks have the advantage of having reached a high number of bits transmitted, on the order of 100 Mbits/s. It is known that information messages emitted by the various stations are made up of a multiplicity of frames. The frame is constituted by usable data framed in time by command characters placed at the head and tail of the frame. In type FDDI or TPDDI networks, the length of the frames is 4 kilobytes and there are two main types of frames, defined by the standard, namely, frames of type LLC and frames of type SMT. Type LLC frames are actually made up of useful data to be transmitted and they are those most commonly used on the network. Frames of SMT type are special frames called "station management", or even station administration, for verification of proper operation of each one of the stations connected to the network. Furthermore, we know that all the operational components of a computer (processor, memory, controller, etc...) are arranged on a card assembly of standardized dimensions. These latter are linked to the same bus, generally of parallel type, guaranteeing communications among themselves and the various cards together with the carrying of data and the electric power supply. One of the most commonly used buses is the MULTIBUSII (brand registered by the INTEL Company and commonly known as PSB or Parallel System Bus) standardized according to the IEEE1296 (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) norm. Such a computer bus is linked to the network (FDDI or TPDDI) by the intermediary of a data transmission system (which may also be called a connection bridge device) whose function is to adapt conditions for transmission of data on the MULTIBUSII to transmission conditions on the network. In fact, the methods of data transmission concerning the rate of data transmission, transmission protocols used, entry codes, data, format, command characters, etc . . . , on the PSB bus on the one hand and the network on the other, are totally different. The general physical structure of a data transmission system is shown in FIG. 1. It is described in more detail, together with the various methods of carrying out the operation, in either one of the applications for patent No. 91 08908 filed on Jul. 15, 1992 by BULL S.A. under the title "Universal device for connecting a computer bus to a controller of a group of peripherals" and No. 91 08907 filed on the same day by the same applicant under the title "Operating system for universal device for linking a computer bus to a specific network connection". FIM, such a system of data transmission, is composed of two parts, that is, a universal coupling device GPU (English acronym for General Purpose Unit) and an adapter device DEA. The device GPU is linked to PSB by an MPC coprocessor, type VL 82c389 manufactured by the INTEL Company, which communicates by message mode with the computer ORD (not shown in order to simplify FIG. 1), this mode being defined in the aforementioned IEEE 1296 standard. The device DEA can be physically arranged on the same card as the universal coupling GPU. In addition, it is linked physically to the network RE in a manner such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,659 entitled "Bridge device for connection of a computer bus to a fiber optic network in ring form", issued Aug. 17, 1993. The GPU device is comprised of the following various essential components: the MPC coprocessor already mentioned, PA1 the microprocessor CPU.sub.1 actually constituting the central unit of the GPU, equipped with an internal bus BI.sub.1 for carrying commands to the adapter device DEA. This microprocessor is associated respectively with a programmable erasable memory EPROM.sub.1, a read/write memory SRAM.sub.1 and an interruption manager, or MFP.sub.1. All these elements EPROM.sub.1, SRAM.sub.1, MFP.sub.1 are connected to internal bus BI.sub.1, PA1 the double port video-RAM memory designated as VRAM, PA1 the direct access memory DMAC controller connected on the one hand to bus B.sub.2, linking it to the VRAM memory, and on the other hand, to bus B.sub.3, linking it to the coprocessor MPC, PA1 bus B.sub.1 which links the VRAM memory to the adapter DEA, the components of which will be described subsequently. The microprocessor CPU.sub.1 is, in the production example described here, of type 68030 manufactured by the MOTOROLA Company. The internal bus BI.sub.1 is a non-multiplexed bus of 32 bits for data and 32 bits for addresses. The erasable read-only memory EPROM.sup.1, for example, has a capacity of 256 kilobytes and contains the self-testing and initialization programs of the universal linking device GPU. The operating system of the microprocessor CPU.sub.1 (Operating System) designated by GPOS (English acronym for General Purpose Operating System) is contained in static memory SRAM.sub.1 and is charged with initialization of the coupling device GPU. The capacity of this memory is, for example, 1 megabyte. GPOS is described in aforementioned claim No. 91 08907. In FIG. 1 we can see that the direct access controller DMAC is serially connected on the one hand between the memory VRAM and the coprocessor MPC and on the other hand between this latter and bus BI of the microprocessor CPU.sub.1. A detailed description of the structure and operation of the controller DMAC is given in the application for French patent No. 91 15814 filed on Dec. 19, 1991 by the applicant company under the title "Controller of transfer of multiple data between a multiplicity of memory and a computer bus" from which a corresponding United States patent will issue from PCT application PCT/FR92/01202. The microprocessor CPU.sub.1 is the brain of the coupling device GPU: it initializes the transfer of data, carries out the adaptation of protocols, implements its operating system and transfers data between DEA and the computer ORD and vice versa while dialoguing with the DEA with which it exchanges commands and statuses as described farther on in the description of the invention. The detailed description of the role and operation of other components of the coupling device is given in the three previously mentioned patent applications. Examples of the invention of an adapter device like DEA are known. One such example is described in aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,659, issued Aug. 17, 1993. Such a device comprises a transfer management controller CT, a network access controller DAR and a device for physical adaptation to the network DAPR. The role of the transfer management controller CT is to organize the transfer of frames between the GPU apparatus and the adapter device and the network RE and vice versa while, at the same time, exchanging commands with the microprocessor CPU.sup.1 of the GPU. The network access controller permits the physical transfer of data from the bus B.sub.1 to the network RE via the physical adaptation device DAPR and the bus B.sub.4 which is physically connected to B.sub.1. The network access controller CAR and the device for physical access to the network DAPR are, for instance, constituted by components DP83265, DP83261, 83251 or 55, 83231, 83241 of Societe National semi-conductors. The controller CT is comprised of a microprocessor CPU.sub.2, a memory EPROM.sub.2, a storage memory SRAM, and an interruption manager MFP.sub.2. All these components are linked by internal bus BI.sub.2 of the transfer controller CT. It is quite evident that the microprocessor CPU.sub.2 is the central element of the transfer controller CT and it is that that organizes the dialogue with the microprocessor CPU.sub.1 through the intermediary of commands in a manner that will be described relative to the invention farther on in the text. According to previous design, in the adapter device DEA, data and commands pass through the intermediary of two separate buses, with the commands passing through the intermediary of the internal bus BI.sub.2 of the transfer controller CT. Otherwise, commands and data pass between the adapter device DEA and the coupling device GPU through the intermediary of a transfer interface composed of memories FIFO, one for data and one for commands (not shown in FIG. 1). The presence of such an interface between the coupling device GPU and the adapter device DEA, diminishes the performances of the data transmission system with regard to speed of transfer of information of the DEA component to the GPU component and vice versa. Moreover, due to the presence of the FIFO elements, interruptions are generated (by configuration) at each exchange of commands between the two microprocessors CPU.sub.1 and CPU.sup.2.

A hydrogen separator comprising a porous ceramic substrate and a hydrogen-separating layer, such as palladium or palladium alloy, formed on the substrate has been used in order to separate only hydrogen selectively from a hydrogen-containing gas, such as steam-reformed gas. Such a hydrogen separator is used for hydrogen separation at high-temperatures in some cases. Therefore, the hydrogen separator is required to have high gas tightness at high temperatures or during heat cycle in which temperature increase and decrease are repeated. Conventional hydrogen separators have, as shown in FIG. 2, a structure comprising a porous substrate 12 and a hydrogen-separating layer 13 formed on one surface 15 of the porous substrate 12. Incidentally, the porous substrate 12 has a large number of pores connecting from one surface 15 of the substrate to other surface (not shown), and is constituted by a material such as ceramic or metal. In producing a hydrogen separator 11 having a structure such as shown in FIG. 2, for example, there can be mentioned a method of plating palladium (which becomes a hydrogen-separating layer 13) on one surface 15 of a porous substrate 12 [see, for example, Patent Document 1 (JP-A-3-146122), Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent No. 3213430) and Patent Document 3 (JP-A-62-273030)]. When palladium layer has been formed directly on a porous ceramic substrate, however, there is a problem that the affinity between the palladium and the porous ceramic substrate is not good. As a result, when the hydrogen separator obtained is exposed to a heat cycle, there may happen peeling of palladium from porous substrate or generation of other defects in palladium layer, and gas tightness of the palladium layer may reduce. Further, when, after the formation of palladium layer on a porous substrate, other metal, such as silver, is formed on the palladium and then heated to form a palladium alloy as a hydrogen-separating layer. There is a problem that the hydrogen-separating layer made of the alloy tends to peel from the porous substrate more easily, because of additional heating for alloying.

The bladeless fan is a device that creates airflow with no external blades. The first bladeless fan was invented by Japanese company Toshiba in 1981. Since then, several bladeless fan inventions have been patented. Most notable are the patents relating to the Dyson Air Multiplier. While bladeless fans are often safer due to the lack of external blades, most bladeless fans are no more space efficient than traditional external bladed fans. Bladeless fans are often designed with an air passage that is shaped in an annular or other looped configuration, wherein air is perimetrically dispelled from the air passage. Resultantly, there is a rather large volume of unused space outlined by the air passage. Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide a multifunctional bladeless cooling light that enables users to more effectively cool and illuminate spaces. The present invention combines bladeless fan technology with light emitting diode (LED) lighting, resulting in an apparatus that may provide both light and cooling air to an environment. An air passage structure is positioned around a lighting assembly, wherein the cooling and lighting functions of the present invention can be used simultaneously or standalone. Furthermore, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a unique and improved bladeless fan design. The present invention improves upon existing bladeless fan technology by introducing a separation wall within the air passage structure that forms an inflow air channel and an outflow air channel to create pressure differentials within the air passage structure for improved air flow. The inflow air channel also includes a heating element to increase the pressure within the inflow channel, and the outflow air channel includes a plurality of intake orifices increasing airflow within the outflow air channel. These improvements leverage fundamental laws of fluid flow, such as Bernoulli's Law and the Venturi effect, to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of the bladeless fan. Also, unique mounting options are provided that enable the use of the present invention in many different environments.

This invention relates to devices for controlling the position of movable valve elements for positioning such elements when the valve is not operating and, more particularly, to a positioning apparatus especially useful with spool valves for positioning the spool upon installation of the valve, during shutdown, or at any other time the valve is not operating. A major concern in industry using machinery and other devices controlled by valves, and especially pneumatic, hydraulic, and other fluid valves, is the accurate determination of the position of the movable valve element within the valve. Such position determination is important upon initial installation, loss of fluid pressure when in service, or during replacement of the valve so that operation of the controlled machinery can be accurately predicted. Without such determination, a press, punch, or ram device controlled by a valve can be unexpectedly and inadvertently operated upon start-up or return of fluid pressure resulting in serious injury to operators, maintenance personnel, or the like. The problem is especially serious when using fluid-type spool valves including a shiftable spool element which can be moved to any one of a plurality of positions to control the passage of pressurized fluid through various fluid conduits. One well-known method for positioning the spool of a fluid-operated spool valve is to use a spring acting on either one or both of the ends of the spool valve such that the spring or springs automatically return the spool to a determined or neutral position. It has been discovered, however, that such method has several drawbacks because of the necessity of providing sufficient spring force to shift the spool to the predetermined position. Namely, the constantly contacting spring increases the minimum permissible operating pressure of the valve and causes an inbalance of forces acting in one direction of spool movement. Further, the spring itself is cycled at the same rate as the valve subjecting it to fatigue and wear, necessitating frequent maintenance, and reducing the reliability of the positioning apparatus. Thus, the normal operating function of a spool valve is severely altered with such prior known positioners. A second method widely used for positioning spool valves of the double solenoid, two-position type are detents designed to hold the spool in one or both of its two extreme positions. Such detents normally include holding members biased into contact with recesses or the like on the spool itself. Such detents also are disadvantageous because they raise the valve's minimum operating pressure thereby requiring an additional force to unlock the spool and start its motion. If the fluid system somehow fails during the movement of the spool, the spool may coast to a stop before reaching one of the locking detents thereby preventing accurate determination of its position as mentioned above. It has now been discovered that the present invention eliminates the above problems by providing a positioner which is actuated only if the system is shut down, depressurized or otherwise not operating. The device remains ready for actuation at all times but is unused until called upon thereby prolonging its life to an extent greater than for any known positioning apparatus. Further, the device avoids the necessity of an additional force to move the spool, causes no imbalance of forces acting upon the spool and is cycled only at a fraction of the repetitions to which the spool is ordinarily subjected. The present invention, therefore, allows a designer to accurately determine the position of the valve at all times during start-up thereby increasing the safety and realibility of systems controlled by the valve.

The present invention relates generally to vehicular suspension systems and, in a preferred embodiment thereof, more particularly provides a liquid spring vehicular suspension system in which the spring and damping characteristics of each liquid spring are computer adjusted, during vehicle operation, in response to sensed variations in liquid spring and vehicle operating parameters. In the past, various proposals have been made for replacing the conventional hydraulic shock absorber and exterior coil spring assemblies in vehicular suspension systems with more compact devices known as liquid springs. A liquid spring basically comprises a cylindrical housing having an internal chamber with a compressible liquid therein, a piston reciprocably disposed in the chamber, and a rod structure axially movable into and out of the chamber, secured to the piston, and having an outer longitudinal portion projecting outwardly of one of the housing ends. With the liquid spring operatively interconnected between the vehicle frame and an associated wheel support structure, the compressible liquid within the liquid spring generates both spring and damping forces in the suspension system in response to relative axial translation between the rod structure and housing of the liquid spring caused by relative vertical displacement between the wheel and the frame. A more detailed description of the general structure and operation of a liquid spring incorporated in a vehicular suspension system may be found in U.S. application Ser. No. 941,289, entitled "FLUID SUSPENSION SPRING AND DAMPER FOR VEHICLE SUSPENSION SYSTEM", which has been incorporated herein by reference. Various mechanisms have been proposed for selectively adjusting the spring force and/or damping force characteristics of liquid springs to settings which remain essentially constant during vehicle operation until readjusted when the vehicle is at rest. Thus, these essentially fixed spring force and damping force characteristics represent at best predetermined compromise settings adapted to handle an often wide range of road conditions and vehicle operational inputs (such as steering input, braking forces, vehicle speed and the like) encountered during operation of the vehicle. It can be seen that it would be desirable to provide a liquid spring vehicular suspension system in which the spring force and damping force characteristics of the liquid springs are automatically adjusted, during vehicle operation, to compensate for variations in both road conditions and vehicle operational inputs, or any combination thereof. It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide such a system.

This invention relates to a new and improved inflatable weather vane-type wild fowl decoy for use by hunters. More particularly, the invention relates to a wind inflatable weather vane-type wild fowl decoy in the form of a goose or duck which is of simple construction for easy manufacture, transport and assembly, and which is especially adapted for use in the field in sentry and feeding and landing positions, in simulation of natural wild fowl. Decoys have been used for many years by hunters to attract wild fowl. Originally such decoys were carved from wood, but these had the disadvantage of being bulky and heavy and difficult to transport for field use. They were expensive. These factors tended to limit the number of decoys which could be used. Subsequently techniques were devised to manufacture hollow decoys. This partially resolved the weight and expense problems, but the decoys remained bulky and cumbersome to carry. These disadvantages led to the development of inflatable decoys.

The present invention relates generally to pouch packaging of sterile items, such as surgical instruments, to protect them against contamination by microorganisms. More specifically, it relates to the construction of a side-edge closure seal for a sterile pouch. Packaging for medical instruments such as tear-open bags and peelable pouches that are hermetically sealed are well-known. Pouches are delivered to the packager where items are introduced to the pouches and then sealed closed by a final heat-seal process. The final heat-seal applies heat, dwell and pressure to the thermoplastic material of the pouch, fusing both webs of the pouch material together across the pouch opening. In a specific type of pouch, one side of the pouch includes a semipermeable panel which permits the gas sterilization of the contents after sealing. In both instances, there is concern about the integrity of the seal around the perimeter of the bag sidewall. Of greatest concern are the areas of the seal which are transition points between the heat-seal footprint of the manufacturing seal and the closure seal later applied by the packager. The occurrence of overlapping heat seals is a consequence of separate sealing operations occurring at different times and places. A first sealing operation occurs during the manufacturing of the pouch in which all side edges are sealed except a length of one edge left unsealed to create an opening for the introduction of the packaged items. The second sealing operation is similar to the first but carried out at the packaging site where the opening in the pouch is sealed closed. In order that the seal be continuous throughout the entire perimeter of the pouch, it is necessary for the two seal footprints (surface area where the opposing pouch sidewalls are fused together) to overlap. In this pouch construction, the overlap joint is the point of least integrity along the length of the seal due to handling of the pouch at times between the two sealing operations. This occurs due to the type of packaging material used which is easily deformable and has no shape memory. The line along which the first and second seal footprints overlap is at the sides of the bag opening and this area is also the point of highest mechanical stress of the bag material as it is handled making it vulnerable to distortion. Thus an imperfect seal may result along the overlap points of the heat-seal footprints of the two above-described sealing operations because of distortions in the material. In another type of well-known pouch, there is a problem with seal integrity in the areas of transition between thicknesses of a multi-ply construction having a transverse sidewall seam, for example those having a semipermeable panel to provide preliminary gas sterilization prior to final closure. In this construction, a problem can occur along a transverse edge of an intermediate ply of material fused between two outer plies where the edge of the intermediate ply forms the transition line from a three-ply thickness to a two-ply thickness in final construction. Because of the way in which the pouch is manufactured, this transverse internal edge extends to the outside side edge of the pouch and therefore can possibly create a migration channel for microbes entering the pouch from the outside. Furthermore, in this type of bag the perimeter sealing along the edge of the panel is imperfect because the transition in the overall thickness between the different number of layers causes uneven pressure to be applied during the sealing process and therefore imperfections in the perimeter seal can occur. The present invention has been devised in order to satisfy the need in the art described above for greater seal integrity of pouch-type containers for sterilized materials to prevent microbial contamination. The applicant has created a pouch-type container comprising two webs positioned face-to-face having peripheral portions of their bottom and side edges joined by heat fusion thereby forming a pouch having an interior cavity. A mouth of the pouch is created by an unsealed portion of the webs along the top edge. The area of fusion creates a peripheral seal footprint along the bottom and side edges. An interior boundary line lies along the inside of the seal footprint facing the interior cavity and it terminates at two points at the sides of the mouth of the pouch. The two end portions of the boundary line proximate the mouth are provided with a wavy configuration which includes a series of inward facing peaks and valleys. This configuration of the heat seal footprint is created by a heat seal die which has a corresponding wavy edge that creates the peaks and valleys along the above-described portion of the heat seal footprint. The geometry of the peaks and valleys can be radiused or jagged, and when the transverse heat seal closure is applied after materials are inserted into the pouch, the closure seal footprint extends across the top edge and overlaps the wavy end portions of the interior boundary line. To provide greater seal integrity in a sterilizable pouch having a breather panel, a pouch-type container has been created which comprises two opposing faces composed of heat-fusable sheet materials fused in an area along their side and bottom edges. One of the two opposing faces consists of two webs spliced together along a transverse seam which extends the entire width of the face and overlaps a transverse edge of one of said webs being a breather panel material. The transverse edge of the breather panel web is provided with a wavy configuration including a series of peaks and valleys along its entire length. Preferably the breather panel web is composed of a semipermeable material such as Dupont Tyvek(copyright). Because the above-described problem migration channel occurs along the edge of the breather panel, the resulting shape of the channel is a tortuous path for any migrating microbes and hence contamination is prevented. It is therefore the main object of the present invention to create enhanced seal performance in web-fused sterile pouches to more reliably prevent contamination from outside of the pouch. This object has been achieved by the above-disclosed invention, a preferred embodiment of which is described in detail in the following drawings and description of preferred embodiments.

Chemical amplification type positive resist compositions are pattern-forming materials which, when irradiated with a radiation such as, e.g., far ultraviolet rays, generate an acid in the exposed areas and come to have a difference in solubility in a developing solution between the areas irradiated with the actinic radiation and the unirradiated areas as a result of a reaction catalyzed by the acid to thereby form a pattern on the substrate. Surfactants are generally incorporated into such chemical amplification type resist compositions in order to eliminate striations and the like and improve applicability. Examples of the surfactants in general use include nonionic surfactants such as polyoxyethylene alkyl ethers, polyoxyethylene alkylaryl ethers, polyoxyethylene/polyoxypropylene block copolymers, sorbitan fatty acid esters, and polyoxyethylene sorbitan fatty acid esters, and further include fluorochemical surfactants, organosiloxane polymers, and acrylic acid or methacrylic acid (co)polymers. In JP-B-7-21626 is disclosed a resist composition for semiconductor microfabrication which comprises an alkali-soluble resin, an organic solvent containing at least a monohydroxy monocarboxylic acid ester, a fluorochemical surfactant, and a radiation-sensitive substance. Furthermore, JP-A-7-230165 discloses a chemical amplification type photoresist composition employing a combination of a solvent of a specific structure and a fluorochemical surfactant, while JP-A-2000-162768 discloses one employing a fluorochemical surfactant having a specific structure. With the recent trend toward scale down and higher throughputs, it has become important to diminish errors caused by exposure. However, the resists of the related art described above have a problem concerning defect generation during development and this has resulted in a considerable decrease in yield.

This invention relates to a dietetic product with depurative and anti-diarrhoeic activity. Diarrhoeic illnesses, which are very common, constitute a very important factor in infantile and even adult mortality. Diarrhoea consists of a very frequent and very rapid passage of unformed stools and is characterized by the elimination of an excess of water in the stools, leading progressively to dehydration. This phenomenon appears to be caused by malabsorption, by excessive secretion or even by a deficiency in intestinal motility; and these deficiencies may be concomitant. Although diarrhoea has several causes, it is accepted that the principal origin is the presence of bacterial or viral toxins in the intestinal tract. In simple terms, diarrhoea is at present treated with products which absorb water, toxins, viruses or bacteria by a physical phenomenon or with medicaments which stimulate absorption, inhibit secretion or modify intestinal motility or even antibiotics or even with rehydration solutions containing water and mineral salts which are administered orally or intravenously. The medicaments have the disadvantage that they are not always effective and produce side effects. Products which absorb water, for example gums, pectins, methyl cellulose, or carrots, may modify the frequency and consistency of the stools, but do not reduce the losses of water and electrolytes. Although rehydration solutions enable these losses to be compensated, they attenuate the effects of the diarrhoea instead of attacking its causes. Products capable of absorbing toxins, viruses and bacteria, for example calcium carbonate, hydrated aluminium silicate, bismuth salts, pectins, or active carbon, are very popular, but it is not certain whether they are really effective. Ion exchange resins, which additionally have the property of fixing the bile salts, appear to be effective, but also produce side effects and have to be used in high doses. A dietetic composition containing from 60 to 80% roasted carob flour is commercially available (AROBON). Although this product gives good results in the treatment of diarrhoea without producing side effects, it has the disadvantage of necessitating relatively high doses, of the order of 20-40 g/day for young children, which presents problems of administration.

The present invention relates to therapeutic radioactive devices and methods of use thereof, and more particularly, to devices and methods for providing a radiation source for temporary application in the treatment of stenosis and/or brachytherapy. Various techniques have been developed to treat many different conduits in the body when these conduits have become reduced in size due to the existence of a stenosis or when these conduits have been completely occluded. With respect to vascular conduits, angioplasty has been used to open an artery or blood vessel in the region where the stenosis or the occlusion has occurred. A typical angioplasty procedure includes making a small incision through the body and into, for example, a blood vessel, and then maneuvering a guide wire through the vascular system to a point beyond the stenosis or occlusion within the blood vessel. A catheter with a balloon near its distal end can subsequently be threaded over the guide wire and advanced to the point of stenosis or occlusion. The balloon may thereafter be inflated and deflated several times, if necessary, to widen the constricted area within the blood vessel, and may thereafter be withdrawn from the body. In certain cases, a stent may be deployed to the now widened area within the blood vessel to mechanically maintain a channel across the previously constricted area. However, despite the initial observed reduction in the area of stenosis or occlusion as a result of angioplasty, many patients unfortunately exhibit a reoccurrence of the stenosis within a few months of the original procedure. Although the original stenosis is thought to occur by means of the build up of plaque over a relatively long period of time, it is now believed that the recurrence of the stenosis after the original angioplasty procedure may be unrelated to the cause of the original stenosis. It is believed that the inflation of the balloon catheter used in the angioplasty procedure or the placement of a stent in the area of the stenosis may cause irritation to the blood vessel, which can subsequently cause hyperplasia (i.e., inducing the blood vessel cells to rapidly reproduce), resulting in restenosis. It has been proposed that if the site of stenosis in the blood vessel were treated with a radiation dose, the mechanism that causes hyperplasia may be destroyed without harming the blood vessel itself. During this procedure, it should be noted that it is important to precisely control the amount of radiation that is directed to the blood vessel wall, since too little radiation could actually induce hyperplasia within the irritated vessel, while too much radiation could destroy a portion of the blood vessel. U.S. Pat. No. 5,840,064 issued to Liprie, discloses a method and apparatus for introducing radiation to the site of a stenosis in a blood vessel to endeavor to prevent restenosis and claims a device for treating an occlusion or a constriction in a vessel or other conduit in the body wherein said radioactive source is cesium-137, cobalt-60, iodine-125, iodine-131, cobalt-57, iridium-192, gold-198, palladium-103, strontium-89, strontium-90, phosphorus-32, or yttrium-90. U.S. Pat. No. 6,024,690 issued to Lee et al. discloses a radiation source with delivery wire for delivering a dose of radiation to a treatment site within a vessel. The radiation source comprises a radioactive segment that includes rhenium having a half-life of less than approximately one hundred (100) hours. U.S. Pat. No. 6,071,227 issued to Popowski et al. discloses medical appliances for the treatment of blood vessels by means of ionizing radiation and claims a medical appliance wherein the radioactive radiation emitter is the beta radiation emitter Yttrium-90. Various therapeutic techniques have also been developed for treatment of tumorous, pre-cancerous, or other diseased tissue. One technique, known as brachytherapy, places radioactive sources at or near the treatment site to provide site-specific delivery of radiation therapy, potentially reducing undesirable side effects associated with teletherapy, such as irradiation of healthy tissue. A common brachytherapy technique uses catheters to deliver radiation to the treatment site. In this technique, numerous catheters may be simultaneously inserted into the treatment site, sewn into place, loaded with solid isotopic pellets for a prescribed time, and then removed. The process of placing a number of catheters simultaneously within the appropriate region is cumbersome and time-intensive. Additionally, invasive insertion and external exposure of the catheters presents an increased risk of infection to the patient, and can result in significant discomfort for the patient during treatment. Finally, any subsequent treatment, for example, treatment following tumor recurrence, requires that the entire process be repeated from the beginning. Another common brachytherapy technique employs radioactive implants to deliver radiation therapy. In this technique, numerous radioactive pellets or seeds are implanted directly into the treatment site. However, the radiation fields generated by the implants are typically highly non-uniform, resulting in highly non-uniform distributions of radiation dose across the treatment site. Although somewhat useful, the radionuclides provided above, along with those generally used in brachytherapy and/or the treatment of stenosis, can have certain undesirable effects. For example, beta-emitting radionuclides, such as strontium-89, strontium-90, phosphorus-32, yttrium-90 and rhenium-188 suffer from rapid dose drop-off within the blood vessel to be treated. Moreover, the dose perturbation due to the presence of a calcified plaque or a metallic stent is significant for the beta source. The dose reduction in the region beyond a plaque or a stent could be more than 20%. This reduction can result in significant underdosing and affect the outcome of the treatment Low energy gamma-emitting radionuclides, on the other hand, such as iodine-125 and palladium-103, experience even more significant dose perturbation due to the presence of a calcified plaque or a metallic stent. High energy gamma-emitting radionuclides, such as cesium-137, cobalt-60, iodine-131, cobalt-57, iridium-192 and gold-198 are characterized by a significant potential for excessive whole-body dose to the patient, the cardiologist and the staff. Radiation safety considerations require the use of heavy lead shields to reduce exposure rates within the catheterization laboratories. Adequate shielding of catheterization laboratories to provide radiation protection to clinicians, as well as personnel outside the laboratory is a significant and costly task. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a radiation source which can be implanted at a treatment site to provide a sufficient uniform dose distribution throughout the surrounding tissue, even in the presence of calcification and/or of a stent, with a sufficiently long half-life to adequately treat the patients. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a source for delivering radiation, for instance, X-ray radiation, to a treatment site is provided. The source includes at least one insert having tungsten enriched with tungsten-180 and a capsule within which the insert is placed. The tungsten, in one embodiment, may be enriched to include at least about 30 atomic percent of tungsten-180 and is capable of being activated, so as to transform a portion thereof to an amount of X-ray emitting tungsten-181 with a radiation dose rate sufficient for treatment within a period of one hour. The insert, in certain embodiments, may be provided with a central core around which the tungsten-180 may be placed. The X-ray radiation emitted preferably has a range of from about 50 keV to about 70 keV. The capsule, similarly, may be made from a material that permits X-ray radiation in the range of from about 50 keV to about 70 keV to pass therethrough. In addition, as the capsule may be irradiated to activate the insert therein, the capsule should include materials that contain minimally acceptable amounts of isotopes that can be transmuted into radioactive isotopes that emit undesirable radiations. Moreover, if transmutation does occur, the radioactive isotopes should have such short half-lives or very low dose rates that their activities have little effect on healthy tissue. In accordance with another embodiment, the present invention provides a method for generating radiation for treatment of diseased tissues. The method includes providing at least one insert having tungsten enriched with tungsten-180 that is capable of being activated to transform a portion thereof to an amount of X-ray-emitting tungsten-181. Next, the insert may be encased within a capsule. Once encased, the capsule and the insert therein may be exposed to a neutron flux, so as to transform a portion of the tungsten-180 to an amount of X-ray-emitting tungsten-181 with a radiation dose rate sufficient for treatment within a period of one hour. In an alternate embodiment, the insert may be irradiated prior to encasing the insert within the capsule. The irradiated insert, along with the capsule, may thereafter be delivered to the diseased tissue site for treatment, and removed once treatment is completed.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a digital signal reproducing apparatus for reproducing digital signals from signals read from a recording medium on which the digital signals are recorded, and more particularly, to a digital signal reproducing apparatus in accordance with a sampled servo system. 2. Description of Background Information On an optical disk called a DRAW (Direct Read After Write) disk, servo bytes are recorded as shown in FIG. 1. Each sector on an optical disk comprises 43 servo blocks, each of which is composed of two servo bytes followed by 16 data bytes. A servo byte consists of two wobbled pits Wp1, Wp2 and a clock pit Cp, wherein the wobbled pits Wp1, Wp2 are located on the left and right sides of the track center, respectively. As an information detecting point of an pickup (a light spot for detecting information) is moving on the track center, decreased light amounts are equal at the locations of the left and right wobbled pits Wp1, Wp2. However, if the light spot deviates to the left or right from the track center, the decreased light amounts at the locations of the two wobbled pits Wp1, Wp2 change corresponding to the direction and amount of the deviation of the light spot. Thus, a tracking error signal may be generated from the difference between the decreased light amounts at the two positions (difference in level between RF signals). This tracking error signal is held for a subsequent data byte block. The distance D between the wobbled pit Wp2 and the clock pit Cp is set longer than a maximum distance between two adjacent pits in a data byte. This distance D may therefore be detected as a synchronizing signal. A variety of timing signals are generated on the basis of the detected synchronizing signal. Also, a clock is generated corresponding to a signal indicating that the clock pit CP has been detected. A mirror portion in the distance D is used as a focus area in which a focus error signal is detected and held for a subsequent data byte block. When a DRAW disk of, for example, five inches, on which servo bytes as described above have been recorded thereon, is rotated at 1800 rpm, edges generated in the RF signal by the presence of clock pits have a repeating frequency of 41.28 KHz. There is known a digital signal reproducing apparatus which reads address data and so on recorded subsequent to the servo bytes on a DRAW disk as mentioned above, and utilizes the read data to reproduce digital signals recorded on data information sections of the DRAW disk. Such reproduction should be performed in consideration of a delay time of the apparatus. However, it is rather difficult to set the delay time since delays caused by a differential circuit and an edge detecting circuit of the reproduction apparatus must be taken into account for deriving an accurate delay time. Further, if changes in temperature, power supply voltage and so on result in fluctuating the delay amount, a clock for reproduction cannot be generated with a high accuracy.

Coatings are typically applied to substrates to provide protective and/or decorative qualities. In particular, coatings are often applied to metal surfaces to inhibit or prevent corrosion. One effective technique for applying coatings includes an electrocoating process, which typically involves depositing a composition onto an electrically conductive substrate with an applied electrical potential. Electrocoating is popular because it provides improved corrosion protection and low environmental contamination compared to other coating processes. The process of electrocoating is well known in the art. Commercial electrocoating processes sometimes use anionic electrocoating processes, where the substrate being coated serves as the anode. However, cathodic or cationic electrocoating processes tend to provide coatings with superior corrosion resistance, and today are the most prevalent methods of electrocoating. For example, the vast majority of automotive primer coatings are now produced by cationic electrodeposition. Highly crosslinked coatings are desirable for corrosion resistance as well as aesthetic appeal. Typically, such coatings are formed by a reaction between a crosslinkable functional group and a blocked isocyanate group. A catalyst is typically used to promote crosslinking reactions. A variety of catalysts are known in the art. Organotin compounds, such as dibutyltin oxide (DBTO), dioctyltin oxide (DOTO), dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL), are among the known catalysts used in electrocoating. The most commonly used of these commercial catalysts is DBTO, a solid material that can be easily incorporated into an electrocoat composition. However, the human health risks and environmental issues associated with tin compounds are increasingly scrutinized. Organotin compounds, including DBTO, are sometimes considered pollutants, and there is increased regulatory pressure to substantially reduce or eliminate use of such compounds. Therefore, replacements for organotin compounds, and specifically dibutyl tin compounds like DBTO, for example, are being sought in electrocoat systems. A wide variety of non-organotin catalysts may be used in electrocoat systems, although not all such catalysts are as effective as DBTO. Certain bismuth-containing compounds have been suggested as a replacement for organotin catalysts. For example, organic bismuth salts of carboxylic acids have been described as electrodeposition catalysts. These compounds are, however, liquid, hydrophobic and immiscible in water. As a result, they cannot be easily incorporated into the pigment paste of the electrocoat bath and tend to exude to the surface creating undesirable float in the electrocoat bath. Various other bismuth-containing compounds have been proposed as catalysts for electrocoating processes. These include, for example, metallic bismuth, bismuth trioxide, organosulfur-based bismuth compounds, and the like, and are typically used in conjunction with other catalytic compounds like metallic zirconium, organotin compounds, or heterocyclic compounds like the mercapto-functional compounds. From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that what is needed in the art is an effective catalyst for electrodeposition that is substantially or even completely free of organotin compounds but can be easily incorporated into an electrocoat bath without causing undesirable float problems or losing desirable cured film properties such as corrosion resistance. Such catalysts, compositions containing such catalysts, and methods for preparing and using the catalysts and compositions are disclosed and claimed herein.

Referring to FIG. 1, a fastener 101 is commonly fastened to a surface 100 of a workpiece in a perpendicular manner. Though it is a fast and easy way to fasten to the surface 100 of the workpiece, the surface 100 of the workpiece is formed with a hole and burrs that are obvious, so that the fastener 101 is unsuitable for use on the surface of a workpiece with higher quality. To overcome the aforesaid drawback, a fastener installation tool 1, as disclosed in European Patent Publication No. EP2517834 and as shown in FIG. 2, is developed. The fastener installation tool 1 comprises a hollow frame body 11, two positioning mechanisms 12 respectively disposed at two opposite sides of the frame body 11, a handle 13 connected to the frame body 11, and a drive mechanism 14 for driving a left one of the positioning mechanisms 12 as viewed from FIG. 2. Each of the positioning mechanisms 12 includes a positioning block 121 that is movable relative to the frame body 11, a clamping arm 123 connected to and extending downward from the positioning block 121 for clamping and positioning a workpiece (A), and an angled guide passage 124 extending obliquely through the positioning block 121 and the clamping arm 123. The positioning block 121 is formed with a discharge hole 122 communicating with the angled guide passage 124. The drive mechanism 14 includes a spring 141, and a drive handle 142 pivoted to the frame body 11. The spring 141 has one end hooked to the frame body 11, and the other end movable along with the left positioning mechanism 12. In practice, the drive handle 142 is operated to move in the direction of an arrow 15 so as to drive the positioning block 121 of the left positioning mechanism 12 to move in the direction of an arrow 16. Through cooperation of the clamping arms 123 of the positioning mechanisms 12 and the resilient restoring force of the spring 141, the workpiece (A) is clamped and positioned between the clamping arms 123. Thereafter, two fasteners (B) can be respectively inserted into the angled guide passages 124 and screwed to the workpiece (A). From the aforesaid structure of the fastener installation tool 1, it is apparent that the fastener installation tool 1 cannot cooperate with a readily available clamping tool for driving, but has to depend only on the drive mechanism 14 which is a special tool. Therefore, the use thereof is limited. Furthermore, the discharge hole 122 is formed in the positioning block 121 of each positioning mechanism 12 such that the chips generated when each fastener (B) is driven into the workpiece (A) must pass through the clamping arm 123 and a portion of the positioning block 121 of a respective positioning mechanism 12 before the chips can be discharged via the corresponding discharge hole 122. As such, the distance moved by the chips is rather long, and the chips are prone to be stuck in the corresponding angled guide passage 124. Moreover, the strength and stability for clamping the workpiece (A) using the resilient restoring force of the spring 141 are insufficient, so that each fastener (B) is likely to deviate when driven into the workpiece (A). This results in bulging and splitting of the workpiece (A).

The present disclosure relates generally to extruded sheet structures and, more particularly, to a corrugated, polymeric zigzag sheet suitable for implementation in greenhouse roof structures. Traditional greenhouses are predominately covered by a single layer of glass having a thickness of about 4 millimeters (mm) or more. The glass roof structure offers both a high stiffness and a very high light transmissivity, which is important for the growing process of the various agricultural and horticultural crops found in greenhouses. One disadvantage of using glass as the greenhouse roof material is its heavy weight, which typically requires special devices/equipment during the installation thereof. Furthermore, there is the potential for breakage during installation, as well as from exposure to natural elements such as wind, snow load and hail storms. As a result, certain conventional greenhouse roof structures have implemented laminated glass or polymeric products as a greenhouse glazing. Thin, transparent polymeric sheets (e.g., a polycarbonate sheet with a thickness of about 1-3 mm) have similar light transmission values to that of glass. However, the lack of stiffness of a flat thin sheet reduces its overall practical use in this particular application since a thin sheet does not withstand an expected wind/snow load. In addition, the lack of stiffness of a thin gauge polymeric sheet renders the installation thereof onto the construction members of the greenhouse problematic at best. Accordingly, rigid clear plastics fabricated by extrusion, roll forming and/or thermoforming processes allow for a corrugated zigzag shape that does provide a desired structural stiffness. Moreover, the zigzag shape can also reduce the amount of light lost through reflection by redirecting some of the reflected light through the roof and into the greenhouse, thereby resulting in an increase of the direct and diffuse light transmission of the roof material. Still a further consideration is the additional insulation provided by a double walled roof panel, as opposed to the single-plate hardened glass presently used in may greenhouses. While a double-plate flat glass provides an additional measure of insulation, there is a reduction in the amount of light passed therethrough. Accordingly, it is desirable to be able to manufacture a lightweight, stiff panel that both insulates and passes an increased amount of light, but that is also easy to manufacture and assemble upon a roof structure, such as used for a greenhouse.

The present invention relates to a variable space shutter for LED display. In a preferred embodiment, the shutter includes portions that allow the shutter to go from a light transmissive (open) state to light blocking (closed) state. Conventionally, a backing mesh for an LED display is used, for example on a stage for a performance, to provide a backing for an LED light display. Typically, either a see-through screen, to allow light to pass through, or a solid type screen, to provide backing contrast, is provided. However, with the conventional devices, it must be decided which of the see-through and solid panels is to be used for a particular application.

(a) Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus to diagnose a fault of a fuel cell stack. (b) Description of the Related Art A fuel cell is a type of battery that directly converts chemical energy generated by oxidation of fuel to electrical energy which can be utilized by any number of devices. For the most part, a fuel cell is identical to a chemical cell in that it uses an oxidation and reduction reaction to produce energy. However, in a fuel cell, reactants are intermittently supplied from an outside source and thus, reaction products are consecutively removed from a fuel cell system. In a chemical cell, however, the battery reaction is performed within a closed system. Currently, commercialization of the fuel cell has begun to take off because the reaction product of the fuel cell is pure water and thus is very environmentally friendly. Accordingly, research for using fuel cells as an energy source for vehicles is of great interest in the automotive industry. A fuel cell is often made up of a stack assembly in which a plurality of unit cells are consecutively disposed one on top of/next to the other, which is referred to within the industry as a fuel cell stack. Electrical energy is produced by providing each unit cell of the fuel cell stack with hydrogen as a fuel and oxygen as an oxidizer. However, when performance deterioration or a failure occurs in any one cell among the unit cells that make up the fuel cell stack, the entire performance of the fuel cell stack is deteriorated and thus, a stable operation is not provided. In the related art, performance of the fuel cell stack is diagnosed by measuring voltage output from each unit cell of the fuel cell stack. Such diagnosis method includes a total harmonic distortion analysis (THDA) method. The THDA method diagnoses cell voltage by calculating a distortion rate through frequency analysis of the stack voltage. Even though the THDA method may easily detect a drop in cell voltage, it is substantially difficult to quantitatively measure what has caused the drop in cell voltage. Also, there is a method of measuring impedance of the fuel cell stack using an electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). This method supplies a current or voltage as a sinusoidal waveform to the fuel cell stack and then measures a current (I) and voltage (V) of the fuel cell stack and calculates impedance based on the measured current (I) and voltage (V) of the fuel cell stack. However, this method diagnoses the humidification state by measuring the load on a stack, but does not diagnose the drop in cell voltage. Accordingly, a separate apparatus such as a space vector modulator (SVM) or a capacitive voltage multiplier (CVM) is required. The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

1. Field The present disclosure generally relates to the field of medical imaging, and more particularly, to systems, devices and methodologies related to calibration of a proton computed tomography scanner. 2. Description of the Related Art Energetic ions such as protons can be used to form images of an object such as a portion of a patient. Such ion-based imaging can include, for example, computed tomography (CT). CT images generated by use of protons can be based on a distribution of relative stopping power (RSP) associated with the object. An accurate measurement of energy loss of protons resulting from passage through the object can yield an improved reconstruction of the RSP distribution of the object.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a flexible polymeric optical waveguide-forming master plate, a method for producing a polymeric optical waveguide, and an aperture changeable polymeric optical waveguide (a polymeric optical waveguide with a changeable aperture). 2. Description of the Related Art In producing a polymeric optical waveguide, the following methods have been proposed: (1) a method in which a film is impregnated with a monomer, and a core portion is selectively exposed to light so as to change the refractive index in the core portion, and the film is then laminated on a substrate (selective polymerization method), (2) a method in which a core layer and a clad layer are applied to a substrate, and then a clad portion is formed by using reactive ion etching (RIE method), (3) a method using a photolithographic method in which an ultraviolet ray-curable resin obtained by adding a photosensitive material to a polymer material is used, exposed to UV light and developed (direct exposure method), (4) a method using an injection molding and, (5) a method in which a core layer and a clad layer are applied to a substrate and then a core portion is exposed to light so as to change the refractive index of the core portion (photo-bleaching method). However, the selective polymerization method (1) has a problem in lamination of the films. Methods (2) and (3) are expensive since a photolithographic method is used. Method (4) has a problem in accuracy of a core diameter. Method (5) has a problem in that a sufficient refractive index difference cannot be obtained. At present, only methods (2) and (3) are practical methods for providing waveguides with high performance. However, none of these methods are suitable for the formation of a polymeric optical waveguide on a flexible substrate having a large area. David Hart of Sharp Corp. has proposed a method for producing a polymeric optical waveguide in which a pattern substrate with a groove pattern which is to be a capillary is brought into close contact with a plane substrate by using a clamping jig, and the capillary is filled with a monomer solution under a reduced pressure (see Japanese Patent No. 3151364). However, this method has a drawback in that, unless the clamp is used to bring the pattern substrate into close contact with the plane substrate, the monomer solution also enters portions other than the core and therefore a precise waveguide structure cannot be formed. This method has another drawback in that the volume of the monomer solution changes when undergoing polymerization to form a macromolecule (solidification), leading to change in a core shape. Moreover, still another drawback is that the core shape collapses at the time of removal of the capillary because a polymer obtained by the polymerization of the monomer solution partially adheres to the capillary. Recently, George M. Whitesides et al. of Harvard University has proposed a method called “capillary micro-mold” as one of soft liqhographic methods in new technologies for making a nano-structure. In this method, a master substrate is produced by using photolithography, the nano-structure of the master substrate is exactly copied on a mold of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by utilizing the adhesiveness and easy separability of the PDMS, and a liquid polymer is infused into the mold by utilizing capillarity and solidified. The detail thereof is described in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN September 2001 (Nikkei Science, December 2001 issue). Moreover, a patent about the capillary micro-mold method was granted to Kim Enoch et al., from the group of George M. Whitesides, of Harvard University (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,355,198). However, in the case of a concave portion to be filled having a small sectional area such as the core of an optical waveguide, the production process described in this patent is unsuitable for mass-production since a long period of time is required to fill the concave portion (to form a core). This process also has a drawback in that the volume of a monomer solution changes when the monomer solution is reacted and solidified into a polymer, causing change in a core shape. Meanwhile, if the aperture of an optical waveguide can be changed in accordance with the size of the various optical fibers, light-emitting elements or light-receiving elements, coupling loss can be reduced. However, in conventional methods, a typical example of which is the direct exposure method using photolithography, it is difficult to change the thickness of the resultant film continuously. Accordingly, the aperture of the core cannot be controlled at will to reduce coupling loss. Moreover, a method of finely processing a silicon substrate by FIB or the like is known. However, the method has a problem in that a huge number of steps are required to produce an optical waveguide having a large aperture and a large area, such as a multimode optical waveguide, and such steps are substantially impossible to conduct. As an attempt for overcoming the above-mentioned problem, a method for pouring a UV curable resin into a mold to form a an aperture changeable polymeric optical waveguide has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 10-253845). In this method, a polymer liquid for forming a core is put into a very shallow tank whose depths continuously change from one end thereof to the other end thereof, and a polymeric waveguide with apertures which change in the longitudinal direction of the waveguide is formed by making use of the depth difference of the tank. It is therefore necessary to dispose the tank just parallel to a gravitational direction. Moreover, this process is susceptible to vibration. Thus, the process is not practical as a process for mass production. Furthermore, this publication never describes a specific process for making a groove having a satisfactory surface roughness and shape precision which an optical waveguide is required to have and having thicknesses and widths which change in the longitudinal direction thereof. Accordingly, there is a demand for a process for inexpensively and simply producing a polymeric optical waveguide-forming master plate. There is also a demand for a process for inexpensively and simply producing a polymeric optical waveguide. There is also a need for an aperture changeable polymeric optical waveguide having apertures which change at the both ends thereof in accordance with the sizes of various optical elements.

Many different names have been applied to Interleukin-8 (IL-8), such as neutrophil attractant/activation protein-1 (NAP-1), monocyte derived neutrophil chemotactic factor (MDNCF), neutrophil activating factor (NAF), and T-cell lymphocyte chemotactic factor. Interleukin-8 is a chemoattractant for neutrophils, basophils, and a subset of T-cells. It is produced by a majority of nucleated cells including macrophages, fibroblasts, endothelial and epithelial cells exposed to TNF, IL-1.alpha., IL-1.beta. or LPS, and by neutrophils themselves when exposed to LPS or chemotactic factors such as FMLP. M. Baggiolini et al, J. Clin. Invest. 84, 1045 (1989); J. Schroder et al, J. Immunol. 139, 3474 (1987) and J. Immunol. 144, 2223 (1990); Strieter, et al, Science 243, 1467 (1989) and J. Biol. Chem. 264, 10621 (1989); Cassatella et al, J. Immunol. 148, 3216 (1992). Gro.alpha., GRO.beta., GRO.gamma. and NAP-2 also belong to the chemokine .alpha. family. Like IL-8 these chemokines have also been referred to by different names. For instance GRO.alpha., .beta., .gamma. have been referred to as MGSA.alpha., .beta. and .gamma. respectively (Melanoma Growth Stimulating Activity), see Richmond et al, J. Cell Physiology 129, 375 (1986) and Chang et al, J. Immunol 148, 451 (1992). All of the chemokines of the .alpha.-family which possess the ELR motif directly preceding the CXC motif bind to the IL-8 B receptor. IL-8, Gro.alpha., GRO.beta., GRO.gamma., NAP-2 and ENA-78 stimulate a number of functions in vitro. They have all been shown to have chemoattractant properties for neutrophils, while IL-8 and GRO.alpha. have demonstrated T-lymphocytes, and basophiles chemotactic activity. In addition IL-8 can induce histamine release from basophils from both normal and atopic individuals GRO-.alpha. and IL-8 can in addition, induce lysozomal enzyme release and respiratory burst from neutrophils. IL-8 has also been shown to increase the surface expression of Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) on neutrophils without de novo protein synthesis. This may contribute to increased adhesion of the neutrophils to vascular endothelial cells. Many known diseases are characterized by massive neutrophil infiltration. As IL-8, Gro.alpha., GRO.beta., GRO.gamma. and NAP-2 promote the accumulation and activation of neutrophils, these chemokines have been implicated in a wide range of acute and chronic inflammatory disorders including psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, Baggiolini et al, FEBS Lett. 307, 97 (1992); Miller et al, Crit. Rev. Immunol. 12, 17 (1992); Oppenheim et al, Annu. Rev. Immunol. 9, 617 (1991); Seitz et al., J. Clin. Invest. 87, 463 (1991); Miller et al., Am. Rev. Respir. Dis. 146, 427 (1992); Donnely et al., Lancet 341, 643 (1993). In addition the ELR chemokines (those containing the amino acids ELR motif just prior to the CXC motif) have also been implicated in angiostasis. Strieter et al, Science 258, 1798 (1992). In vitro, IL-8, Gro.alpha., GRO.beta., GRO.gamma., and NAP-2 induce neutrophil shape change, chemotaxis, granule release, and respiratory burst, by binding to and activating receptors of the seven-transmembrane, G-protein-linked family, in particular by binding to IL-8 receptors, most notably the B-receptor. Thomas et al., J. Biol. Chem. 266, 14839(1991); and Holmes et al., Science 253, 1278 (1991). The development of non-peptide small molecule antagonists for members of this receptor family has precedent. For a review see R. Freidinger in: Progress in Drug Research, Vol. 40, pp. 33-98, Birkhauser Verlag, Basel 1993. Hence, the IL-8 receptor represents a promising target for the development of novel anti-inflammatory agents. Two high affinity human IL-8 receptors (77% homology) have been characterized: IL-8R.alpha., which binds only IL-8 with high affinity, and IL-8R.beta., which has high affinity for IL-8 as well as for GRO-.alpha., GRO.beta., GRO.gamma. and NAP-2. See Holmes et al., supra; Murphy et al., Science 253, 1280 (1991); Lee et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267, 16283 (1992); LaRosa et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267, 25402 (1992); and Gayle et al., J. Biol. Chem. 268,7283 (1993). There remains a need for treatment, in this field, for compounds which are capable of binding to the IL-8 .alpha. or .beta. receptor. Therefore, conditions associated with an increase in IL-8 production (which is responsible for chemotaxis of neutrophil and T-cells subsets into the inflammatory site) would benefit by compounds which are inhibitors of IL-8 receptor binding.

In a network environment, capturing agents or sensors can be placed at various devices or elements in the network to collect flow data and network statistics from different locations. The collected data from the capturing agents can be analyzed to monitor and troubleshoot the network. The data collected from the capturing agents can provide valuable details about the status, security, or performance of the network, as well as any network elements. Information about the capturing agents can also help interpret the data from the capturing agents, in order to infer or ascertain additional details from the collected data. For example, understanding the placement (e.g., deployment location) of a capturing agent within a device or virtualized environment can provide a context to the data reported by the capturing agents, which can further help identify specific patterns or conditions in the network. With larger networks, however, the number of capturing agents and sessions can grow to millions or more. It thus becomes very difficult to scale the numerous capturing agents and sensors. Moreover, as the number of collectors used in the network to collect the captured data from the capturing agents grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to track, organize, and maintain different portions of the same network flow.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a photosensitive material processing apparatus having an accommodating portion in which photosensitive materials which have been subjected to developing processing are stacked. 2. Description of the Related Art A photosensitive material stacking device, in which photographic printing papers (photosensitive materials) which have been discharged from the discharge opening of a processing section are stacked per order, is provided at a photosensitive material processing apparatus known as a printer processor. There are photosensitive material stacking devices which are provided with trays (accommodating portions) in which photographic printing papers are stacked substantially horizontally. There are types of photosensitive material processing apparatuses in which, due to the internal structure of the printer processor, the processed photographic printing papers are discharged from the discharge opening with the image forming surfaces thereof facing downward, and are stacked in the tray in that state. Further, there are photosensitive material processing apparatuses in which, due to the internal structure of the printer processor, even if the photographic printing papers are discharged from the discharge opening with the image forming surfaces thereof facing upward, thereafter, the fronts and backs of the photographic printing papers are reversed by the time the photographic printing papers are conveyed to the tray such that the photographic printing papers are stacked in the tray with their image forming surfaces facing downward. However, in both of the above-described types of photosensitive material stacking devices, there is the drawback that time and labor are required to confirm the images because the photographic printing papers are stacked in the tray with the image forming surfaces thereof facing downward. Further, when the photographic printing papers are discharged with the image forming surfaces thereof facing upward, the drying device and the stacking device are disposed downstream of the processing device, and the printer processor occupies a large surface area (a large floor space).

Processes of bonding nonwoven fibrous webs to thermoplastic films have been known for some time. Additionally, methods for extrusion laminating thermoplastic films to unstretched nonwoven webs are well known in the art. Relevant patents regarding extrusion lamination of unstretched nonwoven webs include U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,714,571; 3,058,863; 4,522,203; 4,614,679; 4,692,368; 4,753,840 and 5,035,941. The above '863 and '368 patents disclose stretching extruded polymeric films prior to laminating with unstretched nonwoven fibrous webs at pressure roller nips. The '203 and '941 patents are directed to co-extruding multiple polymeric films with unstretched nonwoven webs at pressure roller nips. The '840 patent discloses preforming nonwoven polymeric fiber materials prior to extrusion laminating with films to improve bonding between the nonwoven fibers and films. More specifically, the '840 patent discloses conventional embossing techniques to form densified and undensified areas in nonwoven base plies prior to extrusion lamination to improve bonding between nonwoven fibrous webs and films by means of the densified fiber areas. The '941 patent also teaches that unstretched nonwoven webs that are extrusion laminated to single ply polymeric films are susceptible to pinholes caused by fibers extending generally vertically from the plane of the fiber substrate and, accordingly, this patent discloses using multiple co-extruded film plies to prevent pinhole problems. Furthermore, methods for bonding loose nonwoven fibers to polymeric film are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,622,422; 4,379,192 and 4,725,473. It has also been known to stretch nonwoven fibrous webs using intermeshing rollers to reduce basis weight and examples of patents in this area are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,153,664 and 4,517,714. The '664 patent discloses a method of incremental cross direction (CD) or machine direction (MD) stretching nonwoven fibrous webs using a pair of interdigitating rollers to strengthen and soften nonwoven webs. The '664 patent also discloses an alternative embodiment wherein the nonwoven fibrous web is laminated to the thermoplastic film prior to intermesh stretching. There is a continuing need for improved laminates of nonwoven fibrous substrates in plastic films that provide sufficient absorbency and softness. It would be very desirable to further improve the properties of such laminates and to expand their utilities in articles of clothing and other useful products. Improvements are also desirable in methods of producing such laminates on high speed production machinery.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a ceramic coated product, including a product by what is called fine nitriding, i.e., formation of a fine nitrogen compound layer on a surface layer of a metal material for the purpose of surface hardening or the like. The present invention also relates to a ceramic coating method for forming a ceramic coating layer, which should be taken in the wide sense, in manufacture of a ceramic coated product obtained by using as a raw material a nitride, an oxide or a boride, for the purpose of protection, decoration, lubrication or the like of the surface of a material to be treated as a workpiece, such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance or heat resistance thereof, using excellent mechanical properties of the ceramic; in coating of the ceramic coating layer; or in production of the ceramic coat. More specifically, nitriding is a manner of ejecting an ejection powder by a reactive ejecting gas, for example, compressed nitrogen gas, on the surface of a metal product, as a workpiece, comprising a ferrous metal such as steel or cast iron, a metal product comprising a non-ferrous metal such as aluminum or brass, or a metal product comprising a powdery alloy, such as a hard metal, a ceramic alloy, or a cermet, or on the surface of a material to be treated comprising a ceramic or a mixture of these, so as to produce on the surface of the material to be treated a nitride layer of a compound resulting from the reaction of the ejection powder and the reactive ejecting gas. In particular, the present invention relates to ceramic coating, comprising a nitriding treatment step wherein nitriding treatment which has not been conventionally made practicable for nitriding of aluminum and aluminum alloys is made practicable at ordinary temperature, and relates to ceramic coating, as a general term having broad senses, comprising the nitriding treatment step in the present invention for forming or applying an inorganic material and an intermetallic compound, including the aforementioned nitride layer, on the surface of the aforementioned material to be treated. 2. Description of Prior Art As conventional nitriding treatments, the following have been carried out: gas nitriding and oxynitriding using ammonia gas at about 550xc2x0 C. for 20-100 hours; salt-bath nitriding to be performed at about 580xc2x0 C. in a bath of a mixture of a cyanide and a cyanate; and ion nitriding in which nitrogen ionized in glow discharge is caused to penetrate and diffuse into steel in a decompressed atmosphere into which N2 is introduced. Besides, gas soft-nitriding and nitrosulphurizing treatments have been carried out. Incidentally, ceramic coating methods are plasma thermal spray, PVD (physical vapor deposition), CVD (chemical vapor deposition), and the like methods. The plasma thermal spray is a manner of supplying a thermal spray powder into a super high temperature and high-speed flow jet produced by ejecting from a narrow nozzle an inactive gas, such as argon, made into plasma by arc; and melting and accelerating the thermal spray powder to form a coat on the surface of a substrate. This manner has been applied to formation of a high density and high strength coat made of metal materials such as molybdenum and nickel based alloys, and formation of a thin film made of high melting-point materials such as ceramics. The PVD method is a manner of heating a solid to a high temperature or vaporizing and condensing a solid forcibly, with no chemical reaction, to form a thin film, and is grouped into vapor deposition, ion plating, sputtering and the like. The vapor deposition is a manner of heating and vaporizing a substance in a vacuum, and depositing it in a layer-form on a surface of a material to be treated, thereby forming a thin layer, and has a characteristic making it possible to easily make various substance a thin layer and obtain a large and uniform thin film, and the like characteristics. The ion plating is a manner of using plasma generated by applying an electric field to ionize or excite vaporized atoms, thereby forming a thin film. The sputtering is a manner of generating ionized plasma in a relatively low degree of vacuum, accelerating ionized argon and causing collision of the argon with a target (a solid material which is a target of collision of the accelerated particles) to sputter target atoms, thereby coating the surface of a material to be treated. The CVD is a manner of forming a thin film by chemical reaction of vapor of a metal or a volatile compound in a gas phase, and is grouped into electric furnace, chemical flame, electron beam, laser, plasma and the like methods, dependently on a heat source for the gas phase reaction. Conventional nitriding treatments, including gas nitriding, have problems that treating temperature is generally very high, that treating time is also long, that the cost of equipment is necessarily high, and that pollution accompanies in cyanogen treatment or the like. Concerning in particular nitriding of aluminum, aluminum alloys and the like, nitriding is not liable to penetrate into their surface since an oxide film is formed on the surface. Nitriding in a vacuum can be carried out, but is of no practical use from the viewpoint of productivity and cost. As for stainless steel, nitriding treatment thereof has problems of decrease in its strength by washing by an acid, and an outbreak of pollution, as well as the same problems as in case of aluminum and the like. Besides, conventional ceramic coating methods have the following problems. For example, the vacuum vapor method has a problem that the cost of equipment is high for a vacuum tank, a rotary pump or a oil diffusion pump for evacuating the vacuum tank, and the like. Besides, in the other methods, i.e., the PVD and various types of CVD, expensive equipment is necessary, and the methods have a problem of high cost. The sputtering has a problem that the rate of depositing a film is at most several hundreds xc3x85/minute, and this method is not suitable for forming a thick film. The present invention has been made to solve the aforementioned problems. An object and an effect of the present invention are to provide a ceramic coated product and a coating method for it, making it possible to improve protecting and lubricating effects of the surface of a material to be treated, such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance and heat resistance thereof, and to raise commercial value of its appearance based on decoration, by a method for manufacturing, forming or producing a thin film which comprises ejecting an ejection powder on the surface of the material to be treated by reactive ejecting gas to form on the surface of the material to be treated a compound layer produced by reaction of the ejection powder and the reactive ejecting gas, in low-priced equipment. Specifically, an object and an effect of the present invention are to provide ceramic coating making it possible to carry out the same treatment as by conventional coating methods by blasting, in low-priced mechanical equipment, for a short time, improve protecting and lubricating effects of the surface of a material to be treated, such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and heat resistance thereof, make its appearance beautiful, and raise commercial value at a lower cost than conventional ceramic coating methods; or a product related to a ceramic coat containing fine nitride by a quite new manner in simple equipment at ordinary temperature, the equipment not causing pollution; and a coating method for it. The means for attaining the ceramic-coated products of the present invention include a material to be treated, as a metal product having a nitrogen reactive component, and an ejection powder; a material to be treated comprising a mixture of the metal product and a ceramic, and an ejection powder; or a material to be treated comprising a ceramic, and an ejection powder containing a nitrogen reactive component. The fine nitride comprises a nitrogen compound obtained by chemically reacting these in a nitrogen gas atmosphere, and is a product wherein a nitride is caused to diffuse and penetrate into the surface of the material to be treated or a coat formed on the surface of the material to be treated. The coating method is characterized by using a material to be treated comprising a metal product having a nitrogen reactive component, or a material to be treated comprising a mixture of the metal product and a ceramic, or a material to be treated comprising a ceramic, and an ejection powder containing a nitrogen reactive component; ejecting on the surface of the material to be treated a mixture flow of the ejection powder and nitrogen gas by blasting; and causing a nitrogen compound produced by the chemical reaction of the material to be treated containing the nitrogen reactive compound and/or the ejection powder with the nitrogen gas to diffuse and penetrate into the surface of the material to be treated, thereby producing a nitride layer. The ceramic coated product of the present invention is characterized by causing various compounds, for example, oxides, carbides, nitrides and other intermetallic compounds produced by chemical reaction of the ejection powder and the reactive ejecting gas to diffuse and penetrate into the surface of a material to be treated of a metal, a ceramic or a mixture thereof; or applying the various compounds onto the surface. The coating method for the aforementioned product is characterized by carrying out blasting using nitrogen gas as a compressed gas which is an ejecting gas for a fine nitride, or using a reactive ejecting gas of a gas containing oxygen, carbon or the like, as well as nitrogen, that is, a highly reactive gas exhibiting oxidation, carburizing, nitriding, or the like, or a mixture gas comprising several kinds of such gasses so as to eject an ejection powder, which has the average particle size of 200-20 xcexcm, and preferably 100-20 xcexcm, and nitrogen alone or a mixture flow of the aforementioned reactive ejecting gas as a reactive ejecting gas on the surface of a material to be treated of the metal product, the ceramic or a mixture thereof satisfying the above condition, at an ejection speed of 80 m/sec or more or at an ejection pressure of 0.3 Mpa, thereby diffusing and penetrating or applying elements in the compositions of the material to be treated or the ejection powder and the reactive ejecting gas to form a nitrified layer or a layer of the aforementioned compound. An abrasive is separate powders or particles containing small particles and fine powders which may be used for polishing and surface-cleaning all materials including metals and synthetic resins. The blasting or sandblasting is a general term of means for ejecting solid/gas two-phase flow of the abrasive made of a metal or the like and a gas, and includes shot peening. The aforementioned average particle size is shown by a size obtained by averaging the average particle size of the maximum particle and the average particle of the thirtieth particle from the maximum particle. Concerning the fine particle having an average particle size of, for example, 80 xcexcm, the average particle size of the maximum particle is 171 xcexcm or less, the average particle size of the thirtieth particle from the maximum particle is 120 xcexcm or less, and thus the average of these average particle sizes is from 87.5 to 73.5 xcexcm (JIS R 6001). When the ejection powder is ejected at a high ejection speed onto the surface of a material to be treated by blasting, thermal energy is generated by change in the speed of the ejection powder before and after collision of the powder with the surface of the material to be treated, in the light of the energy conservation law. This energy conversion occurs only in deformed portions, with which the ejection powder collides. Thus, temperature rises locally in the ejection powder, the reactive ejecting gas and the vicinity of the surface of the material to be treated. The rise in temperature is in proportion to the speed before the collision of the ejection powder. Therefore, if the ejection speed of the ejection powder is made high, temperature can be raised in the ejection powder, the reactive ejecting gas and the surface of the material to be treated. At this time, the ejection powder is heated on the surface of the material to be treated and consequently chemical reaction arises between elements in the ejection powder and the reactive ejecting gas, so as to produce a compound. Furthermore, the resultant compound is activation-adsorbed on the surface of the material to be treated by a rise in temperature of the compound so that the compound diffuses and penetrates into the surface or is applied thereto. It appears that in this way a nitride layer or a coat of the other compound is formed on the surface of the material to be treated. Simultaneously, effect of surface-processing heat treatment as shot peening is obtained. Therefore, the fine nitride, the ceramic coated product, and the coating method for it of the present invention, which are different from conventional ceramic coating, are concerned with a quite new manner of forming respective compound layers by diffusion and penetration, or coating of compounds onto the surface of a material to be treated, the compounds being produced by chemical reaction of the ejection powder and the ejecting gas, resulting from a rise in temperature of the ejection powder when the ejection powder collides with the material to be treated by blasting. For more specific explanation, vacuum vapor deposition, which is a conventional ceramic coating method, is given as an example. In this method, a material of a thin film is heated and vaporized at a high degree vacuum whose pressure is usually 1xc3x9710xe2x88x926 Torr or less to deposit the vaporized particles on the surface of a material to be treated, thereby forming the thin film. To form a thin film of, in particular, an oxide, a nitride or a carbide, a metal constituting the compound is used as a material of the thin film, and vaporized in a reactive atmosphere gas such as oxygen, nitrogen, ammonia or methane. This make it possible to deposit the thin film of the compound by any one of reaction steps of generation of particles from mutual addition of the reactants and thermal decomposition thereof into an oxide, a nitride, or a carbide; generation of nuclei of an oxide, a nitride, a carbide, and growth thereof; or generation of metal particles, and oxidation, nitriding or carbonization. For example, when Al and oxygen are used as a material of the thin film and the atmosphere gas, respectively, at a pressure of 10xe2x88x925-10xe2x88x924 Torr, a ceramic thin film of Al2O3 is formed at 400-500xc2x0 C. If ammonia is used as the atmosphere gas, polycrystal AlN is formed at 300xc2x0 C. Additionally, giving carburizing as an example, deposition of particles onto the surface of a material to be treated will be considered. In case wherein CO gas adheres to the surface of a ferrous metal product by a mere physical manner, such as external force, heating and others so that it is can be easily removed, Fe in the product cannot be reacted with CO. However, if heat or other energy is given thereto at a certain level or more, CO gas is activation-adsorbed on the surface of Fe. The activation-adsorbed CO gas is thermally dissociated into carbon dioxide and carbon. It has been considered that carbon generated by this reaction diffuses into Fe lattices to cause a carburizing phenomenon. In not only diffusion of carbon but also diffusion of any one of elements into a certain metal, the manner thereof is classified into surface diffusion (diffusion advancing along its surface), boundary diffusion (diffusion advancing along its crystal boundary) and lattice diffusion (diffusion advancing in its crystal lattices so as to sew the lattices). Lattice diffusion is caused only in case wherein both of the element and the metal form solid solution. Only surface diffusion and boundary diffusion are caused in case wherein both of the element and the metal do not form solid solution. Considering the aforementioned vacuum vapor deposition and carburizing, it can be thought that in the ceramic coating of the present invention a compound layer is produced on a material to be treated by steps as described in the following. For example, when an ejecting powder is ejected on the surface of a material to be treated at an ejection speed of 80 m/sec or more, or at an ejection pressure of 0.3 MPs or more to collide with the surface of the material to be treated, the speed of the ejection powder is reduced after the collision. Considering the energy conservation law, thermal energy is generated by inner friction based on deformation of the collision portion of the material to be treated in the collision, and then by this thermal energy the ejection powder is heated on the surface of the material to be treated. Therefore, the ejection powder and ejecting gas are simultaneously activated and reacted, and further the resultant compound is activation-adsorbed onto the workplace to diffuse and penetrate onto the material to be treated, or coat it. It can be thought that in this way the compound layer is formed. As for compressed nitrogen gas, it can be thought that temperature of the surface of the material to be treated rises at a nitrogen penetration/diffusion temperature or higher, so that the surface reacts with nitrogen gas, whereby nitriding is carried out. The object of the present invention is to activation-absorb the compound on the surface of a material to be treated by using a rise in temperature of an ejection powder. Thus, in order that the ejection powder is instantaneously heated by the aforementioned thermal energy, the ejection powder should not comprise heavy shots, but it needs to comprise shots having a particle size of 200-20 xcexcm in a powdery form, that is, ejection fine particles. The particle size is preferably 100 xcexcm or less, from the viewpoint of thickness of the film and improvement in adhesion. Considering effective conversion into the thermal energy at the aforementioned ejection speed, the ejection pressure is preferably 0.3 MPa or more. Moreover, heating an ejecting gas, a material to be treated, or both of them are more effective to heighten reactivity. Although nitrogen gas is necessary for fine nitriding, it is sufficient that a nitrogen reactive component is contained in either one of a material to be treated or an ejecting powder. When the nitrogen reactive component is contained in the ejecting powder, a coat is formed on the surface of the material to be treated by the ejection powder and simultaneously a nitride is produced in the coat. In the method of the present invention, either one of them is at least reacted so that a nitride layer is produced, or coating with a nitride layer is performed. For example, in the case wherein compressed nitrogen gas is used to eject a mixture flow, if the material to be treated comprises a metal material containing Ti, V, Al, Cr or the like as a nitrogen reactive component and the ejecting powder comprises a similar metal, a nitride layer made of TiN, VN, AlN, CrN or the like is produced on the surface of the material to be treated by diffusion and penetration. Simultaneously, a nitride is also produced in the surface coat covered with the ejection powder. If the surface of the material to be treated is the same as the above and the ejection powder comprises a ceramic or the like, which does not contain any nitrogen reactive component, a nitride is generated only on the surface of the material to be treated. If both of the material to be treated and the ejection powder contain the nitrogen reactive component, a nitride is produced on the surface of the material to be treated and in the coat. In this case, similarly a coat can be formed by the ejection powder. Additionally speaking, in the case wherein the material to be treated comprises a mixture of a metal material containing Ti, V, Al, Cr or the like, or a mixture of this metal and a ceramic, if the ejection powder is the same as the material to be treated, a nitride is produced in both of the material to be treated and the coat. If the material to be treated comprises a ceramic and the ejection powder comprises the aforementioned mixture, a nitride is produced only in the coat. In other words, if only the material to be treated contains the nitrogen reactive component, a nitride is produced on the surface of the material to be treated; if both of the material to be treated and the ejection powder do not contain any nitrogen reactive component, nitriding is not carried out; and if only the ejection powder contains the nitrogen reactive component, a nitride is produced only in the formed coat. A blast machine used in Example 1 which will be described later is a gravity blast machine, but any other air type blast machines may be used, wherein ejection energy of a compressed gas is used to blow an abrasive. Examples thereof are a siphon or suction blast machine, which is in an absorption type, and a straight hydraulic blast machine. In the straight hydraulic blast machine, in a recollecting tank of an abrasive, which is herein a powder, the abrasive after ejection and dust are separated, and the dust is fed through a duct to a dust collector having an exhauster, and the abrasive drops down to the lower portion of the recollecting tank so that the abrasive is collected at this portion. A pressure tank is disposed, through a dump valve, under the recollecting tank. When the abrasive is removed away from the pressure tank, the dump valve goes down so that the powdery abrasive in the recollecting tank is introduced into the pressure tank. When the powder is introduced into the pressure tank, a compressed gas is charged into this tank. Simultaneously, the dump valve is closed so that the pressure in the pressure tank rises. Thus, the powder is forced out from a supplying opening at the lower position of the tank. To the supplying opening, a compressed gas as a reactive ejecting gas is separately introduced, and the powder is carried to a nozzle by a hose. The powder is then ejected together with the gas at a high speed from its nozzle tip. The outline of the suction blast machine will be described in brief. When a compressed gas is ejected from a hose connected to a source for supplying the compressed gas as a reactive ejecting gas into an ejection nozzle for suction, the inside of the nozzle is made into a negative pressure. This negative pressure causes a powder inside a tank to be sucked into the nozzle through an abrasive hose, and then the powder is ejected from its nozzle tip. As for the outline of the gravity blast machine, a nozzle for ejecting an abrasive, in a form of the one as shots mentioned above or of powder and the like, is disposed inside a cabinet having a gateway for taking in and out a material to be treated, and a pipe is connected to this nozzle. This pipe is connected to a compressor. A compressed gas is supplied from this compressor. A hopper is arranged under the cabinet. The lowest end of the hopper is connected through a conduit to an upper side face of a recollecting tank arranged above the cabinet, and the lower end of the recollecting tank is connected through a pipe to the nozzle. The abrasive in the recollecting tank is subjected to gravity or a given pressure so as to drop from the recollecting tank. The abrasive is then ejected together with the compressed gas supplied to the nozzle through the pipe to the cabinet. In Example 1 which will be described later, titanium as an abrasive is introduced into the recollecting tank, the average particle size of shots of the titanium being 45 xcexcm. This abrasive is in a substantially spherical form. A material to be treated comprising 6A14V titanium alloy, is introduced from the gateway into a barrel inside the cabinet, and then the shots are ejected on the surface of the 6A14V titanium alloy at an ejection pressure of 0.6 MPa or more, an ejection speed of 80 m/sec or more, and an ejection distance of 100 mm. The ejected abrasive, and dust produced at this time drop into the hopper below the cabinet, and then rise by a rising air current which is being generated in the conduit so that they are forwarded to the recollecting tank. Thus, the abrasive is recollected. The dust inside the recollecting tank is introduced from the upper end of the recollecting tank through the pipe to the dust collector by means of an air current inside the recollecting tank, and then is collected at the bottom of the dust collector. Normal gas is discharged from the exhauster arranged at the upper portion of the duct collector. Moreover, a nitrogen cylinder not illustrated is used as a source for supplying a compressed gas, and nitrogen as the compressed gas is forwarded through the aforementioned pipe, so that the ejection powder of titanium is pressed and forwarded together with nitrogen as described above. Thus, the powder is supplied through the pipe to the ejection nozzle having a nozzle diameter of 5 mm and then is ejected onto the 6A14V titanium alloy inside the barrel of the cabinet. The conditions for blasting work carried out in the aforementioned blast machine are shown in the following table. When titanium, which was an ejection powder, was ejected by nitrogen gas in the aforementioned processing, a TiN coat was formed on the surface of the 6A14V titanium alloy, so that its color became golden and hardness of its surface was raised. Moreover, its appearance became beautiful. Thus, its commercial value was improved.

Medical devices may include a tubular body including a lumen and a wire extending through the tubular body. For example, a lead includes at least one wire—a lead wire, extending through a tubular body—a lead body. The lead wire may be metallic while the lead body may be a silicone or polyurethane material. The lead body isolates the lead wires from surrounding tissue and any external environment that could compromise the lead's performance. During use, lead wires may rub on the inner surface of the lead body due to the constant movement of the patient. Over time, the lead wires may abrade or wear on the inner surface of the lead body. In some circumstances, such wear can result in a failure of the isolation system and short-circuiting of the lead. In another example, a rotational atherectomy catheter includes at least one wire—a drive shaft, extending through a tubular body—a catheter. The drive shaft may be a helically coiled metallic wire while the catheter may be a silicone or polyurethane material. The catheter isolates the rotating drive shaft from the surrounding tissue. A lubricant including saline may flow between the catheter and the drive shaft. During use, where the catheter must curve to confirm to the human body, the drive shaft may be forced against the inner surface of the catheter. This force may push lubricant out from between the outer surface of the drive shaft and the inner surface of the catheter. Without lubrication, friction between the rotating drive shaft and the catheter may generate head and particles which may result in a failure of the rotational atherectomy catheter.

The present disclosure relates to a light emitting device. Light emitting devices for lighting purposes are sometimes required to achieve high luminance and high color rendering properties. Color rendering properties of the light emitting devices can be improved by, for example, using a plurality of light emitting elements having different emission wavelengths. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2006-310613 discloses a light emitting device which includes light emitting elements which are capable of emitting white light, red light, green light and blue light.

The gaming machine manufacturing industry has traditionally developed gaming machines with a gambling game. A gambling game is typically a game of chance, which is a game where the outcome of the game is generally dependent solely on chance (such as a slot machine). A game of chance can be contrasted with a game of skill where the outcome of the game can depend upon a player's skill playing the game. Gambling games are typically not as interactive as skill games and do not include graphics as sophisticated as the graphics presented in a skill game, such as a video game provided for entertainment.

This invention is directed to a method for modifying a brittle environmental or bond coating applied to turbine airfoils by a thermal spray process, and specifically to a stoichiometric NiAl coating having key quality characteristics required to protect the underlying turbine airfoil in a high temperature, oxidative and corrosive atmosphere while permitting application of long life thermal barrier topcoats. Many systems and improvements to these systems have been set forth in the prior art for providing protection to turbine airfoils used in the hot section of a gas turbine from the combined effects of high temperatures, an oxidizing environment and hot corrosive gases. These improvements include new formulations for the materials used in the airfoils and include exotic and expensive nickel-based superalloys. Other solutions have included application of coating systems. These coating systems include environmental coating systems and thermal barrier coating systems. The environmental coating systems include nickel aluminides, platinum aluminides and combinations thereof. A multitude of improvements in these coatings and in methods of applying these coatings has been set forth that increase the life of the system, and developments in these improvements continue. In certain systems, thermal barrier coatings (TBC""s) in the form of a ceramic are applied over the environmental coatings. In other systems, a bond coat such as a MCrAlX where M is an element selected from Ni, Co, Fe or combinations of these elements are applied as an intermediary between the airfoil and the applied ceramic. The bond coat desirably also is employed to improve the environmental performance of the system. These aluminides and MCrAlX alloys are substantially non-brittle alloys, being comprised substantially of gamma or gamma+gamma prime phases, although small amounts of higher Al content beta-phases may be present, particularly in the aluminides. Although many of the solutions presented by the use of the nickel aluminides do provide improvements to the performance of the applied environmental coatings, one of the problems is that NiAl is a substantially stoichiometric composition, even when additions of rare earth material are made on a substitutional basis. These substantially stoichiometric compositions have increased Al content and exhibit outstanding oxidation resistance and act as stable bond coats that improve the system""s resistance to spallation of applied thermal barrier topcoats. However, substantially stoichiometric NiAl is an extremely brittle material at ambient temperatures, with very low tensile ductility. Although the prior art methods for application of the nickel aluminides did not always achieve a uniform stoichiometric coating of NiAl on a substrate because of concerns with brittleness, these methods can be used to achieve a substantially stoichiometric composition. These processes and methods include thermal spray techniques including but not limited to low pressure plasma spray (LPPS), high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) and detonation gun (D-gun), that thermally spray a powder of a predetermined composition. Another frequently used method is to apply a coating by placing the substrate in an elevated temperature atmosphere that has a high concentration of a preselected element or elements in a gaseous phase. Typically, the preselected elements include at least aluminum. These methods include vapor phase aluminiding (VPA) and CVD methods. The aluminide coating is formed as the preselected element or elements are incorporated into the substrate and then diffuse into near surface regions, combining with elements already present in the substrate, such as nickel. A third method of applying the coating that is frequently used includes electroplating. Here the substrate is placed in an electrolytic bath that includes metallic ions, typically Ni or Pt, but also Al. A thin coating of the ions is applied to the substrate by passage of an electrical current through the substrate. The aluminide is then formed by exposing the plated substrate to Al by one of the above methods. The inherent problem with all of these methods is that when a substantially uniform stoichiometric composition of coating across the surface of the substrate is achieved, very little can be done to modify the surface of the coated substrate due to the brittle nature of the substantially stoichiometric NiAl intermetallic. Thus, certain key quality characteristics may not be readily achievable by these prior art methods. These include the correct degree of coating density and the proper surface roughness as the brittle nature of the intermetallic NiAl precludes mechanical working the coated substrate in the same manner as has been done with nonstoichiometric compositions of NiAl or PtAl. What is needed are cost effective methods that can be employed to modify surface roughness and, if possible, density, of a substantially stoichiometric composition of NiAl over the surface of a substrate such as a turbine airfoil without adversely affecting the brittle substrate. The method used to modify the surface of the stoichiometric composition of the coated substrate should control the final surface roughness of the coated article, and preferably if possible, the density of the applied coating by desirably acting on the substrate at or close to ambient temperatures without causing the brittle NiAl coating to be damaged. Improvements in manufacturing technology and materials are the keys to increased performance and reduced costs for many articles. As an example, continuing and often interrelated improvements in processes and materials have resulted in major increases in the performance of aircraft gas turbine engines. Blade technology including the composition and manner in which coatings are applied can improve blade life and performance. Currently, most as-manufactured NiAl coatings are neither sufficiently smooth nor sufficiently dense to achieve the full benefits of the NiAl coating. One method of applying a nickel aluminide coating is by a thermal spray process, such as the high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) process. Spray processes such as HVOF produce a surface roughness typically in the range of 100-240 micro-inches, with a common roughness of 180xc2x130 microinches. If the surface formed by the HVOF spray is not stoichiometric, for example, if it is rich in Ni, then stoichiometry can be achieved by exposing the surface to an atmosphere rich in Al followed by a suitable heat treatment. However, these subsequent heat treatments will not affect the surface finish formed by the HVOF process. A smoother surface is desired as it will allow for better adhesion of a ceramic TBC, while a denser coating will improve the corrosion and oxidation performance of the coating over the operational life cycle of the part. In order to achieve the required surface finish and a desired density, the coated article is worked by one or a combination of controlled mechanical techniques that include impinging the surface of the article with particles of preselected size for a preselected time and intensity to provide a smoother surface finish and hopefully improved density of the parts without adversely affecting the brittle coating material. While the mechanical techniques have been used for other applications, they have not been used to improve the surface finish of stoichiometric NiAl coatings applied to turbine airfoils. In order to apply these techniques to brittle stoichiometric NiAl, certain process controls are required to prevent damage to the coating. The present invention utilizes steel balls of preselected size to peen the surface of the airfoil to achieve the desired surface finish of at least 120 micro-inches. Desirably, the peening also densifies the coating. And while the present invention was developed for use with stoichiometric NiAl which is brittle, it may be used advantageously with any other coating with an unacceptably rough surface finish due to application techniques and that is inherently brittle, but which requires a smooth surface finish for proper performance. Typically, these coatings have a higher Al content than other, more ductile coatings and are identified as beta phases, and the coatings contain a substantial amount of the beta phases or are primarily beta phases. An advantage of the present invention is the ability to tailor the surface roughness of a brittle, substantially stoichiometric NiAl coating. In this way, the inherent advantages of a substantially stoichiometric NiAl composition can be utilized, while the brittle nature of the stoichiometric composition can be overcome so that the surface finish of the article can be modified to achieve the same results currently achievable with non-stoichiometric compositions that are either low in Ni or low in Al. Another advantage of the present invention is the ability to increase the density of the brittle coating without damaging it. Thus, the present invention can modify the as-sprayed coating to achieve the required surface finish and desired density in order to take advantage of the improved corrosion and oxidation capabilities of the smoother, denser coating without damaging the brittle coating. The airfoils that have had their surface finish modified in accordance with the present invention have a more aerodynamic gas flow path that serves to improve efficiency. Additionally, the furnace cycle testing (FCT) performance improves as the surface finish is improved, which is an indication of improved thermal performance, or alternatively, resistance to spalling. Still another advantage of the methods of the present invention is that they can be applied to both new airfoils and to airfoils that have undergone repair. These methods provide a simple, effective technique for achieving substantially stoichiometric NiAl coatings that is cost effective and that can provide an adequate substitute for coatings that have a PtAl component.

Integrated circuits often are provided with BIST (built-in self-test) circuitry. The BIST circuitry may be used to test parts of a circuit during the design of a circuit. For example an integrated circuit which has BIST circuitry can be tested by automated test equipment (ATE). The BIST circuitry may comprise one or more scan chains. The ATE may be arranged to scan in a plurality of scan values and to receive a plurality of output scan values. These output scan values can be analysed to determine if the part of the circuit under test is performing correctly.

The present invention relates to a device for backlash-free cam control. Such devices are required, for instance, in the construction of photographic lenses in order to displace one or more lens members with respect to the objective tube, upon zooming or for making a distance setting. It is customary to provide one of the relatively displaceable parts with a cam guide curve and the other with a follower which slides along the guide curve. In order to obtain freedom from backlash between the parts the following possibilities are present in accordance with the prior art: The control curve is developed as a groove having parallel surfaces and the follower which is forced into the groove bears an elastic sleeve. This has the disadvantage, however, that the follower moves in the groove with friction, which results in undesirably stiff movement of the device. The sleeves, which are generally made of plastic, are subject to considerable wear when placed under strong stress, which wear has a negative effect on the high accuracy of adjustment required for optical instruments. It is possible to develop the follower as a roller and to apply it, free of backlash, against the guide curve by means of a spring which acts between the parts which are movable with respect to each other. Displacement devices which are made free of backlash in this manner can be moved very easily. In the case of steep curves, however, there is the undesired effect that upon termination of the adjustment force, and as a result of the greatly reduced friction, the follower may be moved by itself by the tensioned spring. In order to prevent this, the friction of the parts to be displaced must always be greater than the spring force which acts in the direction of the guide curve. From West German Pat. No. 2,346,398 it is known, for the displacement of two lens systems in opposite directions, to apply each of the corresponding followers against its guide groove via a spring in such manner that upon the movement of the followers one spring is tensioned and the other spring is relaxed by the same amount. In this way, backward-driving forces are avoided and only slight frictional forces need be overcome upon the displacement. The device described can be used, however, only if two parts are to be displaced with respect to each other, in which connection the two courses of movement must be in a fixed proportional relationship to each other. Since two grooves and two springs which are adapted to each other are required, it is furthermore also expensive to manufacture.

As is well-known, carbon monoxide (CO) is a toxic, odorless, colorless gas capable of producing discomfort, illness, mental and physical disability and/or death if present in inhaled air, gas or smoke in sufficiently high concentrations. Combustion of many kinds such as occurs in coal and oil fires, gas flames, internal combustion engines, and burning tobacco, in particular, are common sources of CO. Marshes also generate CO. Even non-smokers are frequently exposed to potentially excessive quantities of carbon monoxide since carbon monoxide is a substantial air pollutant produced by automobiles, internal and external combustion engines, in many industrial processes, and by neighboring smokers. Thus, guards and workers in automobile tunnels, or passengers in automobiles may be exposed to excessive quantities of carbon monoxide. As an illustration of the danger presented by carbon monoxide in air, studies have shown that where the product of hours of exposure and parts of carbon monoxide per 10,000 parts of air equal 15, a danger to life is present. It therefore would be highly desirable that effective means be found for absorbing carbon monoxide either at the point where generated or from air to be inhaled by individuals. Hemoglobin, the term as used herein designating ferrous hemoglobin or oxyhemoglobin, is an attractive possibility for use toward such ends but has not been available due to the fact that when it is no longer within the erothrocyte and is exposed to oxygen of the air it forms methemoglobin which is inactive toward carbon monoxide. Further, the equivalent weight of hemoglobin is high, making it necessary that relatively large quantities of the material be used for absorption of carbon monoxide. The molecular weight of hemoglobin is about 66,000 and each hemoglobin molecule contains four iron atoms, active in absorbing carbon monoxide, so that the equivalent weight of hemoglobin relative to absorption of carbon monoxide is about 16,500. In contrast, the molecular weight of each heme moiety which contains an atom of iron is approximately 600. Since it is this portion of the hemoglobin molecule which is responsible for the absorption of carbon monoxide by the formation of a stable complex, it would obviously be desirable to eliminate, in so far as is possible, those portions of the hemoglobin molecule which are inactive with respect to absorption of carbon monoxide.

A semiconductor device may include a stacked body and a semiconductor columnar member that penetrates the stacked body. The stacked body includes a conductive film and an insulating film alternately disposed. It is desirable to increase the number of layers of the stacked body to achieve higher integration of the semiconductor device.

It is known to acquire one or more samples of tissue when particular localized medical problems are suspected, in order to test such samples and determine whether or to what extent a problem exists. For example, if a physician discovers a growth within soft tissue of a patient and wishes to test whether it is benign or cancerous, a deep biopsy sample of the soft tissue can be acquired. For such cases, biopsy devices have been developed that can be passed through skin, muscle and/or other tissues or body-walls and into the area of tissue of concern to the physician. The device's distal end cuts out a sample, e.g. a “core-sample,” of the suspicious tissue. Various forms of existing biopsy devices use a moving mandrel or cannula that facilitates movement through tissue and cutting of a sample from surrounding tissue, so that the sample may be withdrawn with the device. A quick, longitudinal movement of a cannula, for example, is generally used to cut through tissue faster than the tissue can be moved forward or out of the way by the device. Depending on the particular type of device, problems that exist with such biopsy devices can include an inability to obtain a full core of tissue. For instance, a stylet or cannula may shoot forward beyond the tissue of interest or other sampling area, or may cut only a portion of a cylinder, thus not providing a full 360-degree sample. A full core of tissue has advantages over smaller or more-limited samples in providing sufficient tissue for assay, in determining any changes or alterations in tissue at various positions in the sample (e.g. equidistant locations in various directions from the sampling path), and in noting changes in tissue as it extends from a center of the sampling area or path. Inaccuracies in the physician's or other operator's anticipation as to exactly how far the device's distal end will advance during sampling can result in the target tissue being overshot or undershot. If the operator does not know with significant accuracy the depth of the tissue of interest, or does not assess where the tissue of interest is with respect to the cutting area of the device, the insertion of the device may result in the cutting area being partially or completely outside of the tissue of interest, resulting in acquisition of tissue that does not provide the information the physician is seeking. Additionally, there may be difficulties in providing speed and/or power of forward thrust for the cannula necessary to move through and shear tens of millimeters of tissue cleanly, regardless of the tissue's density. Forward-thrusting biopsy devices, if not placed properly, if they have less-sharp edges, or if they are under-powered in propelling the cannula forward, can press tissue forward rather than shearing through it. Common results in such cases are less or no sample within the device, or crushing some or all of the tissue. It has been found that the physical state of the sample can affect its usefulness for assay or its ability to provide significant information relative to the health or other characteristics of the sample.

When controlling a robotic device (or more simply, a robot), there are a wide variety of functions that a user can perform. For example, depending on the robot's capabilities, the user may be able to operate controls to drive the robot's drive train, control its head movements, determine how the robot's outputs signal expressions (e.g., via a display and/or sound), and control at least one manipulator (e.g., an arm and/or grabbing mechanism). Current control applications and human interface devices provide an overly complex set of controls that can overwhelm a user and get in the way of the general goal of controlling the robotic device as desired. What is needed is a way to control a robotic device in a straightforward, intuitive manner.

There is currently interest in the detergent industry in concentrated detergent products. These products provide advantages to the consumer, who has a product which can be used in lower amounts and is more easily stored, and to the producer and intermediates, who have lower transportation and warehousing costs. A major difficulty, though, is finding an inexpensive and efficient way to produce a high active detergent particle for inclusion in a concentrated detergent product. By "high active" is meant greater than about 50% active by weight of the detergent particles is anionic surfactant. The traditional method for producing detergent granules is spray drying. Typically, detergent ingredients such as surfactant, builder, silicate and carbonate are mixed in a mix tank to form a slurry which is about 35% to 50% water. This slurry is then atomized in a spray drying tower to reduce moisture to below about 10%. It is possible to compact spray dried particles to make dense detergent granules. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,979, Moore et al., issued Dec. 29, 1987. However, the use of spray drying to make condensed granules has some disadvantages. Spray drying is energy intensive and the resulting granules are typically not dense enough to be useful in a concentrated detergent product. Spray drying methods generally involve a limited amount (less than 40%) of organic components such as surfactant for environmental and safety reasons. One way to reduce the energy required to spray dry detergent granules is to reduce the moisture in the slurry which is atomized in the spray drying tower, i.e., by reducing the evaporative load. An alternative method for making a high active detergent particle is by continuous neutralization in, for example, a continuous neutralization loop. There are continuous neutralization loops available to which relatively concentrated caustic can be added. Using a caustic solution which is about 50% sodium hydroxide allows reduction of moisture in the resulting neutralized surfactant paste to about 16% water. The following publications describe ways to make free-flowing high active particles without drying, using surfactant paste, and made with a continuous neutralization system: Japanese Patent 61-118500, Hara et al., laid-open June 5, 1986, Japanese Patent 60-072999, Satsusa et al., laid open Apr. 25, 1985, U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,707, Brooks, issued May 7, 1985, U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,994, Kowalchuk, issued July 31, 1979, and European Patent 266847-A. The use of polyethylene glycol and ethoxylated nonionic surfactants in granular detergent compositions is known in the art: e.g. Japanese Patent 61-231099, Sai et al., laid-open Oct. 15, 1986, Japanese Patent 62-263299, Nagai et al., laid-open Nov. 16, 1987, U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,326, Czempik et al., issued Jan. 27, 1987, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,838,072, Smith et al., patented Sept. 24, 1974. The following patents describe processes and/or surfactant compositions comprising viscosity modifiers such as polyethylene glycol and ethoxylated (E.sub.20-60) alkyl (C.sub.6-12) phenol: U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,470, Reuter et al., issued Nov. 13, 1984, U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,092, Schmid et al., issued Jan. 22, 1985, U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,076, Schmid et al., issued July 30, 1985, U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,128, Linde et al., issued June 23, 1987, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,426, Koch et al., issued Sept. 20, 1987. It has been found that an improved high active surfactant paste, and therefore better detergent granules, can be made by adding to a continuous neutralization system, along with the acid form of an anionic surfactant and alkali metal hydroxide, an .alpha.-aminodicarboxylic acid selected from the group consisting of glutamic acid, aspartic acid, aminomalonic acid, aminoadipic acid, and 2-amino-2-methylpentanedioic acid, or their alkali salts, particularly monosodium glutamate. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is popular throughout the world as a flavor enhancer. It is used in many Western packaged foods and in Asian countries alongside salt and pepper. Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. H. F. Mark et al., John Wiley & Sons, NY (1978), 3rd ed., vol. 4, pp. 410-421. These .alpha.-aminodicarboxylic acids are not to our knowledge known to be useful in detergent-making processes, for preventing discoloration of high-active detergent particles or for improving processability. The following publications describe detergent compositions containing amino di-acid components such as glutamic acid and its salts. U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,020, Yamagishi et al, issued Mar. 18, 1975 discloses a detergent composition having good transparency and detergency, which preserves freshness of food and the like, and which comprises a certain sucrose ester component and an organic acid component. The latter is malic acid and/or tartaric acid and/or alkaline salts of either. The composition preferably further includes a saccharide component and/or an amino acid component, typically glutamic acid, alkali salts of glutamine acid, glycine and/or alkali salts of glycine. The amino acid component, e.g. sodium glutamate, is added to impart a freshness preservation ability to food to be washed (Col. 4, lines 10-16). U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,717, Johnston et al, issued Sept. 6, 1977, discloses a bar soap which is said to be given a skin moisturizing effect by including a water soluble lactate and/or glutamate salt. The glutamate salt and/or lactate are described as additives effective to increase the water content of human skin (Col. 1, lines 17-29). Japanese Publication 61-108387 discloses a method for stabilizing alkali proteases in detergent compositions by combining amino acid or its salt and, for improved stabilization, calcium salt. Japanese Publication 60-243199 discloses a two-phase liquid detergent composition containing 10-50 wt. % of at least one anionic and/or nonionic surfactant, and 2-30 wt. % carboxylic acid. The components of the composition are said to separate on standing and can be mixed together. German Offen. 1,942,236 discloses enzyme-containing detergent compositions containing anionic, zwitterionic, or nonionic surfactants and builders, and for improved protein stain-removing efficiency, 2-15% S-free C.sub.4-11 -amino acid or its water-soluble salt; optionally containing .gtoreq.1 additional CO.sub.2 H or amino group (including glutamic acid). Copending patent application Ser. No. 516,292, Wise et al, filed May 4, 1990 describes light duty liquid or gel dishwashing detergent compositions containing an alkyl ethoxy carboxylate surfactant. Disodium glutamate is mentioned as a preferred buffer therein.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a fishing reel, and more particularly to fishing reel with a unidirectional control device that can be used equally well by a right-handed person or a left-handed person. 2. Description of Related Art Fishing is a popular way to release working pressure and enjoy natural beauty for people all over the world. Most people fish for fun and enjoy the achievement of catching fish. Therefore, all types of fishers need to have a fishing rod and other fishing accessories handy because the unexpected opportunity to catch the big one may appear. In particular, fly fishing has been considered the ultimate form of grace in angling and unlike many other styles a center pin reel is still used. Despite many refinements, such a reel is much simpler than other reels such as multiplier and fixed spool reels, in that it is in essence a drum revolving on a spindle. In use, line is cast by flexing the rod back and forth, and the momentum of the released fly and line revolves the reel until the fly drops to the water. To retrieve the fly, the angler has to revolve the drum of the reel in the direction opposite to that when releasing the line. If a fish is hooked and puts a struggle further line may be pulled from the reel because the angler cannot immediately overpower the fish. In order to prevent too much line undesirably being pulled from the reel a ratchet system is fitted within the reel whereby varying levels of resistance to outward rotation of the drum is limited. Thus, the reel has a substantially unidirectional mode. Because the direction of rolling the reel for a right-handed person is opposite to that for a left-handed person, two fishing reels with different unidirectional modes are needed for the use of different users. However, the unidirectional structure of the conventional fishing reel is complex and is not adjustable. The conventional fishing reel has a high manufacture cost and is not easy to maintain by the owner. To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention tends to provide a fishing reel to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems. The main objective of the invention is to provide a fishing reel with a unidirectional control device that can be used by either a right-handed person or a left-handed person. The fishing reel has a spool base, a spool, a unidirectional control device and an axle axially penetrating the elements of the fishing reel. The unidirectional control device has a rotating plate, a driving roller, a limiting wheel, a locking device and a trigger device. A driving roller recess is defined in the limiting wheel to receive the driving roller. A plurality of first guide trenches is defined in the limiting wheel and inclinedly extends from the driving roller recess in a first direction. A plurality of second guide trenches is defined in the limiting wheel and inclinedly extends from the driving roller recess in a second direction opposite to the first direction of the first guide trenches. A biasing member is deformably received in each respective first guide trench. A brake block is movably received in each respective first guide trench to be selectively engaged with a corresponding one of the biasing members. The second guide trenches are kept empty. Accordingly, the driving roller and the spool will be limited to roll in a direction by the brake blocks in the first guide trenches. In addition, the rotating direction of the fishing reel is changeable by means of changing the locations of the brake blocks and the biasing members to be used by either a right-handed person or a left-handed person. The use of the fishing reel is versatile, and the cost for manufacturing different types of the fishing reel is low.

When a thermosetting resin is used as a sealant for a semiconductor package, the reliability of the package is affected by whether or not adhesion between the thermosetting resin and a metal material used for a substrate and wiring is favorable. As a technique to improve the adhesion between a metal and a thermosetting resin, there is known a technique using a method that includes mixing the thermosetting resin with a chelating agent as an adhesion aid. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-298875 proposes a resin composition that is obtained by mixing an epoxy resin with an aluminum chelate, thus having an improved adhesion to an aluminum substrate. The chelating agent is considered to improve the adhesion by interacting with a metal or a thermosetting resin. However, the chelating agent acts also as a cross-linking agent for resins, the mixing of the chelating agent may sometimes embrittle the entire thermosetting resin. Particularly, when the thermosetting resin is used as a sealant for a semiconductor device, there is a concern that cracks will develop in the thermosetting resin due to a heating cycles. In view of the above circumstances, an object of the present invention is to obtain a resin molded article with improved crack resistance of a thermosetting resin while maintaining adhesion between a metal and the thermosetting resin.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to an apparatus and method for converting the circular flow inside a melt channel to a uniform annular flow. More specifically, this invention relates to an apparatus and method for improving uniform melt flow and elimination of stagnation points as it passes through an injection molding machine and/or hot runner system. 2. Summary of the Prior Art The large number of variables in the injection molding process creates serious challenges to creating a uniform and high quality part. These variables are significantly compounded within multi-cavity molds. Here we have the problem of not only shot to shot variations but also variations existing between individual cavities within a given shot. Shear induced flow imbalances occur in all multi-cavity molds that use the industry standard multiple cavity xe2x80x9cnaturally balancedxe2x80x9d runner system whereby the shear and thermal history within each mold is thought to be kept equal regardless of which hot-runner path is taken by the molten material as it flows to the mold cavities. These flow imbalances have been found to be significant and may be the largest contributor to product variation in multi-cavity molds. Despite the geometrical balance, in what has traditionally been referred to as xe2x80x9cnaturally balancedxe2x80x9d runner systems, it has been found that these runner systems can induce a significant variation in the melt conditions delivered to the various cavities within a multi-cavity mold. These variations can include melt temperature, pressure, and material properties. Within a multi-cavity mold, this will result in variations in the size, shape and mechanical properties of the product. It is well known that providing for smooth flow of pressurized melt is critical to successful molding of certain materials. Sharp bends, corners or dead spots in the melt passage results in unacceptable residence time for some portion of the melt being processed which can cause too much delay on color changes and/or result in decomposition of some materials or pigments of some materials such as polyvinyl chloride and some polyesters or other high temperature crystalline materials. In most multi-cavity valve gated injection molding systems it is necessary for the melt flow passage to change direction by 90xc2x0 and to join the bore around the reciprocating valve stem as it extends from the manifold to each nozzle. These problems necessarily require fine tolerance machining to overcome and it is well known to facilitate this by providing a separate bushing seated in the nozzle as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,518 to Gellert. A similar arrangement for multi-cavity molding is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,179 to Gellert. U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,969 to Gellert also shows a multi-cavity arrangement in which the bushing is located between the manifold and the nozzle. Also shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,705,473 to Schmidt, provides a bushing in which the melt duct in the bushing splits into two smoothly curved arms which connect to opposite sides of the valve member bore. U.S. Pat. No. 4,740,151 to Schmidt, et al. shows a multi-cavity system with a different sealing and retaining bushing having a flanged portion mounted between the manifold and the back plate. U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,178 to Fujita discloses a simple chamfered surface located behind the valve stem for promoting the elimination of the stagnation point which would otherwise form. U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,858 to Gellert shows a separate bushing seated between the manifold and the injection nozzle in the melt stream which comprises a melt duct with two smoothly curved arms which connect between the melt passage in the manifold and the melt passage around the valve stem in an effort to eliminate the stagnation points. Another valve nozzle device has also been known, the device having a number of valve nozzles as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8. The plastic resin is passed through a first passageway 30 and then passed through a second passage 30a extending substantially at right angles with respect to the first passage 30 into valve chambers and then injected into metal molds through nozzles (not shown). Needle valve 32 is provided adjacent to the nozzle. With the above described construction of the conventional multi-valve nozzle device, since the second passage 30a extending substantially at right angles with respect to the first passage 30 is in a plane including the needle valve 32, resin is caused to stagnate at positions P1 and P2 as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8. The stagnation of the plastic resin causes a pressure loss in each valve chamber as well as inhibits color change and uniform melt velocity. Although the stagnation of the plastic resin may be more or less reduced by the application of the prior art, heretofore the complete elimination of the stagnation or and resulting non-uniform annular flow has been impossible. Reference should also be made to the following references: xe2x80x9cAnalysis for Extrusion Die Designxe2x80x9d by B. Proctor, SPE ANTEC, Washington, D.C. pages 211-218 (1971); and xe2x80x9cExtrusion Dies for Plastics and Rubberxe2x80x9d by W. Michaeli, Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-446-16190-2 (1992). There exists a need for a method and apparatus that substantially reduces the flow imbalances and stagnation points in an injection molding system and/or hot runner system that occurs as a result of the flow being diverted around a melt flow obstruction such as a valve stem, a nozzle, a nozzle tip, a valve stem guide, a torpedo, etc. A flow deflector in a melt channel, preferably around a valve stem or other flow obstruction, where the melt flow is converted from circular flow to annular flow. The deflector comprises a cylindrical body with a gradually expanding channel disposed on its outer surface. The channel is such that a first and second wall of the channel form two symmetrical inverted funnel-shaped cavities as the melt travels down the cylindrical body. The walls of the channel are designed to have substantially the same length in the direction the melt travels. In this arrangement, the melt flow is constricted on the near side of the flow as it travels around the cylindrical body which in turn promotes the flow around the back of the cylindrical body. Promoting the flow around the back of the cylindrical body helps to xe2x80x9cwash-outxe2x80x9d any stagnation points whilst also promoting a uniform annular flow rate as the melt exits the large end of the channel.

The present invention generally relates to managing an e-mail response, and more particularly to managing an e-mail response based on the e-mail domains of recipients. In general, an e-mail address may include a local part and a domain part, which are separated by an “@” symbol. For example, in the following e-mail address, “[email protected],” “Consultant1_LastName1” is the local part and “company.com” is the domain part (also known as the domain name). An e-mail message sent to an e-mail address may be directed to a location, e.g., a mailbox, on an e-mail server associated with the e-mail address. A user associated with the e-mail address may access the e-mail message by, e.g., retrieving the message from the e-mail server with an e-mail application that may be on the user's device, e.g., the user's computer. An e-mail message may be sent to multiple recipients or addressees. A recipient may respond to the e-mail message in a variety of ways including by replying to the sender of the e-mail, replying to all recipients and the sender, replying to less than all recipients and the sender, replying to all recipients and the sender and including other recipients, and forwarding to other recipients. Certain ways of responding to an e-mail message are automated in the sense that the addressee fields in a graphical user interface (GUI) may be auto-populated based on the type of response. For example, a “Reply to sender” command may auto-populate an addressee field with the sender's e-mail address, and a “Reply to all” command may auto-populate an addressee field with the sender's e-mail address and the e-mail addresses of all the recipients of the initial e-mail message. Other ways of responding to the e-mail message may require manual insertion and/or deletion of e-mail addresses.

High-quality semiconductor heterostructures, which are junctions of two dissimilar materials in contact, are crucial to the proper operation of many organic semiconductor devices, including light-emitting diodes and photovoltaics. The materials in contact may differ in one or more of the following opto-electronic properties: the hole and electron transport levels, refractive indices, excited state energy levels. By selecting the appropriate materials which are in contact, one can form e.g., a charge-confinement interface which transmits carriers of one sign but blocks carriers of the opposite sign. This may be achieved by adopting at least one of the following: the appropriate energy offsets in the hole and electron transport levels; a charge-injecting interface for efficient injection of charge of one sign by having a graded energy level; an exciton-confinement interface to prevent the exciton from wandering into the neighbouring layer by imposing a higher energy there; a photon-confinement interface that prevents photons from travelling away into the neighbouring layer by imposing the condition for total internal reflection at the interface; a charge-carrier-generation interface to create electrons and holes upon absorption of a photon by having the suitable offsets in both the electron and hole energy levels for exciton dissociation; a cascaded set of energy levels for these electrons and holes for even more efficient charge-carrier generation; or a charge-carrier-recombination interface to create excitons by the capture of electrons and holes electrically injected into the device by having the suitable offsets in both the electron and hole energy levels for exciton generation. An organic light emitting diode (OLED) consists of a cathode, an emissive layer, and an anode in a sandwich structure. The anode usually consists of a transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate coated with a layer of conducting polymer. The emissive layer consists of electron transporting, hole transporting and emissive materials. These materials may be molecules, oligomers or polymers or segments of polymers, or nanocrystals, or nanowires and nanosheets, with a π-π* gap of 1-4 electronvolts (eV). The cathode usually consists of a low work function material such as calcium, or a combination of an insulator such as lithium fluoride and a metal such as aluminium. When a negative bias is applied to the cathode and is larger than the built-in potential, electrons are injected into the electron transporting material, while holes are injected into the hole transporting material. The electron transporting and hole transporting materials may be the same or different. The electrons are transported into the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of the emissive material, and holes are transported into the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of the emissive material. The recombination of these electrons and holes gives a photon with energy corresponding to the LUMO-HOMO gap. An organic photovoltaic (OPV) device consists of an electron collector (cathode), an absorption and charge-generating layer and a hole collector (anode). The electron collector usually consists of a low work function material such as calcium or aluminium. The absorption and charge-generation layer consists of absorbing materials that absorb the light to give an exciton state, charge dissociation materials that dissociate this exciton state to give the electron and hole, and charge transporting materials that transport the electrons and holes away from the dissociation sites. These materials may be the same or different. They may be molecules, oligomers or polymers or segments of polymers, or nanocrystals or nanowires or nanosheets, with a π-π* gap of 1-4 electronvolts (eV). Upon absorption of a photon with energy similar to the absorption gap of the organic material, an exciton is formed. Excitons are coulombically-bound electron-hole pairs. Excitons need to be separated into electrons and holes, and collected at the cathode and anode respectively. The efficiency of separation of these photo-excited excitons into free electrons and holes is therefore critical to the efficiency of OPVs. This separation is achieved at the interface between two materials with appropriate energy offsets in both the LUMO and HOMO levels and is crucial for the efficient dissociation of the excitons to provide efficient OPVs. One of these materials is a hole transporting material, and the other is an electron transporting material. Holes and electrons are therefore respectively transported through these materials to the respective electrodes to be collected. For a number of applications, particularly for charge-carrier-recombination in light-emitting devices, and for charge-carrier-generation in photovoltaics, it is desirable to have a distributed heterostructure, as opposed to a planar heterostructure. A planar heterostructure is flat. A distributed heterostructure creates a large interfacial area between the two materials in contact, by having “fingers” of one material in contact with the other material or one material embedded in the other, so that the two or more materials are in intimate contact. Having a large heterostructure interfacial area can improve e.g., charge-carrier generation efficiency in photovoltaic devices. It is further desirable for the two charge-conducting materials that continuous paths exist between all locations in the hole transporting material to its proper contact (positively-biased contact for injection of holes in light-emitting diodes and negatively-biased contact for collection of holes in photovoltaics), and likewise for the electron transporting material. In addition, such paths should preferentially lie along the most direct route; otherwise the transport of these carriers would be obstructed, and the resistance of the device increases undesirably. Therefore, for these applications, the heterostructure not only has to have a large surface area but its morphology should ideally be columnar (i.e., the shapes, such as either voids or columns, pass through the thickness of the film), which may be referred to herein as the “columnar distributed heterostructure”. Columnar distributed heterostructures are widely expected to be beneficial, but so far their fabrication has proved problematic. Controlling the morphology of such structures during formation is not straightforward. In particular, for organic photovoltaic devices, the required lateral dimensions of the heterostructure in the directions along the plane of the film (i.e., the lateral length scale of the distributed heterostructure) is related to the exciton diffusion length scale. Absorption of light creates an exciton that diffuses about in the material. It is essential that this exciton can reach the charge-carrier-generating interface within its lifetime, in order to produce electrons and holes that can be separated. For typical exciton diffusion length scales of a few to tens of nanometers, it is useful to have the lateral length scale of similar dimensions, so that the majority of the excitons generated can reach the dissociation interface. With the charge-carriers so created, it is then essential for them to be transported to the respective collection electrodes. Up till now, it has proven difficult to fabricate such heterostructures of such fineness in a suitable morphology. It is one of the objectives of this invention to provide ways to achieve this without resorting to use of an electron beam or other lithographic methods. It has been shown by Friend and co-workers (Nano. Lett. 2002, 2, 1353-1357), and others, that when two semiconducting polymers are co-dissolved in a common solvent, and the mixture deposited to give a film by spin-coating or ink-jet printing, the film formed will be naturally phase-separated. The character and length scale of the phase separation depends amongst other factors on the solvent and its evaporation rate (influenced e.g., by heating or the presence of a high vapor pressure of the solvent). These are useful parameters in providing a degree of control over the phase separation length scale and morphology, and hence of the distributed heterostructure, which has been shown to be useful for photovoltaic applications. The typical phase separation length scale is of the order of a few micrometers to tens of micrometers. Although the solvent and its evaporation rate can influence this somewhat, it is ultimately strongly related to the character of the polymers. Very fine heterostructures below 1 micron in lateral length scale cannot readily be expected, particularly if the polymers are sufficiently incompatible that they phase separate out early in the solution drying process. In this manner, a hierarchy of phase separation occurs in both the lateral and vertical dimensions, possibly forming isolated phases within the polymer thin film, which often leads to a so-called “Russian doll” morphology in which material A for example is completely occluded in material B. As a result, the connectivity is broken; holes, for example, cannot flow out of the occluded phases of the hole-conducting material. Furthermore, it is possible for certain polymers to develop “wetting” layers so that they may form a partial or complete overlayer or underlayer at the interfaces of the polymer thin film but not necessarily in the most desirable way. In the context of photovoltaic devices, this will mean that a significant fraction of the charges generated within these phases cannot successfully reach the electrodes, thereby limiting the efficiency of the photovoltaic devices. It has also been shown by Steiner and co-workers (Nature, 1998, 391, 877-879) that the phase separation of polymer blends can be spatially influenced and directed by patterns pre-formed on the substrate. Such patterns include patterns in the surface energy, created e.g. by chemical reaction through a pattern-generating method such as contact printing, or by photolithography. It has further been shown that polymer blends have preferred phase-separation length scales of the order of a few to tens of microns, and application of the phase-separation pattern to the underlying chemical pattern is not possible if the length scales are very different. These methods require the formation of a chemical pre-pattern on the substrate, and then phase separation of the desired polymer combination over the pattern. Bulk distributed heterostructures are known in the art and are used in polymer-based photovoltaic devices. Bulk distributed heterostructures can be made by the natural phase separation of the desired final polymers. In such heterostructures, the phases are not continuous from one electrode to the other. Phase occlusions and polymer wetting layers invariably occur during such phase separation and lead to trapping of the charge carriers, and hence less efficient light-emitting diodes and photovoltaic diodes. Furthermore, the control of length scales of the phase separation within a bulk distributed heterostructure is limited (sub-micrometer length scales are difficult to obtain) and is dependent on the phase separation of the polymers. These two approaches to generate micron-scale heterostructures in polymer thin films do not provide enough control to form polymer heterostructures with the desired composition profile at will in both the lateral and vertical directions. These approaches tend to lead to the formation of occluded phases and wetting layers that are not always desirable. A desirable morphology that cannot be readily formed, for example, is a columnar nanostructure in which the desired charge-dissociation materials, and electron transporting and hole transporting materials are arranged appropriately in close proximity laterally, which is immensely beneficial for OPVs. Similarly, a columnar nanostructure in which the desired emissive material, and electron transporting and hole transporting materials are arranged appropriately in close proximity laterally can be useful for OLEDs. Developing a method that can control the variation (or modulation) of the lateral composition profile of the materials is hence desirable. Another desired morphology is the graded composition profile in the vertical direction. A graded composition profile is one in which the composition of the materials varies systematically in the film thickness direction, from being rich in material A at the bottom face, to being poor in material A at the top face. The top face could further be bound by a film of pure material B. In other words, the heterostructure interface becomes diffuse with respect to materials A and B. This morphology could be useful, for example, for OPVs in which the electron transport material is graded into the hole transport material. Such a vertical variation in composition may be considered as another form of modulated composition. Therefore, it is an objective of this invention to provide heterostructures with such modulated composition profiles, a method of making them, and devices incorporating them. It is also an objective of this invention to create organic polymer semiconductor heterostructures on the sub-micron scale suitable for use in semiconductor devices, e.g. photovoltaic devices and light-emitting diodes, which are at least as, and preferably more efficient than, existing polymer heterostructures and which preferably exhibit improved performance. Further objectives of this invention include: (1) the creation of organic solvent-processable heterostructures with one or more diffuse or abrupt interface; (2) the creation of abrupt nanostructures of controlled vertical and horizontal dimensions; (3) the creation of multi-layer polymer heterostructures with high aspect ratios; (4) the creation of tall polymer nanostructures that are self-organized with respect to the underlying nanotemplates; and (5) new methods for making the structures.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a composite material which includes a carbon nanotube, and plural pentacene molecules bonded to the carbon nanotube, and more particularly, to a method of forming a semiconductor device including forming a channel region which includes a carbon nanotube-pentacene composite layer. 2. Description of the Related Art Organic semiconductors have been studied extensively for use as channel materials in thin film transistors. In particular, solution processed pentacene thin film transistors (TFT) have been formed using soluble pentacene precursors which after deposition on the surface could be converted to pentacene by moderate heating. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,963,080 to Afzali-Ardakani et al. entitled “THIN FILM TRANSISTORS USING SOLUTION PROCESSED PENTACENE PRECURSOR AS ORGANIC SEMICONDUCTOR”, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,125,989 to Afzali-Ardakani et al. entitled “HETERO DIELS-ALDER ADDUCTS OF PENTACENE AS SOLUBLE PRECURSORS OF PENTACENE”, which are commonly assigned with the present application and incorporated by reference herein. However, the charge carrier mobility of these organic thin film transistors (OFET) are limited and usually in the range of 10−2 cm2/V·sec to 10−1 cm2/V·sec. On the other hand, carbon nanotubes have been demonstrated to have charge carrier mobility far superior to that of single crystal silicon but are very difficult to fabricate integrated circuits.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to gas turbine engines, and in particular, to the bladed compressor and turbine disc assemblies of such engines. 2. Description of Related Arts In a typical gas turbine engine of the axial flow type there is a number of rotatable bladed compressor and rotor disc assemblies, each assembly comprising an annular array of aerofoil section blades secured to the periphery of a disc. The blades may be secured to the discs in a variety of ways such as, for example, by fashioning the root ends of the blades into "fir tree" form and then pressing them into slots broached into the periphery of the disc. In the known ways of securing the blades to discs the root ends of the blades are formed to a particular configuration and the method of securing the blades to a disc is thus essentially a mechanical one.

Polyolefin polymers compositions have gained wide acceptance and usage in numerous commercial applications because of the relatively low cost of the polymers and the desirable properties they exhibit. Such commercial applications include plastic film, such as cast and oriented films. The plastic film can be used for food and commercial product packaging, containers for food, and medical devices such as syringes. It is very important for materials used as packaging for foods, medical devices, and other commercial products, that the presence or absence of impurities or foreign substances such as refuse or the like in the contents of a container can be externally confirmed. It is not desirable that the color tint of the contents be changed when it is observed through the container. For this reason, it is desired to use a polymer composition of high transparency, high gloss and good color, in these fields. Moreover, in recent years, the film industry is requesting polymer compositions with improved tensile properties in order to facilitate processability. In an attempt to provide homopolymer products capable of withstanding commercial stretching ratios, it is known to adjust the amorphous or solubles content of the homopolymer from about 4.2% weight (% wt) to about 6.0% wt. The tensile strength of these increased amorphous containing polymers is still low relative to ethylene random copolymers. Ethylene randoms containing 0.3% to 0.7% by weight of ethylene are typically used to obtain a good balance between processability and mechanical properties for oriented propylene film. Incorporation of ethylene in amounts greater than 0.5% weight tends to result in a softer product having a low tensile modulus. Further, ethylene random films tend to show visible signs of aging such as a "grease" or "bloom" layer developing on the surface of the film which adversely effects the clarity of the film. Antiblock agents have been typically used in polymer films to prevent the blocking (or sticking together) of the polymer film. However, these antiblock agents have an adverse effect on the optical properties such as haze and gloss of the polymer film. Low hexane extractables content copolymer is very desirable because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") has specific solubles requirements that polyolefin copolymers must satisfy in order to be used for food or medical applications. As noted previously, ethylene random copolymers are typically used for food and medical packaging. However, ethylene randoms may require an additional washing step during manufacture to meet the FDA hexane extractables limits. It would be of advantage to provide improved random copolymers, and films thereof including a process for producing the improved copolymers, having an improved balance of good optical properties such as low haze, low blooming, good color, low yellowing, and low hexane extractables, low xylene solubles levels, improved tensile strength and high stiffness.

The present invention relates generally to user communications and specifically to messaging in attention critical environments such as environments where a user operates a vehicle or other equipment. Mobile devices such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops enable users to communicate in a wide variety of environments. However, some communication modes that are facilitated by these devices (e.g., email communications and text messaging) are incompatible with attention critical tasks and environments. For example, users that operate a vehicle or factory equipment must maintain sufficient focus to operate the vehicle or equipment reliably and safely.

Various skin surface adhesion type external agents have been heretofore developed, inclusive of one for covering the surfaces of healthy skin and wounded skin for protection and one for percutaneous administration of a drug into a body through the skin. Since these external agents are adhered to the skin surface, they are required to have superior handling property in application, skin surface movement-following capability, and low irritation to the skin to suppress damages to keratin. Of these, handling property in application and low irritation to the skin can be dealt with by altering the composition of the adhesive itself to appropriately decrease the adhesive power to the skin or by adding a liquid component (e.g., water and oily component) to the adhesive layer to make a water-containing gel or oily gel, thereby imparting softness to the adhesive layer. In the latter method, a crosslinking agent may be also used to impart a cohesive power to the adhesive to retain the liquid component in the adhesive layer. This crosslinking agent reacts, at plural sites, with the functional group that the adhesive possesses, such as carboxyl group, hydroxyl group and amino group. As a result, the adhesive layer has a net structure that enables retention of the liquid component. In this reaction, when the liquid component, additive, drug and the like have a functional group capable of reacting with the crosslinking agent, the crosslinking agent first reacts with them rather than with the adhesive, because they have low molecular weights and superior dispersibility, and this tends to occur actually. Consequently, due to the absence of crosslinking of the adhesive by the action of a crosslinking agent, the liquid component cannot be retained in the adhesive layer and the inherent effects of the liquid component, additive, drug and the like cannot be exerted. The present invention aims at solving the above-mentioned problems, and achieves low irritation property by retaining a liquid component in an adhesive layer, and provides a production method thereof.

This disclosure relates to clamps for securing miter joint pieces together during assembly. Clamps and joints have been developed for assembling picture frame components and other workpieces having miter joints. However, such tools are often inadequate for their intended purpose, since they may not be easily manipulated by a user, are not readily adaptable for workpiece variations, and/or fail to adequately compensate for joint alignment inaccuracies.

Hair dye is generally classified into four types, namely, oxidative hair dye, ionic hair dye, temporary hair dye, and others. Among these hair dyes, an oxidative hair dye, which has been most widely used at present, is also referred to as a permanent hair dye, and it is mainly constituted with paraphenylenediamine or para-aminophenol that becomes an active reaction intermediate as a result of oxidation by hydrogen peroxide. The active intermediate then reacts with a dye coupler molecule in hair, and it changes to a shampoo-resistant hair dye. However, such an oxidative hair dye damages hair, may cause contact dermatitis or latent influence on total body for a long period of time, and may be suspected as mutagenicity or carcinogen. An ionic hair dye is also referred to as a semi-permanent hair dye, and it does not damage hair. However, such an ionic hair dye is problematic in term of skin coloration upon dyeing, and in that the dye is washed off by performing shampooing operations four to ten times. A temporary hair dye does not damage hair, and skin coloration is overcome by washing. However, such a temporary hair dye is washed off by performing a single shampooing operation. As another hair dye, there has been proposed a non-oxidative hair dye containing polyvalent phenol and an iron salt (Patent Documents 1 to 3). However, previous non-oxidative hair dye products have not been satisfactory in terms of hair dyeing property and color tone, and have been problematic in terms of loss of color due to shampooing. In addition, the stability of an iron salt is low in an aqueous solution, and thus the iron salt is easily precipitated in a solution. As a result, it is difficult to produce a liquid-type non-oxidative hair dye containing an iron salt. Moreover, it has been known that an organic acid is mixed to control a chelating reaction. As a result of the mixing of an organic acid, coloration of the skin is reduced. However, it has been problematic in that significantly decreased reactivity may cause degradation of the hair dyeing property (Patent Documents 4 and 5).

Caprolactam is an important industrial chemical that is used widely for manufacturing of polymeric material such as nylon 6. Certain industrial processes for making caprolactam are well known in the patent literature. Conventionally, caprolactam is made by first converting materials derived from petrochemical feedstock such as cyclohexane, phenol or toluene, to cyclohexanone 2, treating with hydroxylamine to produce the corresponding oxime 3 followed by an acid-induced Beckmann Rearrangement to give caprolactam 1 as shown in Scheme 1. Such a process is described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,914,217; 5,264,571; 4,804,754; 5,354,859 and 7,351,820. A disadvantage of this existing technology is that large amounts of ammonium sulfate—up to 4.5 tonnes per tonne of caprolactam are produced. Much development work is concentrating on reducing or even eliminating this sulfate by-product. For example, DSM's Hydroxylamine Phosphate Oxime (HPO)-plus process has substantially reduced this sulfate by-product to 1.5 tonnes/tonne of caprolactam. [Chem. Week, 2000, 162(32), 17; Dahlhoff, G., et al., Catal. Revs., 2001, 43(4), 389; “Encyclopedic dictionary of named processes in chemical technology”, Alan E. Comyns, CRC Press, 2007, p. 172. A more recent approach, developed by EniChem and commercialized by Sumitomo in 2003, completely eliminates the production of ammonium sulfate. The chemical reaction in this case is a so-called ammoximation reaction, whereby cyclohexane is reacted with ammonia and hydrogen peroxide at around 90° C. in the presence of a titanium silicate-2 catalyst [Reddy, J. S., et al., P., J. Mol. Catal., 1991, 69, 383. Chem. Br., 1995, 31(2), 94]. This process allows for considerable cost savings since no hydroxylamine plant is needed. However, hydrogen peroxide is expensive and must be manufactured on a large scale to provide sensible scale economies and transfer pricing. Another improvement of this process developed by Toray Industries of Japan utilizes a photochemical process for making caprolactam from cyclohexane in the presence of nitrosyl chloride and hydrogen chloride, without the use of the oximation step. This process provides substantial capital cost savings, with the elimination of both cyclohexanone, hydroxylamine and oximation plants. However, the process requires access to low-cost power to be truly cost effective. Large scale photochemical reactors are difficult to design and require constant cleaning to remove tar-like reaction residues. [Hydrocarbon Process. Int. Ed., 1989, 68(11), 97; Dahlhoff, G., et al., Catal. Revs., 2001, 43(4), 389.] Other notable processes developed by DSM, Shell, BASF, DuPont and Rhodia use butadiene or adiponitrile as starting material for manufacturing caprolactam. Altam, a process developed by DSM and Shell, uses butadiene and carbon monoxide feedstocks to make caprolactam without ammonium sulfate production. The process employs four steps—carbonylation, hydroformylation, reductive amination and cyclization and DSM claims has allowed cost reductions of 25-30% through simplification of plant operations and lower energy consumption. BASF, Rhodia, and DuPont also investigated the feasibility of converting butadiene to caprolactam. Both BASF and Rhodia' processes involve the hydrogenation of adiponitrile, which can be manufactured from butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, or by electrolysis from acrylonitrile to make 6-aminocapronitrile with hexamethylenediamine as a co-product, using different operating conditions and catalysts. Other processes for making of caprolactam are also available in the literature using starting materials other than those already mentioned. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 2,351,939 describes a vapor phase synthesis of caprolactam from adipic acid, using a Ni catalyst in the presence of H2 and NH3, with dehydrating agents (boric and phosphoric acids). The process provided 45% of caprolactam along with 18% of HMI formed. Another synthesis of caprolactam from adipic acid is described in U.S. Publication No. US2007/0244317 where a homogeneous ruthenium catalyst was used leading to a series of products formed, including the dimethyl adipamide and 8% of caprolactam. U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,227 describes the use of two catalysts (Pd+Ru, Rh or Re) to produce lactams from C4-C6 dicarboxylic acids. Another process using dicarboxylic acids was described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,263,175 and 4,356,124 where Ru oxide or an oxide complex of Ru, Fe, Ni, Co was used to make pyrrolidone. Still another process based on the hydrogenation of dicarboxylic acids with Ru or Os in the presence of an organic phosphine is described in U.S. Publication No. US2007/0244317, which uses N-methylamine to produce N-methyl caprolactam from adipic acid. A number of other products are observed, including some caprolactam. However, the above mentioned processes all involve using petroleum-derived chemicals or petrochemicals as a starting material. Because of the reliance of these processes on non-renewable petroleum, there is an urgent need to find processes for making chemicals from renewable sources such as biomass, as a way to reduce mankind's dependence on crude oil, to increase the use of renewable energy sources, and to reduce air and water pollution from the petrochemical industry. Clearly, it would be advantageous to have an alternative and improved process for making caprolactam from a renewable biomass source, while providing higher yield and generating fewer by-products.

The present invention relates generally to error detection, and more specifically, to a dynamic cache row fail accumulation due to catastrophic failure. A cache memory is a component that transparently retains data elements (or simply data) so that future requests for any retained data can be served faster. A data element that is stored within a cache is associated with a pre-defined storage location within a computer system. Such data element might be a value that has recently been computed or a duplicate copy of the same storage location that are also stored elsewhere. If requested data is contained in the cache, this is a cache hit, and this request can be served by reading the cache, which is comparatively faster than reading from a storage location since the cache is usually built close to its requester. Otherwise, if the data is not contained in the cache, this is a cache miss, and the data has to be fetched from a storage system medium not necessarily close to the requester, and thus is comparatively slower. In a cache, electrical or magnetic interference inside a computer system can cause a single bit of embedded dynamic random access memory (eDRAM) to spontaneously flip to the opposite state. This can change the content of one or more memory cells or interfere with the circuitry used to read/write them. Also, the circuitry of the cache may fail, and this can change the content of one or more memory cells. To ensure the integrity of data stored in a data processing system and transmitted between various parts of the system, various error detection and correction schemes have been employed. An error can be a correctable error (CE) or an uncorrectable error (UE). Schemes, such as the Hamming code, can allow for double error detection and single error correction. Typically, before a data word is stored in memory, check bits are generated over the data bits and stored with the data word. When the data word is retrieved from memory, a check is made over the data and the check bits to detect, and if necessary, to correct identifiable bits. In checking the data word and check bits received from memory, a syndrome is generated for each parity group of a multiple byte data word. A matrix, referred to as an H-matrix, may be generated which defines all of the syndromes for which a single error is correctable and which identifies each bit position of the data word which is correctable. When a syndrome is generated which matches the data in one of the columns of the matrix, the bit to be corrected is identified from the matrix and the polarity of the identified bit is changed to correct the data error. Additional tests need to be made to determine whether there are uncorrectable errors. When dealing with 64-bit data words, the H-matrix has 64 columns, plus columns for check bits. The number of syndromes which may be generated and which do not fall within the matrix are considerably larger than the correctable-error syndromes included in the matrix. A typical error correction scheme using 8-bit syndromes for 64 bits of data, and requiring single error correction and double error detection, will have 256 possible syndromes and 72 syndromes associated with correctable errors. The detection of the presence of a correctable error and the presence of uncorrectable errors requires large amounts of detection circuitry.

Cellulases are enzymes which are capable of hydrolysis of the xcex2-D-glucosidic linkages in celluloses. Cellulolytic enzymes have been traditionally divided into three major classes: endoglucanases, exoglucanases or cellobiohydrolases and xcex2-glucosidases (Knowles, J. et al., (1987), TIBTECH 5, 255-261); and are known to be produced by a large number of bacteria, yeasts and fungi. Although cellulases are used to degrade wood pulp and animal feed, cellulases are primarily used in the treatment of textiles, e.g., in detergent compositions for assisting in the removal of dirt or grayish cast (see e.g., Great Britain Application Nos. 2,075,028, 2,095,275 and 2,094,826) or in the treatment of textiles prior to sale to improve the feel and appearance of the textile. Thus, Great Britain Application No. 1,358,599 illustrates the use of cellulase in detergents to reduce the harshness of cotton containing fabrics. Cellulases have also been used in the treatment of textiles to recondition used fabrics by making their colors more vibrant (see e.g., The Shizuoka Prefectural Hammamatsu Textile Industrial Research Institute Report, Vol. 24, pp. 54-61 (1986)). Repeated washing of cotton containing fabrics results in a grayish cast to the fabric which is believed to be due to disrupted and disordered fibrils, sometimes called xe2x80x9cpillsxe2x80x9d, caused by mechanical action. This greyish cast is particularly noticeable on colored fabrics. As a consequence, the ability of cellulase to remove the disordered top layer of the fiber and thus improve the overall appearance of the fabric has been of value. Because of its effectiveness in many industrial processes, there has been a trend in the field to search for specific cellulase compositions or components which have particularly effective performance profiles with respect to one or more specific applications. As possible sources of cellulases, practitioners have focused on fungi and bacteria. For example, cellulase produced by certain fungi such as Trichoderma spp. (especially Trichoderma reesei) have been given much attention because a complete cellulase system capable of degrading crystalline forms of cellulose is readily produced in large quantities via fermentation procedures. This specific cellulase complex has been extensively analyzed to determine the nature of its specific components and the ability of those components to perform in industrial processes (see, Wood et al., xe2x80x9cMethods in Enzymologyxe2x80x9d, 160, 25, pages 234, et seq. (1988). U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,101 (Ward et al.) discloses the purification and molecular cloning of one particularly useful enzyme called endoglucanase III (EGIII) which is derived from Trichoderma reesei. PCT Publication No. WO 94/14953 discloses endoglucanases which are encoded by a nucleic acid which comprises any one of a series of DNA sequences, each having 20 nucleotides. Ooi, et al., Curr. Genet. 18:217-222 (1990) disclose the cDNA sequence coding for endoglucanase F1-CMC produced by Aspergillus aculeatus which contains the amino acid strings NNLWG, ELMIW and GTEPFT. Sakamoto, et al., Curr. Genet. 27:435-439 (1995) discloses the cDNA sequence encoding the endoglucanase CMCase-1 From Aspergillus kawachii IFO 4308 which contains the amino acid strings ELMIW and GTEPFT. Ward, et al., discloses the sequence of EGIII having the amino acid strings NNLWG, ELMIW and GTEPFT. Additionally, two cellulase sequences, one from Erwinia carotovara and Rhodothermus marinus are disclosed in Saarilahti, et al., Gene 90:9-14 (1990) and Hreggvidsson, et al., Appl. Environ. Microb. 62:3047-3049 (1996) which contain the amino acid string ELMIW. Despite knowledge in the art related to many cellulase compositions having applications in some or all of the above areas, there is a continued need for new cellulase compositions which have improved stability under conditions present in applications for which cellulases are useful, e.g., household and laundry detergents and textile treatment compositions. According to the present invention, a variant EGIII or EGIII-like cellulase is provided wherein one or more amino acids are modified or deleted to confer improved performance, including stability in the presence of thermal and/or surfactant mediated stress. In another embodiment of the invention, residues critical for the stability of an EGIII-like cellulase are identified. In a preferred embodiment, a variant EGIII or EGIII-like cellulase is provided, wherein the variant comprises a substitution or deletion at a position corresponding to one or more of residues P201, G170 and/or V210 in EGIII from Trichoderma reesei. In a more preferred embodiment of this aspect of the invention, the variant comprises a substitution at a position corresponding to one or more of residues P201C, G170C and/or V210C in EGIII. In an alternative embodiment, the EGIII-like cellulase of this invention, comprises a substitution at a position corresponding to one or more of residues C190G/S, C221S/P and or C231S/V of H grisea. In a different aspect of this embodiment, the EGIII-like cellulase is derived from a fungus, bacteria or Actinomycete. In a preferred aspect, the cellulase is derived from a fungus. In a more preferred aspect, the filamentous fungus. In a most preferred aspect, the filamentous fungus belongs to Euascomycete, in particular Aspergillus spp., Gliocladium spp., Fusarium spp., Acremonium spp., Myceliophtora spp., Verticillium spp., Myrothecium spp., or Penicillium spp. In another embodiment, the EGIII-like cellulase of this invention is an endoglucanase. In yet another embodiment of this invention, a DNA that encodes an EGIII-like cellulase is provided. In one aspect of this embodiment, the DNA is on a vector. In another aspect of this embodiment, the DNA is in a host cell transformed with the vector. In a further embodiment, a method for producing an EGIII-like cellulase of this invention is provided. Specifically, a method is provided comprising the steps of culturing a host cell in a suitable culture medium under suitable conditions to produce cellulase, and obtaining said produced cellulase. In yet another embodiment, a detergent composition is provided that comprises a surfactant and a variant EGIII-like cellulase comprising a substitution or deletion at a position corresponding to one or more of residues P201, G170 and/or V210 in EGIII from Trichoderma reesei. In a preferred aspect of this embodiment, the variant comprises a substitution at a position corresponding to one or more of residues P201C, G170C and/or V210C in EGIII. In another aspect of this embodiment, the detergent is a laundry detergent. In yet another aspect, the detergent is a dish detergent. As shown in more detail below, the substitutions identified herein are important to the stability of EGIII and EGIII-like enzymes, particularly under thermal stress. Accordingly it is within the scope of the present invention to use the EGIII or EGIII-like enzyme in textile treatment, e.g., in laundry detergent or stone washing compositions, in the reduction of biomass, in the production of feed additives or treatment of feed, in the treatment of wood pulp for the production of paper or pulp based products, and in the treatment of starch during grain wet milling or dry milling to facilitate the production of glucose, high fructose corn syrup and/or alcohol.

Information, graphical and other content on the Internet today is primarily presented in two-dimensional form, such as web pages (the “Flat Web”). Efforts have been made to introduce three-dimensional worlds to existing technology, but those have treated the three dimensional environment as a game or limited application utility, such as a three dimensional rending of a car based on user inputs made to a car manufacturer's website. Furthermore, extent three-dimensional world systems are monolithic and typically controlled, operated, and managed by a single entity and limited to a scope far smaller than the Flat Web. Accordingly, development of a widely scoped three dimensional information system, whether denominated as a virtual world system or the “3D Web”, has been precluded by the narrow scope of those systems, the often idiosyncratic policies and interfaces implemented by the managers of those systems, and the lack of innovative technological solutions necessary to overcome extent technological barriers to implementation.

It is known to design a shift fork as a massive casted part comprising a mainly smooth surface so that splash oil can run over the smooth surface and can drop to the parts of the transmission assembly located vertically under the shift fork. There is a permanent need for providing a better lubrication of parts of the transmission assembly with low effort. In view of the foregoing, it is at least one object of the invention to provide a better lubrication of parts of the transmission assembly with low effort. In addition, other objects, desirable features, and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.

Automotive forward lamp assemblies have been modified over the years to decrease the overall mass of the assemblies in order to increase the safety and the gas mileage of automobiles. Most conventional automotive forward lamp assemblies require a large amount of mass concentration at the front of the vehicle. For example, a typical headlamp and fog lamp assembly will comprise a housing with a reflector, at least one filament bulb, a plurality of electrical wires and a lens. This construction results in a large mass concentration located at the front of the vehicle. In the event of a vehicular accident, a large mass concentration at the front of the vehicle is undesirable because it can result in increased damage and increased injuries. This is especially problematic in the event an automobile collides with a pedestrian. In an effort to reduce the mass of automotive front lighting systems, designers have begun using thermoplastic materials to construct the reflector for headlamp and fog lamp assemblies. Thermoplastic reflectors have the advantage of having less mass than other types of reflectors. Thus, thermoplastic reflectors reduce the overall weight of the lamp assembly. Unfortunately, thermoplastic materials have the drawback of creating manufacturing defects in the form of sinks. As used herein, the term “sink” is used to describe a manufacturing defect located on the reflector that forms a pit in the reflector (i.e. an indentation, a recess and/or a concave surface). A sink causes a large amount of glare to be emitted from the lamp assembly because the defect reflects light in such a manner that a large amount of light is concentrated over a small angle when light reflects from the sink. Concentration of light over a small angle can result in unwanted glare or bright spots in the beam pattern. Thus, sinks are detrimental to the optical performance of an automotive lamp assembly because they cause the lamp assembly to emit a large amount of glare. Sinks occur frequently in the manufacturing of headlamp reflectors because of the thick sections required to form the reflector. For example, a sink normally forms around the socket hole of the reflector. While this is an example of a normal location of a sink, sinks of all shapes and sizes are also prone to appear in other portions of the reflector. In order to use thermoplastic reflectors to manufacture headlamp assemblies, designers of headlamp assemblies are faced with overcoming the glare problems associated with sinks. Accordingly, it is desirable to have an automotive forward lamp assembly that would allow for the use of a thermoplastic reflector without having the large amount of glare resulting from a sink in the thermoplastic reflector. Specifically, it is desirable to develop a design feature that can eliminate the optical problems caused by sinks on thermoplastic reflectors.

The present invention relates to a file sharing system using a network, and particularly, the present invention relates to a user management method in the file sharing system.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention pertains to the art of refrigerators and, more particularly, to a storage and dispensing compartment arranged in a refrigerator door for holding beverage containers. 2. Discussion of the Prior Art In a refrigerator, it is highly desirable to enhance the ability to store products within a limited space. The space available for storage not only includes fresh food and freezer compartments, but also inner surfaces of the fresh food and freezer compartment doors of the refrigerator. Towards this end, it is common to provide shelves and compartments on these inner surfaces. In recent years, some emphasis has been placed on increasing the ability to store a wide range of products on the fresh food door in order to free up space in the main areas of the refrigerator for additional products or features. Thus, provisions have been made to store large beverage containers, including gallon milk jugs and liter bottles of soda on the fresh food compartment door. There is also a recognized need to provide a reduced temperature storage compartment for beverages and the like. In order to address this need, several refrigerator models are provided with specialized chill compartments. The chill compartment is typically arranged on the fresh food compartment door and is provided with a door or cover for selectively accessing the compartment. To provide for a reduced temperature in the chill compartment, a flow of cooling air is guided from the freezer compartment into the chill compartment. Consumers can place items into the chill compartment, such as soda bottles, wine bottles and the like, that they wish to be cooled to a temperature below a temperature of the fresh food compartment. While the chiller compartment is capable of storing all kinds of containers, it is hardly practical to store small containers such as beverage cans. The number of cans that can be placed in the compartment is limited. The cans cannot be stacked for fear that opening the refrigerator would cause the cans to topple from the compartment. Arranging the cans in a typical can holder would also not be acceptable. Unless the can holder was properly constrained, it too could become dislodged and fall from the refrigerator with the opening of the fresh food door. Based on the above, despite the presence of chiller compartments in the prior art, there exists a need in the art for a chiller compartment that includes a beverage can holder. More specifically, there exists a need for a chiller compartment having a beverage can holder that can be securely, yet removably, mounted to a refrigerator door.

1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to a process for manufacturing cellulose formed objects such as fibers, filaments, yarns, films, membranes in the form of flat membranes, hose membranes, hollow fiber membranes and the like by forming cellulose solutions in an amine oxide of a tertiary amine and, if necessary, water. 2. Discussion of Related Art It has long been known how to dissolve cellulose polymers in an amine oxide of a tertiary amine, if necessary in the presence of water, and to produce from these solutions, by means of pressing through nozzle tools, formed objects such as fibers, filaments, yarns, films, and membranes in the form of flat membranes, hose membranes as well as hollow fiber membranes and the like (DE-A 29 13 589). Processes using N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide have turned out to be particularly suitable; economical interests and development efforts are centered on those processes. Processes for the production of such formed objects using N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide, in the following called NMMO processes, essentially consist in that, first, a suspension is produced from cellulose such as cotton linters, chemical wood pulp and the like, water and NMMO and in that this suspension is transformed into a solution by heating and removing a portion of the water. This solution is then filtered and extruded through a nozzle into a coagulation bath, preferably with an interim air gap, whereby the formed objects such as filaments, films or membranes are formed via coagulation. These formed objects are then washed to remove any tertiary amine oxide still present. Subsequently the formed object can be dried and further processed in the customary manner, e.g. wound up, etc. Compared to the classic processes for manufacturing cellulose formed objects, such as the cuprammonium process or in particular the viscose process, the NMMO process is in particular characterized in that it involves essentially physical phenomena, so that at least in theory no chemical reactions take place and no chemical byproducts are formed which must be disposed of as waste products or transformed back by chemical methods into the initial substances. The NMMO process therefore fundamentally ranks among the very environmentally friendly processes. Additionally the actual initial substance is a raw material which grows back, and the cellulose final product is highly biodegradable. However, particularly during longer and continuous operation it frequently happens that slimy sedimentations are built up, especially in the washing zones, so that the washing water becomes turbid and that splashes of the washing water which reach the interior of the housings erected to protect the washing zone are sites for the growth of mold, algae and the like. These contaminations, which are apparently caused by a biological growth, not only give the installation a dirty appearance, but can contaminate and obstruct other installation parts such as filters, pumps and the like. In this case, agglomerates pose a particular danger, since they can for example abruptly obstruct filters. Additionally such contaminations are also incorporated into the manufactured formed objects, signifying in particular a great danger to membranes, since they are frequently employed in fields such as medicine and food technology, which depend on the highest cleanliness, hygiene, sterility and freedom from toxic substances. The production installation must therefore be frequently and painstakingly cleaned, which is very labor intensive. Formed objects which are to be germ-free must constantly be intensively sterilized and checked for flawless quality. Hence there is still a great need for a process which does not show the above mentioned disadvantages and which leads to products with valuable properties.

This invention relates generally to a time synchronized random (contention type) access system employing a single wideband channel time shared by a plurality of random access transmit stations in which packets of information are transmitted in time slots selected randomly from one station to another. More particularly, the invention relates to such a system in which the instances of two or more transmitters selecting the same time slots for transmission of a message, resulting in a conflict, is reduced dramatically, thereby increasing the efficiency of the system, that is the useful percentage of available time slots. In systems of the type being discussed there are a number of ground stations and a master station which can be either a ground station which performs a function of synchronizing the transmission of packets of information, all of which must be retransmitted from the satellite in a time synchronous manner. Similarly, transmissions from the ground stations to the satellites are timed so that they arrive at the satellite in a time synchronous manner. It is apparent that without some precaution being taken that the number of conflicts or collisions between data packets from two stations arriving in the same time slot is an entirely random matter and occurs at much higher frequency than would be the case where certain precautions are taken, such as the techniques employed in the present invention. Statistically, with no precautions, the utilization of random time slots is approximately 37% without precaution being taken to avoid conflicts or collisions between messages from different transmitters in the same time slots. As will be seen later herein, the efficiency of the usage of the time slots can be raised to 53% and even to 60% by employing certain precautionary techniques which form the basis of the present invention, which has been given the name Announced Retransmission Random Access (ARRA). The basic concept of the present invention is to reduce these wasteful collisions in the random access channel by requiring the station terminals to transmit an announcement with each data packet or message specifying an intended retransmission time slot or message slot along with every transmitted message. Thus in the event of a collision, the other terminal stations in the system will know which slot the particular message which collided with another message will be retransmitted in, and can avoid placing new transmissions in that message time slot. Basically the ARRA scheme set forth in the present invention completely eliminates collision between new message transmissions and retransmitted messages, thus resulting in a significantly higher throughput than conventional random access systems, such as slotted ALOHA and the Capetenakis Tree algorithm. The ALOHA system is well known art as defined in Abramson, "The ALOHA System--Another Alternative for Computer Communication", AFIPS Conference Proceedings, 1970 Fall Joint Computer Conference, Vol. 37, pp. 281-285. Capetanakis Tree algorithm is defined by J. I. Capetanakis, "Generalized TDMA: The Multi-Accessing Tree Protocol", IEEE, Transactions on Communications, Vol. 27, No. 10, Oct. 1979, pp. 1476-1483. The two ARRA schemes as described in detailed in the present invention are realized with a relatively small amount of logic and storage at each of the terminals. Two realizations are described. The first realization is called basic ARRA and has a capacity (maximum normalized throughput) of 0.53, which means that approximately 50% of the time slots are successfully utilized. The second scheme is called Extended ARRA and achieves a capacity of 0.6, at the expense of a slightly greater terminal complexity. The main application area for the protocol of systems described herein are in satellite communication systems with many relatively low cost digital terminals (ground stations) sharing a common channel. For completely terrestrial networks with low propagation delay, high throughput random access systems (e.g., such as Xerox's Ethernet) already exist. For the satellite channel (which has a high propagation delay of 0.27 seconds) ARRA provides the highest throughput along with low delay among the comparable random access schemes currently described in the literature.

Neisseria meningitidis is a non-motile, gram negative diplococcus human pathogen. It colonizes the pharynx, causing meningitis and, occasionally, septicaemia in the absence of meningitis. It is closely related to N. gonorrhoea, although one feature that clearly differentiates meningococcus from gonococcus is the presence of a polysaccharide capsule that is present in all pathogenic meningococci. N. meningitidis causes both endemic and epidemic disease. In the United States the attack rate is 0.6-1 per 100,000 persons per year, and it can be much greater during outbreaks. (see Lieberman et al. (1996) Safety and Immunogenicity of a Serogroups A/C Neisseria meningitidis Oligosaccharide-Protein Conjugate Vaccine in Young Children. JAMA 275(19):1499-1503; Schuchat et al (1997) Bacterial Meningitis in the United States in 1995. N Engl J Med 337(14):970-976). In developing countries, endemic disease rates are much higher and during epidemics incidence rates can reach 500 cases per 100,000 persons per year. Mortality is extremely high, at 10-20% in the United States, and much higher in developing countries. Following the introduction of the conjugate vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae, N. meningitidis is the major cause of bacterial meningitis at all ages in the United States (Schuchat et al (1997) supra). Based on the organism's capsular polysaccharide, 12 serogroups of N. meningitidis have been identified. Group A is the pathogen most often implicated in epidemic disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Serogroups B and C are responsible for the vast majority of cases in the United States and in most developed countries. Serogroups W135 and Y are responsible for the rest of the cases in the United States and developed countries. The meningococcal vaccine currently in use is a tetravalent polysaccharide vaccine composed of serogroups A, C, Y and W135. Although efficacious in adolescents and adults, it induces a poor immune response and short duration of protection, and cannot be used in infants [eg. Morbidity and Mortality weekly report, Vol. 46, No. RR-5 (1997)]. This is because polysaccharides are T-cell independent antigens that induce a weak immune response that cannot be boosted by repeated immunization. Following the success of the vaccination against H. influenzae, conjugate vaccines against serogroups A and C have been developed and are at the final stage of clinical testing (Zollinger W D “New and Improved Vaccines Against Meningococcal Disease”. In: New Generation Vaccines, supra, pp. 469-488; Lieberman et al (1996) supra; Costantino et al (1992) Development and phase I clinical testing of a conjugate vaccine against meningococcus A and C. Vaccine 10:691-698). Meningococcus B (menB) remains a problem, however. This serotype currently is responsible for approximately 50% of total meningitis in the United States, Europe, and South America. The polysaccharide approach cannot be used because the menB capsular polysaccharide is a polymer of α(2-8)-linked N-acetyl neuraminic acid that is also present in mammalian tissue. This results in tolerance to the antigen; indeed, if an immune response were elicited, it would be anti-self, and therefore undesirable. In order to avoid induction of autoimmunity and to induce a protective immune response, the capsular polysaccharide has, for instance, been chemically modified substituting the N-acetyl groups with N-propionyl groups, leaving the specific antigenicity unaltered (Romero & Outschoorn (1994) Current status of Meningococcal group B vaccine candidates: capsular or non-capsular? Clin Microbiol Rev 7(4):559-575). Alternative approaches to menB vaccines have used complex mixtures of outer membrane proteins (OMPs), containing either the OMPs alone, or OMPs enriched in porins, or deleted of the class 4 OMPs that are believed to induce antibodies that block bactericidal activity. This approach produces vaccines that are not well characterized. They are able to protect against the homologous strain, but are not effective at large where there are many antigenic variants of the outer membrane proteins. To overcome the antigenic variability, multivalent vaccines containing up to nine different porins have been constructed (eg. Poolman J T (1992) Development of a meningococcal vaccine. Infect. Agents Dis. 4:13-28). Additional proteins to be used in outer membrane vaccines have been the opa and opc proteins, but none of these approaches have been able to overcome the antigenic variability (eg. Ala'Aldeen & Borriello (1996) The meningococcal transferrin-binding proteins 1 and 2 are both surface exposed and generate bactericidal antibodies capable of killing homologous and heterologous strains. Vaccine 14(1):49-53). A certain amount of sequence data is available for meningococcal and gonoccocal genes and proteins (eg. EP-A-0467714, WO96/29412), but this is by no means complete. The provision of further sequences could provide an opportunity to identify secreted or surface-exposed proteins that are presumed targets for the immune system and which are not antigenically variable. For instance, some of the identified proteins could be components of efficacious vaccines against meningococcus B, some could be components of vaccines against all meningococcal serotypes, and others could be components of vaccines against all pathogenic Neisseriae including Neisseria meningitidis or Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Those sequences specific to N. meningitidis or N. gonorrhoeae that are more highly conserved are further preferred sequences. It is thus an object of the invention is to provide Neisserial DNA sequences which encode proteins that are antigenic or immunogenic.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a battery connector, and particularly to a battery connector with low profile and minimal size, which engages to mating terminals reliably for ensuring stable transmission and charging. 2. Related Art Portable electronic products, such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), Notebook and digital camera, are commonly used without limitation of prescribed place. These electronic products always consume power, and therefore charging is critical. Charging devices are ordinarily utilized in these products for supplying power. Battery connectors correspondingly serve as media between the electronic products and power. A battery connector comprises an insulative housing, a plurality of conductive terminals assembled on the insulative housing and soldered to a circuit board. Each conductive terminal includes a contact portion for contacting a charging terminal of the electronic products, and a soldering portion for soldering to the circuit board. In prior art, the conductive terminals are often integrally formed. The soldering portions are bent for soldering to the circuit board, and the contact portions are suspended for possessing flexibility. However, the contact portions have to be bent at a fixed bending angle in that restraint of material and shaping conditions. The fixed bending angle limits height of contact portions, and therefore limits overall height of the battery connector. The contact portions of the conductive terminals of prior art can not become lower, depressing the miniature tendency.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a probe system for testing the electrical characteristics of a substrate, e.g., a semiconductor wafer or an LCD substrate, while electrically connecting probes to the electrode pads of the substrate. 2. Description of the Related Art In a probe system, a technique which has a first image pickup means for picking up the image of the distal ends of probes from the wafer side and a second image pickup means for picking up the wafer image from the probe side and which aligns the wafer and the probes by using the first and second image pickup means is described in, e.g., Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication Nos. 1-94631 and 1-119036. In the conventional probe system, the mounting position of a probe card and the position of an XYZ stage in alignment of a wafer must have absolutely high precision. For example, a position for picking up the image of the wafer and a position for actually testing the substrate are rather separated from each other, and the positional relationship between them is guaranteed only by the XYZ stage. However, when probes are to be aligned with the electrode pads of a wafer, even when the linearity, the flatness, the orthogonality, and the like of the rails for guiding the XYZ stage are set at high precision, when the temperature changes, a thermal deformation occurs to cause an error. When the temperature changes by, e.g., 10.degree. C., an error of 20 to 30 microns per 100 mm occurs by the thermal expansion and contraction of a ball screw that drives the XYZ stage. An error on the order of microns is also caused by a temperature change in the positional relationship between the probe card connected to the head plate and the image pickup means for picking up the image of the wafer. Ordinarily, the probe card is exchanged in accordance with the type of the substrate. Every time the probe card is exchanged, its position is displaced due to the gap between the inner diameter of the hollow portion of the head plate and the outer diameter of the probe card. This error also makes it difficult to perform accurate alignment of the probes and the electrode pads of the wafer. In a conventional typical probe system, an alignment region for picking up the image of the wafer and a probing region under a probe card used for testing the wafer are separated from each other. In this case, the data on the wafer obtained in the alignment region is transferred to the probing region and used. Accordingly, if the state of the three-dimensional coordinate system of the moving mechanism of the table in the alignment region and that in the probing region are the same, the wafer moves in the probing region in the same manner as in the alignment region. In fact, however, the two states differ due to the following reason, thus causing an error in movement of the wafer (movement of IC chips). More specifically, in the probe system, a probe card having probes aligned to correspond to the electrode pad array of an IC chip on a wafer W is arranged above a wafer table which is movable in the X, Y, Z, and 8 directions. The electrode pads of the IC chip are brought into contact with the probes, and the electrical characteristics of the chip are tested by a test head through a contact ring. In order to perform an accurate electrical test, the probes must be surely brought into contact with the electrode pads. For this purpose, the table must be controlled at high precision, and the electrode pads must be correctly aligned with the probes before measurements. As a large number of circuit components and wires are incorporated in the test head, a wafer image pickup means is arranged at a position remote from the test head, and a portion under this image pickup means is defined as an alignment region for wafer alignment. The relative positions of the probing and alignment regions with respect to each other, the driving amount of the ball screw, and the like are set such that alignment of the probes and the electrode pads of the chip in the probing region is automatically performed. When the relative positions of the electrode pads and probes are aligned with respect to each other, as the moving distance is already obtained in advance in the alignment region, all the electrode pads are correctly brought into contact with the corresponding probes by moving the table based on the moving distance data. The equality of the postures and positions of the wafer in the three-dimensional axial directions in the probing and alignment regions is determined by the machining precision of the ball screw between the probing and alignment regions and the influences of yawing (right-to-left shift on the X-Y plane), pitching (to-and-from inclination), and rolling (inclination about the moving axis) of the guides. The equality is also influenced by the expansion and contraction of the ball screw caused by an environmental temperature during the measurement. In addition, it is also influenced by the thermal expansion caused by the frictional heat of the ball screw which is generated when the wafer moves from the alignment region to the probing region. As a result, when the wafer moves from the alignment region to the probing region, the wafer has a posture different from the original posture, e.g., the wafer slightly shifts to the right or left or is inclined forward or backward. Therefore, the moving pattern of the wafer in the probing region is not completely the same as that anticipated in the alignment region. The operation in the alignment region is based on the premise that the relative positions of the wafer image pickup means and probe card are prefixed with respect to each other. However, the positional relationship between the probe card mounted on the head plate and the image pickup means slightly changes in accordance with a temperature change. Also, a positional error of the probe card occurs, although slight, due to the gap between the probe card mounting portion and the probe card in accordance with the type of the wafer. Although the errors described above are not very large, they pose a problem as the integration degree of the device increases, like in a transition of the DRAM to 32M and further to 64M, as the size of the electrode pad decreases, and as the number of electrode pads increases. When such an error in position of the wafer (an error in position of an IC chip) occurs, it becomes difficult to correctly bring the probes into contact with all the chips on the wafer, so that high-precision electrical testing cannot be performed.

This invention relates to dopamine receptors from mammalian species and the corresponding genes. In particular, it relates to the isolation, sequencing and/or cloning of D.sub.2 dopamine receptor genes, the synthesis of D.sub.2 dopamine receptors by transformed cells, and the manufacture and use of a variety of novel products enabled by the identification and cloning of DNA encoding dopamine receptors. Dopamine receptors in general have been implicated in a large number of neurological and other disorders, including, for example, movement disorders, schizophrenia, drug addiction, Parkinson's disease, Tourette syndrome, Tardive Dyskinesia, and many others. As a result, the dopamine receptor has been the subject of numerous pharmacological and biochemical studies. In general, dopamine receptors can be classified into D.sub.1 and D.sub.2 subtypes based on pharmacological and biochemical characteristics (1,2). The D.sub.2 dopamine receptor has been implicated in the pathophysiology and treatment of the mentioned disorders. In addition, it is known that the D.sub.2 dopamine receptor interacts with guanine nucleotide binding proteins to modulate second messenger systems (6,7) Despite the heavy emphasis placed on elucidation of the existence and properties of the dopamine receptor and its gene, identification, isolation and cloning have been inaccessible heretofore. This is true despite the knowledge that other members of the family of receptors that are coupled to G proteins share a significant similarity in primary amino acid sequence and exhibit an archetypical topology predicted to consist of seven putative transmembrane domains (8). Regarding the serotonin receptor, e.g., see Julius et al., Science, Vol. 241, 558 (1988).

Field of the Invention The invention relates to a technology that generates a display video signal. Description of the Background Art In the related art, a liquid crystal display in which an in plane switching method is adopted (in the following, referred to as “IPS liquid crystal display”) is known. Such an IPS liquid crystal display is excellent in view angle characteristics and thus, is used as a display device for various scenes such as a wide screen, a large screen, a portable terminal screen, and a screen for an on-vehicle device. However, in the related art described above, there is still room for improvement on efficient prevention of a residual image phenomenon. Specifically, the IPS liquid crystal display has a problem that a residual video characteristic is weak and especially, when an interlace video is displayed, a residual video becomes easy to occur in a specific image. For example, although the residual image phenomenon is generated due to occurrence of charge accumulation caused by impurities contained in a liquid crystal layer by a video signal of a specific image, in a case of a non-interlace video, such charge accumulation is eliminated by polarity inversion of a thin film transistor (TFT) electrode of each frame conducted in general liquid crystal display of an active matrix driving type. However, in a case of the interlace video, one frame is constituted with two fields of an odd-numbered field and an even-numbered field and thus, the video signal of the specific image becomes different between such fields and charge accumulation cannot be eliminated by the above-described polarity inversion. Especially, in a case where a white solid image and a black solid image of which boundaries extend in the field direction, lines (for example, black in the odd-numbered field and white in the even-numbered field) in which polarities are turned to opposite polarities in the odd-numbered field and the even-numbered field may be generated at those boundaries and in this case, a situation that charge accumulation by polarity inversion becomes easy to occur.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultrasonic treatment device for use in combination with endoscopes, and to an ultrasonic treatment system. 2. Description of the Related Art U.S. Pat. No. 6,231,578 discloses an ultrasonic treatment device to be inserted into the channel of an endoscope and thereby to be inserted into a patient. This apparatus is guided into the view field of used of the endoscope and used to treat the living tissues in the patient. The apparatus has a flexible wire, a tubular sheath and an operation unit. The flexible wire has a loop on its distal end. The flexible wire extends through the tubular sheath and can slide in the sheath. The operation unit is coupled to the proximal end of the tubular sheath. The operation unit has an actuator and an ultrasonic transducer. The actuator can move the flexible wire in the axial direction of the tubular sheath. The ultrasonic transducer can generate ultrasonic vibration. The ultrasonic vibration generated by the transducer is transmitted to the flexible wire. When driven, the actuator moves the flexible wire along the axis of the tubular sheath. If the wire is pulled toward the proximal end of the sheath, the loop will go into the sheath and will close. If the wire is pushed toward the distal end of the sheath, the loop will protrude from the sheath and will open. Assume that the loop is wrapped around a tumor such as polyp while it is opening. Also, assume that the wire is pulled toward the proximal end of the sheath. Then, the loop closes and holds the tumor. In this condition, ultrasonic vibration may be transmitted from the ultrasonic transducer to the flexible wire, thereby cutting the tumor. Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-56867 discloses an ultrasonic treatment device. This apparatus is different in structure from the apparatus disclosed in the above-identified U.S. patent. The apparatus has a support rod, an ultrasonic transducer and a blade. The transducer is secured to the distal end of the support rod. The blade is formed integral with the transducer. The apparatus is used, inserted into a body cavity through a trocar. In the body cavity, the blade may cut a target tissue.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a catalytic combustion hydrogen gas sensor which is used for hydrogen gas detection. 2. Description of the Related Art Hitherto, as a hydrogen gas sensor for detecting a hydrogen concentration in a gas phase, semiconductor gas sensors and catalytic combustion gas sensors are widely used. Particularly, the catalytic combustion gas sensor is a sensor for detecting a hydrogen gas by converting reaction heat produced in burning the hydrogen gas at a sensor surface to electric signals. And the catalytic combustion gas sensor has a feature that its structure is simple and its output signal has a linear characteristic. A catalytic combustion gas sensor disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-90210 is shown in FIGS. 14 and 15. A detection element 21 of this gas sensor composes a combustion body 22 for burning a hydrogen gas and a heating resistor 23 for heating the combustion body 22 by the Joule heat produced in accordance with energization of the heating resistor 22. The combustion body 22 is formed of a directive material such as alumina into bead which contains a combustion catalyst such as palladium or platinum. And, the heating resistor 23 is realized by a metal coil, for example, platinum, having a high temperature coefficient of resistivity. This detection element 21 is incorporated in a measuring circuit shown in FIG. 15 together with a compensation element 24. The compensation element 24 is formed into almost the same configuration as the detection element 21 except that the combustion body 22 does not contain a catalyst such as palladium or platinum. The measurement circuit includes a bridge circuit composed of the detection element 21, the compensation element 24, and fixed resistors 17, 18, in order to obtain a voltage Vc across the output terminals “c” and “d”, determine resistance variations in the heating resistor 23 from the voltage Vc, and detect the hydrogen gas concentration based on these resistance variations. A temperature characteristic and a humidity characteristic of the compensation element 24 are almost the same as the detection element 21. But since the compensation element 23 does not have the activity of a combustion catalyst, it does not react with the hydrogen gas. The bridge circuit shown in FIG. 15, comprises a series combination of the detection element 1 and the compensation element 2 across terminals “a” and “b”, and a series combination of the fixed resistances 17, 18, across terminals “a” and “b”. And, a variable resistance 19 for adjusting equilibrium is connected between the terminals “a” and “b”. And an intermediate tap of the variable resistance 19 is connected to a node between the fixed resistances 17, 18. A direct-current power sources E1 is connected in series a switch SW and a variable resistance 20 across the terminals “a” and “b”. Therefore, a voltage being applied across the terminals “a” and “b” is regulated by adjustment of the resistance of the variable resistance 20. In this measuring circuit, a current passing through the heating resistor 23 varies by adjustment of the variable resistance 20 to regulate an amount of heat produced. When using thus configured hydrogen gas sensor, the resistance values of the variable resistance 20 is first adjusted in an atmosphere containing no hydrogen gas to heat the combustion body 22 to a predetermined temperature (for example, 300 to 500° C.), and variable resistance 19 is adjusted to maintain the equilibrium state of the bridge circuit. Thereafter, when the hydrogen gas arrives at the combustion body 22, the hydrogen gas is burnt and the electric resistance of the heating resistor 23 increases. On the other hand, since the compensation element 24 does not have the activity of a hydrogen combustion catalyst, the hydrogen gas is not burnt in the compensation element 24 and electric resistance of the compensation element 24 does not vary. Therefore, a difference of electric resistance is produced between the detection element 21 and the compensation element 24, and a bridge voltage is generated between the output terminals “c” and “d”. Since this bridge voltage is proportion to the gas concentration of the hydrogen gas, the gas concentration of the hydrogen gas is detected by this bridge voltage. In recent years, such a catalytic combustion hydrogen gas sensor is expected to be used for monitoring the leakage of a hydrogen gas of fuel or monitoring and controlling a proper feed rate of hydrogen to a fuel cell, particularly in fuel cell vehicles. By the way, generally, in fuel cell vehicles, electric power is supplied to the hydrogen gas sensor from a battery while the fuel cell vehicles are driving. But electric power cannot be supplied to the hydrogen gas sensor continually while the fuel cell vehicles are not driving in order to prevent a battery from going dead, and in the meantime, it becomes impossible to detect a hydrogen gas by a hydrogen gas sensor. Accordingly, in order to detect a hydrogen gas by a hydrogen gas sensor immediately after the start of driving of fuel cell vehicles to monitor the leakage of a hydrogen gas or monitor and control a proper feed rate of hydrogen to a fuel cell, it is required that hydrogen gas is detected precisely upon energization of hydrogen gas sensor. However, only after a delay from a time of application of voltage to the heating resistor 23 to a time at which the combustion body 22 is heated to a predetermined temperature. Accordingly, it usually took a waiting time of more than a dozen seconds to several tens seconds before the precise hydrogen concentration can be measured after energization of the hydrogen gas sensor.

There are at least 400 enzymes identified as protein kinases. These enzymes catalyze the phosphorylation of target protein substrates. The phosphorylation is usually a transfer reaction of a phosphate group from ATP to the protein substrate. The specific structure in the target substrate to which the phosphate is transferred is a tyrosine, serine or threonine residue. Since these amino acid residues are the target structures for the phosphoryl transfer, these protein kinase enzymes are commonly referred to as tyrosine kinases or serine/threonine kinases. The phosphorylation reactions, and counteracting phosphatase reactions, at the tyrosine, serine and threonine residues are involved in countless cellular processes that underlie responses to diverse intracellular signals (typically mediated through cellular receptors), regulation of cellular functions, and activation or deactivation of cellular processes. A cascade of protein kinases often participate in intracellular signal transduction and are necessary for the realization of these cellular processes. Because of their ubiquity in these processes, the protein kinases can be found as an integral part of the plasma membrane or as cytoplasmic enzymes or localized in the nucleus, often as components of enzyme complexes. In many instances, these protein kinases are an essential element of enzyme and structural protein complexes that determine where and when a cellular process occurs within a cell. The identification of effective small compounds which specifically inhibit signal transduction and cellular proliferation by modulating the activity of tyrosine and serine/threonine kinases to regulate and modulate abnormal or inappropriate cell proliferation, differentiation, or metabolism is therefore desirable. In particular, the identification of compounds that specifically inhibit the function of a kinase which is essential for processes leading to cancer would be beneficial.

1. Field of the Invention This invention involves the removal of defects and disorder from crystalline layers and the epitaxial regrowth of such layers. 2. Description of the Prior Art In the course of semiconductor device fabrication, starting semiconductor materials are usually "doped" with additional elements to yield the ultimate electrical properties of the desired device. Such addition of appropriate atoms or molecules is effected primarily by one of two broad processes. The first process, referred to as ion implantation, involves bombarding the semiconductor with appropriate, highly energetic dopant ions. The energetic ions enter the material and penetrate to depths as high as one micrometer before their kinetic energy is totally dissipated. In the course of this implantation, the single crystal starting material suffers severe damage to its ordered crystalline structure as a result of the large amount of kinetic energy that is transferred to the host lattice. This damage must be subsequently removed or "annealed" before the desired electrical properties can be realized. This annealing usually proceeds by heating the damaged crystal to temperatures generally in the neighborhood of 1000 degrees C. for material such as silicon. Diffusion occurs more readily in heated material and consequently, both dopant and displaced host atoms can incorporate themselves relatively rapidly (e.g., an hour) into the lattice structure of the single crystal. In addition, dopant atoms may diffuse into the substrate beyond the implanted region. While the annealing process generally eliminates the heavy damage that occurs in the region of initial implantation, some damage may remain in the implanted as opposed to the diffused region. This implanted surface region may be either etched away or the device may be designed such that this residual, post-annealing damage is not detrimental to its operation. Despite the annealing requirement and the occurrence of residual damage, the ion implantation technique is sufficiently powerful to warrant its application in a number of prevalent manufacturing sequences. The second of the more prevalent doping processes involves the thermal diffusion of dopant atoms from the surface of the semiconductor to its interior. The appropriate dopant constituents may exist as a gas environment in which the semiconductor is placed, or may be deposited directly on the substrate, either prior to or during diffusion. Heating the entire semiconductor crystal results in diffusion of the dopant constituent into the interior region of the material under the influence of the chemical potential gradient which is maintained during the diffusion process. The diffusion may occur in more than one step and, in a prevalent practice, occurs first in a high temperature, predeposition phase and then over a much longer time period in a lower temperature diffusion step. It should be noted that in contradistinction to the ion implantation process, the diffusion process generally results in considerably less damage to the semiconductor substrate. This is due to the low energy dynamics involved in thermal annealing which is inherently less capable of producing damage, and to the fact that any damage which may occur may be essentially simultaneously annealed under the influence of the thermal conditions required for diffusion. However, dislocations due to misfit stresses that arise during cooling may appear during this process. As mentioned above, the heavy damage which occurs during the ion implantation process must be annealed, generally by exposing the substrate to elevated temperatures. This annealing process is sufficiently powerful so that a surface layer that has been rendered amorphous by ion implantation may be annealed or "regrown" to a single crystal, as a result of the imposition of appropriate thermal conditions and under the influence of an appropriate underlying single crystal substrate. (See, e.g., Csepregi, L., Mayer, J. W., and Sigmon, T. W., Physics Letters, 54A, 157 (1975). Similarly, amorphous surface layers produced by vapor deposition of Si atoms onto specially cleaned silicon single crystals may be "regrown" by thermal annealing (Roth, J. A., and Anderson, C. L., Applied Physics Letters 31, 689 (1977)). In both cases, however, the regrown material may contain residual defects. Recently, workers in the field have demonstrated the efficacy of laser radiation as a source of intense thermal energy in the annealing of damaged semiconductor materials. Essentially, the laser is used as a convenient means of depositing energy into the damaged semiconductor material, thereby raising its temperature, and increasing the appropriate diffusion rates so as to permit efficient annealing. (e.g., I. B. Khabullin, et al, Soviet Physics--Semiconductor Vol. 11, page 190 (1977)). Both pulsed and cw lasers have been used to obtain limited annealed regions, and a cw laser has been used to scan the damaged semiconductor thereby obtaining a patterned annealed region. (e.g., Kachurin, et al., Soviet Physics--Semiconductor 10 1128 (1977)). However, the exact nature of the process involved in laser annealing has not been understood. Prior applications of the laser have included etching processes using a stationary laser spot, a scanning laser spot, or a series of overlapping laser spots to properly define the etched pattern. (See, e.g., Ready, J. F. (1971) "Effects of High Power Laser Radiation" Academic Press, New York).

Conventionally, there is known an electric motor having first and second rotors which are coaxially provided around the rotation axis of the electric motor, in which the relative position, that is, the phase difference between the first and second rotors is controlled according to the rotational speed of the electric motor or to the speed of the rotational magnetic field generated in the stator (for example, see Patent Document 1). In the electric motor, when the phase difference is controlled according to, for example, the rotational speed of the electric motor, the relative position in the circumferential direction between the first and second rotors is modified via a member which is displaced in the radial direction by the action of centrifugal force. Alternatively, when the phase difference is controlled according to, for example, the speed of the rotational magnetic field generated in the stator, a control current is passed through the winding of the stator in a state with the rotational speeds of the respective rotors maintained by centrifugal force, to thereby modify the speed of the rotational magnetic field. Thus, the relative position in the circumferential direction between the first and second rotors is modified. Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2002-204541 In an electric motor according to one example of the above-mentioned conventional technique, when the phase difference between the first and second rotors is controlled according to the rotational speed of the electric motor, the control over the phase difference between the first and second rotors is possible only while centrifugal force according to the operational state, that is, the rotational speed, of the electric motor is applied. Therefore, there arises a problem that it is impossible to control the phase difference at an appropriate timing including a halt state of the electric motor. Furthermore, when the electric motor is likely to be subjected to vibrations from the outside, such as when the electric motor is mounted in a vehicle as a driving source, there arises a problem that it is difficult to appropriately control the phase difference between the first and second rotors only by the action of centrifugal force. In addition, in this case, the phase difference is controlled irrespective of a variation in the supply voltage in the power source to the electric motor. Therefore, there is a possibility that an unfavorable situation is brought about in which the relationship of the supply voltage and the counter electromotive voltage is reversed. Moreover, when the phase difference is controlled according to, for example, the speed of the rotational magnetic field generated in the stator, the speed of the rotational magnetic field is modified. Therefore, there arises a problem that the control processing of the electric motor becomes complicated.

The present invention relates to a copy processing technique for a data processing system having a plurality of disk array devices and particularly to an effective technique applicable to a process for simultaneously achieving long-distance communication and no data loss at a time of occurrence of disaster. According to studies conducted by the inventors of the present invention, the following techniques are available to a conventional copy processing technique for the data processing system. For example, in recent years, in order to always provide continuous services to a client, the data copying technique among a plurality of disk array devices have been suggested so that the services can be provided even when failure occurs in the disk array device such as a storage device for storing data. Particularly important is a technique for continuing and restarting data copying among remote sites and data copying at the time of failure. An example of a technique used in a data processing system having a plurality of disk array devices for copying, to second and third disk array devices, information stored in a first disk array device is disclosed in Patent Document 1 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,002). In the Patent Document 1, a disk array device is provided to each of a local/production site, a first remote site, and a second remote site. Among these three disk array devices, the disk array device at the local/production site transfers data stored therein to the disk array device at the first remote site for copying. Then, the disk array device at the first remote site stores the transferred data and also transfers the data to the disk array device at the second remote site. Then, the disk array device at the second remote site stores the transferred data. Thereby, the technique for making the data redundant is disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention The subject invention relates to oscillography and oscillographs and other recording methods and recorders, to methods and apparatus for supplying wound material from rolls of diminishing diameter and other winding and reeling methods and apparatus, to methods and apparatus for releasably retaining any one of several tubular objects of different lengths, and to combinations of such methods and apparatus. 2. Description of the Prior Art An advanced type of record medium transport mechanism is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,216,021. That apparatus appears able to handle reporting medium strips wound on a supply roll and having an information recording surface layer either facing inwardly or outwardly on the supply roll. Also, that apparatus appears capable of winding the recording medium strip, after recordation thereon, on a takeup roller, or then of discharging such recording medium strip from the machine. To this end, that prior-art apparatus has a drive roller with gearing shiftable between different positions, as well as a shiftable front door with roller mount bearings and shiftable takeup roller. This tends to introduce complexities and limitations in practice. Also, the supply roll in that type of apparatus may unwind too quickly or non-uniformly as a function of diminishing supply roll diameter. Also, that type of apparatus requires the recording material to be disposed on core with laterally projecting shafts on the supply and takeup sides. U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,531,705, 3,360,210, 3,497,152 and 3,539,126 propose various winding devices and similar apparatus in which rolls are geared together or mutually engaged to rotate in unison. In practice, such systems often are difficult to realize or are subject to design limitations. In the prior-art equipment under consideration, there also exists a need for more convenient and effective supply roll mounting systems for accommodating supply rolls located on tubular supports of different lengths. In more general terms, there exists a need for methods and apparatus for releasably retaining any one of several tubular objects of different lengths. In this respect, an early proposal according to U.S. Pat. No. 1,683,876 employs conical cable drum retaining members which are rotatably mounted on a pair of spaced standards. In practice, there existed the drawback that at least an entire standard had to be moved to accommodate cable drums of different widths. To somewhat alleviate this problem, the proposal according to U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,770 mounts the coil-supporting assemblies on tracks for sliding movement toward and away from each other. The proposal according to U.S. Pat. No. 1,702,971 employs flat paddles for supporting bolts of cloth preparatory to and during unwinding operations. One of the paddles is rotatably mounted on a standard which, together with a tubular track extending parallel to an axis through the paddles, is attached to the floor. The other paddle is rotatably mounted on a standard which, in turn, is supported on a tubular carriage riding in the mentioned tubular track. A spring has opposite ends attached to, and extends through the tubular track and carriage; biasing the carriage into the tubular track. A locking device arrests the motion of the carriage relative to the tubular track at any one of several incremental positions in order to permit an accommodation of bolts of cloth of different widths. In so arresting the motion of the carriage, the locking device also renders the mentioned spring ineffective from exercising a biasing function on the cloth retaining paddles. In practice, the latter drawback coupled with an only step-wise adjustability of the distance between the paddles would render that prior-art system unsuitable for releasably retaining tubular members or supply rolls of different lengths. An infinitely adjustable spacing between supply roll retention members appears possible in the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,104,073. However, the use of a tool and the carrying out of set screw releasing and tightening operations are then required for each change in supply roll width. A later proposal according to U.S. Pat. No. 3,941,320 appears only suitable for clamping tubular supply roll supports of a given length. A proposal according to U.S. Pat. No. 3,792,825 uses spring clamps acting on the outside of a supply roll for retaining same in a chart drive system. That principle appears to be rather limited to the handling of perforated paper rolls. The latter patent also proposes the use of pads as braking devices. Again, there appears to be a design limitation to particular chart roll materials. A more universally applicable tension regulator has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,676,797 wherein a roller rests on the outside of the supply roll to sense its diminishing diameter during unwinding of the material from the supply roll. That sensing roller is rotatably mounted in an arm which is spring biased to maintain the sensing roller in contact with the supply roll. That arm also transmits the motion of the sensing roller along a circular trajectory through the axis of rotation of the supply roll to a friction head or button that rides on a circular friction surface rotating with the supply roll. The subsequent U.S. Pat. No. 3,720,385 alludes to drawbacks in the latter prior-art tensioning system and, in turn, proposes to do away with the need for a spring bias of the roll diameter sensor by placing cylindrical sensing means as well as corresponding brake means at loci beyond points of tangency between a circle of a diameter of the effective braking disk diameter and a tanential line passing through the pivot point of follower arms to which the sensing and braking means are attached. In practice, the latter proposal, in turn, has the drawback of operating only in one sense of rotation of the supply roll. This is a particular disadvantage if supply rolls containing a recording material having an information recording surface layer facing inwardly and supply rolls containing a recording medium having a recording surface layer facing outwardly are to be employed alternatively in the particular system. Moreover, the sensing rolls or cylindrical members of prior-art tension regulators often have eventuated the formation of bumps or other warped conditions in the supply roll.

The present invention relates in general to coated glass, and specifically to perfluoroalkoxy copolymer coated glass and a method of manufacturing perfluoroalkoxy copolymer coated glass. Coatings have been applied to glass to change one or more characteristics of the glass. One such coating is perfluoroalkoxy copolymer (“PFA”) which is one of the compounds sold by E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company under the trademark Teflon®. PFA is most commonly used as a non-stick coating on cookware such as pots and pans. PFA has also been used to coat glass such as automobile windshields and light bulbs. The structure of PFA makes it highly resistive to sticking or adhering to other substances. In particular, the structure of perfluoroalkoxy copolymer is a copolymer of tetrafluoroethylene (CF2=CF2) with a perfluoroalkoxy vinyl ether [F(CF2)m CF20CF—CF2]. The resultant polymer contains the carbon-fluorine backbone chain typical of polytetrafluoroethylene with perfluoroalkoxy side chains. The side chains are connected to the carbon-fluorine backbone of the polymer through flexible oxygen linkages. The fluorine atoms in the chain resist almost any other atom or molecule, even other fluorine atoms. As a result, the fluorine atoms in PFA resist adhering to or even being near other molecules. Thus, molecules at the surface of PFA repel the other molecules and almost anything else that attempts to adhere or come close to the PFA molecule. Additionally, the bond between the carbon and fluorine atoms is extremely strong. The bond is so stable that little to almost nothing will react with it. Thus, PFA is a desirable coating to coat glass products because it is a material, which minimally reacts with other compounds. PFA also includes very strong bonds between its atoms which enables the coating to withstand extreme temperature and pressure conditions. However, there are certain problems with known PFA coated glass. One known problem is that although the PFA coats the glass, it does not form a strong bond with or strongly adhere to the glass because of its highly resistive nature with respect to other molecules. Thus, when a glass substrate or glass product coated with PFA shatters or breaks, certain of the glass shards or pieces break away from the PFA coating. In some coated glass products such as coated light bulbs, the PFA coating is applied to the outside of the light bulb. When the light bulb coated with PFA breaks, the glass pieces remain inside the light bulb because the PFA layer creates a closed container such that the glass pieces are contained inside the light bulb. However, other glass products such as laboratory beakers are open glass containers. Therefore, the glass shards in these products can become loose and break away from the surfaces of these products. The glass shards are unsafe and may cause injury or severe injuries to users of these glass products. Accordingly, there is a need for glass-coated materials and glass products that are coated with a material that has a very high bond strength and which strongly adheres to glass. Additionally, there is a need for a glass-coated materials and products that maintain the structural integrity of the surfaces of the glass materials and products.

The increasing demands for higher areal recording density impose increasingly greater demands on thin film magnetic recording media in terms of coercivity (Hc), remanent coercivity (Hcr), magnetic remanance (Mr), which is the magnetic moment per unit volume of ferromagnetic material, coercivity squareness (S*), signal-to-medium noise ratio (SMNR), and thermal stability of the media. These parameters are important to the recording performance and depend primarily on the microstructure of the materials of the media. For example, as the SMNR is reduced by decreasing the grain size or reducing exchange coupling between grains, it has been observed that the thermal stability of the media decreases. The requirements for high areal density, i.e., higher than 30 Gb/in2, impose increasingly greater requirements on magnetic recording media in terms of coercivity, remanent squareness, medium noise, track recording performance and thermal stability. It is difficult to produce a magnetic recording medium satisfying such demanding requirements, particularly a high-density magnetic rigid disk medium for longitudinal and perpendicular recording. As the storage density of magnetic recording disks has increased, the product of Mr and the magnetic layer thickness t has decreased and Hcr of the magnetic layer has increased. This has led to a decrease in the ratio Mrt/Hcr. To achieve a reduction in Mrt, the thickness t of the magnetic layer has been reduced, but only to a limit because the magnetization in the layer becomes susceptible to thermal decay. This decay has been attributed to thermal activation of small magnetic grains (the super-paramagnetic effect). The thermal stability of a magnetic grain is to a large extent determined by KuV, where Ku is the magnetic anisotropy constant of the magnetic layer and V is the volume of the magnetic grain. As the magnetic layer thickness is decreased, V decreases. Thus, if the magnetic layer thickness is too thin, the stored magnetic information might no longer be stable at normal disk drive operating conditions. The increase in Ku is limited to the point where the coercivity Hc, which is approximately equal to Ku/Mr, becomes too large to be written by a conventional recording head. On the other hand, a reduction in Mr of the magnetic layer for a fixed layer thickness is limited by the coercivity that can be written. Increasing V by increasing inter-granular exchange can also increase thermal stability. However, this approach could result in a reduction in the SMNR of the magnetic layer. Some attempts have been made to solve the above-mentioned problem of thermal stability. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,796 (Teng) teaches a laminated longitudinal magnetic recording medium with Cr-containing non-magnetic layer between two magnetic layers. This medium exhibits a lower medium noise than that of a medium without the Cr-containing interlayer. However, when the medium Mrt is below 0.6 memu/cm2, the laminated medium has very poor thermal stability, which will be shown below. As recording density increases to about 30 Gb/in2, medium Mrt has been reduced to about 0.35 memu/cm2. Regular laminated medium can not be used in such low Mrt regime due to thermal stability issue. In order to squeeze as much digital information as possible on a recording disc medium there is a need to find a film structure, which can benefit the low noise feature of laminated medium, but has acceptable thermal stability. Furthermore, in order to obtain high enough signal output, and reduce the medium noise of the medium with anti-ferromagnetic stabilization layers, further improvement of the medium is necessary.

Currently, typical payload operations for a vehicle (e.g., a satellite) have the ability to perform switching of inputs to outputs of the payload on the vehicle. All of this switching on the payload is commanded and controlled by a single satellite controller with no resource allocation privacy. As such, there is a need for an improved payload operations design that allows for privacy in the allocation of resources on the payload.

1. Field of Invention This invention relates generally to gas sensors and methods of detecting gases. 2. Related Art Gas detection methods based on the thermal conductivity transport property have been widely used because such methods do not show significant selectivity toward a specific gas. Thermal conductivity is defined as the rate at which heat flows through an area of a body or material. Since thermal conductivity is a bulk property of gases, methods based on this property are considered to be near universal or non-specific gas detection methods. Typically, the thermal conductivity of a gas is measured by heating a resistance element such as a hot wire filament or a thermistor, and contacting the heated element with a gas sample. The temperature of the resistance element is determined by the thermal conductivity of the gas sample, with a change in temperature reflected as a change in resistance of the resistance element. In this method, the resistance element behaves as a thermal conductivity sensing element. Certain gases, such as helium and hydrogen, have thermal conductivities that are much greater than the thermal conductivity of air, while other gases, such as nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and nitrogen have thermal conductivities that are less than or similar to that of air. A detector such as a gas chromatograph, which measures thermal conductivity of a gas typically uses a carrier gas of high thermal conductivity to detect a specimen gas of low thermal conductivity, or a carrier gas of low thermal conductivity to detect a specimen gas of high thermal conductivity. For example, helium is used as a carrier gas for nitrogen detection, and nitrogen or argon is used as a carrier gas for hydrogen detection. In other thermal conductivity detector applications, specific gas analysis based on thermal conductivity has been limited to either binary gas mixtures of known gas species, or hydrogen gas in a mix of gases having similar thermal conductivities significantly different from hydrogen. Because these methods measure only a single bulk parameter of a gas sample, different gas mixtures having similar thermal conductivities cannot be distinguished.

Computers and other networked devices are configured for operation and compatibility with their local network environments. These devices can be configured to obtain information about other devices on a local network using a protocol such as Address Resolution Protocol (ARP). When using ARP, a device may broadcast an ARP request on the local network, where the ARP request includes an Internet protocol (IP) address of a destination device. Another device may then reply by broadcasting a media access control (MAC) address corresponding to the IP address that was broadcast. The device may then transmit data directly to the destination device using the MAC address. Although convenience for trusted devices, ARP may be used by malicious attackers to receive information about other devices on the local network. The malicious attackers may then use the information to intercept or otherwise disrupt or manipulate network communications facilitated by the local network.

When several units or several devices are connected to a bus, it can happen that at least two units or devices want to transmit and access the bus simultaneously. To avoid such competitive situations, it is generally known to insert a control circuit in a bus, to control and ensure the transmission of the information. The problem is solved for the remote control technique by providing two organization lines for the control, one of which is connected as a request line to the units or devices and the second serves as a stop line, to stop an address counter during the time a unit or a device outputs data, see DE 33 43 456 C2. The known solutions have in common that the information sink, which is connected to the bus or to the line through at least one additional control line, controls the information source's mode of operation in such a way, that only one information source is placed in the transmission condition during a predetermined period of time.

The prior art includes, as disclosed in EP-A-481,732, a sustained-release preparation comprising a drug, a polylactic acid and a glycolic acid-hydroxycarboxylic acid [HOCH(C.sub.2-8 alkyl)COOH] copolymer. The disclosed process comprises preparing a W/O emulsion consisting of an internal water phase comprising an aqueous solution of a physiologically active peptide and an external oil phase comprising a solution of a biodegradable polymer in an organic solvent, adding said W/O emulsion to water or an aqueous medium and processing the resulting W/O/W emulsion into sustained-release microcapsules (drying-in-water method). EP-A-52510 describes a microcapsule comprising a hormonally active polypeptide, a biodegradable polymer and a polymer hydrolysis control agent. The disclosed process for its production is a coacervation process which comprises adding a coacervation agent to a W/O emulsion consisting of an aqueous solution of the polypeptide as the internal water phase and a halogenated organic solvent as the oil phase to provide microcapsules. GB-A-2209937 describes a pharmaceutical composition comprising a polylactide, a polyglycolide, a lactic acid-glycolic acid copolymer or a mixture of these polymers and a water-insoluble peptide. Also disclosed is a production process which comprises dispersing a salt of the water-insoluble peptide in a solution of said polylactide, polyglycolide, a lactic acid-glycolic acid copolymer or a mixture of these polymers, removing the solvent by evaporation and molding the resulting mixture into solid particles. EP-A-58481 describes a process for producing a pharmaceutical composition comprising a polylactide and an acid-stable polypeptide which, for instance, comprises dissolving tetragastrin hydrochloride and a polylactide in aqueous dioxane, casting the solution into a film and evaporating the solvent. EP-A-0467389 teaches a technology for providing a drug delivery system for proteins and polypeptides by the polymer precipitation technique or the microsphere technique. However, this literature contains no specific disclosure about a system containing an LH-RH derivative. The luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone, known as LH-RH (or GnRH), is secreted from the hypothalamus and binds to receptors on the pituitary gland. The LH (luteinizing hormone) and FSH (folicle stimulating hormone), which are released thereon, act on the gonad to synthesize steroid hormones. As derivatives of LH-RH, the existence of both agonistic and antagonistic peptides is known. When a highly agonistic peptide is repeatedly administered, the available receptors are reduced in number so that the formation of gonad-derived steroidal hormones is suppressed. Therefore, LH-RH derivatives are expected to be of value as therapeutic agents for hormone-dependent diseases such as prostate cancer, benign prostatomegaly, endometriosis, hysteromyoma, metrofibroma, precocious puberty, mammary cancer, etc. or as contraceptives. Particularly, the problem of histamine-releasing activity was pointed out for LH-RH antagonists of the so-called first and second generations (The Pharmaceuticals Monthly 32, 1599-1605, 1990) but a number of compounds have since been synthesized and recently LH-RH-antagonizing peptides having no appreciable histamine-releasing activity have been developed (cf. U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,904, for instance). In order for any such LH-RH antagonizing peptide to manifest its pharmacological effect, there is a need for a controlled release system so that the competitive inhibition of endogenous LH-RH may be persistent. Moreover, because of histamine-releasing activity which may be low but is not non-existent in such peptides, a demand exists for a sustained-release preparation with an inhibited initial burst immediately following administration. Particularly, in the case of a sustained-release (e.g. 1-3 months) preparation, it is important to insure a more positive and constant release of the peptide in order that the desired efficacy may be attained with greater certainty and safety. At the same time, there is a long-felt need for a method of producing a sustained-release preparation having a high peptide trap rate for a physiologically active peptide, particularly LH-RH-antagonizing peptides.

In general, the common methods of synthesis of ketones can be divided into (1) synthesis from acid halides and organometallic compounds, (2) synthesis from carboxylic acids, (3) Friedel-Crafts reactions, and (4) enolate condensations. Synthesis from acid halides and organometallic compounds has been extensively used but costs of the organometallic reagents are relatively expensive and care must be used in handling. The use of carboxylic acids and their salts for ketone synthesis suffers from the disadvantage that the method will produce in general only the symmetrical ketones in good yields. The Friedel-Crafts acylation reactions generally give good yields. However, their use is restricted by the orientation of the acyl group introduced and the metal halides are expensive with attendant waste disposal problems. Enolate condensations give a variety of products; however, the overall yields are frequently not so good as those that can be obtained by other methods, and procedures frequently are more involved. For example, as is well-known, the important methods of formation of benzophenone, i.e., benzophenone and its substituted derivatives, are the following: (1) oxidation of diphenylmethanes or benzohydrols, e.g., by chromic acid or by oxygen in presence of a catalyst, for example, as is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 2,859,274; (2) hydrolysis of ketone chlorides; (3) condensation of benzoyl halides with benzene, its homologues, and substituted derivatives having a reactive position, in presence of AlCl.sub.3 or other catalyst, or under high pressure, as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 2,528,789; (4) reaction of a benzonitrile (or benzoyl halide) with a phenylmagnesium halide; (5) distillation of calcium or other suitable benzoate (Ann 12, 41). Preparation of anthraquinone specifically has been proposed by several different processes: (1) the DielsAlder reaction of butadiene on 1,4-naphthoquinone, (2) oxidation of anthracene in the presence of catalysts, (3) Friedel-Crafts reaction with benzene and phthalic anhydride, (4) oxidation of suitable precursors such as indane. In the Friedel-Crafts process, since a large amount of aluminum chloride is necessary, disposal of the wastes from the process is difficult. Furthermore, since isomerization reactions, rearrangement reactions, and elimination reactions occur in the process, many by-products derived from these reactions contaminate the product. Oxidation of anthracene is economically accomplished only when relatively pure anthracene is available at moderate costs. The Diels-Alder reaction suffers from the high cost of naphthoquinone. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,699,134; 3,872,134; 3,872,135; 4,002,653; 4,036,860; 4,036,861; and 4,215,063 teach typical processes for manufacture of anthraquinone by oxidation of diphenylmethane compounds. These processes produce many by-products. Preparation of fluorenones has been proposed by several different processes also: (1) the heating of salts of diphenyl-o-carboxylic acid or its salts produces fluorenone, (2) the diazonium compound of o-amino-benzophenone gives fluorenone with evolution of nitrogen, (3) the oxidation of phenanthraquinone. Fluorenone-carboxylic acids can be obtained by oxidation of fluoranthene with chromic acid, or by heating isodiphenic acid with concentrated sulfuric acid, or from 2'-aminobenzophenone-2-carboxylic acid by the action of nitrous acid. Fluorenone-1,7-dicarboxylic acid can be obtained by the action of permanganate on retene-quinone. Retene is defined as 1-methyl-7-isopropyl-phenanthrene. These processes produce many by-products. As a result of these difficulties, considerable investigations have been carried out in efforts to develop syntheses of anthraquinones and fluorenones whereby the desired products in good yield are obtained by simple economic methods. This invention relates to a method for preparation of anthraquinones and fluorenones in good yield. The process can be by batch or by continuous method.

In the prior art, RC (Radio Control) transmitters are known, with which RC models can be controlled in a wireless manner, these RC transmitters, known per se, comprising, in addition to the control sticks for controlling the model and possibly other corresponding switches or sliders, possibly input means for inputting setting parameters, but, as a rule, these input means are restricted to determining in the RC transmitter a change of parameters, such as trimming values or shares of mixers and the like, e.g. via model memories. On the other hand, electronic accessory modules (e.g. V-Stabi® of the company Mikado Helicopters, Germany), having an electronic attitude controller to be mounted in RC helicopters, are known, which are provided with a receiving device or can be connected with a corresponding receiving device (satellite receiver or receiver with a sum-signal output, such as, e.g., S-Bus®). Radio communication between the RC transmitter and the receiving device in the RC model has been effected so far to a very great extent unidirectionally from the transmitter to the model, whereby exclusively control commands for controlling the model are transmitted, or possibly also individual control commands for setting parameters in the model, such as, for example, the sensitivity of a tail gyro, which in attitude controllers known per se can also be integrated in the electronics box of the attitude controller. The attitude controller in the RC model has to be adjusted, e.g. for enabling its optimal functioning, by the user of the RC model (often “in the field”) or else has to be configured, as required, during operation in conformity with personal preferences. This setting or configuration is usually effected by input means fixed directly on the attitude controller (push buttons, setting potentiometers and displays are known per se for this purpose) or by additional external operating parts which are connected to the electronics box via a line (e.g. a serial interface). Setting devices in which the connection line between the external operating part and the electronics box has been replaced by a Bluetooth® connection are also known. The external setting device, too, can in principle be replaced by a conventional mobile phone, a smartphone, a portable PC (notebook/netbook), a tablet computer or similar devices, in which case a corresponding setting software communicating with the Bluetooth® interface is available for setting. It is the aim of the invention to make the setting and/or configuration of an electronic accessory module, such as, in particular, an attitude controller in an RC model, and possibly other accessory modules, more comfortable for the user or pilot of the RC model, doing to the greatest extent possible in particular without using an additional setting device or operating parts or display means fixed on the accessory module. This problem is solved according to the invention by the system as claimed herein.

In the past, cables and more particularly the connectors at the end of cables, have been terminated with covers or caps. The covers are essentially caps which are formed to snap over the end of the cable connectors be they circular, rectangular or of other shapes. In operating systems and particularly systems that are mobile as in vehicles or aircraft, the covers tend to become dislodged and not only does the dirt and other foreign matter then enter the cavity that contains either the male or a female terminal pins or receptacles, but also leaves the cable connector in a position where it is possible to hit other metal objects and cause system difficulties within the electronic system to which the cable might be connected. To meet certain military and critical requirements it has also been common to make the covers out of a conductive material such as a carbon filled plastic or other materials which not only will protect the connector cavity but also will cover the cavity with a conductive material so that a complete electrostatic shield is created. An example of a connector cover is seen in the Guy patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,936,129. Another example of a connector housing is seen in the Gallagher patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,169,643. In some of these prior art covers, difficulty has been experienced in retaining the two mating members together or positively retained onto the connector. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art devices have been obviated in a novel manner by the present invention. It is, therefore, an outstanding object of the invention to provide complete electrically conductive encapsulation of a cable connector. Another object of this invention is the provision of a unitary member that has two parts that are positively retained together. A further object of the present invention is the provision of a portion that will engage the grounded portion of a cable connector. With these and other objects in view, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the invention resides in the combination of parts set forth in the specification and covered by the claims appended hereto.

Field The present invention relates to closures with storage chambers. Description of Related Art Closures with storage chamber or reservoir are mainly used in the field of extemporaneous preparations. Extemporaneous preparations are prepared by mixing a given amount of liquid stored in a container, typically sterile water, with a given amount of product (in liquid, powder, or other form), which is typically stored in a reservoir contained in the cap that closes the container. This ensures stability of the products for a long time, as they are separately packaged and will be only mixed when the preparation is used. Recently, closures with a storage chamber have also been found to be useful for beverages. In the field of alcoholic beverages, the product stored in the storage chamber may be a liquid or powder die which imparts a color to the beverage that makes it look more appealing to a consumer. In the field of non-alcoholic beverages and supplements, the product stored in the storage chamber may be a granular preparation. A first type of closure uses a punch member which pierces the bottom of the storage chamber, upon first opening, to release the product stored therein into the container. A second type of closure uses a closing member which disengages from a dispensing opening of the storage chamber, upon first opening, to release the product stored therein into the container. Closures of this type are disclosed, for instance in EP 2 292 525, DE 29916436, U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,939, and EP 1919791. These closures are composed of a stationary part, attached to the container, and a removable part. The removable part is equipped with a storage chamber with a dispensing opening closed by a closing member supported by the stationary part. Upon first opening, the dispensing opening disengages from the closing member and allows the product in the storage chamber to fall into the container by gravity. This second type of closures is widely used, as it features a simple mechanism for opening and dispensing the product into the container, which has no frangible part and hence ensures a reliable operation. Nevertheless, these closures have a drawback. Due to the relaxation of the material that forms the two parts or the clearances caused by design or mass-production tolerances, particularly in the sealing area between the closing member and the dispensing opening, a small amount of the product stored in the storage chamber may be released therefrom into the container. This problem is particularly felt in the field of extemporaneous preparations, in which even a small amount of product may contaminate the sterile liquid and prevent use of the preparation once the container is opened. In the field of beverages, while contact of the product to be mixed with the liquid in the container, before first opening, does not affect the integrity of the liquid, it is still unpleasant to the consumer, e.g. in case of liquid dies, when the consumer buys a container with a partially colored liquid, and will not have the pleasure of looking at the effect of the dye upon first opening.

Protein kinases are a family of enzymes that catalyze phosphorylation of proteins, in particular the hydroxyl group of specific tyrosine, serine, or threonine residues in proteins. Protein kinases are pivotal in the regulation of a wide variety of cellular processes, including metabolism, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and cell survival. Uncontrolled proliferation is a hallmark of cancer cells, and can be manifested by a deregulation of the cell division cycle in one of two ways—making stimulatory genes hyperactive or inhibitory genes inactive. Protein kinase inhibitors, regulators or modulators alter the function of kinases such as cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs), mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK/ERK), glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3beta), Checkpoint (Chk) (e.g., CHK-1, CHK-2 etc.) kinases, AKT kinases, JNK, and the like. Examples of protein kinase inhibitors are described in WO02/22610 A1 and by Y. Mettey et al., in J. Med. Chem., 46:222-236 (2003). The cyclin-dependent kinases are serine/threonine protein kinases, which are the driving force behind the cell cycle and cell proliferation. Misregulation of CDK function occurs with high frequency in many important solid tumors. Individual CDK's, such as, CDK1, CDK2, CDK3, CDK4, CDK5, CDK6 and CDK7, CDK8 and the like, perform distinct roles in cell cycle progression and can be classified as either G1S, or G2M phase enzymes. CDK2 and CDK4 are of particular interest because their activities are frequently misregulated in a wide variety of human cancers. CDK2 activity is required for progression through G1 to the S phase of the cell cycle, and CDK2 is one of the key components of the G1 checkpoint. Checkpoints serve to maintain the proper sequence of cell cycle events and allow the cell to respond to insults or to proliferative signals, while the loss of proper checkpoint control in cancer cells contributes to tumorgenesis. The CDK2 pathway influences tumorgenesis at the level of tumor suppressor function (e.g. p52, RB, and p27) and oncogene activation (cyclin E). Many reports have demonstrated that both the coactivator, cyclin E, and the inhibitor, p27, of CDK2 are either over- or underexpressed, respectively, in breast, colon, nonsmall cell lung, gastric, prostate, bladder, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, ovarian, and other cancers. Their altered expression has been shown to correlate with increased CDK2 activity levels and poor overall survival. This observation makes CDK2 and its regulatory pathways compelling targets for the development of cancer treatments. A number of adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP) competitive small organic molecules as well as peptides have been reported in the literature as CDK inhibitors for the potential treatment of cancers. U.S. Pat. No. 6,413,974, col. 1, line 23-col. 15, line 10 offers a good description of the various CDKs and their relationship to various types of cancer. Flavopiridol (shown below) is a nonselective CDK inhibitor that is currently undergoing human clinical trials, A. M. Sanderowicz et al., J. Clin. Oncol. 16:2986-2999 (1998). Other known inhibitors of CDKs include, for example, olomoucine (J. Vesely et al., Eur. J. Biochem., 224:771-786 (1994)) and roscovitine (I. Meijer et al., Eur. J. Biochem., 243:527-536 (1997)). U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,305 describes certain pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridine compounds as CDK inhibitors. An illustrative compound from the '305 patent is: K. S. Kim et al., J. Med. Chem. 45:3905-3927 (2002) and WO 02/10162 disclose certain aminothiazole compounds as CDK inhibitors. Another series of protein kinases are those that play an important role as a checkpoint in cell cycle progression. Checkpoints prevent cell cycle progression at inappropriate times, such as in response to DNA damage, and maintain the metabolic balance of cells while the cell is arrested, and in some instances can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) when the requirements of the checkpoint have not been met. Checkpoint control can occur in the G1 phase (prior to DNA synthesis) and in G2, prior to entry into mitosis. One series of checkpoints monitors the integrity of the genome and, upon sensing DNA damage, these “DNA damage checkpoints” block cell cycle progression in G1 & G2 phases, and slow progression through S phase. This action enables DNA repair processes to complete their tasks before replication of the genome and subsequent separation of this genetic material into new daughter cells takes place. Inactivation of CHK1 has been shown to transduce signals from the DNA-damage sensory complex to inhibit activation of the cyclin B/Cdc2 kinase, which promotes mitotic entry, and abrogate G.sub.2 arrest induced by DNA damage inflicted by either anticancer agents or endogenous DNA damage, as well as result in preferential killing of the resulting checkpoint defective cells. See, e.g., Peng et al., Science, 277:1501-1505 (1997); Sanchez et al., Science, 277:1497-1501 (1997), Nurse, Cell, 91:865-867 (1997); Weinert, Science, 277:1450-1451 (1997); Walworth et al., Nature, 363:368-371 (1993); and Al-Khodairy et al., Molec. Biol. Cell., 5:147-160 (1994). Selective manipulation of checkpoint control in cancer cells could afford broad utilization in cancer chemotherapeutic and radiotherapy regimens and may, in addition, offer a common hallmark of human cancer “genomic instability” to be exploited as the selective basis for the destruction of cancer cells. A number of factors place CHK1 as a pivotal target in DNA-damage checkpoint control. The elucidation of inhibitors of this and functionally related kinases such as CDS1/CHK2, a kinase recently discovered to cooperate with CHK1 in regulating S phase progression (see Zeng et al., Nature, 395:507-510 (1998); Matsuoka, Science, 282:1893-1897 (1998)), could provide valuable new therapeutic entities for the treatment of cancer. Another group of kinases are the tyrosine kinases. Tyrosine kinases can be of the receptor type (having extracellular, transmembrane and intracellular domains) or the non-receptor type (being wholly intracellular). Receptor-type tyrosine kinases are comprised of a large number of transmembrane receptors with diverse biological activity. In fact, about 20 different subfamilies of receptor-type tyrosine kinases have been identified. One tyrosine kinase subfamily, designated the HER subfamily, is comprised of EGFR (HER1), HER2, HER3 and HER4. Ligands of this subfamily of receptors identified so far include epithelial growth factor, TGF-alpha, amphiregulin, HB-EGF, betacellulin and heregulin. Another subfamily of these receptor-type tyrosine kinases is the insulin subfamily, which includes INS-R, IGF-IR, IR, and IR-R. The PDGF subfamily includes the PDGF-alpha and beta receptors, CSFIR, c-kit and FLK-II. The FLK family is comprised of the kinase insert domain receptor (KDR), fetal liver kinase-1 (FLK-1), fetal liver kinase-4 (FLK-4) and the fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (flt-1). For detailed discussion of the receptor-type tyrosine kinases, see Plowman et al., DN&P 7(6):334-339, 1994. At least one of the non-receptor protein tyrosine kinases, namely, LCK, is believed to mediate the transduction in T-cells of a signal from the interaction of a cell-surface protein (Cd4) with a cross-linked anti-Cd4 antibody. A more detailed discussion of non-receptor tyrosine kinases is provided in Bolen, Oncogene, 8:2025-2031 (1993). The non-receptor type of tyrosine kinases is also comprised of numerous subfamilies, including Src, Frk, Btk, Csk, Abl, Zap70, Fes/Fps, Fak, Jak, Ack, and LIMK. Each of these subfamilies is further sub-divided into varying receptors. For example, the Src subfamily is one of the largest and includes Src, Yes, Fyn, Lyn, Lck, Blk, Hck, Fgr, and Yrk. The Src subfamily of enzymes has been linked to oncogenesis. For a more detailed discussion of the non-receptor type of tyrosine kinases, see Bolen, Oncogene, 8:2025-2031 (1993). In addition to its role in cell-cycle control, protein kinases also play a crucial role in angiogenesis, which is the mechanism by which new capillaries are formed from existing vessels. When required, the vascular system has the potential to generate new capillary networks in order to maintain the proper functioning of tissues and organs. In the adult, however, angiogenesis is fairly limited, occurring only in the process of wound healing and neovascularization of the endometrium during menstruation. On the other hand, unwanted angiogenesis is a hallmark of several diseases, such as retinopathies, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, age-related macular degeneration, and cancer (solid tumors). Protein kinases which have been shown to be involved in the angiogenic process include three members of the growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase family; VEGF-R2 (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, also known as KDR (kinase insert domain receptor) and as FLK 1); FGF-R (fibroblast growth factor receptor); and TEK (also known as Tie-2). VEGF-R2, which is expressed only on endothelial cells, binds the potent angiogenic growth factor VEGF and mediates the subsequent signal transduction through activation of its intracellular kinase activity. Thus, it is expected that direct inhibition of the kinase activity of VEGF-R2 will result in the reduction of angiogenesis even in the presence of exogenous VEGF (see Strawn et al, Cancer Res., 56:3540-3545 (1996)), as has been shown with mutants of VEGF-R2 which fail to mediate signal transduction. Millauer et al, Cancer Res., 56:1615-1620 (1996). Furthermore, VEGF-R2 appears to have no function in the adult beyond that of mediating the angiogenic activity of VEGF. Therefore, a selective inhibitor of the kinase activity of VEGF-R2 would be expected to exhibit little toxicity. Similarly, FGFR binds the angiogenic growth factors aFGF and bFGF and mediates subsequent intracellular signal transduction. Recently, it has been suggested that growth factors such as bFGF may play a critical role in inducing angiogenesis in solid tumors that have reached a certain size. Yoshiji et al., Cancer Research, 57: 3924-3928 (1997). Unlike VEGF-R2, however, FGF-R is expressed in a number of different cell types throughout the body and may or may not play important roles in other normal physiological processes in the adult. Nonetheless, systemic administration of a small molecule inhibitor of the kinase activity of FGF-R has been reported to block bFGF-induced angiogenesis in mice without apparent toxicity. Mohammad et al., EMBO Journal, 17:5996-5904 (1998). TEK (also known as Tie-2) is another receptor tyrosine kinase expressed only on endothelial cells which has been shown to play a role in angiogenesis. The binding of the factor angiopoietin-1 results in autophosphorylation of the kinase domain of TEK and results in a signal transduction process which appears to mediate the interaction of endothelial cells with peri-endothelial support cells, thereby facilitating the maturation of newly formed blood vessels. The factor angiopoietin-2, on the other hand, appears to antagonize the action of angiopoietin-1 on TEK and disrupts angiogenesis. Maisonpierre of al., Science, 277:55-60 (1997). The kinase, JNK, belongs to the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) superfamily. JNK plays a crucial role in inflammatory responses, stress responses, cell proliferation, apoptosis, and tumorigenesis. JNK kinase activity can be activated by various stimuli, including the proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-alpha and interleukin-1), lymphocyte costimulatory receptors (CD28 and CD40), DNA-damaging chemicals, radiation, and Fas signaling. Results from the JNK knockout mice indicate that JNK is involved in apoptosis induction and T helper cell differentiation. Pim-1 is a small serine/threonine kinase. Elevated expression levels of Pim-1 have been detected in lymphoid and myeloid malignancies, and recently Pim-1 was identified as a prognostic marker in prostate cancer. K. Peltola, “Signaling in Cancer: Pim-1 Kinase and its Partners”, Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, Sarja—Ser. D Osa—Tom. 616, (Aug. 30, 2005), http://kirjasto.utu.fi/julkaisupalvelut/annaalit/2004/D616.html. Pim-1 acts as a cell survival factor and may prevent apoptosis in malignant cells. K. Petersen Shay et al., Molecular Cancer Research 3:170-181 (2005). Aurora kinases (Aurora-A, Aurora-B, Aurora-C) are serine/threonine protein kinases that have been implicated in human cancer, such as colon, breast and other solid tumors. Aurora-A (also sometimes referred to as AIK) is believed to be involved in protein phosphorylation events that regulate the cell cycle. Specifically, Aurora-A may play a role in controlling the accurate segregation of chromosomes during mitosis. Misregulation of the cell cycle can lead to cellular proliferation and other abnormalities. In human colon cancer tissue, Aurora-A, Aurora-B, Aurora-C have been found to be overexpressed (see Bischoff et al., EMBO J., 17:3052-3065 (1998); Schumacher et al., J. Cell Biol. 143:1635-1646 (1998); Kimura et al., J. Biol. Chem., 272:13766-13771 (1997)). c-Met is a proto-oncogene that encodes for a tyrosine kinase receptor for hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor (HGF/SF). The c-Met protein is expressed mostly in epithelial cells, and due to its function it is also known as hepatocyte growth factor receptor, or HGFR. When HGF/SF activates c-Met, the latter in turn may activate a number of kinase pathways, including the pathway from Ras to Raf to Mek to the mitogen-activated protein kinase ERK1 to the transcription factor ETS1. Met signaling has been implicated in the etiology and malignant progression of human cancers (see Birchmeier et al., Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 4:915-925 (2003); Zhang et al., Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, 88:408-417 (2003); and Paumelle et al., Oncogene, 21:2309-2319 (2002)). Mitogen-activated protein kinase-activated protein kinase 2 (MAPKAP K2 or MK2) mediates multiple p38 MAPK-dependent cellular responses. MK2 is an important intracellular regulator of the production of cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa), interleukin 6 (IL-6) and interferon gamma (IFNg), that are involved in many acute and chronic inflammatory diseases, e.g. rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. MK2 resides in the nucleus of non-stimulated cells and upon stimulation, it translocates to the cytoplasm and phosphorylates and activates tuberin and HSP27. MK2 is also implicated in heart failure, brain ischemic injury, the regulation of stress resistance and the production of TNF-α (see Deak et al., EMBO. 17:4426-4441 (1998); Shi et al., Biol. Chem. 383:1519-1536 (2002); Staklatvala, Curr. Opin. Pharmacol. 4:372-377 (2004); and Shiroto et al., J. Mol. Cell Cardiol. 38:93-97 (2005)). There is a need for effective inhibitors of protein kinases in order to treat or prevent disease states associated with abnormal cell proliferation. Moreover, it is desirable for kinase inhibitors to possess both high affinities for the target kinase as well as high selectivity versus other protein kinases. Small-molecule compounds that may be readily synthesized and are potent inhibitors of cell proliferation are those, for example, that are inhibitors of one or more protein kinases, such as CHK1, CHK2, VEGF (VEGF-R2), Pim-1, CDKs or CDK/cyclin complexes and both receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases.

Already a certain number of connecting mechanisms with fast unlocking and with or without ejection are known, whereof the motive power is generally supplied by a pyrotechnic system belonging to the mechanism or located outside the latter. Thus, the embodiment of FIGS. 2A and 2B of FR-A-2 616 857 describes a connecting mechanism with fast unlocking and without ejection controlled by a pyrotechnic system belonging to the mechanism. This mechanism comprises a rod entirely located within a cylinder belonging to a first of the said subassemblies. One of the ends of the said rod has a thread onto which is normally engaged a segmented nut surrounded by a rigid ring connected to an annular piston arranged coaxially around the rod and able to slide within the cylinder. The segmented nut bears on a bush screwed into a part, which bears on the second subassembly. The opposite end of the rod also has a thread onto which is screwed a nut, which bears on an abutment washer mounted within the cylinder. This nut makes it possible to apply the two subassemblies to one another with a given prestress via the rod and the segmented nut, prior to the closing of the cylinder. In this mechanism, the unlocking or disengaging of the two subassemblies is obtained by means of a pyrotechnic system placed in a chamber formed between the cylinder and the face of the piston turned towards the second subassembly. The released combustion gases bring about the displacement of the piston and the rigid ring which it supports on moving away from the second subassembly and thus releases the segmented nut from the thread formed at the corresponding end of the rod. The mechanism illustrated in this document, as also in other documents including FR-A-2 616 856, U.S. Pat. No. 3,597,919 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,745, is in particular characterized by a particularly complicated and difficult fitting and by a not very precise checking of the tightening or locking tension. Thus, in FR-A-2 616 857, the connecting mechanism is fixed to the second subassembly by a nut, which it is very difficult to manipulate when there is reduced accessibility between the two parts. Therefore the reliability of the fixture is also reduced. Moreover, the tightening tension is applied by screwing a nut onto the threaded end of the rod opposite to the second part in such a way that said tension can only be controlled by measuring the torque applied to the said nut. Due to the fact that this torque measurement integrates the different frictions, the tension can only be checked with a very limited accuracy of approximately .+-.30%.

This invention relates to an improved plug valve, more particularly to a plug valve having a plug shaped so as to provide even wear between the engaging surfaces of the plug valve and valve body, thereby, maximizing the useful life of the valve. A plug valve, sometimes referred to as a globe valve or a ball valve when the plug is so shaped, comprises a valve body with an inlet passage, an outlet passage and a valve chamber between the inlet and outlet passages. The valve chamber generally has the shape of a body of revolution such as a sphere, a cylinder, or the frustum of a cone, with its axis of rotation usually perpendicular to the inlet and outlet passages which are usually colinear. A valve plug shaped generally to conform to the shape of the valve chamber, is rotatably disposed within the chamber. The valve plug is generally a solid body with a flow passage therethrough. The flow passage is positioned such that when the valve plug is in an open position the flow passage is aligned to provide fluid communication between the inlet and outlet passages. When the valve plug is rotated to a closed position usually at a position 90.degree. from the open position, the flow passage is not aligned with the inlet and outlet passages, and solid portions of the valve plug interrupt fluid communication therebetween. A complete practical plug valve also includes connecting means such as threads or flanges at the openings of the inlet and outlet passages so that the valve may be connected into a fluid pipeline or a conduit to provide control of fluid flow therein. A plug valve also includes rotating means so that the valve plug may be rotated between the open and closed positions. The rotating means usually is a valve stem extending through the valve body and sealed with packing in a manner well known in the art. The valve stem may be rotated manually, by electric or hydraulic means or automatically controlled. Sealing between the valve plug and the valve body is accomplished either with elastomeric gaskets or by surface to surface pressure between the plug and the valve body. The present invention relates to a plug valve wherein sealing between the valve plug and the valve body is accomplished by surface to surface pressure. Plug valves of the type described are often used in chemical process applications such as in nuclear fuel processing plants. In such plants, plug valves are used for cell wall block valves or they may be used in pipelines containing nitric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulfuric acid or sodium-hydroxide. Also in such plants, plug valves are used as process control valves in connection with waste calcinators. In this application, plug valves are used to control the flow of slurries containing solid particulate matter. Especially in this latter application where such valves are operated several times per hour, the valves are subject to wearing between the mating surfaces of the valve plug and the valve body. Such wearing requires frequent maintenance and/or replacement of the valves or valve parts. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a plug valve with improved wear characteristics between the plug and the valve body. Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the embodiments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates in general to giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors for reading information signals from a magnetic medium and, in particular, to a spin valve sensor having an antiparallel coupled free layer having a low intrinsic uniaxial anisotropy, and to magnetic storage systems that incorporate such sensors. 2. Description of Related Art Computers often include auxiliary memory storage devices having media on which data can be written and from which data can be read for later use. A direct access storage device (disk drive) incorporating rotating magnetic disks is commonly used for storing data in magnetic form on the disk surfaces. Data is recorded on concentric, radially spaced tracks on the disk surfaces. Magnetic heads including read sensors are then used to read data from the tracks on the disk surfaces. In high capacity disk drives, magnetoresistive (MR) read sensors, commonly referred to as MR sensors, are the prevailing read sensors because of their capability to read data from a surface of a disk at greater track and linear densities than thin film inductive heads. An MR sensor detects a magnetic field through the change in the resistance of its MR sensing layer (also referred to as an xe2x80x9cMR elementxe2x80x9d) as a function of the strength and direction of the magnetic flux being sensed by the MR layer. The conventional MR sensor operates on the basis of the anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) effect in which an MR element resistance varies as the square of the cosine of the angle between the magnetization in the MR element and the direction of sense current flowing through the MR element. Recorded data can be read from a magnetic medium because the external magnetic field from the recorded magnetic medium (the signal field) causes a change in the direction of magnetization in the MR element, which in turn causes a change in resistance in the MR element and a corresponding change in the sensed current or voltage. Another type of MR sensor is the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) sensor manifesting the GMR effect. In GMR sensors, the resistance of the MR sensing layer varies as a function of the spin-dependent transmission of the conduction electrons between magnetic layers separated by a non-magnetic layer (spacer) and the accompanying spin-dependent scattering which takes place at the interface of the magnetic and non-magnetic layers and within the magnetic layers. GMR sensors using only two layers of ferromagnetic material (e.g., Nixe2x80x94Fe) separated by a layer of non-magnetic material (e.g., copper) are generally referred to as spin valve (SV) sensors manifesting the SV effect. FIG. 1 shows a prior art SV sensor 100 comprising end regions 104 and 106 separated by a central region 102. A first ferromagnetic layer, referred to as a pinned layer 120, has its magnetization typically fixed (pinned) by exchange coupling with an antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer 125. The magnetization of a second ferromagnetic layer, referred to as a free layer 110, is not fixed and is free to rotate in response to the magnetic field from the recorded magnetic medium (the signal field). The free layer 110 is separated from the pinned layer 120 by a non-magnetic, electrically conducting spacer layer 115. Leads 140 and 145 formed in the end regions 104 and 106, respectively, provide electrical connections for sensing the resistance of SV sensor 100. IBM""s U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,590 granted to Dieny et al., incorporated herein by reference, discloses a SV sensor operating on the basis of the GMR effect. Another type of SV sensor is an antiparallel (AP)-pinned SV sensor. In AP-pinned SV sensors, the pinned layer is a laminated structure of two ferromagnetic layers separated by a non-magnetic coupling layer such that the magnetizations of the two ferromagnetic layers are strongly coupled together antiferromagnetically in an antiparallel orientation. The AP-pinned SV sensor provides improved exchange coupling of the antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer to the laminated pinned layer structure than is achieved with the pinned layer structure of the SV sensor of FIG. 1. This improved exchange coupling increases the stability of the AP-pinned SV sensor at high temperatures which allows the use of corrosion resistant and electrically insulating antiferromagnetic materials such as NiO for the AFM layer. Referring to FIG. 2, an AP-pinned SV sensor 200 comprises a free layer 210 separated from a laminated AP-pinned layer structure 220 by a nonmagnetic, electrically-conducting spacer layer 215. The magnetization of the laminated AP-pinned layer structure 220 is fixed by an AFM layer 230. The laminated AP-pinned layer structure 220 comprises a first ferromagnetic layer 226 and a second ferromagnetic layer 222 separated by an antiparallel coupling (APC) layer 224 of nonmagnetic material (usually ruthenium (Ru)). The two ferromagnetic layers 226, 222 (FM1 and FM2) in the laminated AP-pinned layer structure 220 have their magnetization directions oriented antiparallel, as indicated by the arrows 227, 223 (arrows pointing out of and into the plane of the paper respectively). As magnetic storage density increases in order to meet the demands of high storage capacity disk drives, it is increasingly important to increase the GMR coefficient of SV sensors in order to improve the sensitivity and signal-to-noise characteristics of the signal readback system and to decrease the thickness of the free layer to meet the higher areal density requirements. Sense current shunting around the spacer layer and the pinned layer and spacer layer interfaces with the spacer layer results in reduces GMR coefficient since most of the spin dependent scattering giving rise to the GMR effect occurs in this region. The free layer of SV sensors usually consists of Coxe2x80x94Fe and Nixe2x80x94Fe layers. The Coxe2x80x94Fe is used to obtain a high GMR coefficient, and the Nixe2x80x94Fe is added to achieve a free layer with soft magnetic properties. However, the Nixe2x80x94Fe has a low electrical resistivity which contributes to sense current shunting resulting in a decrease of the GMR coefficient. Reduction of the free layer thickness for high areal density applications results in degradation of magnetic properties and a reduced GMR coefficient. The use of an antiparallel coupled structure for the free layer is a method to reduce the free layer magnetic thickness without degrading the magnetic properties and the GMR coefficient. However, the intrinsic uniaxial anisotropy Hk of the free layer increases by antiparallel coupling making this structure unattractive for free layer application. Therefore, there is a need for an improved antiparallel coupled free layer to reduce free layer thickness, reduce sense current shunting and to increase the GMR coefficient of a spin valve sensor while maintaining a very low value of Hk for the free layer. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to disclose a spin valve sensor having an antiparallel (AP)-coupled free layer with low intrinsic uniaxial anisotropy Hk. It is another object of the present invention to disclose a spin valve sensor having a free layer of high electrical resistivity, soft ferromagnetic material. It is yet another object of the present invention to disclose a spin valve sensor having an improved GMR coefficient due to reduced current shunting by the ferromagnetic free layer. It is a further object of the present invention to disclose a spin valve sensor having an AP-coupled free layer comprising a third ferromagnetic layer of Coxe2x80x94Fe and a fourth ferromagnetic layer of Coxe2x80x94Fexe2x80x94Hfxe2x80x94O separated by an antiferromagnetic coupling layer of ruthenium (Ru),. In accordance with the principles of the present invention, there is disclosed a spin valve (SV) sensor having an AP-pinned layer, a laminated AP-coupled free layer and a non-magnetic electrically conductive spacer layer sandwiched between the AP-pinned layer and the free layer. The AP-pinned layer comprises first and second ferromagnetic layers separated by an antiparallel coupling (APC) layer. The AP-coupled free layer comprises a third ferromagnetic layer of Coxe2x80x94Fe adjacent to the spacer layer and a fourth ferromagnetic layer of Coxe2x80x94Fexe2x80x94Hfxe2x80x94O separated from the third ferromagnetic layer by an antiparallel coupling (APC) layer. During the AFM anneal process step of the sensor, the easy axis of the Coxe2x80x94Fe layer becomes transverse while the easy axis of the Coxe2x80x94Fexe2x80x94Hfxe2x80x94O remains longitudinal due to the higher thermal stability of this nano-crystalline material. The 90 degree angle between the easy axis of the Coxe2x80x94Fe layer and the the easy axis of the Coxe2x80x94Fexe2x80x94Hfxe2x80x94O material results in a very low Hk for the AP-coupled free layer. The Coxe2x80x94Fexe2x80x94Hfxe2x80x94O material of the fourth ferromagnetic layer has high resistivity resulting in reduced sense current shunting by the free layer. In addition, the metal oxide material of the fourth ferromagnetic layer is known to cause specular scattering of electrons. The reduced sense current shunting and the specular scattering of electrons both contribute to improving the GMR coefficient of the SV sensor. The above, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to monolithic voltage controlled elements especially useful as voltage controlled amplifiers and/or potentiometers. 2. Description of the Prior Art Multiplier circuits, amplifier circuits and attenuator circuits are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,714,462; 4,155,047; 4,157,512; 4,163,197; 4,169,247, 4,177,432; 4,180,780 and 4,187,472. Such circuits have also been disclosed in the article "Designers' Guide to: Basic AGC Amplifier Design" appearing in the Jan. 20, 1974 issue of Electronic Design News, the article "Voltage-Controlled Amplifier Covers 70 db Range" appearing in the Mar. 5, 1975 issue of Electronic Design News, the article "Linear Voltage-Controlled Attenuator-DC to 20 kHz" appearing in the March 1976 issue of Electronic Engineering, the article "A Monolithic Voltage-Controlled Amplifier Employing Log-Antilog Techniques" appearing in the March 1976 issue of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, the article "A Multiplex Remote-Control System" appearing in the September 1977 issue of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, the article "Current-Compensated Op Amp Improves OTA Linearity" appearing in the Mar. 17, 1977 issue of Electronics, in the paper entitled "Techniques for the Realization and Application of Voltage Controlled Amplifiers and Attenuators" presented at the Audio Engineering Society Convention in May of 1978 at Los Angeles, Calif. and in the paper entitled "The Design and Integration of a High Performance Voltage Controlled Attenuator" presented at the Audio Engineering Society Convention in November, 1979 in New York City. Patents disclosing use of feedback to improve circuit performance include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,163,948; 4,197,426 and 4,201,888. Use of feedback to improve circuit performance is also disclosed in the paper "Multipurpose Hardware for Digital Coding of Audio Signals" presented at the National Telecommunications Conference held December, 1977 in Los Angeles and in the paper "Electronically Tunable RC Sinusoidal Oscillators" published in the June, 1975 IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. Also of interest is the product bulletin entitled "Engineering Data-Allison EGC-101 and Related Circuits" distributed by Valley People, Incorporated, P.O. Box 40306, 2028 Erica Place, Nashville, Tenn., 37204, disclosing substantially the circuits disclosed in the '462 patent. The U.S. Pat. Nos. '047 and '462 patents are believed of greatest relevance to this invention. The U.S. Pat. No. '047 circuit is a multiplier circuit accepting as input a differential input current and developing a differential output voltage proportional to the input current. Gain is determined by a control voltage establishing a bias on the transistor pairs, causing emitter current to split predictably. Various support circuitry may be used to convert a single input signal to a differential input current and to convert the differential outputs to a single signal. The U.S. Pat. No. '047 circuit unfortunately requires extreme matching between left and right components. Without close matching, direct current appears in the output with the direct current component being dependent on the control voltage, i.e. control voltage feedthrough results. Moreover, thermal drifts can cause circuit output to drift unacceptably. A further disadvantage of the U.S. Pat. No. '047 circuit is the lack of log conformity in the gain control. This lack of conformity is particularly apparent near maximum gain. Still further, the maximum gain available with the central portion of the U.S. Pat. No. '047 circuit is unity. Gain can be introduced to the output stage, but, unfortunately, this leads to degradation in the signal-to-noise ratio. An additional disadvantage of circuits of the U.S. Pat. No. '047 type is caused by noise of the central transistors; output noise may be sufficient that the equivalent input noise is unacceptably high, making such circuits inoperable with small signals.

The present invention relates to polycarbonates bearing aromatic N-heterocycles for drug delivery, and more specifically to water dispersible nanoparticles formed with aromatic N-heterocycle-functionalized polycarbonates and catechol-functionalized polycarbonates for delivering drugs used in medical treatments. Drug delivery systems that rely on polymers as vehicles for carrying a drug have several deficiencies, particularly those involving hydrophobic drugs (e.g., Doxorubicin, an anthracycline antibiotic used in chemotherapy, known for its hydrophobicity, toxicity, and difficulty in packaging in a water based delivery system). Generally, the polymers are non-biodegradable. Another deficiency is the susceptibility of nanoparticles to serum protein induced aggregation, which causes undesirable particle size growth in the blood stream. Another deficiency is the propensity of drug carriers to leak drug in the blood stream, which can lower the efficacy of the drug with respect to its intended target and expose patients to toxic side effects of the released drug that the drug-loaded particle was intended to mitigate. Another deficiency is the cytotoxicity of the polymer vehicle itself. As a result, a need exists for a biodegradable, non-cytotoxic drug delivery system that is not susceptible to protein induced aggregation (i.e., is “anti-fouling” in the blood stream), and does not prematurely release drug before reaching an intended cell target.

1. Technical Field The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device. 2. Related Art In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for semiconductor devices (semiconductor packages (hereinafter referred to as packages)) each having a semiconductor chip (hereinafter referred to as a chip) and a semiconductor substrate (hereinafter referred to as a substrate) electrically connected to each other by a flip-chip process. Such semiconductor packages are demanded as small-area, thin packages that can be mounted at a high density. The flip-chip process can be performed in the following manner. First, the surface (the circuit formation face) of a chip and the interconnect face (the side on which the interconnects for the chip are formed) of a substrate are placed to face each other. The electrode pads formed on the surface of the chip are then bonded (flip-chip bonded) to the electrode pads formed on the interconnects of the substrate via bumps (connection media) made of solder, gold, copper, or the like. The bumps for the flip-chip bonding are formed beforehand on the electrode pads of the chip or the electrode pads of the substrate, and have a certain height (5 to 100 μm). Therefore, after the chip is bonded to the substrate, a space is formed between the surface of the chip and the substrate. The space is normally filled with a resin. The resin can physically protect the joining portions among the electrode pads of the chip, the bumps, and the electrode pads of the substrate. The resin can also prevent short-circuiting between adjacent electrodes due to remelting of the bumps and bridging between adjacent joining portions at the high temperature to which the package is exposed at the time of mounting. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-195414 discloses a package that is formed by placing the chip surface (the circuit surface) and the substrate interconnect face (the chip bonding face) to face each other, and flip-chip bonding the chip to the substrate. In this package, a first resin is placed in a first region that is surrounded by the outermost circumferential bumps, and a second resin is placed in a second region that is a region outside the outermost circumferential bumps. At least, the amount, the maximum particle size, or the mean particle size of the inorganic filler contained in the first resin is smaller than that of the second resin. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-195414 discloses that, in this structure, the modulus of elasticity of the first resin placed in the first region becomes lower while the thermal expansion coefficient of the first resin becomes higher, and accordingly, the shear deformation at the end portions of the resins caused by the temperature cycling can be made smaller. By the technique disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-195414, the modulus of elasticity of the first resin is set at a low value, so as to minimize the residual stress between the chip and the first resin. Meanwhile, the thermal expansion coefficient of the second resin in contact with the end portions of the chip is set at a low value, so as to prevent a concentration of stress strain caused by thermal stress. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-195414 also discloses that, in this structure, the residual stress between the chip and the first resin can be made smaller, and detachment of the chip due to the residual stress can be restrained. Also, it is possible to prevent cracks and the like caused by a concentration of stress at the end faces of the chip due to the difference in thermal expansion coefficient. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-195414 also discloses that the amount of the inorganic filler contained in the second resin placed outside the bumps should be made larger than that in the first resin. By doing so, the moisture penetration path can be blocked, and the reliability in terms of moisture resistance is improved. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-195414 further discloses that only the particle size of the inorganic filler of the first resin placed inside the bumps should be made smaller. By doing so, breaking of the chip can be restrained while the moisture blocking effect is maintained, and the injection performance of the resin can be improved.

Photovoltaic power generation is considered as an alternative for conventional power generation, for example from fossil fuels and nuclear energy. It is particularly vied for its minimal environmental impact as a ‘clean energy’ source. Photovoltaic power is generated in a photovoltaic device, popularly known as a solar cell. In order for photovoltaic power generation to be viable as a future source, reliability and cost of photovoltaic energy conversion must be comparable with the conventional power generation sources. Currently available technologies, especially the low cost photovoltaic energy conversion devices are lagging significantly, in both these areas. Typically, a photovoltaic energy conversion apparatus comprises a plurality of photovoltaic devices arranged in modules, wherein one or more modules are connected together in a support structure, depending upon power requirement for a given application. A major fraction of cost of generating photovoltaic power lies in manufacturing photovoltaic devices and modules. Therefore, in order to lower the cost of photovoltaic power generation, it is imperative to reduce the cost of photovoltaic devices. Basic principles of photovoltaic energy conversion can be described in reference with FIG. 1A, representing a cross section view 100A of the most widely understood generic prior-art planar, surface illuminated photovoltaic device. The photovoltaic device as represented by 100A comprises a silicon substrate 102, having a p-type doping, a first layer (103) having p-type doping higher than the substrate (102) doping, and the second layer (105) having a n-type doping that is relatively higher than the p-type doing level of the first layer (103). The interface between the first layer (103) and the second layer (105) forms a p-n junction having a built-in electric field. The bottom surface of the substrate has a metal layer coating 101 forming a first electrode of the photovoltaic device. The top surface of the layer 105 is coated with a second metal layer 106 forming a second electrode of the photovoltaic device. The first and second electrodes have opposite polarities. In operation, the silicon photovoltaic device absorbs energy from the incident photon flux represented by a plurality of arrows 107, and generates a plurality of photo-carriers 108 and 109 (only one pair labeled for clarity) within the photovoltaic device. In general, photo-carriers are polar meaning that each photo-carrier has either a positive charge or a negative charge associated with it (for simplicity only one carrier of each polarity is shown). In the silicon photovoltaic device shown in 100A for example, photo-carriers in the first layer (103) are predominantly holes (each one having a positive charge), and in the second layer (105) the photo-carriers are predominantly electrons (each having a negative charge). The photo-carriers that reach the p-n junction get separated by the built-in electric field and are subsequently collected by the electrodes (101 and 106) having the like polarity, respectively, thereby generating a photocurrent. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the generation of photo-carriers in the silicon layers (103 and 105) is not uniform. For example, and as shown in FIG. 1B, 100B schematically represents a photon flux profile 111 incident on the metal layer 106, as it penetrates down the photovoltaic device in the vertical direction. Therefore, maximum photo-carrier generation is near the surface and it reduces as lower and lower photon flux reaches to the layers 105 and 103 below the surface. Therefore, a thin photovoltaic device having the p-n junction closer to the surface is advantageous, such that the maximum number of photo-carriers separate in the junction and contribute to the photocurrent generation. In another type of a prior art device, thin films of materials having higher absorption coefficient are utilized, where the p-n junction region may be extended deeper into the device for better efficiency. One example of such a prior art a-Si device is schematically shown in FIG. 2, wherein 200 is a multi-layer planar a-Si photovoltaic device. It is important to note that a thin film of about 1-5 micrometer of a-Si can absorb about 90% or more of the incident light. The prior art photovoltaic device 200 is a multilayered structure comprising (in vertical order) a transparent substrate (201), a layer of a transparent conductor (202), a layer of doped a-Si (203), a layer of intrinsic (undoped) a-Si (204), a second layer of doped a-Si (205) followed by a layer of metal (206). In this example the photovoltaic device receives the photon flux represented by a plurality of arrows (207) from the bottom surface of the transparent substrate. The doping in the two doped a-Si layers is of opposite kind thereby creating p-i-n junction (between the layers 203-205) instead of a p-n junction described in reference with FIG. 1A. In operation, the photovoltaic device 200 upon receiving the incident photon flux (207) at the bottom surface of the transparent substrate (201), generates a plurality of photo-carriers (208 and 209, only one pair labeled for clarity) in all three a-Si layers (203-205) wherein each photo-carrier has either a positive or a negative charge associated with it. The photo-carriers are separated in a built-in field of the p-i-n junction and subsequently diffuse towards respective electrodes (the transparent conductor layer 202, and the metal layer 206) according to the charge on the photo-carrier. The efficiency of the photovoltaic device 200 is seriously affected by a partial loss of the plurality of photo-carriers (208 and 209) due to their small diffusion length within the a-Si layers (203-205). It is well known to those skilled in the art that the efficiency of absorption of light, and in particular absorption of the sunlight in different materials are different for the reasons outlined below—a) the photon flux in each section of the solar spectrum is not the same, and b) different materials absorb light from different sections of the solar spectrum depending upon their bandgap ‘Eg’ and absorption coefficient ‘α’. For example, while several micrometer thick films or sheets of c-Si or poly-Si are necessary for absorbing sufficient sunlight from the solar spectrum, only about one micrometer thick film of a-Si is sufficient for absorbing about 90% or more light from the solar spectrum. Accordingly, performance of different photovoltaic devices are compared in terms of photovoltaic conversion efficiency (or efficiency), which depends on several factors including but not limited to, a) incident photon flux, b) absorption of photon flux within the photovoltaic device, c) photo-carrier generation, d) separation of photo-carriers in the p-n junction, e) efficient diffusion of carriers to the respective electrodes, and f) efficient collection of photo-carriers by the respective electrodes. For example, efficiency of a heterojunction photovoltaic device made from III-V alloy semiconductors is about 25-28%, efficiency for a conventional homojunction c-Si or poly-Si photovoltaic device is between 12-17%, and efficiency of a multi-layer a-Si photovoltaic device is between 8-10%, respectively. Module efficiencies tend to be 0.5% to 2% lower, based on the total area of the module. The cost of manufacturing photovoltaic devices mainly depends on the materials as well as processing cost. For example, high efficiency photovoltaic devices that mainly utilize single crystalline materials such as, crystalline silicon (c-Si), poly-crystalline silicon (poly-Si), III-V alloy semiconductors including but not limited to, GaAs, InP, GaAlAs, GaInAsP, GaInAs, and their combinations thereof in single or multiple homojunctions, heterojunctions, or tandem photovoltaic devices are the most expensive ones. However, these types of photovoltaic devices are not cost effective in power generation for terrestrial applications such as residential, industrial, and commercial power generation that require better reliability and higher efficiency than applications in consumer electronics. Therefore, some low cost materials and technologies that are being pursued for providing photovoltaic devices at a reasonable cost are, thin films of c-Si including microcrystalline silicon (micro-Si), poly-Si, and amorphous silicon (a-Si). These materials are also adaptable for low cost processing technologies that are suitable for mass production and considerable progress has been made in this area as well to lower the overall cost of manufacturing photovoltaic devices. While other low cost materials, such as II-VI semiconductors including but not limited to, cadmium sulfide (CdS)/cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium diselenide (CIS) are useful for photovoltaic devices, they have adverse environmental impact, and are therefore not a viable choice for ‘clean energy’. These materials may be used alone or, in combination with other materials including but not limited to, other semiconductors, as well as photosensitive polymers. As a matter of design choice and compatibility with the materials utilized in constructing a device, the device structure may include but is not limited to, single and multiple homojunctions, heterojunctions, or a suitable combination thereof. In this application a design of a hybrid photovoltaic device utilizing nanostructures embedded in a matrix of another material exhibiting photovoltaic effect is disclosed. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the principles of the invention disclosed herein, and further defined by the scope of claims to follow, are merely illustrative and are not construed to be limited to specific examples of structure and materials used to explain the principles in this document.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an imaging lens, the longitudinal chromatic aberration of which has been corrected especially from a visible light range to a near-infrared range, and which is appropriate for use in monitoring both day and night, and the like. Further, the present invention relates to an imaging apparatus on which the imaging lens has been mounted. 2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a Gauss lens, which is a symmetric optical system, and a modified Gauss lens were used as fixed focus lenses of medium telephoto class. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,277 (Patent Document 1) discloses an invention related to a medium telephoto photography lens using a front group part of a Gauss lens, as the first lens group of the photography lens. The photography lens disclosed in Patent Document 1 adopts an inner-focus-type focusing method, in which an inner lens group is a movable group. Besides the photography lens disclosed in Patent Document 1, U.S. Pat. No. 7,466,490 (Patent Documents 2) discloses a fixed focus lens adopting an inner-focus-type focusing method in an objective optical system for an endoscope. Since lenses for monitoring and the like are often used both day and night (the same lens is used for day and night), it is necessary that longitudinal chromatic aberration is corrected from the visible light range to the near-infrared range. Further, as network cameras became widely used, and the resolution of sensors (imaging devices) became higher in recent years, a demand for imaging lenses that can cope with a large pixel number of 5 megapixels or the like is increasing also for monitoring use. Therefore, it is necessary to suppress longitudinal chromatic aberration for a wide wavelength range in an excellent manner. Meanwhile, as described above, an optical system that is called as the Gauss lens, and which is a symmetric optical system, was often used as a fixed focus lens of medium telephoto class from the past. However, it was difficult to correct longitudinal chromatic aberration for a wide wavelength range by using the Gauss lens. Further, in the Gauss lens, variation of aberrations depending on photography distances was relatively large.

A wide variety of streaming audio, video and/or other media content is now available to consumers from any number of diverse sources. Often, streaming media content is maintained at a media server that provides the content to the consumer for playback via one or more wired or wireless telecommunications networks. So-called “Internet television”, for example, is typically provided as a stream over the Internet or a similar network. Media streams are also used to provide other types of network-based media content, as well as live and pre-recorded broadcast television, content-on-demand and the like. While streaming formats can be convenient for many applications, implementing “trick play” (such as fast-forward and rewind functions) is often relatively difficult within many conventional streaming environments. To “fast forward” a conventional media stream, for example, some streaming media players simply accumulate and decode future content that has been received but not yet played, and then discard those decoded media frames that are not needed. Conversely, to implement a rewind feature, the media player typically skips backwards in a buffer or cache of previously-received content to replay media frames that were previously decoded. The rewind feature is often limited, however, to previously-received content that is maintained in local storage at the player. If the user wishes to rewind past the content that remains in local storage, then prior content typically needs to be re-obtained from the server and re-decoded to continue the rewind. This can consume substantial amounts of memory, as well as significant processing resources. This relatively inefficient operation is especially troublesome for software decoders and the like that may have limited processing resources. Further, the non-sequential and irregular nature of many popular media streaming formats can create challenges in identifying the particular media frames that are rendered during most conventional trick play functions. Some fast forward or rewind functions simply skip ahead (or behind) in the stream by locating and presenting certain “key frames” that carry information without dependencies to other frames (e.g., the I-frames of a conventional MPEG stream). These key frames, however, are not typically located at regular intervals or other predictable locations within the media stream. As a result, obtaining the key frames often involves scanning most, if not all, of the stream to locate the key frames, and then discarding the remaining decoded content. It is therefore desirable to implement an effective trick play feature that is suitable for use in streaming media applications. Ideally, such a feature would reduce or eliminate the need for additional processing resources or special buffering, as well as the need to scan for key frames located at irregular intervals. These and other desirable features will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to safety rail systems. Safety rail systems are used to prevent workers or other people from falling off of elevated surfaces or to prevent people from entering dangerous or restricted areas. Conventional safety rail systems may be permanent or temporary. Permanent rail systems are installed on site and are typically integrally mounted or constructed to the surface or area to be protected, which presents a number of drawbacks. For example, these rail systems must be designed and specified by a safety expert and a structural expert, who must coordinate with the building's architect for aesthetic considerations. This tremendously increases the building cost. Permanent railing systems also cannot be removed, which may reduce the building's aesthetic appeal. Temporary railing systems may be used instead of permanent rail systems, but they have drawbacks as well. For example, temporary rail systems must be installed before the protected area can be used or worked on. This is time consuming and costly. In addition, the workers installing the temporary railing system either do not have fall protection or must use alternative fall protection, which further increases time and cost. Also, temporary railing systems may be installed incorrectly by unskilled non-safety oriented workers.

Modern high frequency communication systems such as transceivers or equipments for testing such systems often include frequency converter or synthesizer circuits which can perform a variety of functions. For instance, such circuitry is utilized in transceivers or test equipment to provide a selected local oscillator signal when such equipment is operated in a “receive mode” or to provide an output signal having a selected stable reference frequency for converting the frequencies of a modulated signal when such equipment is operated in a “transmit mode” or as a signal generator. Further, frequency synthesizer systems are required in signal generators in order to adequately test high performance RF systems and components. A frequency synthesizer is an apparatus which generates an output signal having a frequency which is a multiple of a reference frequency. The accuracy of the output signal frequency is typically determined by the accuracy and stability of the reference frequency source. A common type of frequency synthesizer uses a phase-locked loop (PLL) to provide an output signal having a selectable, precise and stable frequency. A PLL typically includes a phase detector, a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and, a feedback path arranged so that the phase of the VCO output is forced to be synchronous with the phase of the input reference frequency. The complexity of PLLs can give rise to more complex phase noise profiles, can compromise frequency settling time, or generate spurious signals. Phase noise may be defined as is rapid, short-term, random fluctuations in the phase of a wave, caused by time domain instabilities. Spurious signals are any outputs in the spectrum of a source that are neither part of the carrier, nor its harmonic and they may be discreet or bands of frequencies. Such noise and spurious signals are problematic for synthesizers. In the frequency domain, an ideal carrier would appear as an infinitesimally thin line, the typical carrier however, will have phase noise or skirts whose amplitudes generally follow 1/f distribution with increasing frequencies. These skirts are the envelope of side bands due to modulations of the carrier, are random in both frequency and amplitude, and are caused by various phenomena relating to the physics of the particular oscillator. Spurious signals are equally problematic for frequency synthesizers. For instance, spurious signals with amplitude 10% of true phase calibration signal may introduce errors in determination of group delays up to 50 psec. Unfortunately, cases of such strong spurious signals are quite prevalent in frequency synthesizers. Frequently, performance compromises must be made in the design of synthesizers, resulting in less than optimum performance of one or more frequency synthesizer characteristics. For instance, current frequency synthesizer noise reduction techniques are directed toward single frequency noise reduction, lack coherent spurious signals, or do not exploit the coherent spurious nature of the frequency synthesizer architecture if present. Disadvantageously, this creates a shortcoming in frequency synthesizers. For instance, in order to provide a frequency synthesizer having a small step size between adjacent output frequencies, a very low reference frequency is required. Using a very low reference frequency, however, limits the frequency range and extends the time required for the PLL to settle (or lock) once a new frequency has been selected. Referring to FIG. 1, a prior art synthesizer 100 is shown. Synthesizer includes at least one phase locked loop which includes an input reference frequency 102, a modulated fractional divider (MFD) 104, a phase detector 106, a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) 108, a mixer 110 and a divider 112. The phase detector 106 typically has an output coupled through a loop filter to control the frequency of the VCO 108. The output of the VCO 108 is fed back through a circuit, such as a divide by N circuit 112, to a first input of the phase detector 106. The frequency of the VCO 108 output signal is changed in steps by changing “N” of the divide-by-N circuit 112 in a known manner. At phase-lock, a synthesized output frequency 114 is proportional to the input frequency 102. A constant reference frequency signal is applied to a second input of the phase detector 106 by a crystal oscillator, for instance. A modulated fractional divider is utilized to provide fine frequency steps. However, this prior art circuitry is capable of providing non-coherent spurious signals on the modulated fractional divider. Referring to FIG. 2, an additional prior art synthesizer is shown. Synthesizer 200 includes a single frequency source as an input reference frequency, a first divider 204, a phase detector 206, a VCO 208, a mixer 210 and a second divider 212. By utilizing a divider circuit 212 in the VCO feedback path and selectably controlling the division ratio, a variable frequency can be provided at the output of the frequency synthesizer. In this manner, the VCO output frequency 214 is divided by the selectable divisor, and the VCO output frequency is an exact multiple of the reference frequency. If the divisor N is an integer, the smallest increment in the VCO output frequency value is necessarily equal to the magnitude of the reference frequency itself. This technique provides coherent spurious content, however, it is only useful for single frequency applications. Consequently, it would be advantageous if a method and system existed which provided an improved frequency synthesizer that reduces phase noise and spurious signals for multiple frequencies.

A hybrid powertrain may be powered by a combination of an engine and an electric machine, such as an electric motor. The electric machine may improve drivability by compensating for the fluctuation in the engine torque output during transmission shifts. The hybrid powertrain may further include an energy storage module to power the electric machine. In order to efficiently utilize the onboard fuel and energy stored in the energy storage module, a vehicle torque demand may be distributed (or arbitrated) strategically among the engine and the electric machine. Attempts to address torque arbitration include arbitrating the torque based on engine characteristics. One example approach is shown by Simon, J R. et al. in U.S. US2009/0204280. Therein, the torque request to an engine and a motor is controlled by a predetermined calibration based on the capabilities of the engine and the motor. However, the inventors herein have recognized potential issues with such systems. As one example, when operating the vehicle on a predetermined route, such as in a race, vehicle weight may affect vehicle performance. For example, low vehicle weight is preferred to maximize vehicle propulsion. The vehicle weight may be reduced by arbitrating a high level of engine torque to increase the consumption of the onboard fuel. Further, burning excess fuel during regenerative braking can recharge the energy storage module and extend the range of the electric assist from the electric machine. Ideally, the depletion of the energy in the energy storage device and the onboard fuel may be coincident with the end of the race. Depleting the battery before the end of the race may result in additional battery weight with no power benefit. Depleting the onboard fuel early in the race may result in loss of electric assist and reduced torque output. In one example, the issues described above may be addressed by a method comprising operating a hybrid powertrain to provide a torque to vehicle wheels over a predetermined drive route; and arbitrating the torque between an engine and an electric machine based on a vehicle mass. In this way, the highest power to weight ratio on average over a predetermined route may be achieved. As one example, an optimal torque arbitration among the engine and the electric machine may be determined by optimizing a cost function constructed based on a vehicle model. As an example, the torque arbitration may be optimized to achieve a maximum vehicle speed. As another example, the torque arbitration may be optimized to achieve an optimal velocity profile. The vehicle model may include multiple functions for calculating a vehicle acceleration based on inputs including an amount of onboard fuel. By including the amount of onboard fuel into the vehicle model, the effect of vehicle mass variation during the race is accounted for when solving the optimization problem for the optimal torque arbitration. Parameters of the vehicle model (that is, coefficients and formats of the multiple functions of the vehicle model) may be updated at the end of each race based on track data acquired during the race and previous races as well as previous non-racing vehicle operation. The track data may include an engine torque output, an electric motor torque output, a vehicle speed, a battery state of charge, and an onboard fuel amount at each location during the track. By updating the vehicle model, mechanical and environmental changes of the vehicle system are accounted for in the determination of the optimal torque arbitration. For example, the mechanical change may include wearing or adjustment of the vehicle's mechanical system; and the environmental change may include variation in weather and road condition. It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.